Links: Around current events

[sonia]

Musk and Treasury's Payment Systems by Adam Levitin at Credit Slips blog, Feb 1, 2025. "The fiscal operations side of Treasury gets virtually no public attention, but it’s really an amazing operation, and something for which the federal government does not get nearly enough credit." More about the Treasury disbursement system and why it's a problem that Musk has invaded it.

questions from federal workers who are currently under attack by Alison Green, Ask A Manager, Jan 29, 2025. Compassionate, clear answers, and lots of good info from the trenches in comments.

Procedure for Having to Behold by Kate Schapira and Anne Kosseff-Jones.

This is a procedure to try when you witness fresh evidence of an atrocity or injustice—not a call to action, but a piece of information where your pathway to action is not known, not clear, or not available to you, because of the time and effort you’re already putting in to fight (or survive) an atrocity or injustice, or to build something better.

What To Do When There Is Nothing To Be Done by Dave Troy, Dec 22, 2024. Good calming advice and lots of books for further reading at the end.

The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism by Julie Phillips. I miss Ursula Le Guin so much. We need her voice and her truth-telling.

Comments

[silveradept]

Entirely relevant material, yes. And pretty consistent with other material I've read over time about how the best way of making change in the world is by making change in your community.

[sonia]

the best way of making change in the world is by making change in your community.
One small kindness at a time. I'm glad people are calling Congresscritters and going to protests, and neither of those things work for me, so I'm glad there are other options. Although small quiet resistance does feel uncomfortably like "allowing" the Nazis to take over.

[silveradept]

It feels like that, yes, but there's a difference between allowing them to rule and making the strategic decision to fight them on the front(s) you are strongest on and trusting that others will fight them on their strongest ground.

[sonia]

Thanks for reflecting this back in a way that made me pause and think about it. I really have been feeling like I'm not doing anything. But i wear a mask just about everywhere I go, and that's something. Habits and ways of being in the world do count - it doesn't have to be *new* resistance.

[silveradept]

They do. You may find yourself doing new resistance when they are in your sphere of greatest influence, but there are many things you can do as habit or already do that signify you are not with them, nor are you checking out and letting them do whatever they will.