There Is No Santa Claus, And He Won’t Remove Trump and Pence
DECEMBER DISRUPTIONS
TRUMP/PENCE #OUTNOW!
Proposal for:
Advancing and Building the #OUTNOW! Movement: Dec. – Jan 1st
The Situation:
December will be a highly charged month that will present both the necessity to speak and act in response to breaking events and opportunity to advance the #OUTNOW! movement as this is the one program that could actually remove the Trump/Pence Regime from power.
The impeachment hearings and a possible trial in the Senate either completed or midstream by the end of the year. The Trump/Pence regime and their shock troops and fascist media are geared up to defeat the impeachment while rapidly advancing their movement and agenda. The will be doubling down on multiple fronts – from immigration to the climate and remaking the rule of law, while their fascist shock troops are on the move everywhere, including on the nation’s campuses.
The Democratic primaries will be looming with sections of the people consumed with that… their eyes and minds all too much diverted from the reality of a rapidly advancing fascism and a potential constitutional showdown over impeachment. The Democrats have conducted these hearings on the sole grounds of their program for national security and the legitimacy of the US electoral process – ignoring the full scope of the many monstrous crimes of the Trump/Pence fascist program, thus legitimating the full fascist program. And, as of now, they seem intent on making the impeachment symbolic, conceding defeat in the Senate.
RefuseFascism.org proposes that the #OUTNOW! Movement make December a month of politically and ideologically disrupting the normalization, accommodation, and collaboration with fascism. There is no savior coming to stop fascism – there is no Santa Claus for this. If in our hearts we want children to have the joy of the holidays, then we must act for all those detained on the border, for all those imperiled by climate change, all who suffer and live in fear from the danger of war heightened by this fascist regime. We act in the name of humanity for the future.
December must be a month where #OUTNOW! involves many more people and groupings in society to advance on the beginning we achieved with the 5 week launch from October 19th to November 16th.
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- What we accomplished, what not, and the big question that confronts us:
Here, in brief broad strokes, is where #OUTNOW! is at today:
The five weeks of national protests put the call for Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! on the map, and advocated for and modeled the fundamental truth that only mass sustained, nonviolent protest across the country can stop the nightmare of the Trump/Pence regime. Several times, the #OUTNOW! movement broke into major media, reaching hundreds of thousands and even millions through coverage on CNN, Newsweek, and the Washington Post – garnering headlines via our concurrent actions, from a rapid-response protest at Trump’s appearance at Madison Square Garden to a protest at UCLA against Trump Jr.’s book tour – in addition to significant media attention on the vicious attack against the kickoff LA event, where a gang of fascist thugs appeared at #OUTNOW! and sprayed protesters with potentially-lethal bear repellent. Refuse Fascism/#OUTNOW! media appearances on The Young Turks, Pacifica stations, and local newspapers and social media spread the word further.
The crowds who came to the weekly protests were diverse in every way. And very importantly for the future, new cores of committed leaders of the movement are beginning to coalesce. In addition, other individuals and organizations, from religious leaders, artists and musicians to anti-Trump organizations, have begun conversations with #OUTNOW! as to how to do in this country what people are doing around the world to remove fascist regimes.
Yet, the launch never achieved the geometric growth in numbers necessary to drive out this regime. What remains to be done is working together with all those who participated in the launch and many thousands of others to solve the big problem that no one has solved as yet:
How to move hundreds of thousands and ultimately millions into the streets in sustained non violent protest in cities and towns across the country? And, how to move people from “I support you! thumbs up! good luck!” to taking to the streets and organizing others to do so too?
- The December Disruptions Program – overview:
To this problem, to this task, we are calling for December Disruptions that [1] expose and confront the fascist regime’s crimes – where and when they occur; [2] challenges and disrupts the normalization and complicity with fascism and the politics and protest as usual that blinds those who should be in the streets to the catastrophe that will be should the regime remain in power; and [3] inspires and mobilizes people to take up #OUTNOW!
- The Plan:
* National Meetings on Sunday Afternoon 11/24 to sum up the situation, learn from each other, organize our forces, and further develop our orientation and plan.
* First, while there are and must be definite planned protest markers in the plan, #OUTNOW! December Disruptions encompasses, supports, and will organize opposition to moves of the Trump/Pence regime and its fascist base. The protests at UCLA in October and at Cal Berkeley this past week and the protest when Trump went to Madison Square Garden in NY. It means supporting and spreading the resistance when an Asylum lawyer refuses to implement the regime’s policy.
It especially means being attuned to major developments, particularly in relation to the impeachment hearings. Responding to turns in the situation where it may require immediate broad mobilization around the country and in Washington, DC. – including if the impeachment movement calls for a major demonstration.
* Second, all through the month people can and should organize to go out to campaign rallies, town halls, and other places to challenge and inspire people there of the necessity to act now to remove this regime. Let’s go out and challenge the assumptions that the normal workings of the system will stop this fascist movement and the underlying thinking and viewpoint that since “I am not yet immediately effected” I can just go on with taking care of me and engaging in the painless easy road of supporting my candidate du jour.
* Black Friday/Thanksgiving Weekend: RF/#ON! encourages creative activities that bring out our basic message to thousands of people.
Saturday December 7 2019
MOVING PROTESTS ON MASS TRANSIT – Train-ing to Remove the Trump/Pence Regime
The idea is to mobilize mass protests on mass transit. Turn the trains into moving agitation vehicles – scores or hundreds board at a major stop move through the trains spreading the word. Schedule rallies along the route at different stations. Go from Santa Monica to Downtown in LA; run the loops in Chicago; Go from the Bronx to Brooklyn w/rallies in Harlem, Union Square, Barkley’s Center in NYC.
Be creative. Different creative titles for the day’s actions more than welcome. This is a protest to get the word out broadly and to organize for the following Saturday, and to raise money through shaking the can and collecting donations for stickers.
Saturday December 14 2019
#OUTNOW! Marches and Rallies; Conceive of the month starting now so that these involve hundreds of people or more in the major cities. It will be important to have an even broader array of people speaking at these rallies/marches – religious, cultural, civil liberties, political, students. These marches should mark a qualitative advance from the protests of the 5 week launch.
* Dec 15- January 1st; HOLIDAY Parties, dinners, dances, film showings, etc.
After the December 14 through New Years there should be a diversity of activities to cohere and forge the #OUTNOW! Movement – raising funds, awareness, unity and organization.
NEW YEARS EVE or NEW YEARS DAY – consider creative forms of mass protest.
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Working Groups
* STUDENTS and CAMPUSES
This is a crucial – perhaps a decisive – element in building #OUTNOW! We are working to see if it is possible to have a national Teach-in around December 4-6 that would be live-streamed or zoomed. Students and professors who want to work on this should discuss at the 11/24 meetings.
If this is not possible in this time frame, work should be planned by students on the campuses and at the High Schools. Reach out to all students who have come forward and organize discussions (including at 11/24 meetings, but not just) of how to advance on this front.
* Religious Task Force
As with the students, working with people on the problem we face – driving out the regime through mass protest – moving from approbation to action, needs to be engaged and plans made.