courage

All you fascists bound to lose

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Popping in briefly to say yesterday brought so much good stuff. Dick Cheney finally died! (Twenty-five years too late to prevent death and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention his role in laying the groundwork for the current fascist regime with his expansion of the executive branch, but it’s still good knowing he’s no longer here.) Woot! Woot!

Also? Zohran Mamdani put the beatdown on Andrew Cuomo! Despite the millions and millions of dollars spent against him and the nonstop racist, fear-mongering media coverage, Mamdani prevailed. Woot! Woot!

All around the country, former GOP seats were flipped to Democrats in a national mandate against fascism, cruelty, violence, Epstein, and the all-around ICK of the current regime and Republican party. The voters said NO! Woot! Woot!

Woody Guthrie, March 1943

In honor of all that, last night right before going to bed I danced around to Woody Guthrie’s “All you fascists” as performed by Billy Bragg & Wilco on the Mermaid Avenue Vol II album. You can hear that recording here. Or, just read the lyrics:

Gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised
People all over this world are getting organized
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

People of every color marching side by side
Marching ‘cross the fields where the million fascists died
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

All you fascists bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose
All you fascists bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose

All you fascists bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose
All you fascists bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose

I’m goin’ into this battle, take my union gun
We’ll end this world of slavery before this war won
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

Race, hatred, cannot stop us, this one thing we know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go
You’re bound to lose, you fascists are bound to lose

It feels good knowing people all around the country are refusing to bow down to the fascists. Solidarity!

Please, one quick action on behalf of students

/ Tracy Abell / 5 Comments

I’ve been focused on stuff related to our recent move and haven’t been active here, but need to share information I received today. Spoiler alert: it’s rage-inducing. My ask? Use the template to personalize a letter that will be sent to 40+ university presidents and chancellors. Thank you in advance for taking two minutes to speak out on behalf of the courageous students who refuse to remain quiet about a genocide funded with their tuition and tax dollars. Solidarity!

Image from Truthout article linked below: Police and FBI agents raid a resident of University of Michigan pro-Palestine protesters in a video posted on April 23, 2025.
safexmich via Instagram

The following is from MPOWER Change:

Yesterday, police and the FBI raided the homes of students in Michigan who’ve engaged in Palestine solidarity, confiscating laptops and phones without making arrests. The Attorney General’s office claims the raids are part of a “vandalism investigation.”1

But even the press is questioning why the FBI would be involved in a vandalism investigation.

At a time when university leaders are finally standing up to Trump’s attacks on academic freedom, with Harvard’s public rejection of Trump’s orders and more than 200 educational leaders condemning “political interference” and “overreach,” many universities are still cooperating with Trump’s tyranny against students, including police raids and abductions.2

Tell the University of Michigan and other schools to protect students and academic freedom.

Despite the violent crackdowns, academic expulsions, and student abductions across the country, the encampment movement is strong and growing.

Students refuse to be silenced, and we must do everything we can to support and protect them.

Even if you have sent letters to university administrators before, please send more.

Trump fears students because they are demanding divestment from genocide and apartheid, and they are WINNING.

Yale students just relaunched their encampment after being forcibly cleared by police earlier this week, coming back even stronger. And their demands are being heard. At Northwestern, students just secured a historic agreement: the university will disclose its investments, establish a committee on divestment, and provide full funding for Middle Eastern and North African student groups.3

Take Action: Tell university administrators and presidents to protect students, not punish them.

From Columbia to UCLA, from Yale to Emory — this is a generation’s most significant wave of student protests. And the students are not alone: faculty are walking out, alumni are divesting, and communities are taking action to support them.

We must do our part as well.

Please take action now: Demand that more university administrators protect their students and reject Trump’s attack on academic freedom and student protesters.

Thank you for everything you do.

In solidarity,

Granate, Zara, Aydin, and the team at MPower Change

P.S. Want to support our work towards justice for all people, and against white supremacy and Islamophobia? Sign up for a recurring MPower Change gift now. 

Sources:

  1. “Activists say southeast Michigan police raids are targeting pro-Palestinian protesters,” Detroit Free Press, April 23, 2025. 
  2. “More Than 220 Academic Leaders Condemn Trump’s ‘Overreach’,” The New York Times, April 22, 2025.
  3. “The Daily Explains: As NU activists accept deal to deescalate encampment, demonstrators at other universities are seeing mixed results,” The Daily Northwestern, May 1, 2024

Learn more from Truthout: FBI and Police Raid Homes of Pro-Palestine Student Activists in Michigan

From Kelly Hayes: Mahmoud Khalil and the Repression That Was, Is, and Will Be

/ Tracy Abell / 12 Comments

I’m not only grateful for my move to Washington, but also the distraction from the horrors being inflicted upon us by the authoritarians. However, I can’t keep my head down forever and today want to share an important read from Kelly Hayes: Mahmoud Khalil and the Repression That Was, Is, and Will Be.

Mahmoud Khalil is a Columbia University student, Palestinian activist, and permanent resident of the U.S. with a Green card who was abducted by ICE a week ago in retaliation for pro-Palestinian activities. The government agents removed Khalil from his housing against the protestations of Khalil’s wife who is eight months pregnant with their first child.

This is incredibly dangerous and ominous territory. And what makes it even worse is that there’s not an opposition party in this moment. The Democrats have made it clear via their support for genocide and the brutalization of students who speak out against that genocide that they will not magically become better people who will fight for civil liberties for all.

As Palestinian activist and University of Chicago professor Eman Abdelhadi recently told me, “The abduction of Mahmoud Khalil represents a major escalation in the wars against political freedom, higher education and Palestine activism that this administration is waging.” Abdelhadi noted that these wars are intertwined. “Palestine solidarity activists have faced repression and criminalization for decades, and these escalated to unprecedented levels with the assault on Gaza that began in October 2023.” Abdelhadi noted that participants in the Palestine solidarity movement have long warned that the repression being waged against them was setting the stage for greater escalations. “We warned, over and over, that the repression we were facing was setting a dangerous precedent,” she said. “Democrats and college administrators didn’t listen.” 

Abdelhadi says that by treating Palestinians and their allies as “fair game for repression,” Democratic officials and college administrators “opened the door for the far right to strip away constitutional protections from everyone.” 

“Trump is waltzing through the door that liberals opened for him, and we are all suffering for it,” Abdelhadi said. “It is clear this administration is testing what we are willing to tolerate, what we are willing to sit through. If Mahmoud Khalil has no rights, none of us do.”

We cannot afford to look the other way, to tell ourselves this is an isolated case. They are coming for all of us.

They came for Mahmoud Khalil in the night, and they will come for us, too. They will come with immigration raids. They will come for us with AI searches, scraping our data, and compiling massive lists of political targets. They will come with RICO charges, as they have for Cop City protesters in Atlanta. They will come with bizarre allegations of “fraud.” They will accuse us of supporting and abetting terrorism. They will terrorize us, criminalize us, and attempt to silence us. Now is the time to speak out and to “flood the zone,” as Scot Nakagawa writes. 

As protests and support efforts for Khalil continue, we should all uplift demands for his freedom.

Do what you can, where you can.

Please read and share Mahmoud Khalil and the Repression That Was, Is, and Will Be.

 

Zionism doesn’t only harm Palestinians

/ Tracy Abell / 17 Comments

Although I am not Jewish, I wanted to share two recent pieces focused on the generational and political fractures forming in the Jewish community (specifically, institutions such as synagogues and schools). It makes me sad on multiple levels to see the damage being done to longstanding communities and those with lifelong commitments to Jewish professional life because of the clash between Zionism and anti-Zionism.

The first article, “U.S. Jewish Institutions Are Purging Their Staffs of Anti-Zionists: A months-long investigation found even the smallest hints of dissent are often met with unemployment” was published by Shane Burley on

On October 18, 2023, protesters with the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive Jewish groups staged a sit-in in the Cannon House Office Building at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to protest the Israeli assault on Gaza.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Countless Jewish progressives and youth have answered the call for solidarity with Palestine, and the community’s entrenched political, religious, and cultural institutions are determined to punish them for it.

This attitude has long-term consequences for Jewish institutions. Per Shane Burley (emphasis mine): “… this is happening across the Jewish world at the same time that there’s a leadership vacuum, or people are retiring from these jobs and they can’t get them refilled. It’s harder to hire rabbis, less people are becoming rabbis. It’s harder to hire Jewish educators. It’s harder to hire these people. And so at the same time as they’re having trouble reproducing these organizations, they’re kicking out the people that are often the most tied in, the people that are most involved in it.“

Burley goes on to say: I think history is very clear that Jewish life flourishes when Jewish diversity and Jewish freedom of conscience flourishes as well. And also in a cosmopolitan, multicultural society where difference is respected and all communities are protected. Historically, Jewish communities are often safest when partnering with other communities who have been threatened by the far right or by the state or things like that.

So we’re undermining exactly that history with this very isolationist, nationalist narrative. And we’re cutting out the very forces, activists, community organizers, anti-fascists, that have protected us in the past. So we’re breaking that continuity really distinctly.

Near the end, host Marc Steiner says this:
Well, I think that the voices that you allowed us to hear in your article are the voices that need to be heard. [   ]  Because their stories are important for the world to hear. And I really do look forward to more conversations with you, but also with some of the folks that you interviewed in your article that we can do together to bring their voices out because they need to be heard. They’re the ones who were attacked. They’re the ones who are fighting for their beliefs. They’re the ones who are going to be the engine that pushes the revolution of change inside the Jewish world, I think.

I stand on the side of those speaking truth to power. Solidarity with the courageous people risking their livelihoods to speak out against apartheid, settler colonialism, and genocide!

Student protest and authoritarianism

/ Tracy Abell / 14 Comments

My plan for today after last night’s multiple police attacks on student encampments around the country was to write (some more) about police response to peaceful protest, further connecting the dots between the many proposed “Cop Cities” around the U.S.  Instead, I’m going to delay my post in order to share a must-read piece from Sarah Kendzior: There’s a Sniper on the Roof of the School Where I Studied Authoritarianism. (You can learn more about Sarah here.)

Sniper on roof at yet another university: Ohio State 4.25.24  

Kendzior’s piece begins with this:

There are snipers on the roof of the school where I got my MA.

There are police beating students at the school where I got my PhD.

At each school, I studied authoritarian regimes and how they brainwash people into believing that state brutality is not only expected, but deserved.

That last sentence bears repeating: “… authoritarian regimes [  ] brainwash people into believing that state brutality is not only expected, but deserved.” We’re witnessing this in real time as people on social media sites and network news cheer on the brutalization of students making the very humane and reasonable demands that their tax dollars and their tuition NOT finance a genocide. Those gleeful and bloodthirsty responses to the violence aimed at students reveal a profound lack of humanity and an eager acceptance of authoritarianism.

Kendzior’s piece goes on to say:
The concrete demands of the students have been drowned out by smears from powerful officials — like Benjamin Netanyahu, who compares the students to German Nazis; or fanatical Zionist Senators like John Fetterman, who compares the students, many of whom are Jewish, to the neo-Nazis of Charlottesville who chanted “Jews will not replace us.”

The campus war is a propaganda war. [emphasis mine]

Ryan Grim of The Intercept wrote yesterday that “Americans who get their news primarily from cable are the only people who believe that Israel is not committing a genocide in Gaza, according to according to a new survey that examined the relationship between attitudes toward the war and news consumption habits.” Make no mistake, the cable news programs are following the Biden administration’s guidance on how they present information. They want us to believe that the students and Palestinians are the “terrorists” in this equation, distracting us with false claims of antisemitism so that we won’t look at the blood-soaked hands of Biden plus the Democrats and Republicans who’ve come together in a show of genocidal unity.

Kendzior goes on to write about the students of Gen Z:
Older people either rapturously proclaim that Gen Z will save America or demonize them as entitled. They are portrayed as saints or sinners, but rarely as human beings with a diverse array of opinions.

Every young generation faces this sneering dismissal. It happened to the Boomers, Gen X, and the Millennials too.

But there’s something cruel about ascribing great responsibility or great blame to a generation that has, in their short lives, endured a global plague, rising autocracy, the loss of civil rights, school shootings, catastrophic climate change, multiple economic crashes, and other atrocities often prefaced with the word “unprecedented”.

Each time I read those words, tears fill my eyes. Not only have we placed an incredible burden on these courageous and principled young people, many are ridiculing their humanity and willingness to fight for others. It’s grotesque. Instead of being physically  attacked by the police and verbally attacked by strangers, these young people deserve our gratitude and support (bail funds listing here).

I’ll stop now, but encourage you to read Sarah Kendzior’s piece in its entirety. None of us are safe with this rapid acceleration of authoritarianism.

Solidarity! ✊🏽

Thankful Thursday: moral courage

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Today I am thankful for the many, many people lending their voices to the chorus for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Protesters raise their painted hands as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing to examine the national security supplemental request, in Washington October 31, 2023 © SAUL LOEB / AFP

  • Several days ago, a top UN official who’d worked on human rights issues for 30+ years resigned in protest of the ongoing genocide and the UN & West’s complicity in Israel’s abuses. You can read Craig Mokhiber’s full letter HERE, including this excerpt: ” . . . western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities.”
  • Incredibly brave American Jews and allies are protesting and demonstrating in various parts of the U.S. as I write this. In Durham, North Carolina, they’re blocking the highway to demand a CeasefireNOW. They’ve taken over the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. In Boston, dozens of faith leaders are protesting in the JFK Building.
  • Ultra-Orthodox Jews are speaking out in solidarity with Palestinians and disavowing Zionism, putting themselves in harm’s way. I don’t want to link to those upsetting videos, but invite you to see video from a New York protest HERE.
  • African American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates went on Democracy Now! to speak about his visit to Palestine and the connections he saw between Jim Crow/ segregation and the apartheid in Israel. You can watch that interview and/or read the transcript HERE

Demonstrations and marches continue around the world. Go HERE for the list that’s updated daily. Ceasefiretoday.com includes that link plus ALL the tools needed to make our voices heard.

Nothing but gratitude for those refusing to remain silent!

Standing at the edge

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there’s got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you’re at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together. ~ Yo-Yo Ma

Okay, mourning dove.
It’s just you and me.
One . . . two . . .  three . . . JUMP!

New week

/ Tracy Abell

We had a corvid-rich weekend. It began on Saturday with lots and lots of crows as we walked around a unfamiliar neighborhood (after Emma was too agitated at sight of other dogs in the park we’d gone to for a walk). Multiple flocks of crows flying overhead then perching in various trees. They brought many smiles.

Then yesterday morning, we were in our front yard when a flock of crows flew past. But that wasn’t all. Moments later, this raven perched in the tree across the street for several minutes, making its croaking sound.

Photo by Zippy. March 13, 2022

Today is the first day of a new week. My goal is to embody this raven’s energy, looking ahead to new opportunities and experiences. Courageous in the face of whatever life brings.

#Gravelanche: Peace, Justice, and Mike Gravel

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Today’s mail brought something fun:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A packet of Pentagon rolling papers from presidential candidate Mike Gravel. Mike Gravel, former U.S. senator from Alaska, is running for president (and last month his campaign offered these papers in exchange for a donation). These papers are meaningful because while a Senator in 1971, Mike read a portion of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional record. He believed the public had the right to know the truth behind the Vietnam War.

It’s true that Mike Gravel is an older white man. But, he’s also the most antiwar, anti-imperialist in the field of candidates and we need him at the Democratic debates. We need his perspective and brutal honesty. In order to qualify for the DNC debates, Mike needs 65,000 individual donations. I’m imploring everyone reading this to donate $1 each to help him reach the quota.

Mike Gravel is against endless war. Both wars for oil and the so-called “war on drugs.” We need Mike’s honesty and passion on these issues during the debates. Please join the #Gravelanche and make a donation today.

Thankful Thursday: the I-can-live-with-myself edition

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Image found on Twitter

Today as I witness the privilege of GOP white men in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing I am enraged, disgusted, heartbroken, sickened, and exhausted. Those men know Dr. Christine Blasey Ford spoke the truth. Deep down in their dark, slimy souls they know Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. But they don’t care. Not about women, not about truth or justice. Those men are all about patriarchy, greed, partisanship, and reactive ideology.

So what can I say this Thankful Thursday?  Today I am grateful I’m not a garbage human being.

Profile in courage

/ Tracy Abell

The feeder was full first thing this morning. We had Blue Jays, American Magpies, and a Northern Flicker or two trying to get at the peanuts. However, this scrub jay fussed at them and mostly kept everyone away.

Then, after all that effort, this jay would fly from the feeder to the nearby shrubs to hide the peanuts. I mean, no subterfuge whatsoever. A direct line from feeder to shrubs. I waited for the others to start raiding the peanut cache, but I never saw anyone try it.

Perhaps the other birds took note for later in the season when they’ll need food. If so, I envy them their memories. I had trouble locating my coffee cup this morning.

Taking a knee

/ Tracy Abell

If freedom makes social progress possible,
so social progress strengthens and enlarges freedom.
~ Robert Kennedy

Colin Kaepernick and Arian Foster take a knee during national anthem. GRANT HALVERSON/GETTY IMAGES

Colin Kaepernick and Arian Foster take a knee during national anthem.                                                               GRANT HALVERSON/GETTY IMAGES

 

 

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No Regrets

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

On Saturday we held a life celebration for my father-in-law.

I’d written something to be shared, printing it out in a large font to make it easier for the family friend who was facilitating the event to read: (Memory to share at Stu’s celebration)

I was teary as soon as I walked into the meeting hall, so when the facilitator asked if I wanted him to read my piece or if I preferred to do it myself, I hesitated. I didn’t want to regret not speaking, but I also did not want to fall apart in front of a roomful of people. We agreed to hold off on that decision until the time came.

The ceremony began and I had already accumulated a pile of damp tissues when my nine-year-old niece came up to the podium. Her father brought over a chair for her to stand on so she could reach the microphone, and then she took a deep breath before proceeding to read the thank-you letter she and her two sisters had written for their grandfather. The words she spoke were beautiful and funny and heartfelt, and I cried some more (as did Wildebeest, Zebu, and Zippy).

When she stepped down to a spontaneous round of applause, the facilitator turned to me. Without hesitation I stood, telling him that if my niece could be brave, so could I.

I’d like to say that I read my words in a clear, steady voice and that I maintained eye contact with the audience. I’d also like to say that all the family members caught my inside jokes and laughed. But that’s not how it went. However, I didn’t melt into a complete puddle and I did make it through what I intended to say. Thanks to a petite nine-year-old girl who showed me the way.

Life’s too short for regrets.
Zinnia for Stu

We Laughed and You Rolled Up Your Sleeves

/ Tracy Abell

Just received some news from a friend. Her email got me thinking of the day I ran down the battery on my hybrid vehicle and how my friend was more than willing to get under the hood, uh, trunk, to set things right again.DSC00491

You can do this, sister. But just in case you forget, I got your back.

Making Courage a Habit

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.          ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Because I didn’t write much over the summer, it’s been difficult finding my groove again. That nasty little voice whispers in my ear, calling me delusional as I try to shake off the rust and gain some traction on my project.

I’ve had a few starts and stops, but for the past three days have written 1000 words per day. It’s starting to feel like a habit again although each day there’s a flutter in my chest as I prepare to sit down to work. “What if today I can’t do it?”

But as the wise Mr. Emerson pointed out, courage gets a bit easier each time you face down a particular fear. So right now I’m off to write my 1000 words for the day with the knowledge that I’ve done it before and can surely do it again.

Courage.Cowardly Lion receiving courage