May 15, 2017
Last week, after learning that Trump had fired James Comey as Director of the FBI, Refuse Fascism issued a statement (updated on May 15th) where we identified this as a “pivotal moment.” Pivotal in the further consolidation of fascism by the Trump/Pence Regime – signaling to the world that this regime will disregard the rule of law as freely as they disregard the truth and that they will roll over any one not loyal to Trump and his regime.
We also said that this was pivotal for the people posing the question: Will we do everything now to lead masses of people who are alarmed and outraged to act with determination to take to the streets to demand that this regime be ousted from power?
Our statement puts before all that: “What matters right now is what masses of people do: acting together with determination and creativity, expressing outrage and anger, taking to the streets with the spirit of no business as usual and demanding that this regime be driven from power. In dealing with the extraordinary, we must rid ourselves of ordinary thinking.” The RefuseFascism Call to Action needs to get before hundreds of thousands of people now. The RefuseFascism “NO!” already seen and photographed in protests around the country needs now to be everywhere – including everywhere right up in the face of the fascists and those Democrats who accommodate the regime.
We united with the spirit of a person who joined our protest and shouted out that people should be out against Trump: “every day until he’s gone.” This stand is still on the mark. Even as this need not mean that everyday Refuse Fascism should continue to call and hold the same protest. Every day, we need to be finding the ways to organize and unite with more and more people, everyday spreading the RefuseFascism Call to Action in the tens and hundreds of thousands, on line and on paper. Everyday planning creative actions that happen with more and more frequency so that soon they are every day and everywhere with growing numbers and power leading up to the time when, as the Call to Action says: “when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate – Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence Regime Is Driven from Power.”
We recommend that everyone learn from the spirit and experience of ActUp as put forth in an article on Huff Post by Michelangelo Signorile where he writes: “I’m calling for what ACT UP, the life-saving AIDS activist group with which I was involved, did in the ‘80s and ‘90s when our lives were at stake, when our people were dying all around us, and when the government allowed the deaths because it believed nobody cared about dying and dead queers. You don’t need a large crowd, but you do need an idea that grips people, puts the target on notice, displays passion, makes a spectacle, and says, “No more business as usual.””
With that orientation, we are proposing the following:
[1] Spread the RefuseFascism Call to Action (as well as the NO! Signs and banners) to every outbreak of resistance, and to every gathering where people are discussing what to do to stop the horrors of the Trump/Pence Regime.
[2] Get together in RefuseFascism chapters or with friends and colleagues and plan a creative action that disturbs the air, rouses the people, and puts the regime and all who are accommodating and conciliating with it on notice that we are going to fight to stop this fascist regime and drive it out.
[3] NO! Days: Pick one day a week where everyone RefuseFascism has been in contact with goes out everywhere – on public transport, at bus stops, campuses, hospitals, workplaces, and display the NO! – in big ways, and with masses of people wearing the NO! These NO! Days can become days when people start to gather and march together growing in strength.
[4] Anytime there are Congressional Town Halls – RefuseFascism needs to be there sharply calling out those who support the regime, and/or those who abet it with hand-wringing and go slow plans to let the normal workings of the system take their course – which will be too damn late!
[5] Unite with other organizations to plan larger and larger protests. For one example, go out to religious, community and political groups who have been active against mass incarceration, the war on drugs, and police brutality and propose taking action against The Trump/Pence Regime’s attorney general Jeff Session’s call for enforcing maximum prison sentences and propose protests under the broad slogan of Trump and Pence Must Go.
[6] Make plans to be at college commencements. Recruit students to spend their summer working with RefuseFascism! Summer RF Tours are being planned.
[7] Raise funds. Raise funds. Raise funds. Hold a fundraising party and watch the National Teach-In videos and the Battle for Berkeley video. Driving out a regime will take huge sums of money. Everyone can be a part of the fight to save humanity and the planet by contributing to driving out the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime.
In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.
From RefuseFascism
Read Statement from Refuse Fascism: The Firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey Unfolds … An Escalation Towards Fascism