Why aren't the kids protesting fascism?

Despite the parched season of early fall, my university campus is a peaceful landscape of intersecting concrete paths, heavily watered lawns, and juicy deciduous trees nearly hiding the facades of randomly designed college buildings—ranging from the traditional admin building that’s nearly a hundred years old to the self-consciously-modern art building. Above all this rise yellowish brown hills, the real world of drought and fire danger beyond the lush campus.

I walk at the end of a line of people holding signs. Each one bears the sub-title “Signs of Fascism” and a single symptom of the national disease—banned books, detention camps, intimidation of journalists, firing truth tellers, coerced loyalty, military deployed against the people, etc. Mine says “Government controlled by billionaires.” I’m last, not by plan but because I had to stop to talk to the campus security chief.

But I think my sign belongs either first or last. It’s the root, after all. Not just a sign but the ultimate cause, the reason that goes beyond any particular party or tyrant or social ill of the moment. I became aware of how our system is rigged to legalize bribery and hand the keys to the nation to the top one or two percent of wealth as a freshman undergraduate.

That was more than 30 years ago. I’ve been crying it from the rooftops in one way or another ever since. Not that it’s done any good.

Students wander past us, drifting between classes, mostly alone walking while looking at their phones, occasionally in small groups of two or three, talking loudly about “the game” or where to meet tonight. Mostly they won’t even look at our signs. Some peer cautiously, and then catching the drift, their eyes jerk down and away as if burned.

Maybe if they look away, the whole thing will disappear.

A few of us try to hand out fliers. I wave them at students who veer near me and speak to them only if I sense a bit of openness in their body language, a pause in their stride, a face turned toward me. A few take a leaflet and mutter, “Thank you.” Head down, hurrying on.

As we are heading back to the secluded corner where we started, I notice a somewhat larger group off to the side—four students together. They all seem to be looking vaguely toward us and even I can see that only one of them is white. The other three are various shades of brown. I don’t want to be pushy, especially not these days. They say the international students (most of the people of color in town are international students) are terrified, afraid to leave the campus even to get groceries. They might somewhat support our cause of crying out against the destruction of our democracy, but they have to protect themselves and being associated with us is unlikely to help.

But as our line passes near them, these four are still turned toward us, tentative in their stances, but not turning away. So, I take a few bold steps out of line. “Want a flier?”

The black guy, the largest of the group, takes one step toward me and reaches out a hand. “Thanks!”

I ensure he gets several to share as he makes a quick grab, and I’m encouraged by the genuine appreciation in his voice.

I’m a student again after all these years, but I’m clearly not like them. I’m not their age and I might as well have not been like them even when I was. I remember being a kid on a campus like this in my early twenties. No one wanted to hear it when I talked about the dangers to democracy, the drive toward militarism, Christian nationalism, the rhetoric of the far right against the poor, the disabled, minorities and immigrants, and so forth. It’s been the same all these decades. So, it’s no wonder young people are discouraged and checked out.

Still, I do have a sixteen-year-old daughter, a girl enjoying high school friends and obsessed with clothes and makeup. She’s rarely interested in politics of any kind and I don’t push her. She knows I go out to protest, and the best of my relationship with her dad consists of animated diatribes on the political situation on both sides of the north Atlantic. “Trump’s at it again! Unbelievable.” “Putin’s taken another step closer to World War Three.”

But today, she wants to talk while she puts her makeup on and to tell me about what she’s learned on the internet. It’s all about Charlie Kirk and “the greatest tragedy in history.” I nod along and make sympathetic noises as she describes his three-year-old daughter rushing toward the stage to get to her daddy when Kirk was shot. It’s a terrible image. No wonder my daughter is deeply affected.

She tells me how Kirk’s wife, Erika Kirk, “should be a saint because she forgives the bad people who killed him, even though they hate America and hate God.” I am starting to get concerned. Wait a minute! This is Erika Kirk, who is taking over the white supremacist TurningPointUSA organization. And it’s my brown, foreign born daughter saying it.

I take a breath and remember to ask questions, to help her think things through rather than forcing “facts” on her. “Are you sure. How do you know that’s true?” I ask.

“It is true. Trump even said that he would never forgive his enemies, that he hates people who are against him and wants them dead. He said he’s not as good and pure as Erika. That’s how you know it’s true.”

This little speech is more than my daughter has ever said about politics. Ever. And I’m now deeply concerned. She’s basing her idea of what is “true” on the fact that Trump says he doesn’t forgive people but Erika does.

I continue to try to talk it through with her. The fact that Trump hates his enemies proves nothing about Erika Kirk. I talk to my daughter about the racist ideology Charlie Kirk espoused and the actions of Turning Point members, attacking people like her—for not being white and for being born in another country. I send her videos of Kirk’s racist statements about women of color lacking the “brain processing power” to be successful in professional careers or academics, which he said proved they were taking opportunities “from a white person.” I send her videos showing how Trump directly lies and contradicts himself.

She says, none of that really matters. The only thing she needs to know is that “Charlie Kirk was a man of God and a good person.” I don’t argue with her on that. I don’t know Charlie Kirk’s relationship with God and I’m not in the business of saying who’s a good person or not. I’m only trying to help my kid differentiate reality from illusion.

She never watches the videos I send. She won’t even look. A few days later, I look up articles about the assassination. It turns out Charlie Kirk’s three-year-old, his other child and his wife were not present when he was shot. The little girl did not run to him after the single shot was fired. People started saying it after watching a video of the child running to him on a different stage, indoors, at a completely different event.

But my daughter has been brainwashed by the emotional, illusory image of that child running to him in the outdoor crowd amid a hail of bullets.

And this I realize is not just happening to my teenager. This is what is happening to young people across the whole country, on our local college campus and around the world. Their entire understanding of the world is being formed by influencer videos, Trump speeches and counter-factual social media memes.

There are exceptions of course. Social media will send you down whichever rabbit hole you happen to show interest in. There are healthier paths that some stumble upon. There are even extreme left-wing delusions out there, though the right-wing manipulation complex is vastly larger and more pushy online.

But this does explain to me why the majority of those protesting the rise of fascism in the United States are people over forty, many actually over sixty. We aren’t really any better at differentiating fact from fantasy or navigating the online world. But maybe we are online less in general and we take our information from established media and long-trusted sources, which—while not perfect—are less likely to support completely fabricated “alternative facts.”

More importantly, our first impressions of the world were not formed in this virtual reality saturated with propaganda. The fact that today’s young people are steeped in that easily manipulated online world is one of the most terrifying things I’ve seen in the past year. And that, as you know, is a high bar.

10 tips on fighting fascism in rural areas and small towns

Image of people holding signs including “wake up and smell the fascism” - photo by arie farnam

“Democracy is under attack!”

“What do we do?”

“Stand up! Fight back!”

The words ricochet across a key intersection in our small town, in the streets I remember from childhood.

I probably know half the people clustered on the four corners and lining the main street to the center of town. Now they’re carrying signs and flags, yelling about fascism and detention camps. Their voices have a sharp, exhausted edge. This isn’t the first protest against the authoritarian power grab. It’s just about the tenth major rally to be held locally.

I’ve been in huge demonstrations in distant cities before, but I never imagined we’d have to do it here. Or that we could. This is a deep red county. Seventy-six percent of the county voted for Donald Trump (at least out of those who voted). This isn’t the kind of place you expect radical progressive protests.

But I’ve always known--better than most analysts in the cities--that the remainder of the people in these rural places are strikingly progressive. The divide between the staunch conservative rural base of the GOP and our progressive community of environmentalists, old and new hippies, rural academics, public workers and members of minority groups is sharp and steep.

When the threat of fascism became explicit, our rural towns rose with respectable numbers. In the spring we had as many as 500 at some of our protests, in a town of 12,000. But now we can barely raise 150, even on a holiday.

Some of the other organizers murmur with worry. What is it we’re doing wrong?

Recently, we sent out a survey to people who had signed up to learn about future protests, trying to gauge what the community wants. One comment read, “Get more organizers with good ideas!”

We got a good laugh out of that one at one of the planning meetings. But it was laughter tinged with anxiety.

Yes, we have dozens of volunteers and we love each one of them. Every small thing people do for this effort to defend democracy is essential. Some handout fliers, some do safety patrol at protests, some set up the sound system, even those who can’t leave their homes call new volunteers or promote events on social media.

But… it’s organizers we need--people who will commit to be there, to do it long enough to hold things together, to communicate flexibly and rapidly, to figure out what needs to be done and to let the volunteers know what, where and how to do it.

Yes, “more organizers with good ideas” indeed.

We have a handful, some of the best organizers I’ve ever worked with. And in such a small town, that’s amazing. But we are stretched to our limits across multiple areas of need and none of us was bored and looking for something to do when all this started. We have hectic, busy lives, jobs, school, kids or even just several other organizations we’ve committed to.

We chuckle at comments that appear to assume we are just casually slapping something together in our “spare time,” or that organizing isn’t even a real “task” like handing out leaflets, that we’re just people “who like to talk a lot.” We laugh because what else can we do?

If you haven’t done community organizing, it is impossible to imagine how much time and energy it takes to organize unpaid volunteers to put on the simplest event. Someone has to find the people, determine what time and place works for the most people (a process that almost always entails several days of verbal back and forth), figure out what materials are needed, find out where to get them or who has them, ask people to bring them or figure out how to bring the materials one’s self, confirm with volunteers closer to the event, find replacements for the inevitable 1 in 4 volunteers who drops out or gets sick, troubleshoot technical issues, notify and negotiate with relevant authorities, communicate to participants, publicize, write social media posts and press releases (or find someone reliable to do it), and on and on and on.

And that is the most basic version possible. That’s a full-time job.

The other comment we get sometimes goes like this: “You guys are just making this unnecessarily complicated. We don’t need organizing. Just tell people when to come to a protest.”

And there are towns where that’s all that happens. Maybe there’s a group or an individual with enough social clout that they can just announce something within their network and all the people who want to know find out. But even that most basic version is more complicated than the people saying this think.

Tell people WHEN to come? When? How does one know what works for the community or when major national events are happening? Both take paying attention as well as talking to a lot of people. Not to mention that you still have to tell people WHERE to come and it’s rarely a simple choice.

But the most difficult part of that statement is “tell.” How do you “tell” people in a town of 12,000 with no independent media?

Social media? Ha! I have thousands of followers and only 17 people see my posts. Facebook makes sure of that. I’m supposed to “promote” the post by paying into their profits. That’s the point. Most people might be on social media for fun, but Meta sure isn’t. They intentionally make certain that those who need and want to get information like this will not get it, unless you either pay or have an extraordinarily well-coordinated effort.

And then there’s the fact that most of us are only on a couple social media platforms. And gaining enough followers to have a chance to “tell them” in one’s local town--on just one platform--requires a couple hours work per day. We have volunteers who do this. They work hard. The “just tell them” folks have no idea.

Then there is the fact that a large proportion of the population here doesn’t do social media at all. So, we have a small troupe of volunteers who put up posters. We have an organizer who tries to get our events listed on various community calendars. And that’s just the “tell them” part of the equation.

There is no way around it. Holding a protest worth its salt is hard.

And if you can get organized enough to have people meet at the same time and the same place, there are a whole host of issues ready to bite you in the butt. The people who say we’re “too organized” are referring to the fact that we have a donated sound system and an information table and safety volunteers and volunteers who collect the email addresses of those who want to know when the next protest will be. And you could get away with not having some of that, if you just wanted to do it once and have done with it.

But what is the point of protesting if you’re just going to do it once and go home? Are you just out there to yell and let off steam? (OK, fair. Maybe some are. And that’s valid too, in a way.)

But that was not hyperbole when I mentioned “fascism.” This isn’t the post to list all the reasons why we need to stand up to this regime—detention camps, mass deportations, criminalization of political opposition, book banning, silencing of independent media, intimidation of journalists, economic policies designed to wipe out the middle class while padding the pockets of the rich, rounding up and punishing the homeless, coverups of massive corruption and sexual abuse at the very highest levels, threats, forced loyalty oaths, and that’s barely getting started.

This isn’t a post on WHY we should protest, because if you’re reading it, I’m assuming you know that. It’s about HOW. About strategy and tactics and group dynamics.

If you agree that we’re facing an authoritarian erosion of democracy. If you’re even slightly ready to call it “fascism,” it is worth doing this right. One does not fight fascism by just telling people to come to a little protest and then going home. Or one better not. Because at best you’ll be ignored.

So, here are ten basics that everyone involved in protests—both participants and organizers--should know about grassroots, resistance-style organizing:

1.     Everyone is overstressed and overwhelmed. There are no “organizers with good ideas” except you and the person who got you involved and their friends and your friends. That’s it. We’re it. Too many people fall into thinking that your local organizers aren’t perfect, so it isn’t worth doing much until “the real organizers” show up. You know where that comes from? Accusations that progressive activists are paid actors. That’s the propaganda of the far-right creeping into our consciousness. No one is being paid. We’re all we’ve got.

2.     And yet, experience does help. There are people who have been organizing and resisting longer than others. Some have amassed some serious skills and strategy along the way. But the only way to really tell who has experience is to observe people working. How do they handle crisis? Do they know the steps to organizing an event? Can they handle a meeting with an agenda and still listen to the feeling of the moment? Pay attention to the advice of those who have been at this for a while. Listen to and value elders, even if they aren’t the fastest or the most visible at protests.

3.     As I showed above, what every group needs most are organizers. But organizers aren’t directors or authoritarians. Coordinators often get less personal say in how things go, not more. It’s a role that requires above all commitment. You don’t have to be there every day all day, but to be an effective organizer, you’ve got to be around most weeks and have at least a couple of days a week with some flexible time. People organize while working, parenting and handling full-time grad-school loads all the time. Most effective organizers aren’t people with “time on their hands,” likely because people with the capabilities to be an organizer aren’t capable of doing a lot of sitting around. That said, you don’t have to organize a big thing. Start with organizing a little thing—just the poster troupe or just the two-person team that calls back new volunteer recruits to get them onboarded or just the Instagram posting team. But if at all possible, don’t just volunteer. Organize.

4.     If you can’t organize, for whatever reason, volunteer. Be aware that finding an effective volunteer task for you is a serious challenge, even though there are five thousand things to do. It’s often harder to narrow down one particular activity, show you how to do it, let you know when to do it, make sure you have the materials to do it than it is to just do it. If possible, volunteer for what you’re already good at. If you are a writer, offer to write or edit communications for the organizers. If you like to hang out online, get on the social media team. If you like to hang out on the street, run or ride a bike, get on the postering team.

5.     Just about everyone who wants to protest wants protests to be big, with lots of people. The way you get lots of people is by having lots of active volunteers and multiple organizers. Other factors can play a role, like weather and the political climate, but these things are the most important pre-conditions. If you feel like your local protests aren’t big enough, get involved.

6.     But don’t despair if the size of protests still fluctuates. We all know that some people can protest on weekdays and some can only protest on weekends. Those who protest on weekdays may actually be less available on weekends. Which day and what time you hold a protest will matter, and it’s a careful balancing act. Your local demographics, whether or not most of the interested people in your area are older or younger will matter. Is it a college town or a bedroom community or a suburb with young families? Similar demographic issues will determine whether summer, fall or spring are the best seasons for protest. Numbers may fall in the summer, because family schedules are disrupted and it’s too dang hot.

7.     But the biggest factor is actually political climate. Big, shocking events will spark more interest in protest from large groups of people. It was relatively easy to raise large protest crowds in the early months of 2025. Now, exhaustion, resignation and despair are setting in for too many people. Does that mean we hang up our protest signs and just accept fascism? Hell no. Every single resistance movement in history has had to deal with similar pressures. It’s very rarely a sprint and almost always a marathon. A big part of being in the resistance is bringing other people back in, talking them through the despair, apathy and resignation, and sticking it out when too many have given up.

8.     Big protests will come again. Just wait. Well, actually, please don’t just wait. That’s a figure of speech. Get organized and get ready, because big crowds will come at moments of major crisis and shock. They will come when the stress is highest. And if organizers aren’t ready and the structures of resistance haven’t been built, those large protests will have to start over again from scratch. If, on the other hand, we’ve been organizing and building networks and working groups and a skilled volunteer base, the next time protests get bigger, they’ll have several times the impact and we’ll take a step up to more strategic action.

9.     The most important thing to build in the meantime are relationships within resistance networks. We build relationships by working together, learning one another’s strengths and weaknesses, and communicating well. Not everyone is going to do things the way you would. In fact, most won’t. Let people do their work the way they want or need to, as long as it gets done. Practice patience, tolerance and inclusion. We preach these values as progressives in our politics. They matter most in organizing. Stop and think very carefully before criticizing the work of others involved in the work of resistance. Are they truly doing something that’s going to harm or endanger someone? Or is it just not how you’d do it? Can you live with it and still do your part? When in doubt, don’t criticize. Remember how hard organizing is. Often there is no perfect decision an organizer can make, and they have to weigh your needs and wishes against the needs and wishes of other participants.

10.  But at the same time, of course, do keep aware and be watchful. If you’re involved with resistance work long enough, you will encounter those who are disrupting resistance work, either for attention or ego trips, or rarely, because they actually are working for the other side. As we develop relationships, we learn who we can trust on a deep level. I may know Suzy-Somebody is a committed organizer and wouldn’t give up my name under torture, but I may also know that she rarely comes to events on time and isn’t the best person to entrust with bringing the essential materials we all need to get started. Learn who you can trust and differentiate between trust of good intentions and awareness of strengths and weaknesses.

That’s just ten of the most crucial tips for community organizing for resistance. I’m doing the work, so I’m particularly overwhelmed this full moon. I apologize for any typos and wish you all strength and good luck.

“Unite to stop the fascist coup!”

“If not now when?”

“If not us, who?”

An expat and a refugee: The fellowship of dissent, exile and the defense of distant homelands

I first met Ahmad in March 2003 on a narrow street shining with rainwater in the deceptively unassuming castle district of Prague a few blocks from Saddam’s embassy.

He was wrapped in a gray raincoat and almost shockingly diminutive. I’d been told I was meeting the head of a local Iraqi dissident organization, and I expected someone a little more substantial. When he turned toward me, his face was one of those that stays handsome decades beyond youth, thin and well-angled, with wrinkles that enhance rather than detract. But I instantly felt his fear.

Saddam Hussein was still in power in Iraq, and a US invasion for the purpose of “regime change” was clearly imminent. Since Ahmad was willing to help antiwar Americans, I’d also kind of assumed he felt completely safe from Saddam’s regime here in Central Europe. It was another preconception I got wrong.

“I’ve lived here for 20 years, and I’ve never been this close to that embassy.” Ahmad’s first words to me were in flawless Czech with a slight Arabic accent that also enhanced rather than detracted from his words.

I instantly recalibrated my approach. This would take tact and empathy. Not that I’d been planning on not being empathetic. But I’d been expecting to get right into the plan and the politics. Ahmad plunged into the personal and the stuff I would have been afraid to bring up across the cultural divide.

Image of a prague street at night, cobblestones underfoot and ancient stone arches above a small group of people walking through the light from an open doorway - Creative commons image by david seibold of flickr.com

He’d been a young anti-Saddam resistance fighter back in the 1980s at a time when the US was backing Saddam’s regime. He wasn’t Muslim, he pointed out, but rather part of a small Aramaic minority. He’d barely survived when the resistance was pulverized and sent scattering across heavily armed borders. He’d lain in a ditch just a few feet from guys with machine guns who knew he was out there and who would get a bounty if they killed him. They just didn’t happen to look down, so he lived.

Eventually, he’d made it to Turkey and was given the choice of several Soviet-bloc countries where he could get asylum and start his life over--alone, without family or anything more than his technical school education. He had to go to the Soviet bloc because an enemy of Saddam was, at the time, an enemy of the United States.

He told me he chose Czechoslovakia because his resistance cell used to meet in a brewery started by a Czech expat who lived in Iraq for a while. That was all he had to go on. The Czechs have good beer.

Now, it was 2003, the Soviet Union had fallen, Czechoslovakia was no more, the Czechs were in NATO and the United States had changed their tune about Saddam. I could tell Ahmad’s take on the politics of the situation was at best “complicated.” I didn’t blame him. On that first day, we could at least agree that his family was stuck in Iraq and facing the “shock and awe” tactics of the US military and that was not okay. We also both agreed that Saddam really sucked, but that a foreign invasion wasn’t going to help the local political situation.

With that rudimentary sense of common ground, we started an alliance between Czech, American and international antiwar groups and the Iraqi refugees in Prague. There were not many places where antiwar groups had that kind of friendship with the Iraqis. I don’t know if all the Iraqi dissident groups listened and gave the benefit of the doubt to antiwar westerners the way Ahmad did, but I know for a fact that a lot of ultra-focused antiwar activists didn’t dial right down to empathy. Maybe that was why we were different.

We held a protest in front of the Iraqi Embassy that day and then marched to the US Embassy to register our opposition to war plans. We were saying no to war and to authoritarianism by both the US and Iraqi regimes. We were making clear that opposition to the war did not mean support for Saddam’s tyranny.

Later, there were long evenings in Prague wine cellars, where I’d sit next to Ahmad while Czech activists yelled across the table and haggled about which political parties should be allowed to show their symbols at our antiwar rallies. They all wanted Ahmad there. He was a great symbol, but he rarely got a word in with his quiet voice and unassuming stature.

In one such cellar, he finally asked me. “Why are you doing this?”

We’d been over his reasons quite a few times. But I’d just assumed he understood mine. I must have gaped at him a moment too long because he clarified, “At the rally, you said you aren’t a pacifist.”

I had said that in a speech, explaining why Americans abroad were against the war. I’d said that even if one believes some wars are just, this one surely was not. We had plenty of evidence that the “weapons of mass destruction” thing was overblown propaganda. I’d gone on about civilian casualties and soldiers coming home in body bags. But apparently this hadn’t satisfied Ahmad’s curiosity.

Fair enough. Why did I care? I didn’t have any relatives in the military or in harm’s way? Why was I spending all of my spare time organizing protests against this war? He also knew I wasn’t in any political party, given my stance in the Czech inter-party debates. It was a fair question.

“I’m fighting for my country, for our democracy,” I told him. “The underlying issue is that this war and everything that’s happened since 9/11 has changed my country—America. It’s turned it into a hateful state, a surveillance state and largely a police state. Our democracy was never perfect, but this war and the Patriot Act and the rest of it is threatening what democracy we have. Sure, I care about people in Iraq. I don’t want your people to die. That’s just wrong, and I’d do what I can to stop it in any country. But yes, the reason I’m so committed, the reason I’m doing this every day, all day, sacrificing everything else to it, is because I’m afraid for my country too. We probably won’t lose militarily. But we may well lose our democracy and our freedom in this war.”

He listened but didn’t say whether he agreed with me.

Ahmad and I marched side by side at the head of a lot of antiwar demonstrations over the next two years. And he never questioned me again. There were times when we trusted each other with dangerous situations. We stood up for each other whenever there was need. If the Czech Communists came after me, he’d have my back and they would back down in the face of his moral authority. If the international activists criticized him for giving complex answers and being glad when Saddam fell a few months into the war, I defended his right to have complicated interests.

A few months into the occupation, Ahmad’s brother was driving his car in Iraq and was shot and killed by American soldiers. They later admitted it was a case of mistaken identity. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was just one more civilian killed with impunity. Ahmad called me in tears. I couldn’t believe I was one of the first people he told about this.

I was shaken by my own complicated emotions. It was terrible. I felt guilty, complicit and as if he’d have every reason to hate me as an American. At the same time, I was honored that he called me, and I overwhelmingly admired his sense of fairness and forgiveness in the midst of grief.

We got through that moment. And eventually the protests died down though the endless war dragged on, and Americans and Iraqis continued to die in senseless, unnecessary and brutal ways. Once Ahmad brought his wife and daughter to my home for a potluck. But I could feel him pulling away. I worried that I reminded him of very painful things. I invited him to events, but he rarely accepted. Eventually, we drifted apart for 20 years.

The other day, a notification popped up on my Facebook, a request from an account with a non-Latin alphabet. I hit the “delete” button before I even had a chance to register it. Then, a second later, I realized the script hadn’t been Hindi or Chinese, like a lot of spam, but Arabic. And I can still sort of read Arabic, picking out letters like a first grader. So, I spent ten minutes struggling to undo my delete and get the notification back. Something, some intuition or the first letter, that tall straight Arabic letter A at the beginning of the name nagged at me.

And then, there he was, his full name and his photo--still the same ageless face, hardly seeming older at all, though by now he must be in his sixties. I sent him a friend request back and hoped against hope that he’d respond even though I’d deleted his request. We hadn’t had Facebook back in 2003-2005.

A few days later my phone rang with the weird electronic beeping that heralds an app call rather than a cell call. And there was Ahmad, my old friend. His voice was the same as always, comforting and kind with his lilting accent utterly unchanged. I’ve changed so much that I doubt he could conceive of my life now--half a world away in the US, going to graduate school and living by scavenging with two teenage kids and a broken marriage.

I was on deadline and didn’t really have the time, but we talked for over an hour anyway, sketching out twenty years for each other and mostly not talking politics.

I did ask him at one point, “Do you believe me now? This--what’s happening in the US—surely, you see it. This is what I was talking about. Some of us saw the warning signs back then. I’m still fighting the same war.”

He agreed, but seemed stumped for words of comfort, much the way I had been all those years ago when it was his family on the line.

Fighting fascism: Democracy doesn't come easy

The rallies and marches for democracy across the United States on April 5 were absolutely amazing!

Consider what it takes for 5.2 million people to gather in public places in crowds at the same time, and have almost no incidents of disruption. There were counterprotests and MAGA provocateurs specifically trying to incite trouble, both in big cities and in small towns like ours.

But in almost all cases the organizers of the rallies and marches calmed these situations, using hard-won, conflict-mitigation techniques that many of us have been practicing for decades. In just our little town in Eastern Oregon, we put together a team of eight people tasked with keeping our crowd of 300 people calm and avoiding engagement with counter protesters. We had another team of just four people discouraging people from crossing streets against the lights. This was hard work, but people in the crowd listened to us, and we pulled it off without any incidents or injuries.

Even here, there were MAGA supporters who turned out with open-carry guns and large trucks burning tires to try to intimidate or provoke conflict. One driver sped through a crowded intersection and put many people at risk, but because of our careful traffic group, no one was in the street when they weren’t supposed to be, so no one was hurt. Another time, a driver forced their way onto a crosswalk against the light, while people who had the right-of-way were crossing. Our people stayed calm.

If this happened in a tiny, rural town, I can only imagine what it was like in larger cities, like New York, where crowds filled major avenues for 20 blocks and the police were largely absent. It was all on volunteers to keep the cross streets flagged and avoid traffic accidents. This isn’t simple. It takes training, and it didn’t happen overnight. This took huge coordination and a ton of hard work by thousands of volunteers.

And we’re going to have to do it again and again. This is not even close to over. We’re standing on one of those knife-edges of history. The United States will go fully fascist or it won’t. Even if we are headed for an authoritarian period, will there be lively community resistance or an intimidated and lethargic populace too beaten down by economic blows to push back? Those are the questions of our times.

As a journalist, I got to witness pivotal moments like this for some other countries, seeing some countries get sucked into totalitarian regimes and seeing others gain health care, stronger democratic systems and better safeguards than we have in the US. I’ve known for decades that American democracy was under threat and that we are not immune to coups or authoritarian tactics.

anti-fascist protest - image by Arie farnam

The philosophy of American exceptionalism has been a problem when it comes to the US doing military things overseas that we wouldn’t want other countries doing. But it’s also a problem when Americans think we won’t ever have coups or wars or authoritarianism because we are the definition of democracy. We don’t have a special destiny to be the greatest democracy. We have to fight for our democracy like everybody else.

Europe and Canada do have better health care, stronger democratic systems, better safeguards and less inequality, largely because they have updated their laws to face modern threats to democracy, such as massive corporations, billionaires and AI engines that can manipulate what people see on the internet. If we want to have what they have, save our democracy, prevent full-blown fascism and take back our country, we must accept that we are not immune or destined to be a great democracy.

We are now in a historic struggle for democracy. It will necessarily have many facets. Economic boycotts that target companies complicit in authoritarianism and abuses of democracy and human rights are part of it. Organizing, running for office, showing up to talk to legislators, as well as calling and writing to politicians will play a role. There may come a time when we can muster a general strike, the type of thing that has brought an end to political coups in other countries.

But massive demonstrations are still the backbone of a pro-democracy resistance to authoritarianism. Public events like this “demonstrate” undeniably the numbers of people who are willing to make personal sacrifices and take risks to demand rights and democracy. They also form community bonds.

The mainstream media tends to downplay demonstrations as merely “a way to send a message” to leaders, as if they are nothing more than another form of calling your representatives. But public rallies and marches do more than send a message and the message they send is more than the one most people think they are sending. It isn’t just about telling politicians, “please do X, Y and Z and stop doing A, B and C.” Many people may say these things in the crowd and be quoted as such in newspapers. That’s good and important. But the greatest message being sent—the message that can’t be denied with lies and spin—is the level of commitment the population has to broad topics or issues.

Extinction Rebellion made a big deal out of a statistic about 3.5 percent of the population rising up and that concept has spread to other protest movements today. The idea is that historically there is no instance in which more than 3.5 percent of the population became highly activated against a regime or for a major change and change did NOT come. Some people have taken this to mean that a small minority of the population could force a change, even on a recalcitrant majority. But that isn’t really what the statistic means.

The 3.5 percent is an estimate of what percent of a population has to be willing to go out to public rallies and protests regularly, especially in the face of repression, especially if it is dangerous or costs them inconvenience or risk. It is not because that 3.5 percent can change things all on their own. It is what those gatherings “demonstrate” about the level of commitment and vehemence in the population.

The US population has overwhelmingly supported progressive policies for decades. A significant majority of Americans have supported gun control, universal health care, education, reproductive rights and all kinds of other progressive policies for as long as I can remember. Those policies have not become law because of the anti-majoritarian elements of the US electoral system (such as the electoral college, gerrymandering and "lobbying” aka legalized bribery) as well as because of the corporate sponsorship of the two major parties.

Despite majority opinion being significantly at odds with policy for decades, no shift has come for a wide variety of reasons—lack of awareness, media obfuscation, apathy and hopelessness, prominent among them.

In addition, the population may hold those majority opinions but many people may not hold them strongly enough. Political and social scientists look at what happens when popular commitment to something rises in a population. When people are willing to make sacrifices or take risks for a set of needs or beliefs, even less democratic systems (such as authoritarian coups) can be overcome. That’s what the 3.5 percent rule is about.

And we are well on our way to seeing 3.5 percent or more of the population become engaged. But it isn’t enough for that number of people to come to one demonstration. It will require a longer commitment. It will require sacrifice and risk, because that would mean that a large majority of the population agrees with those who are out demonstrating, not just sort of agrees, but agrees vehemently and that more and more people are willing to lay down personal stakes to make a change. That is when even a less-than-democratic regime will change, whether it wants to or not.

I talk to friends in democratic countries in Europe regularly online, and they are really worried about us. They often say I’d better get out while I can, as if the US is one of those destabilized countries I used to report from. But the reality is that Putin is threatening my second country, the Czech Republic. If Ukraine falls, Europe will be fighting for their lives as much as they did in World War II.

These are the times we are living in—wherever we are. We never wanted it to come to this, but we are facing an authoritarian epoch. There are people being disappeared off the streets in this country for no crime greater than participating in a peaceful protest. Legal immigrants or citizens can officially be rounded up without due process if anyone “suspects” they may be undocumented. There are states where some of my neighbors, who are citizens, have been declared illegal because of medical and gender differences. Our civil service is being gutted and replaced by racist loyalists.

We are facing the fight of our lives. 

Last week before the big protests, there was a swarm of messages on social media, claiming to be “urgent safety information” about the protests. But it was actually lists of people who shouldn’t protest because they’d be at risk. This included immigrants—who really are at increased risk and we should be getting out there doubly to stand up for them—but also saying people of color shouldn’t protest, children should never come to protests (even those that are family friendly and have kids’ activities), and that people with any kind of medical condition or older people shouldn’t come to protests.

It became clear that these posts actually weren’t trying to help. They were being spread by some progressive accounts but also by accounts that were usually pro-MAGA. They started to spread things about turning your phone completely off—not communicating with anyone. There are protest strategies for people involved in civil disobedience that entail not using the internet or not even bringing a phone during specific direct actions. But having crowds of people in the streets without a means of communication helps no one but those who want chaos and violence.

In the end, the protests were peaceful and calm across the nation, amazingly so given the numbers. We saw a microcosm of it in our small town, with a few counterprotestors, some people attempting to intimidate. But we were lucky all around, and online reactions showed that local hardliners seriously underestimated the potential of these protests. In Baker County, the next county over, there was a somewhat smaller protest but they had 50, mostly armed, counterprotestors show up, likely because there was an article in their local paper about the protest a few days before.

That tells me that we too will soon face a lot more reactionary response. There are paramilitary groups all over this country, but especially in rural “red” counties like ours, that would like nothing more than to cause disruption and violence at anti-Trump events. We have a lot of work ahead. And there will likely come a time when just protesting isn’t enough. A general strike is a very likely necessity down the road and civil disobedience that entails real risks and personal sacrifices will be necessary if we want real change.

But with these tools and with the level of commitment that is palpable among us, we do now have the ingredients for change, possibly for change that will do more than just reverse the most recent atrocities. We could see change that repairs much more and allows us to truly join the “prosperous and democratic nations” of the world, at last.

Courage from wherever you stand

If there is one thing I wish I could give my readers these days it is the feeling that the climate crisis is like a war.

For some it is easy to see it as a war of us against them—us, the ordinary people who mostly want to do something about it, against them, the greedy one-percenters who run most of the industry and make most of the political decisions. But it isn’t at its core an us-versus-them war.

It’s an us-versus-ignorance war. Slowly the ignorance is falling away and we will focus more and more on fighting to mitigate the collapse of our ecological life-support system. But still it will be an us-versus-ignorance war. It will just be against the effects created by the ignorance of the past.

Even the wealthy have to eat and even if they may have bunkers, there is no possible future in which climate collapse goes forward unchecked and they don’t seriously regret not paying attention earlier. It is still primarily about ignorance. “Ignor-ance” has its roots in willfully ignoring and denying reality. That is what we are up against—the denial ignorance of the wealthy, the misled ignorance of the poor and the despairing and apathetic ignorance of everyone in between.

Image by Arie Farnam

Plenty of people are saying that we need to respond to the climate crisis the way we responded to World War Two. It’s true on so many levels. The climate emergency is already claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and it will soon claim millions and then billions, if we do nothing. The scale is at least as massive as the second world war was and it will reach into every person’s life just as that war did. It will require many personal sacrifices, political focus, economic manipulation and social solidarity, just as that war did.

It already requires a great deal of courage.

Of course, there is the courage of people protesting and putting their bodies in the way of fossil fuel extraction, processing and transport. There are the people chained or glued to government or corporate doorways. There are those sitting down in front of police wielding chemical weapons and people standing in the middle of intersections, demanding that other humans do indeed stop business as usual, stop driving, pay attention and treat science as a real-world matter.

Some people look at these protesters, often dressed up or in a excited, bonded group, and assume it must be fun or they must be in it for the adventure. And there may be some who are in it for adventure the first time around. But a lot of people are doing it again and again. They are willing to be roughed up by irritable police on extra shifts and willing to spend long, cold nights in improvised cells. They know what they are in for.

That is courage. I’ve seen a lot of people grasping courage these days, more than I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

There’s the courage of a young mother, so scared she’s trembling, who he accepts the role of press spokesperson for an action anyway, because all the people without babies are either on the blockade line or doing risky conflict deescalation work. There is no one else who can address the TV cameras. So she does it, even though she’s never been an activist before.

There’s the fourteen-year-old girl who signed up to learn to be a field medic with her parents’ consent, willing to wade into fields of tear gas and distribute clothes soaked in antacid to people gasping for breath. There’s the courage of those worried parents who know this is something she has to do.

There’s the woman who I watched stumble through a workshop presentation for new climate action volunteers in which two young men decided to pick apart her every statement. Walking to the subway together after I helped her lock up the office in the evening, she confessed that it wasn’t just her first workshop presentation but the first time she had ever spoken in front of a group of people in her life.

I have not chained myself to anything strategic or refused to move under police orders. Not yet at least. Some of my rebel friends are willing to forgive me this reticence because I have a disability and a disabled child. “Well, that’s why Arie isn’t out there getting arrested.” I’m the one teaching the medics and the deescalation teams. I’m the one holding the hands of new volunteers, giving a dozen pep talks a day.

But I’ve had to poke deep into my own reserves of courage. When I first signed up my family and close friends were all warning me to be careful, even asking me not to join Extinction Rebellion because whenever I have joined community organizations before it has always ended in pain, social rejection and deep depression. The fact is that, especially where I live in the Czech Republic, a disabled. middle aged woman with strange-looking eyes and awkward social communication is not well accepted. My family didn’t want me to go through all that again.

When I go into groups, I can’t make eye contact or play out the little exchanges of non-verbal communication. Mostly people don’t realize this or understand what it means. They just get the feeling that I’m aloof or uncool, or most oddly, calculating and competitive. The inevitable result has been a lot of social isolation. I join groups enthusiastically, get a lot of confused reactions and soon find myself mysteriously dropped off the invitation list.

So joining Extinction Rebellion, I was so scared that I lay awake all night shaking after every meeting in the beginning. But I knew I had to go anyway.

I wish I could tell you those fears were entirely unfounded. I will say that Extinction Rebellion tries hard to be open to all—people with disabilities, older people and people with children included. It’s a real topic of discussion and those discussions matter. I’ve never found a group where I did feel this welcome. But I have run into people who reject me out-of-hand, even in the consciously inclusive culture of XR.

Facing fears doesn’t mean facing down only illusion. Much of the fear is real. Those protesters in France really did get viciously attacked by police while sitting calmly and quietly. Some people really did needlessly torment that first-time workshop presenter. And every time I play the role of social greeter at an XR event, I will get some hard looks and some cold shoulders, which cut deep because of the social context of long-term ostracism.

It’s a time for courage. Whatever terrors you have to face, now is the time.

And there is another part of courage we all have to seize together. Not a day goes by when someone doesn’t ask me some version of the question, “Isn’t it too late and hopeless anyway?”

There are a hundred arguments why the key strategies to mitigate climate disaster won’t work. Most solar panels are made in China using minerals mined at great environmental cost and then there’s the methane in the arctic lakes, all the tipping points we may have already crossed, And that’s just the science part. We have only just begun to demand real political and economic change and those systems don’t want to change. We may well not be able to bring our society to change quickly enough. And if we manage it here, will we be able to get China and India to join us? The odds seem awfully long on stopping CO2 emissions in the time frame scientists have said we must, if we want to avoid global calamity .

In 1938, when the allies signed the Munich agreement with Hitler to allow the Nazis to take Czechoslovakia in an attempt to deny the inevitable, people who warned of the encroaching tide of fascism were called “alarmists.” And then when the allied forces did go up against fascism, it looked hopeless. It looked like we had waited too long.

That’s what Hollywood portrayals of World War Two don’t show. They say they’re showing courage, the heroic battles in which good conquers evil in the real world. But the reality is that those French resistance fighters, those nurses in Blitz-torn London, those teenage girls holding the Eastern front in some Russian town, those Romani prisoners rebelling in a concentration camp, those boys on the Normandy beaches, those fighter pilots over the North Sea and those victory gardeners on the other side of the Atlantic waiting for husbands, sons and fathers to come home did not have good odds. We look back at them through the lens of what did happen. They fought and they won, so of course they had the courage to fight.

But it wasn’t an easy choice for many of them. There were times during the war when it looked very bleak. In our struggle now, it looks bleak. It looks like the risks we take and the sacrifices we make may be for nothing.

In that too, we need courage—not because we know we’ll win but because the only way to live well now is to fight this war against ignorance,

We are sorry but we must break the law

A rugged start in Extinction Rebellion deescalation practices

On a rainy Monday in Prague, a group of activists met in a neglected park near a major traffic artery -- Nervous, skittish and just beginning to pump adrenaline, they unfurled their banners in a few practice runs, getting them upside down more often than not.

The people I had trained as a deescalation team, mostly at the last minute in a rushed explanation of psychology--the prefrontal cortex, the door to the panic center of the brain and the principles of active listening--were so dazed that they repeatedly forgot to even go into action at all during the practice runs. About half of the deescalation team had done a few role-plays in my kitchen. That was it.

Rebel for life - Photo by XR Praha

A large majority of us were first-time activists, barely having been to a few quiet (and completely legal) political rallies. And here they were preparing to flagrantly break the law.

But we got our signalling system drilled to the point where I was reasonably sure we wouldn't be hit by oncoming traffic and then we went into action.

Unsuspecting drivers whizzed by us while we politely waited at a red light. Then the first signaler called, "Blue team into action!" The small group with me started across the intersection unrolling our large blue banner, which read, "You can't outrun the climate crisis." . A minute later I vaguely heard the call "Green into action!" as the group with the green banner blocked the other axes of the intersection.

My deescalation teams were darting out into the traffic backed up in front of them, offering apologies, cookies and informative fliers along with their hastily trained active-listening and non-violent communication skills. Someone gave a warning shout about a motorcycle and I went for him.

I barely had to think of my calming techniques. My shoulders were relaxed, my hands nonthreatening as I loosely offered him a flyer. He smiled back at me under his visor and I thought things were going fine.

Then a van broke ranks behind him, lurched forward with aggressive honking and swearing. It had become clear that we were there to stay for at least a few minutes--seven minutes according to plan.

I immediately left the motorcycle driver and approached the van, which had stopped but continued to jerk forward in little starts toward our people at the banner. "I can see that you're upset," I said, forcing a little volume into my unwilling voice. "Can I help you?"

I never got the chance to exercise active listening and calm the driver down. By this time, our signal guy was bellowing at the driver with a megaphone and the van was physically pushing a teenage girl and a photographer into the middle of the intersection.

I think I said, "Please stop! This is dangerous!" The driver yelled incoherent curse words. I was torn with indecision for a second and then the chance to act was gone anyway.

Our safety people managed to get the two endangered individuals out of the way and I managed to stop the stream of cars behind the van by the simple expedience of stepping behind its bumper and standing still, thus avoiding a rush that would have seriously put the lives of my deescalation team--back in the traffic with cookies and fliers--at risk.

In the end, the crisis was averted but other drivers were upset because of the scene. One woman got out of her vehicle sobbing that her child was at home and she had to get to him, as if our protest truly heralded an immediate collapse of civilization. Our deescalation team hurried to listen, apologize and explain that we were only there for seven minutes. The tone reduced from panic to sullen angst.

Photo by XR Praha

Why take these risks, you might well ask, for a moment with a banner?

Of course, it isn't for the banner. Most of the drivers can't even see it. This is one of the basic tactics of Extinction Rebellion, one I was very skeptical about when I first joined. I wanted to protest big polluters and corrupt politicians. But as I read more and came to understand the psychological and socio-political dynamics of the situation I became less reticent.

This blockade, like every other Extinction Rebellion action, is part of a wave of disruption that forces the climate crisis into the forefront of everyone's minds and onto the front pages of every newspaper and the first minutes of every news broadcast. Without this disruption of the lives of ordinary people--without a shit-load of such disruptions--there is no way we will see change fast enough to avoid massive famine and economic collapse.

As just about every literate person on the planet has read by now, the latest IPCC report, which is a very conservative consensus of a lot of different scientific perspectives, gave us twelve years to solve the climate crisis if we wish to have any real hope of avoiding a vast collapse of our civilization and food-production systems.

That's not to say we have twelve years to START working on it. We have twelve years to implement changes in the global industrial economy so vast that there is really nothing to compare them to, though the build up to World War Two and the Marshal Plan combined are often invoked as an example solution. And so far, there is not one government on the planet that is truly taking it seriously.

But there is one that has at least pledged to do so, and that is the British government, where Extinction Rebellion really got started in April. The tactic of massive disruption achieved its first stated goal. The British government was forced to declare a climate emergency.

But more than that, it created an unprecedented storm of media coverage and public concern over climate change. Most of it wasn't even in support of Extinction Rebellion initially. But the more the media looked into it and the more people paid attention and read about the crisis, the more everyone realized how serious the crisis is.

We activists are not in a popularity contest. We are not out in the road risking our lives because we think that will convince someone to agree with us. We are an emergency siren. We are simply a wave of disruption that forced British society to wake up and pay attention and which will do the same in every place we can.

We are sorry. Really I am sorry. I want to apologize to the frightened woman with her child at home and to all the others who were just tired and heading home from work. We do not want to do this. I would apologize if I had to wake you up at night to warn you of a fire in the building, but I'd still do it. We have no choice but to disrupt life as usual and even to break the law. This is an emergency.

Talking to journalists:

A guide for direct action participants

If you are part of a direct action you may be approached by journalists. Whatever the goal of your action, you have some sort of message for the public. Your main target may be the government or a company but your second target is ALWAYS the public. Journalists are a stand-in for the public, whether we like it or not. Therefore, it is very important to know how to get your message across to journalists.

Before your action consider these things:

1. Do you want all participants to talk to journalists or will you politely redirect journalists to your organizer?

2. What is the most important goal of your action? What do you want? Make sure you can say it easily in one or two sentences.

3. What is your message for the public? Remember that when you talk to journalists, you are also talking to average, uninformed people listening to or reading a news report. Some of them will actually want to know your message and support you. Treat them kindly.

When journalists approach you, try to figure out what kind of press they are. There are three types of press:

Creative Commons image via Pixabay

1. Friendly press: Those who already agree with you or share your values, even if they don’t know who you or your organization is specifically. They will help you if they reasonably can.

2. Hostile press: Those who have already set their minds against you and your values or which view your organization negatively for political, financial or other reasons. They will use whatever they can against you, including your silence or dismissal. 

3. Uncommitted press: Those who have not openly taken a side for or against you and which may either be indecisive or trying to appear objective. There are no objective people. We all have sub-conscious assumptions and values. Uncommitted press will usually try to listen to your message, but they owe you nothing and they are often most interested in controversy and shocking details.

How to talk to the different types of press in order to get your message across to the public and to your specific targets through the media:

Friendly press

These journalists may happily publish your message and even specific information like your demands or the date and location of your next public event. It is important to be concise and clear. Keep your details in order and have your main message in written form to give to them. You cannot assume they know when the big action day is, no matter how much you have publicized it.

You don’t need to pander to them, but don’t take them for granted either. If you have time, you can give them interviews and even include some of your personal feelings.

It is better to avoid talking about organizational problems or internal conflicts. Uninformed people are always your audience and if you portray your organization as disorganized, it takes credibility away from your justification for disruptive direct actions. Finally, note that some hostile press might pretend to be friendly press in order to make satirical reports about you.

Hostile press

There are different types of hostile press. They may politically disagree. Their owners or major advertisers may be financially against your goals. They may be frightened and conservative with a lot of false assumptions about you. It is easy to think you should not talk to hostile press at all. However, it is important to remember that if they have come out publicly to talk to you they will probably publish or broadcast something from your action. And ultimately when you speak to them, you are speaking to their audience.\

If you react angrily to a rude and offensive journalist, thousands of people watching the video of your reaction will feel that you are angry at them or disrespect them. So, don’t engage too much with hostile press. They will use just about anything they can against you. Give your two-sentence statement of what you want and then a one sentence message for the public. Repeat it if they ask you for more. Be polite but firm.

Uncommitted press

These journalists may have false assumptions about you, your organization or your cause gained from those who are hostile toward you or simply from information confusion. If they state something incorrectly or show an incorrect assumption, resist the temptation to give a frustrated or irritable response, even if you have heard it many times.

Remember that uncommitted press may know very little about your goals or message. They may jump to false conclusions without meaning to. They will often be looking for what is most shocking and outrageous. You can use that to your advantage at times with creative actions, but it can also hurt you if what they get stuck on is some trash that fell out of your bag.  

Be ready to state what you want clearly in two sentences. Add a one sentence message to the public if you can. Avoid talking about organizational problems or disagreements within your movement. If asked about another faction that is pursuing the same goals as you, it is best to be vaguely supportive and avoid criticizing other groups, beyond stating your clear differences, such as, “We are non-violent. They may have similar goals but because they do not abide by non-violence, they are not part of our movement.”

Uncommitted press thrive on controversy and they will often look for controversy within your movement, which can be very harmful to your outreach and your message to the public. If asked to give personal feelings, you can state your emotions. “I’m sad.” “I’m very worried.” “I’m so angry!” Psychology tells us that if ordinary people hear you state your emotions starting with the word “I” they will be naturally empathetic. It is much more difficult when you have to accuse someone who is doing harm. It is good to start it with “I,” such as “I am angry that….” or “I am sad that our prime minister won’t do anything about this crisis.”

Finally:

Look at the camera, rather than the interviewer when possible. Avoid using words you wouldn’t want a six-year-old you loved hearing. And enunciate, particularly in crowds!

An antidote to environmental depression

All I had to go on was a vague and anonymous Facebook notification. I followed my Maps app to the address but got lost when some of the Renaissance-era buildings weren’t numbered. A young Vietnamese immigrant with a child on her hip set me straight.

Finally, there was a sheet of paper taped to the mail box of a building in a narrow Prague street. A large Dagaz rune (which Ralph Blum called Breakthrough) tipped sideways was printed on the paper and repeated on one of the doorbells. It’s supposed to be a stylized hourglass, but my first impression was of the rune and a surprising good omen.

I rang, but there was no answer.

I gently pushed and the heavy wooden door creaked open. Inside was a dim hallway, like so many in the ancient city. A decorative railing ran around a spiral stairway and light filtered down from sunbeams coming through windows somewhere far overhead.

I passed a young man with long hair to the middle of his back, but then hesitated, glancing back at him. Prague is the kind of place where one might find new friends in a dimly lit stairwell.

“Are you with us?” he asked softly in Czech, addressing me in the informal grammar reserved for close family and friends..

Image via Pixabay

“Probably.” I grinned, “if you’re the meeting.”

“Go right up,” he nodded and the welcome in his voice was again almost shocking to my battered nerves, accustomed to the acrimony and judgement so rampant in today’s society.

The sunlit room upstairs was filled with more of the same, open hands reaching to bring me into the circle, smiles and enthusiastic voices. I had come prepared for cynicism, long arguments, social cliques, power trips, poorly hidden political agendas and all the other problems that have plagued activism circles for decades. This friendly reception was already more than I’d hoped for, but would it turn out to be just a shiny package for the same old dead ends?

I took a seat and watched as the meeting unfolded. Someone took the lead but then quickly passed the speaking role to another. Everyone was introduced in 10 minutes. The agenda was on a board with precise times that were kept without strain. Plans and methods were explained with professional clarity as well as with heart. We broke into groups to discuss specific projects.

I have rarely seen an activist meeting run so well, reaching goal after goal with no sense of rush.

Activism? Who has time for that nonsense these days, you might well ask.

The focus of this group is no mystery—taking real, practical action to force government agencies and industry to behave responsibly on the climate crisis. It was nothing short of our survival at stake and for once the activist proposals were not merely about leaflets or poetry slams or rallies. The work on the table was practical resistance to destruction.

Instead of being frustrated by a long, acrimonious meeting and incremental pace as I had in countless community organizations before, I had to question whether or not I was ready to jump into this swift flowing stream.

This was my first Extinction Rebellion meeting—out on the expanding fringe of the movement in Eastern Europe. And I had to hand it to them. Excellent organization. Solid tactics. Laser-focused goals. And the flexibility to learn in a new country.

Image via Pixabay

I have been struggling with deep environmental depression for years now. And a lot of that really is environmental—as in ecological. I grow my garden, hoard rain water, ride the train, recycle, try to speak up and all that. But it is clearly ineffective. For the past few years, I have looked for organizations to join off and on, but they were either inaccessible, just plain lazy or more serious about their donor’s goals than the real work at hand.

Keeping hope had become a chore. And a lot of serious environmentalists today have a lot of unpleasant things to say about hope.

So, is Extinction Rebellion just a bunch of well-organized naive idealists?

I might have thought so from just the one meeting. But deeper research reveals a strong foundation in realism and practicality. The movement is spread through local talks or lectures that summarize the status of climate science, describe the mounting effects of climate change and then outline the demands and strategy of the Rebellion. It’s a surprisingly anti-inflammatory, technical lecture to spread a revolution.

But even with level-headed words the scientific conclusions are pretty depressing. At the end of the talk, an opinion is given about whether or not we can still avert the worst effects of climate change even if we can generate the “political will.” The scientific jury seems to still be out on that. But there are plenty of reasons to believe we might not be able to stop a climate catastrophe that will seriously endanger our way of life and civilization no matter what we do today.

In the context of a motivational talk, this isn’t a logical way to convince masses of people. We are told that political and industrial leaders are ignoring the crisis and our best hope is to force them to pay attention and act through non-violent civil resistance. Yet we don’t even know whether or not it is already too late for them to avert disaster before they’ve even meaningfully started.

Still it’s real and honest.

Why do anything if the cause may well be hopeless? The Extinction Rebellion response is a question, “What does it mean to be human today?”

For me, it is about the quality of whatever life we have left. I have a choice. I can either live in a fog of depression and anxiety or I can do what needs to be done because it needs doing. Taking steps in the right direction is the only way out of depression I know of.

If that isn’t exactly a rousing pep talk, then so be it. Maybe the Rebellion is already rubbing off on me.

To my newfound co-conspirators in rebellion, I’ll give you some fair warning. I’m socially awkward, even a dork. I don’t do modern fashions. I can’t recognize faces and I can’t run as fast as I used to. I sometimes speak before I think and my daily life is pretty rugged at the moment.

But I have been in this kind of struggle before. I know about walking miles to distribute fliers and about herding cats. I know about long nights and the times when a lot of work goes for naught. I’m worth having around. I pack a good herbal first-aid kit and I’ve usually got food if you’re batteries are running low.

I have also always wanted to end my conversations and posts this way:

Love and courage! .