FIRST STEPS

I received the following from someone who prefers to remain unnamed.  I reproduce it here because it strikes me as a sensible way that those of you on college campuses and elsewhere can take some first steps.  We are going to need to mobilize millions of people in many different places and having many different agendas, if we are to counteract some of the harm Trump seeks to inflict on this country.

"Hello,

I am writing this email to follow up on a series of suggestions that I have made to a number of people in the department concerning the recent election. If you are receiving this email, it is because I think I have a good sense of your political persuasions and that you are the people that need to be reached. If there is anyone not on this email list who you think might be interested in the proposals I am about to make, please let me know or contact them yourself. Furthermore, I am not on social media and so I am not sure whether this is a new proposal that no one else has made yet, or if I am simply out of the loop. If the latter, please let me know.

Many people have suggested that we start taking some action. This email is a first step in that direction. The reason I am emailing all of you is to propose that we meet sometime in the near future to discuss and try to start some form of collective action group. There is a tremendous amount of discontent at this moment and I think that the thing to do immediately is to tap into that discontent and start mobilizing. I also believe that if we don't start doing something now there is a great danger that apathy will begin to set in and people will begin reconciling themselves to this nightmare and become complacent. That would be a horrendous mistake. In the past I have spent some time doing volunteer work for some left wing organizations. I know that many of you have done, and continue to do, the same. I propose that we discuss the possibility of trying to coordinate these separate efforts. Moreover, I know from my own personal experience volunteering that I am weak. The same is also true for many of you. For this reason, I think it is extremely important to begin working together and to provide one another with mutual support and to try and hold each other accountable. The thing for us to do now is to begin to organize and support opposition groups to put as much pressure as possible on the incoming administration and mitigate as much of the damage as we can.

Finally, I am very much aware that we are all different kinds of leftists. But at a time like this, we need to be unified more than ever, and so I hope we can set aside our differences for the purposes of fighting to prevent as many destructive actions as possible.

If you agree with this proposal, then let’s start figuring out a time and place to meet and discuss. Let’s also start thinking about what kinds of things we can do and how we should go about it."