Sociable

Mantis (at Wikipedia)

Real People

 I posted some street work recently on my photography blog from New York's Chinatown in the mid-'60s.  I wondered if anything of that lively community could still be found on those streets of lower Manhattan.

I haven't had an answer to that query so far, but I'm skeptical of finding a scene like this now. It seems most likely that modern counterparts of the group would all be focused on the screens of their phones and oblivious to any surrounding reality.

Rebecca Solnit expresses similar misgivings in a thoughtful essay in The Guardian:

Turns out the zombie apocalypse isn’t as fun as they said it would be –

Stop American Complicity in War Crimes

 Biden is about to leave office with his catastrophic policy of unconditional support for the Israeli war intact.  He has backed away from the anemic threat to withhold some American bombs which have already killed tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.  Harris' failure to separate her campaign from Biden's policy certainly contributed to her defeat.  Time to send a clear message to the Democrats.

Support Amnesty International

See Owen Jones' opinion piece in The Guardian: Is there any red line that Israel will be held to? Biden has just confirmed the answer is no

Turning The Page

 During the run-up to the election I received a half dozen emails daily from the Harris campaign asking for money.  Those emails have continued after the loss to Trump.  Today I unsubscribed from that email onslaught.  I also made a contribution to the immigrant defense organization, United We Dream.

Visit the Website

What Now?

Michael Tomasky in The New Republic asks:

Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won?

He goes on to assert that:

"The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media—Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more—sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win."

and, "...I’ve written this before, but I’m going to keep writing it until people—specifically, rich liberals, who are the only people in the world who have the power to do something about this state of affairs—take some action."

That observation about the tidal wave of right-wing media is not inaccurate.  I would suggest however, that it leaves something to be desired as the basis for an action plan in the moment. It seems to me that focus on media is something of a distraction right now, and that it is a prescription mostly for tinkering with the status quo. It also overlooks the fact that fascist regimes of the past achieved power without the benefit of social media.

What is most needed right now is a strategy for survival, including identification of the most obvious threats and feasible plans for harm mitigation.  Rather than trying to build a bigger and better social media response, financial support would be better devoted right now to supporting immigrant defense organizations.

There is no question that Trump and his allies will be working to put the right-leaning billionaires like Musk in charge of the country.  However, that is a long, slow process.  In the near term, the executive powers available to the Presidency will enable an immediate massive assault against millions of immigrant families.

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See also: Rebecca Solnit on Hope in the Dark ( A podcast at The Nation)

Just to be clear...

 A majority of the electorate has chosen a disgusting racist criminal to lead the country.

I don't expect Trump to be more rational or effective than he was the first time around.  However, the right-wing think tanks have had time since the first Trump regime to fine-tune their plans to take control of the country's institutions and the economy.

My expectation is that Trump's attack on immigrants and his sabotaging of efforts to deal with climate change will get a lot of headlines.  Meanwhile, the Project 2025 promoters will be working in the background to make the fundamental changes which will lead to ever greater inequality and a generally degraded quality of life for everyone except for the top 1%.

Biden is still the President

 There is a very long list of initiatives available to Biden in these final days of his term in office.  What is actually attempted will depend mostly on feasibility.  My hope would be that the emphasis would be on pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, and on doing whatever is possible to lessen the impact of Trump's attack on immigrants.

An overview of the possibilities for executive action is available in an article in  The Nation:

Executive Actions Biden Could Take