Interviews for Resistance

Daniel Altschuler of Make The Road New York checks in from the rally outside of Terminal 4 at New York's JFK Airport, where refugees whose legal status abruptly changed after Trump's latest executive order are being held in limbo (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-prompting-legal-challenges-to-trumps-immigration-order.html).

This crowd is going to be here for many hours, there's tremendous enthusiasm here, there's a vigil that's called for 6pm, there's been constant chanting, amazing people showing up and just making their signs on the spot to say that they're going to resist, to say no Muslim ban, to say they stand with refugees. This is not one of those times where there's a designated beginning point and endpoint, this is a moment where people are here to fight for what they know that this country can be, which is a place that welcomes refugees, that welcomes Muslims, that does not impose religious discrimination, so folks are excited to be here.

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

Donald Trump's inauguration was attended by record-low crowds; they got some help from protesters, who, as we discussed with Legba Carrefour, used direct action techniques to successfully blockade several entrances to the event. Biola Jeje of BYP 100 was one of them, and she discusses what it takes for people to get over their fears and take the risk of direct action.

I think the fear is that you are going to put yourself out there and then whatever happens you are then on your own. The state is a very isolating place. We need to figure out how to more broadly move past that, to really create the sense of 'We are actually the majority here and we are in solidarity with each other and we will be there to support each other as we take these braver steps to create a society where our values are reflected.' I think especially with the mainstream media which still benefits from the system and really isn’t, for the most part, there to reflect the facts that more people than not agree with us. Building that culture and community and helping it to proliferate is going to super important.

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

As Donald Trump was preparing to take over as President of the United States, Luciano Balbuena was preparing for something else: a strike, along with his coworkers who clean Home Depot stores in the Minneapolis area. A member of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL) (http://ctul.net/), Luciano talks about why strike against Trumpism.

We are trying to put a stop to the poverty wages. Donald Trump, he supports these low wages and he has said that he doesn’t think workers deserve better wages. He is a person that is very racist against Latino workers. So, for all of these reasons, that is why we are coming together tomorrow.

Veronica Mendez Moore, executive director of CTUL, also joins us to talk about CTUL's ongoing organizing, targeting the biggest of the big corporations, and workers' role in challenging Trump's labor department nominee, Andy Puzder.

That is the engine of our economy. If workers don’t work, our economy doesn’t work, their communities don’t work, and it begins to break down for the corporations. I think the strike is such a critical tool because it really is a tremendous amount of power that workers have. The bosses spend hours and hours coming up with strategies to teach workers that their voice doesn’t matter and that they have no power and that they just need to follow the rules and listen to the boss. Our job is critical to help people understand how much power they actually have and that the strike is the most powerful tool they have to be able to use their voice and their power.

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

In addition to the massive Women's March on Washington planned for Saturday, January 21, organizers from around the country with leadership from D.C. residents are planning a "festival of resistance" on Inauguration Day itself. Interview #4 looks into what to expect all day in D.C., and what's already gone down this week (think queer dance party at Mike Pence's house).

One of the actions we are doing, the permitted one at Columbus Circle at noon on Friday, we are doing that as a festival of resistance. We have got a flatbed truck with dancers from a local gay club, a bunch of drummers, I think a student marching band or two. I think the role of celebration is really important because a lot of people after the election were very down on themselves. I think it is important to remind people that there is a lot of joy in politics, actually, when you take politics to the street.

Up at Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39148-shut-down-the-inaugural-ball-and-parade-a-call-to-action-from-legba-carrefour).

Up at The Baffler, with audio (https://thebaffler.com/blog/interviews-for-resistance-carrefour).

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

The strike remains one of the most powerful weapons that ordinary people have, and one feminist organization has decided to try and build on recent women's strikes in multiple countries to take a similar action in the U.S. I spoke with Erin Mahoney of National Women's Liberation:

We have got nearly 5,000 signatures so far and they are coming in by the hundreds every day, of women signing up to say that they will be striking from doing emotional labor in their household. They will be striking from their paying jobs. They will be striking from fake smiles, from making things run smoothly, from laundry to childcare—a whole host of different things that they are striking from. It is really moving to see the reasons why people are striking and also the breadth of work that they are striking from.

Up at In These Times (http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19814/interviews_for_resistance_dont_just_march_this_weekendstrike).

Up at Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39131-women-doing-paid-and-unpaid-work-are-called-to-strike-january-20-21-interview-with-erin-mahoney).

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

Mariame Kaba is a longtime organizer and educator around prisons, police, and criminalization whose current project is Fight4Medicare.

We are going to have to figure out ways to create community-based free clinics, things that are going to be on the side of the defend and protect side of this equation while we are fighting on the expansion side. That is really important. That is where a lot of the most important organizing has already been taking place, and will continue to take place, on the state level. People in Washington state are pushing for a ballot initiative for single-payer. People have tried to do it in Vermont. People have tried to push a Colorado ballot initiative for single-payer, which lost huge. That gives us an opportunity to think about, “What was it in the messaging, what was it in the lack of political education, what was it in the organizing strategy that made people reject it in an 80/20 (http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/11/08/single-payer-health-care-system-rejected-colorado-votes-down-amendment-69/) split?” Learning from those individual state ballot initiatives will help us to build a stronger set of campaigns in individual states around the country. I think that is a great opportunity for us as the federal government space is going to be foreclosed to many different kinds of demands in the moment. We are going to have to be more strategic about how we operate at the local and state levels. That connects, eventually, to talking about the carceral state and prisons. Anti-prison organizing, as well, is mostly a state issue.

Up at Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39093-capitalism-rations-what-we-most-need-let-s-organize-for-universal-medicare-a-conversation-with-mariame-kaba).

Up at In These Times (http://inthesetimes.com/article/19809/mariame-kaba-on-why-the-time-to-push-for-single-payer-is-now).

Interviews for Resistance is a syndicated series of interviews with organizers, agitators and troublemakers, available twice weekly as text and podcast. Previous interviews here (http://necessarytrouble.org/category/interviews-for-resistance/).

Since the election, I’ve been flooded with questions about what happens next. People who, before November, thought that protesting was useless are now declaring themselves part of the resistance. And yet when you peruse social media, the most pervasive vibe is fear, often coupled with despair.

Thanks to years of being a labor and social movement beat reporter, I also see lots of people who are organizing, who are fighting, planning, and raising hell. But their stories were getting lost under the persistent drumbeat of horrifying news.

With that in mind, in the continuing spirit of Necessary Trouble, I’m launching a new project. Partnering with several excellent news organizations, I’m doing a syndicated series of “interviews for resistance,” which will be available as articles and as podcasts, with organizers, agitators, troublemakers, and thinkers about what comes next. These are people who have already been doing the work that has just become more necessary than ever, around the country, and they will cover a wide range of subjects and geographical locations.

There is an alternative to despair. Resistance is more than just sharing the scary news.

My first interview is now up, with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson and Ungovernable2017.

We need to recognize that in a number of different instances, folks who actually want to see something different constitute the majority. There were the majority of people who voted against Trump if you just look there. On a deeper level, this is something that I think we need to look at more profoundly and try to address: the 50 percent of voting-age adults in this country who typically don’t vote. I don’t think that is apathy; or not all of it. I think there is a growing dissatisfaction with the façade of democracy. People feel that “Whoever I vote for, nothing fundamentally is going to change. Their economic policy is going to be what it is. A lot of the fundamental questions around society are not on the ballot. We are restricted from being included in any serious discussion of democracy and what we can vote on, so why should I vote?” I think that is begging for some more fundamental, deeper and systemic change that I don’t think the electoral strategy and the electoral focus that we — in this case being the left — have been so oriented toward touches upon.

Up at Truthout (http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39061-insights-from-mississippi-on-organizing-in-a-right-wing-context-a-conversation-with-kali-akuno).

Up, with audio, at The Baffler (http://thebaffler.com/blog/interviews-for-resistance-akuno).

Thanks to my partner publications for taking a chance on this project: The Progressive, In These Times, Truthout and the Baffler. Thanks to Laura Feuillebois for her transcription skills. Thanks to the Nation Institute, for the backing that makes it possible for me to do this work. And thank you to everyone who fights.