January 29, 2025
The past week has been hard. Many of the most vulnerable people in our communities are under threat. We are experiencing a frontal assault on the very notions of fairness and the common good. This moment is disorienting, perhaps by design.
In her 2007 book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein examines historical cases in which elites capitalize on or manufacture moments of shock to push through sweeping and unpopular changes, all at once. The effect, Klein claims, is to create a sense of shock and disorientation, thus rendering the population vulnerable, malleable and less able to resist.
This feels like that.
In this bewildering moment, we’ll be better off if we can:
- Keep our whits about us. In the coming months and years, every few days might present what feels like a new crisis. If we are stuck in emergency mode, we’ll be reactive, and we won’t be able to respond strategically and with big, open hearts.
- Build community. We aren’t alone, and we need each other. Get together with friends and coworkers. Share soup or wine or stories. Love and friendship, solidarity and compassion: these are the things that will get us through.
- Stay engaged. This is no time to retreat into private life. Resist that temptation. Our communities need us now.
- Step up and show up. Get active in an organization. Find a group and go to the meetings.
- Organize. The labor movement hasn’t always lived up to its potential. It isn’t perfect. But workers, organized into democratic unions, have the potential to be the most powerful force between this administration and the dystopia it seeks. But we are nowhere near ready or powerful enough.
If you’ve been wondering what you should do at this moment, this is one answer. Help build a big, democratic, just, bold, imaginative, courageous movement of working people to not only resist this authoritarian turn, but to build another world. Other, better worlds are still possible.
Years ago, one of my mentors, Raul Gatica, was asked how we can build the worlds we dream of. He said, “with our hands.”
Here are some things you can do:
- Join the Contract Action Team
- Join a committee
- Come to upcoming member meetings.
- Wanna talk more about how to plug in? Email me ben.cushing@pccffap.org or Courtney Bailey courtney.bailey@pccffap.org
With friendship and solidarity,
Ben