Category: Politics & Activism

This oughta do it.

Yesterday I took the day off from work and joined a group from CASA for a trip to DC to visit the offices of 55 members of Congress. We were there to ask them to support the Dream Act, and to keep the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program intact.

The folks I traveled with were largely people who’d be directly impacted by the cancellation of these protections. These are hard-working people who either came here as kids, or whose own kids were born here, and are now at risk of losing their ability to work, go to school, or even remain in this country.

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We visited the office of Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district. We asked to speak with him and were told he wasn’t available. We then asked to speak to his legislative director and were told he wasn’t there either. So we said we’d wait in the office until one of them showed up. Wouldn’t you know it, a few minutes later Joseph Knowles, the legislative director, appeared as if by magic from a back room. He of course “had a meeting to get to at 12:30,” but he took us into a side office so the CASA members could tell him their stories.

Knowles was clearly uncomfortable with being confronted, and he also seemed completely disconnected from the plight of the real human beings standing in front of him. “The congressman is aware of the situation and wants to seek a legislative solution,” he kept saying, sounding more like an answering machine message than someone who was face to face with people whose lives would be irrevocably harmed by the dissolution of DACA and TPS.

This, for me, was the most disconcerting part of the conversation. To be able to sit in front of your fellow human beings and display not an iota of compassion is beyond me. And that folks like Knowles are populating the offices of our elected representatives is an excellent indication of the failure of our system to produce compassionate results for the people who need them most.

Down the hall, meanwhile, the staff of Rep. Lloyd Smucker, “representing” PA’s 16th district, took one look at another group of CASA members and locked the door to their office. The members immediately began chanting and singing in the hallway, and we joined them when our visit with Knowles was finished. We marched in the hall until the Capitol Police showed up. We had already agreed not to risk arrest, so we left with them and headed outside to rally on the Capitol lawn.

Please contact your representative and urge her or him to support the DREAM Act and TPS with no strings attached. But do more than just call or email. Take several hours or a day and go visit a local office. Or head to DC and visit them there. And get your friends to go with you. If the promises of this country are to mean anything, we must stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable members of our society.

On my radio show, I talked about why we work and why I don’t like it.

A conversation between activists about the basic concepts of anarchism. From the 23 January 2017 edition of The Morning Mixtape on 98.7 The FREQ.

Your iPhone exists because people work in degraded conditions to make it. Same for all the clothes I’m wearing. Same for a lot of the food I eat. I have gas for the car I drive because of violence perpetrated by armies and rulers (including those of my own country) to secure the necessary oil, no matter where it’s found or under whose land. The cheap products we’re all able to buy in the big box stores that litter our landscape are the result of dangerous working conditions and poor pay and lack of health care and long hours that directly harm workers and their families. Generally speaking, most of us choose to ignore most of this violence, despite our direct or indirect involvement in it and the ease with which it is possible to discover the facts. Moreover, the idea that violence is never the correct path belies a history filled with instances when it was the only sane path. It’s true that smarter decisions in history might have prevented the rise of Hitler or the rise of nations or whatever, but once World War II was happening and the Holocaust was being perpetrated, there was no moral choice but to use force to stop those crimes from happening. Similarly, would we suggest to a domestic abuse victim that she not, if the opportunity presents itself, use force to save herself or her children from an abuser? Of course not. The idea that everyone can be engaged with is, in my recent experience, primarily put forth by people upon whom violence is not visited. The same people who are, like me, complicit in the system I outlined at the beginning. We need to be more careful about our language, and about an uninformed commitment to “nonviolence” at the cost of liberation. Finally, as I mentioned over the weekend, “nonviolence,” in the way MLK or Gandhi used it, generally meant provoking an overwhelming show of violence by the other side in the hope that the sickened populace would force the state to act. To call this the absence of violence is dangerous. There is a real world out there, and we can’t change it without first being honest about what’s happening.

I’m a big fan of the comedian Jimmy Dore. I first learned about him from The Young Turks, a progressive internet news show. I like Jimmy’s take-no-prisoners honesty, and his unwillingness to overlook crimes committed by Democrats just because they’re Democrats.

I’m also a big fan of The Jimmy Dore Show, his podcast of news and comedy. There aren’t many podcasts that make me laugh out loud, but Jimmy’s regularly does. And it does more than that, too. Jimmy’s interviews are insightful and pointed, such as the interview on the most recent episode (Jan. 6, 2017) with reporter Glenn Greenwald.

For me, among the highlights of every episode are the phone calls. A very talented impressionist leaves voicemails or does live conversations as Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and many others. On the Jan. 6 episode, one of the calls was “Harrison Ford,” talking about Carrie Fisher. You can listen to the call for yourself at the top of this post. Please note that the audio is the property of The Jimmy Dore Show. I’m posting it here because I don’t want you to have to take my word for the content.

I was really surprised by the call. I thought it was tone deaf and misogynist and made light of mental illness, all things I find very uncharacteristic of Jimmy’s show. I think when public people make missteps, we can and should speak up. So I tweeted at Jimmy:

@jimmy_dore I thought the Harrison Ford call was tone deaf and misogynistic and very surprising for your show.

— Jason Crane (@JasonDCrane) January 7, 2017

I got this in reply:

@JasonDCrane that's why we're the pros and not you, but thanks for ur concern. #Holyfuckballs

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 8, 2017

This is condescending and much more representative of what I’d expect from a less progressive person than Jimmy. I said as much:

@jimmy_dore This response is also really disappointing.

— Jason Crane (@JasonDCrane) January 8, 2017

And Jimmy replied again:

@JasonDCrane you should get a new hero. and blow me

— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 8, 2017

I sent one last comment:

@jimmy_dore I respect you so much. I can't imagine why you'd act this way.

— Jason Crane (@JasonDCrane) January 8, 2017

Is this a big deal? No. It’s just disappointing. Jimmy’s not a hero of mine, but I respect his work both as a comedian and as a truth-teller. I expected better. But I guess this is where our culture is at these days.

This morning on my show I talked about the importance of direct action, and gave both local and national examples. We don’t need to wait for anyone to save us. We can do it ourselves.

The new coat that doubles as a sleeping bag is all the rage on social media. Behind it lies the truth that we could feed and house everyone if we wanted to. We just don’t want to.