Mastodawn

Widdershins Smith 🐘20h ago

Watching Fedi and the world react to the US president go absolutely unhinged in public, threatening war crimes as his cognitive grip disintegrates before our eyes, watching the horror and the outrage…there is something I want to tell you from Minneapolis.

And I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if I can, but I want to try. People are always thanking us and calling us heroes and asking us for some kind of…something, anything we can offer in the face of the authoritarian march, and well, here it is, here is something, if I can figure out how to say it.

🧵

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

In the first days of December, as it became clear that the ICE invasion was a real thing that was really happening to us, as groups of us gathered swapping rumors about the kidnappings and clearly inadequate tips about phone security, we had no idea what to expect, no idea what would happen, no idea what we were going to do. As much as we’d planned, heard from other cities, tried to be ready, we had no idea.

Only one thing was crystal clear: nobody, absolutely nobody, was coming to save us.

2/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

It was clarifying. We knew, with complete certainty, that nobody was coming to save us.

If we don’t stand in their way when they come to kidnap our neighbors, nobody will stand in their way.

If we don’t try to help people who need to hide, nobody will help them hide.

If we don’t try to feed people who can’t work, can’t even go outside to get food, nobody will feed them.

It put things into focus really fast.

3/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

I wish I could tell you that all our preparations meant we were ready, that we never despaired, that we knew we would endure. I don’t think any of that is true. I spent much of December and January considering, seriously and vividly considering, that this was the arrival of an authoritarian police state that could outlive me. But I didn’t spend too much •time• considering that — because there was work to be done, work right here, in my lap, and nobody was coming to save us.

4/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

I never quite understood what Carolyn Forché meant when she said “the choice is ourselves or nothing.”

I think maybe I do now.

5/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

You don’t know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what to do. You feel powerless. Nothing you can do seems like it could possibly be enough.

And then the work is there, on your doorstep, in your hands, and you •just do it• because that is what you do.

Nobody is coming to save you. The choice is ourselves or nothing. The moment you believe that, that you •know• it in your bones, is the moment the work truly begins.

6/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

My fellow people of the United States, if I have anything to teach from what Minneapolis just lived through, it is this:

Nobody is coming to save us.

Not Congress. Not the courts. Not the ICC or the EU or NATO. Not the generals or the rank and file. Not the press. Not the markets. Not the elections. Not some mythical version of “The People” that materializes out of nowhere as some messianic external force.

We’re it. We’re all we’ve got. If we don’t stop fascism from completely engulfing the US, then nobody stops it.

7/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

“OK, but what then?!” you ask me, “What are we supposed to do? What is your grand plan for ending this?? What more am I supposed to do?!”

I want you to know that I spent all of December and January here in Minnesota racking my brains with this very question, and I never found an answer. Nothing could possibly be enough. I had no idea what to do. We had no idea what to do. And we were already doing it.

The whole time, we were lost — and we were already doing it.

8/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

And because we believed that nobody was coming to save us, miraculously, the world shifted around us. Help came pouring in from everywhere. Suddenly, we were heroes?? That part still doesn’t sit well with me, the whole Nobel Prize thing, all of it. But one thing does sit well, very well: when the work fell to each of us, we all started doing it. All of us.

I’ve felt a lot of things during the ICE siege, but one thing I’ve never felt is alone.

9/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

I used to wonder whether, say, the French resistance or the Underground Railroad could ever form in the modern US today. I don’t wonder that anymore. I watched it happen. I made it happen. •We• made it happen. And my part was so small! And yet…we made it happen.

Because we knew that if we didn’t, nobody, nobody would.

10/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

I cannot tell you what to do, watching the US president and his horrific regime trying to plunge the world into flame and darkness. I can’t tell you because I have no idea either.

All I can tell you is this:

You have to know, with total and completely clarity, that nobody is coming to save us.

And knowing that, you will feel lost — but strangely clear.

And suddenly the work will be on you.

And you will do it, because that is •just what you do•, because you •know• that nobody else is coming.

And you will still have no idea what to do, even as you are already doing it.

11/

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

And of course there are a thousand practical lessons in fighting authoritarians, and we are passing them on as best we can as so many thousands of thousands have before us — but for now, for today, this is the one thing I can tell you: stop waiting for someone else to save you. This is it. We’re all we’ve got. Either we do this or no one does.

❝
It is either the beginning or the end
of the world, and the choice is ourselves
or nothing.
❞

/end

Paul Cantrell 1d ago

[The quote is from the book _The Country Between Us_ by Carolyn Forché. It is some of the most powerful and gut-wrenching poetry I’ve ever read, and the book still burns like a hot coal in my hands when I hold it. The book is among other things the origin of my handle, “in the hands.” Don’t look up that quote; look up the book. Read it slowly. You’ll know the quotes when you find them.]

Paul Cantrell 16h ago

I’ve received requests about sharing this thread in other venues. You are welcome to do so, and I’d be honored.

I hereby release the contents of this thread under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).

Please credit to:

Paul Cantrell
innig.net

Please let me know if you do anything cool with it.

Stay warm, stay strong.

Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons

nomadfarmer 16h ago

@inthehands I had already shared a link to the thread with several friends. We're starting a new food not bombs chapter in my town, and this last post has inspired me to try and turn the thread into a zine to pass out.

Paul Cantrell 15h ago

@nomadfarmer
Wonderful! Please share if you do it.

nomadfarmer 15h ago

@inthehands Will do!

As a long-time anarchist, I've been frustrated when I landed in a smaller town and had trouble finding my fellow resistance people. One silver lining of this last year, and especially the last few months, has been that all of a sudden, a *lot* of people here are figuring out how to organize.

The other day, a new person at a meeting responded to the icebreaker prompt of "what brings you here" with "Look at the world. I have to do *something*."

Joshua Neds-Fox 1d ago

@inthehands ordered

tinydoctor 1d ago

@inthehands I bought the book when it first came out. I think I still have it but I haven't read it years. I remember the poem with the colonel with the bag of ears.

Weird Socks 1d ago

@inthehands
I checked out the book.
These poems aren't exactly jumping into my lap but I'll give them a few reads.
She has quite a 1980s leftist story.

Camille Winds Down 1d ago

@inthehands
Thanks for sharing that. Carolyn Forché is my friend's mom but I don't know her work much. I only know she was one of Ta-Nehisi Coates's professors and mentors. I'll have to take a closer look!

Paul Cantrell 9h ago

@camille
If you talk to your friend, please tell them to pass along my thanks to Forché for her writing. As you can tell, it’s been deeply important for me.

@inthehands
thank you, all of you

Melissa B 1d ago

@inthehands Thanks for this. I'm not in the US but I think we may need this perspective in Australia pretty soon. The problems won't be exactly the same here, but the answers will be.

MeerderWörter 22h ago

@MelissaBenyon @inthehands Same here in the EU. It won't be a copy of things but the more we know the better we might be prepared.

Eric Likness 22h ago

Heroes for realz. Even reluctant ones. Still heroes ✊

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8LbWYKMkN0

David Bowie - Heroes (Official Video), Full HD (Digitally Remastered and Upscaled)

YouTube

Nichol Brummer 22h ago

@inthehands this reminds me a bit of 2018 when Extinction Rebellion got started. At the same time with Greta and her friday kids.

Very different, different goals, short vs long term, but also similar.

@inthehands I’ve looked it up the shortcut, almost cheater way and read one of the reviews there among very positive reader reactions. This review made me order it because I see the time and context for some of the poems. Now I can imagine the difficult stories written efficiently but forceful. Will order—thanks, Paul.

“This slender volume of poetry may do more than the dozens of thick works of sociology hitting the bookshelves to explain why tens of thousands of Central Americans --- primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras --- try so desperately to enter the US with their children each year.

Like Cassandra, Forché has been relegated to the realm of the unheard prophet who could have prevented the current (2018) tragic spectacle of the US running concentration camps for migrant children.”

𝐿𝒶𝓃𝒶 "not yet begun to fight"20h ago

@inthehands this should be mandatory reading in 2026

BrambleBearSnoring 18h ago

@inthehands That was one of the first books of poetry I ever bought for myself as a new young adult and poetry student, many moons ago. Very powerful. Eye opening for my privileged, protected young self. Big impact on my political development.

Highly recommend. Also her translation of Claribel Alegría's poems Flowers from the Volcano.

@inthehands Thank you very much, Paul, for sharing your insights and clarity with honesty and care.

Court Cantrell does not comply 1d ago

@inthehands Thank you for this thread, Paul. Your words give me courage here in Oklahoma City.

@inthehands
♥️✊🏼

Anarchist Trans Ace Pirate 1d ago

what you all did there was amazing to see and i'm so sorry you were the ones who had to do it.

@inthehands the Land of the free and the home of the brave 🫡

Jonathan Doughty 1d ago

Martin Rust 1d ago

@inthehands I can't help but thinking, the people in Iran taking to the streets in January were also motivated by the thought that noone else would save them.
If they had known in advance what would happen, would they have resorted to more violent or more subversive means of resistance?
Means that could serve as pretext to the tyrants for more brutal repression?
Massacres on protesters like in Iran this year or in China in 1989 seem more unlikely in the USA, but not impossible, what do you think?
And sure MAGA is waiting for a pretext to cancel or constrain the midterms.

Paul_IPv6 1d ago

one of the truly amazing things about human beings is that while there are definitely ordinary folks capable of horrific acts or collaborations, there are ordinary folks capable of true selflessness, love, and heroism. enough folks choosing to do right can move mountains.

Linda Sgoluppi Artist 1d ago

@inthehands My late Father-in-Law and his family helped hide escaped prisoners and pilots etc in WW11, to have been discovered would have meant all the family being shot. I'm glad that didn't happen, not least that I would not have been married for 54 years to his late son who was 6 months old at the time.

#fediverse #Mastodon

@inthehands 90% of winning a fight is ... showing up. ;)

LukefromDC 1d ago

@faraiwe @inthehands Oh yeah-asses in the grass are where it's at

@inthehands A labor organizer once told my colleagues & me something along the same lines to what you're saying now, and I've come back to it again and again in the years since, since applies in many contexts:
"If you’re waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill, they’re not coming. It’s just you, but you are enough."

It's just us, but we are enough!

MrEdgarBass 1d ago

@belehaa @inthehands They are loud , but they are few. We are many! We are right!

Joe Brockmeier 1d ago

@inthehands “There is no Justice, There is just us.”

@jzb @inthehands

It was a dark, dark day when US cops repurposed this wise adage by inverting its meaning. Or maybe it's just the LAPD, but they use it a lot and I hate it.

Joe Brockmeier 1d ago

@AdrianRiskin @inthehands huh. I’d never seen it used by police: I could be oblivious or it’s specific to LAPD. Or both.

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦1d ago

"Is justice, just … ice?
Governed by greed and lust?
Just the strong doing what they can
And the weak suffering what they must?

- Joni Mitchell, in "Sex Kills"

Sir Rochard 'Dock' Bunson 1d ago

@AdrianRiskin @jzb @inthehands how very armed gang of them. Feels very thin blue line punisher logo.

LukefromDC 1d ago

@AdrianRiskin @jzb @inthehands They should think twice about playing that "game," as it's one two can play

@jzb @inthehands

“In the halls of justice the only justice is in the halls” — Lenny Bruce

Nuwagaba Gift 22h ago

@jzb
If there's no justice, why are there laws?

Huntn00 19h ago

@nuwagaba2 @jzb Laws are a professed standard, ideally a common agreed upon, equally applied standard. And dependent on who we place in charge, results vary as in how much of it is an illusion to make us think we are a law abiding society. 🤔

Nuwagaba Gift 18h ago

@Huntn00
Laws have been used to protect those in power and the rich as they oppressed the poor. When a commoner breaks the law, he's instantly charged and punished by the authorities but when when the one in power breaks the law, it's justified to make it look that he was right to do it. But a solution without laws still turns into chaos so no one should be above the law and that's how we can preserve justice.

GertrudeZane 🇺🇦1d ago

@inthehands
Thank you for sharing your experience and your thoughts with us. Thank you for persisting and not giving up in the face of extreme brutality and evil. Thank you for the many, many vulnerable people that you helped.

David J. Atkinson 1d ago

@inthehands Thoughtful and heartfelt insights. Thank you for sharing this thread. Maybe we will all be a little better psychologically prepared when it come for us.

Any practical info to report? What worked and what did not?