RevolutionZ
RevolutionZ
Ep 330 Stand and Fight
Episode 330 of RevolutionZ confronts the growing threat of fascism by examining what constitutes genuine resistance versus complicity or apathy.
The episode says we face three choices: bow and scrape to fascism, ignore what's happening, or stand and fight. University presidents and private law firms that collaborate with authoritarian demands represent profiles in cowardice. They bow and scrape. Anyone looking around and saying oh no, but who then does nothing more, ignores reality. But students can stand and fight by speaking up in classrooms, dining halls, and dorms to build campus movements that protest and disobey. Workers facing MAGA-aligned employers can stand and fight through solidarity, refusal to comply, and collective action.
"Stand and fight" isn't just a rallying cry—it's our only viable path to stop fascism. Episode 330 examines what meaningful opposition looks like. It dismantles the temptations to submit or ignore what's happening, and instead provides practical examples of how resistance can take shape on college campuses, in workplaces, and throughout communities.
More, it urges that resistance must go beyond simply defending against Trump's agenda. To sustain itself and ultimately succeed, resistance must simultaneously plant seeds for a better future that addresses the fundamental flaws that led to our current crisis. This dual approach of defense plus offense can not only energize supporters but potentially reach Trump voters who begin to recognize their interests align more with progressive than reactionary change.
The episode concludes by examining three crucial warnings: don't attack attention to trans, race, and gender issues, don't create divisions between defensive and transformative activists, and most importantly, don't succumb to fear. Don't surrender disobey. Realize that nobody is going to win this by themselves. Realize that through collective action and persistent disobedience, we can not only defeat fascism but build something better in its place.
Hello, my name is Michael Albert and I am the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our 330th consecutive episode titled Resistance Do's and Don'ts, and I want to start with an article I recently had on Znet and on some other un-news, augmented with comments and reactions I will call them interjections that I insert as I now present the article here, and then I will add a kind of afterword as well, I think. So the article starts At times like these. Who am I kidding? When were there times like these? One wants to stay in bed, bury one's head, dream another dream, or perhaps to privately twist and shout. I interject, am I wrong? Some of you who hear this must be a bit like me in these regards. No, by the way, the twist and shout was an homage to the song, first from the Isley Brothers, later the Beatles, and you will have to perhaps bear with why. I thought the phrase was a good fit, signifying a sort of primal but only demonstrative reaction.
Speaker 1:The article continued. I'm not going to report what Trump and his lackeys are doing, nor even the ramifications of what they are doing. Yet again, such reports are abundant. More, the broader implications have also begun to register. Events are no longer just academic factoids. Implications have become felt, awareness. Our condition is serious. Our situation is spiraling. Trump and co are not fooling around. This is not a joke. I interject. I assume everyone who reads or hears this knows that my trying to convey information about Trump and company's actions or their threat would be redundant. Am I wrong about that? The article continues it's not dark yet, but we are getting there. So now what? The time has come. We must make choices. We must turn the tide. Do we bow and scrape? Do we ignore and act like nothing is happening, or do we stand and fight? I interject. Not dark yet is Dylan. Can't help myself sometimes. But do you think I have the three main choices right To submit, to ignore or to fight? The article continues if we cling to the world we knew, as if it is intact, much less worthy, that choice and it is a choice will not lead to a better world, but to a much worse one.
Speaker 1:Bernie Sanders has been speaking to major audiences in Trump territory to report trends and implications that are not yet widely known there and to emphasize that resignation is not an option. You can see him speak thusly on YouTube any time he says he gets the fear, he gets the depression. But he also says that to surrender in any form is just not an option. Too much is at stake. And if Sanders can fight, you can, I can, we all can. We don't have to bow and scrape. We must not ignore To stand and fight is our choice to make. But what constitutes to bow and scrape? What constitutes to stand and fight? What constitutes to balance grape? What constitutes to stand and fight? I interject when I wrote that Sanders was speaking to 3,000 and 4,000 at a stop. Now he, and AOC with him, are talking to 20,000 to 40,000 at a stop, and who knows how many they'll be talking to by the time you hear this. Sanders says to his audience suck it up. Yes, the times are fearful, yes, the danger is immense, but that is precisely why there is no room for resignation. It seems to me that what Sanders is saying is needed and absolutely right.
Speaker 1:The article continues what constitutes to stand and fight? Different strokes for different folks? There are countless. The article continues it is a profile in cowardice. Yes, boss, he says we will eliminate the EI. Yes, boss, he says we will prosecute any student you deem anti-Semitic. Yes, boss, he says we will welcome your agents to take our students away. Yes, boss, he says we will disparage, ostracize, expel and turn over for imprisonment any student who you deem a terrorist, even any student who you simply deem annoying to you. Yes, boss, I am a university president, I am master of my company and yes, boss, I am down on my knees. Don't hurt me, please. Is that your local president? If you need to hate something, hate that. There is no sugarcoating, outright collaboration with fascism.
Speaker 1:So suppose you were a student at this collaborator's institution of higher learning. Perhaps you were at Columbia University in New York City, for example. Or perhaps you were at a university that's next door, say NYU, or at one that's around the next bend, perhaps in illinois or wisconsin, perhaps northwestern. Or maybe you're at one on the western border, berkeley, say. Once the epicenter or free speech and your university may clamp down. Next, what do you do? Or even if your school isn't bowing and scraping, then, in solidarity with fellow students at one, that is, what do you do? I interject. I hope that question resonates. I fervently hope that at lots of campuses students are thinking, talking and deciding what to do, preparing to act visibly, militantly and collectively. Can I ask, are you?
Speaker 1:The article continues addressing students, preparatory to addressing others shortly. On the one hand, you feel a hyperbolically growing gut hostility toward collaborationist local bosses, local university presidents For academia to bow and scrape nauseates you. You twist and shout in your dorm room and even outside when walking in the shade of ivy walls. I interject. I hope I am right about students being seriously upset. I admit I do not know. But I also hope it will soon go beyond privately moaning, weeping and twisting and shouting. The article continues, and to feel angry is certainly a start. But you know, don't you, that for fighting back it is only a smidgen better than to deem outrage unseemly. So you don't choose to sleep late, you don't put your head down and go off to class like last week, like last year, as if now is like then.
Speaker 1:But if you aren't in denial and if you refuse to resign, how might you stand and fight? You want to reach your fellow students and combine your sentiments into a collective action. At first, if others aren't yet ready, you may have to act alone, or maybe with a roommate or a partner. So maybe you go to a class and stand up and request and even demand classroom attention to the crisis at hand. Maybe you put up a poster, hand out a notice.
Speaker 1:Initially you may take a solitary step, not just in your mind twisting and shouting, but in fact standing and fighting, though, by yourself or maybe with just a few others. You hope your choice will light a fire in some fellow student's engines. You hope your example will grow. Perhaps you then go door to door, dorm to dorm, talking, talking. You get steadily more confident. And next you stand up in a dining hall. You call for quiet. You talk about an occupation, a march, a strike, an encampment or whatever seems best suited to building momentum on your campus. You hope others relate right away, but if they don't, you repeat your move. And then you do it again and again, and soon you and others are organizing in classes and corridors. Meetings follow, spring knocks at your door, flowers bloom. This is when campus movements rise.
Speaker 1:This time one hopes to persist. You know you want it to happen, so why not make it so? You are not alone in your anger. You are not unique in your desires, but some few have to go first. Why not you? I interject, I was a bit presumptuous there, I guess, with the you know and you want it to happen assertion. But I can't stand the thought that students who might encounter this episode wouldn't hope for it to happen. I can't not hope that students will rebel as collaborationist administrations. The article continues now moving off campus.
Speaker 1:Suppose at your job, your owners show their true colors. Some may moan about MAGA, others may welcome it, but virtually all say okay, donald, we will extract more labor from whoever we don't jettison. We will ignore the ramifications for those we fire and for those our business or our department is supposed to serve. We will serve you, donald. First and foremost For some co-workers who bow and scrape, their obedience will arise from fear. They don't want fascism, but hey, they say it is not their place to buck the trend and at any rate they really don't want to risk repression. It's understandable, not really unreasonable, but not you. You don't bow, you don't scrape.
Speaker 1:Suppose you work in some department that Musk wishes to ravage or in some industry that ravages the planet. Now what? Fellow workers around you are increasingly angry but also scared. Fellow workers around you are tiptoeing. They don't want to get fired, they don't want to poke the Trumpian toddlers up top. I interject, is the description for some apt? I assume it is.
Speaker 1:The article continues All of that is understandable. But you, you heed Bernie's warning. You know to keep your head down will ensure total defeat. Maga in the saddle you ridden Musk fires half of your department, perhaps the education department, to assault not just dismissed workers but working America's next generation. What now? To just say, stop that, elon, is better than to be silent. To ask courts to intervene is another good step, but those steps alone are not likely to be enough.
Speaker 1:Trump and co are long marching through society's institutions, first here, then there. Environmental protection Screw it. Free health care, forget about it. Dei, science, education Slash, burn and reconstitute to suit orange man rule. They encounter a judicial obstacle? No big deal. They just tell more lies or, if need be, they temporarily shift to another topic, to another target, preparing to come back again later for the earlier target, having meanwhile become a little stronger. Or hell. They'll just disband offending courts Every time.
Speaker 1:They win anything at all, or they can even just claim they won something. They gloat, they strut, they rush to continue. They are insatiable. Do we get that now? Finally, they mean to dominate, and for us to bow and scrape will just feed their engine. They will keep coming. They can't be stopped by saying okay, boss. We have had enough, please stop. Not even by our twisting and shouting. They can only be stopped by unyielding, disobedient, non-compliant resistance.
Speaker 1:And such resistance can't be to just get back to what we endured before MAGA. That intent will be too ambivalent, too lacking in real hope to inspire sufficient commitment to turn back the Trumpian tide. What we endured before was already incredibly uninspiring. It led to MAGA. So our resistance has to plant seeds of something truly better. It has to evoke sustained support. It has to elicit effervescent energy for positive gains. It has to be so clearly positive that many Trump supporters begin to see that, hello, those gains are gains for us too. Trump is not my savior, trump is a lying fascist nightmare. I interject. Does that argument and assertion seem valid? Don't we need to fight for positive gains, not just to ward off imminent damage, but also to become committed to further change as well? And in doing so, can't we work? Thank you.
Speaker 1:The article continues in the campus example, when students get together to stand up to fight. Their effort will need to not only oppose MAGA and their local president's cowardice and the fears of all too many suddenly silent faculty and of some students too. It will need to have a forward-looking, positive component, sufficient to inspire real desire and sufficient to nurture real community. So students who organize in dorms, dining halls and corridors to march, occupy and encamp will need to also say here is what we want. We don't just reject fascism on campus, we don't just protect reason, evidence and science, immigrants, trans people and Palestinians. No, we students hereafter also intend to become active and even paramount participants in determining campus curriculum, culture, pedagogy, work and living conditions. This is our university, not Trump's, and not his local Stooges either.
Speaker 1:Okay, but what about workers in Musk-targeted departments, indeed workers in companies of any kind, from auto plants to warehouses, trucks to restaurants and hospitals to hospices? Talk about what is happening, talk about what needs to happen, organize against bosses and for workers. And when Musk says you are fired, you say hell, no, I won't go. And you don't leave. You come back to work the next day. First, maybe one or two disobey, but then there are a lot of you. The doors are locked so you can't get in. Fine, you sit and block those doors. You seek support from other workers in your department, in other departments and finally in other industries. You call your kids teachers, you call your hospitals nurses. You call the UAW. You call the Teamsters too. You ask for pickets, you ask for solidarity and later you will join them when they need it. The department you all shut down is DOGE itself, d-o-g-e itself.
Speaker 1:And finally you all start to ask what do we actually want? Not just to not be fired, not just to not have our efforts to help constituencies we serve blocked, but what positive changes do we want in our circumstances, in our salaries, in our lives? Time for some dignity? I interject Is that too much to hope for, to work for, to contribute to and to support? We are talking about a fascist takeover. Is there anything short of stopping it and then going further that we should settle for? The article continues.
Speaker 1:To stand and fight means to not comply, it means to disobey, it means to assert positive new desires. Maybe nurses take a first big step, maybe packers and assemblers, maybe public school teachers, maybe dishwashers and drivers, maybe students in college, in high school, younger still. This is all hands-on deck time. A few go first, then a few more soon. Many, I interject that is how change happens. Some participate earlier, others later. Will you go early or will you go later? The article continues. Look around, heads are already spinning, Heads will soon turn. It has already begun.
Speaker 1:If resistance disobeys with open ears to hear from those not yet on board and open arms to welcome those not yet committed. Resistance can even recruit angry Trumpers. They too don't want to be fired. They too want some real dignity. Their anger just needs a new focus. To stand and fight can recruit some Trumpers and end Trump. To stand and fight can recruit some angry techies and end Musk. And it can go much further, and it has to, because we have got to really register, to really feel, to really understand that this isn't just another fight, this isn't just another policy campaign.
Speaker 1:Trump has put the structure of society's institutions on the table. We have to remove Trumpism, but the fact that society's institutions are now in question is not itself to be undone. Rather, we need to give our own, vastly better answers regarding what to do about our horribly flawed institutions. It is time to start and then to continue to clean house, yes, but from the bottom up, not from Trump down. Time for our long march through society's institutions to begin. Resistance to things getting worse that has long march in mind. Resistance that is persistent but patient when need be. That is welcoming, but seriously and steadfastly militant when need be, that is geared to now but is ready for the long haul, and that is truly all for one and one for all will win. But less than that, less may surrender, and for us there must be no surrender. That was the end of the article, but for this episode.
Speaker 1:Having talked some about what we perhaps ought to do here are three things I would like to add here at the end that we certainly ought not do. One, we ought not attack being woke, where being woke means paying close attention to issues of race, gender, sexuality and also class and their intersections or entwinements. There's going to be a tendency, I fear, for people with one priority or another to begin to dismiss, or at least disregard, ill-regard, people with other priorities. We have to avoid that, and we certainly have to avoid getting stuck in complaining about paying attention to racism, paying attention to sexism and misogyny, paying attention to the situation of trans people, paying attention to the situation of workers. We have to address all of society's fundamental areas of concern. Two, we ought not attack those who resist by defending against Trump's attacks or by seeking immediate reforms to mitigate the pain as insufficiently radical, and we ought not attack those who resist Trump's horribly negative agenda now, but also urge the need for positive and fundamental change so as to get beyond returning to our prior status quo. We have to be steadfast, absolutely unyielding in protecting people who are attacked and structurally horrible changes that Trump and Musk and the rest pursue. But we also have to keep in mind that getting back to Democrats in office is not enough, getting back to pre-Trump is not enough, and those who do the former primarily should not attack those who do the latter, and those who do the latter, who have the latter heavily in mind, should not attack the former Three.
Speaker 1:We ought not succumb to fear. We ought not succumb to fear. We ought not succumb to fear. That is the path to disaster. That is the path to Trump and Musk and the other toadies feeling that they can do whatever they want and unleashing whatever they dream up because others will roll over. This is not a false possibility. This is what the administration at Columbia did. This is what the big law firm I forget the name of it right now, but you probably read about it the big law firm that rolled over under Trump pressure. We can't do that.
Speaker 1:The antidote to fear is disobeying. Disobeying can make us feel stronger. It can make us align ourselves with something other than protecting ourselves by giving in. Especially, the antidote is trying to act collectively. It is acting collectively, it is realizing that nobody is going to win this by themselves. No small group is going to win this, which is to say, stop Trump, stop fascism, by themselves. People are going to have to work together and that's going to involve compromises, it's going to involve circumstances that feel a little unusual, that feel a little uncomfortable, but we're all going to have to do that. If we do do that, if we do the good paths and we avoid the bad paths, beating Trump is not all that big a deal. He's a buffoon, his whole company of people. They're good at reading the room, so to speak, and they have practice at being bullies, but they are truly incompetent and they are not brilliant at coming up with plans. It's striking. I suppose it's a good thing for us that they're not better at what they're trying to do, but they're not, and overcoming them is more than possible. It is on the agenda. If we just stick to what we have to do, thinking it through, acting on it, welcoming people to join.
Speaker 1:It seems like we have some more time, and so why not include a song, the lyrics. That is, I think, perhaps the most underrated singer-songwriter during my lifetime. It may be Jackson Brown, an activist as well. Here is a song, a little too soon to say, written, I think, just a few years ago, but which could have been written today as a response from someone hearing the above episode and then asking well, okay, what's going to happen? Brown, now getting on in years, like many of us from way back then, sings I came for inspiration, I came looking for grace and found my reflection in every passing face and everyone who gathered standing on that shore searching the horizon, not knowing what exactly.
Speaker 1:For Searching the horizon for what we can't quite see, when all we've ever needed has been there all along. Inside of me, I want to see you holding out your light. I want to see you light the way, but whether everything will be all right, it's just a little too soon to say. I didn't find much wisdom when time was on my side. Too little information, too much time to decide. I took a couple of wrong turns. It only takes you one to send you down a lifetime of wondering what you might have done, searching for a lifetime for what you want to see, when all we've ever needed has been there all along inside of you and me. I want to see you holding out your light. I want to see you find your way Beyond the sirens and the broken night, beyond the sickness of our day and after what we've come to live with, I want to know if you're okay. We got to think it's going to be all right. It's a little too soon to say. I came for inspiration. I came looking for truth and joined in celebration the passing of my youth. We're here, but for a moment, and none of us can see beyond the horizon what kind of world this world will be Searching the horizon for what we hope to see, when all we've ever needed has been there all along inside of you and me. I want to see you holding out your light. I want to see your light the way beyond the sirens of the broken night, beyond the sickness of our day and after all we've come to live with, I want to know if you're okay. I want to think it's going to be all right. It's just a little too soon to say. And here is another song, this time from the fellow I introduced last time I think it was, but recently, at any rate, jesse Wells.
Speaker 1:God said unto Abraham take the Xanax bar, don't talk no more about all of the war and the cancer going on. Next day Abe thought he'd bring it up at the local town hall. He said that the air's hard to breathe and the water ain't clean. They said we're forwarding your call. He was on hold for three days straight. When Jesus picked up the line he said don't question the guns and if you want to have fun, just be grateful that I'm on your side.
Speaker 1:God made the planet man. Made the Xanax Elon. Get Mars ready. Saddle up a big-ass starship wagon, because the bars are too damn heavy. Jesus said I got a friend down at Pfizer. He helped my buddy Jordan Peterson. We'll get it in quick and we'll get you a script. You're going to love the diazepam. Jesus asked him when the head wound happened. He said it was somewhere in between a four-year degree and a wondering if Iraq had WMDs.
Speaker 1:Abraham prayed up to the Lord that night. He said Lord, what am I to do? All the bushes are burned and the money's been earned and the interest rates are through the roof. God made the planet. Man made the Xanax Elon. Get Mars ready. Saddle that big-ass starship wagon because the bars are too damn heavy.
Speaker 1:God sent an email in the morning when Abraham was all alone. Yeah, it buzzed so hard like they scared him to death. It sounded like a hootie drone. Thus the Lord emailed unto Abraham Go see your PCP. I know that insurance is high, but so am I, and you know you can trust me. When you're done, download my new app and go see my therapist. You're going to be fine. Take yourself a double SRI. Abe said God, if you insist. God made the planet. Man made the Xanax Elon. Get Mars ready. Saddle up a big-ass starship wagon, because the bars are too damn heavy.
Speaker 1:Abe went down to the vape shop while Jesus was resting his bones. He brought a very berry flavor and it gave him a cough, but it was better than a feeling alone. When he got home he decided to give that new app a look, and now Abe learned to dance and he's shaking his ass, but he forgot how to read a book. Abraham prayed up to the Lord that night. He said Lord, is P Diddy in trouble? God said you're getting it, abe. That's a good direction. Let's get that dose to a double. God made the planet man-made the Xanax Elon. Get Mars ready. Saddle up a big-ass starship wagon because the bars are too damn heavy. Okay, all that said, this is Michael Albert, signing off until next time for Revolution Z.