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I recently learned that an old friend passed away. Carol was an old school hard nosed reporter fiercely dedicated to the truth and local journalism. I was deeply touched to see that, in lieu of flowers, her estate was suggesting donations to an organization that I helped start. So that means it’s time to retell the story of the Lompoc Theatre Project, a curious and enduring legacy of Occupy Wall Street colliding with hyper local politics and corruption.

The year is 2011 and I’m living in Lompoc, California. A sleepy town that boasts a Home Depot, a Wallmart, a federal prison, and a nearby air force base. For most residents it’s a bedroom community, with an hour commute (driving, of course, because the train tracks are just for show) either north or south for work. I’m living there for the same reason as so many others: it’s cheaper than the alternatives and money is tight.

I know people think of California as some kind of leftist haven, but smallish semi-rural towns are definitely not like that. When Occupy Wall street started to make headlines it felt very far away. Somehow, through the grapevine, my housemate and I heard that some folks were calling a meeting at the gazebo (yes, this is the kind of place that has “the gazebo,” it’s right by “the coffee shop”) to maybe do some kind of local Occupy. The two of us were the only scraggly anarchist types usually associated with Occupy. The rest were middle aged and older working and middle class liberals, no more than 10 of us total. We chatted about what had brought us there and possible next steps as it began to drizzle. People were super energized, but for most of them this whole kind of scene was an absolutely new thing. My housemate and I were wary of potential tension between our more radical background and this more polite crowd. But it turned out that they were excited to learn from us about this “consensus” thing they had heard about on the news and what followed was some of the most productive coalition building and collaboration I have ever been part of.

We knew we didn’t have the numbers or commitment to do a full on permanent Occupy. So we opted instead for a weekly presence on Saturday mornings, along with an occasional General Assembly planning meeting generously hosted by a local church. There was a very obvious place for our Occupy. Right at the main crossroads in town (it’s kitty corner from the coffee shop, and where you turn right after you come from the Home Depot to head up to the Wallmart) was—and still is today—an empty lot. The fact that a corner in the middle of what should be the downtown is a huge empty weed filled lot tells you everything you need to know about Lompoc. So that’s where we stood every Saturday morning. We held up signs, hosted a Really Really Free Market one week, had a potluck another, and did our best to build community and show that even in Lompoc the ideals of Occupy had a home. Then something very strange happened…

On December 17th (2011) Some cops showed up and told us we had to leave because we were trespassing and the owner of the lot wanted us gone. Again, this was an empty lot without any fence around it or anything¹. But that wasn’t the strange part. We of course immediately started trying to figure out how to respond, including trying to figure out who this owner was that had decided, after two months(!) of us hanging out for a couple of hours every Saturday morning, that we were trespassing. The cops who evicted us were not forthcoming. But, after some sleuthing, cajoling, and polling of local contacts we learned that the empty lot used to be, back in the day, a gas station. And it was the former owner of that gas station who had called the cops on us. Except—and this is where this story takes a whole new turn—we also discovered that according to official records they weren’t the owner of the lot. The owner was actually the City of Lompoc … sort of.

I’m going to do my best to explain this next part succinctly, just keep in mind that IRL this took a lot of research, document requests, city council meetings, phone calls, and tedious work to piece together. This is also when I met Carol, the semi-retired journalist but still committed to old fashioned muckracking. While I worked at this from the activist angle, she doggedly worked at it from the journalistic angle. She was always careful to maintain her independence as a reporter but we would regularly share our discoveries and progress with each other and developed a deep respect and friendship for each other. Ok, so, what exactly did we uncover about our humble empty lot? (And what does that have to do with a theater?)

The story revolves around the scandal plagued, and at the time recently bankrupt, Lompoc Housing and Community Development Corporation (LHCDC). But to understand what the LHCDC was we have to understand two types of tax mechanism used in the U.S., one for low income housing and the other for redevelopment. Both are essentially ways for the government to privatize its responsibilities.

For low income housing, a non-profit partners with a for-profit developer. In exchange for building a low income project the for-profit developer gets tax credits, which they can either use themselves or resell on an exchange market. The non-profit then administers the project, acting essentially as the landlord. The non-profit will usually rely on grants from the city to subsidies their work. Many of those grants are actually state or federal money, and the city is only distributing them. Except, often the grants are actually loans. If everyone follows the rules and does what they say they will, they are automatically forgiven—i.e. converted from a loan to a grant—but otherwise they need to be repaid. So that means, if the non-profit fucks up the city can suddenly be liable to the state or federal government. And yes, all of this is needlessly complicated and indirect and bureaucratic. Welcome to U.S. politics where no one wants to actually do nice things for the public, and instead shifts and hides responsibility behind layers of privatization because the government actually doing stuff is Bad™.

That’s where the LHCDC came from. LHCDC started out as LHC, the Lompoc Housing Corporation, whose job it was to be the main non-profit in town administering low income housing projects and homeless shelters. So it’s essentially performing a government function—most of its money came via the city—, but as a semi-private non-profit…very useful for evading oversight. Maybe you see where this is going? But before we get there I have to explain what a redevelopment agency is.

Before 2012 California had something called Redevelopment Agencies. They were meant as a way for cities to invest in faltering neighborhoods and spruce them up. They relied on something called tax increment financing. Say you have a part of town that is run down. It’s not easy to attract new development or investment because financing is seen as too risky; property values are low, making them poor collateral, and the risk of the area not taking off is too high. But, if a project were to succeed, property values would go up and with them tax revenue for the city. The basic idea is to secure loans based on that expected future tax revenue. But, because this is the U.S., the city doesn’t do that directly. Instead, they partner with a private organization, the redevelopment agency. The city then promises that all future increases in tax revenue from a designated geographic area (the “blighted” neighborhood) will go not to the city like normal but to the (private) redevelopment agency. The redevelopment agency then uses that promise of future tax money to secure the loans it needs to carry out its building projects, while also gaining access to state and federal grants and to favorably financing terms.

At some point the LHC decided to add “Community Development” to its name, becoming the LHCDC and adding to its portfolio the role of Redevelopment Agency for the city of Lompoc. In retrospect, at this point behind the scenes things had probably already started to go horribly wrong. To this day we don’t know to what extent simple incompetence, disdain for the poor they were supposed to serve, or criminal embezzlement are to blame but the LHCDC was in deep financial trouble. The expansion into redevelopment was probably driven by a desperate attempt to find new revenue streams. Whether they actually thought they could pull it off and then back fill the hole in the housing side, or if it was a grift from day one I honestly don’t know. But either way the LHCDC started buying up property in Lompoc with the promise of shiny new projects. They even made architectural renderings for some of them. But none of them ever went anywhere. Instead the LHCDC went bankrupt.

I’ll get to the theater in a moment, I promise, but I want to make sure you understand what LHCDC going bankrupt meant for the community. They had already been dropping the ball for years before this (and the complete lack of oversight from the city and the county is another part of this story). Residents of the low income housing projects LHCDC was supposed to be administering had been complaining that needed repairs were slow, shoddy, or nonexistent. Rent was routinely overcharged. There was never anyone to talk to about the problems. And some even had no choice but to move out and find market rate homes they couldn’t really afford because the issues were so serious. When the LHCDC went bankrupt the residents who had remained were left completely in the lurch. The local homeless shelter also abruptly shut down and was saddled with massive debt. And remember those state and federal grants that were structured as loans? The city was now on the hook for millions of dollars.

You would think the city would be angry about that, and one of the city council members was. But, the reason we never learned the whole story of what happened, or where the money went, is that the Lompoc City Council deliberately dragged its feet when it came to demanding a forensic audit, collaborating with the grand jury, and generally demanding accountability. I can’t entirely tell you why, but the conspiracy cork board of head-shots and tangled yarn connecting all of the people involved, both within the LHCDC and multiple levels of local government, would be deemed implausible for even the cheapest Hollywood blockbuster. At this point the money is long gone and the damage done.

The worst damage of LHCDC’s not so innocent collapse definitely fell on those who had been relying on them for their housing. But, there were also all those properties it had bought up with shiny promises of redevelopment. One of those was a big, weed filled, empty lot right in the middle of town … right where Occupy Lompoc had been gathering every Saturday morning. They bought the lot from the gas station guy. He genuinely seemed to think that because the LHCDC had folded, and had never fully paid down the loan they took out for the lot, that it had reverted back to him. But that turned out to not be entirely correct. Because of the structure of redevelopment agencies and the nature of the loans and grants LHCDC had used the city of Lompoc actually held the controlling lien on the property. Except, the city didn’t know that until we, Occupy Lompoc backed by Carol’s investigative reporting, informed them; that’s how shoddy the oversight was and how actively uninterested they were in looking into anything related to LHCDC. We had started digging to understand who was kicking us off our Occupy spot and to whom we might able to appeal, and we ended up uncovering a much, much, bigger mess.

But there was one more surprise. The LHCDC hadn’t just bought the empty lot, they had also bought the derelict building right next to it: the former Lompoc Theatre! I’ll the let the Lompoc Theatre Project explain the history of the building, but basically it was a historic theater that closed down in 1975 and was just sitting there empty. It needed a lot of renovation work, and also had accumulated a hefty unpaid property tax bill, but for all that still had the potential to be a strong social and community anchor for revitalizing Lompoc’s downtown. The city, however, did not see it that way. To them it was all just a nuisance. We tried appealing to their better nature at city council meetings, but, well, you can imagine how that went.

At this point it was more than a year after that first drizzly meeting at the gazebo. Occupy Lompoc had run its course. But, the friendships, connections, trust, and skills developed during its run were still there. So we called another meeting, this time in someone’s living room, to discuss what could maybe done about the theater. That was the start of the Lompoc Theatre Project—a group of folks trying to get the old theater back up and running because we ought to have nice things damn it. I no longer live in Lompoc but the Theatre project endures. They eventually took control of the building, paid the back taxes, raised money, and have begun work on the long overdue renovations. Hopefully one day the theater will be the community hot spot Lompoc deserves.

And lastly, some of this history I am recalling from memory. But, a lot of it I had to double check and fill in missing pieces, which I was able to do thanks to Carol’s tireless work and the many invaluable articles in the local newspaper she has left behind. Thank you Carol.

P.S. You may been wondering why it’s the Lompoc Theatre Project and not the the Lompoc Theater Project. Well, that was the one condition the former owners, the Calverts, made for their support when Carol and I went to meet them. Needless to say the city hadn’t told them that any of this was going on. We chatted with them around their kitchen table and they told us stories about how popular the place was back in the day. His family had always written it theatre so it was important to him that it stay that way. That’s what organizing looks like sometimes, not big sexy protests but meeting with folks you wouldn’t normally talk to (I doubt our politics aligned on anything else) and seeing if you can put together a coalition to do some good.

The European Comisssion is asking for public input on their plans to update the current rail passenger rights legislation. The window for that ends tomorrow!

Cross border rail travel often requires combining tickets from multiple different rail operators. Because of this, when passengers miss connections because of delays or disruptions no one is held responsible for helping them get back on their way, unlike for example with air travel. The European Commission wants to change the rules to address this. Their proposal is that any journey bought as a single transaction on a ticket platform—even if it is made up of multiple tickets from different operators—should count as a through-ticket, and thus be afforded the appropriate passenger rights.

This is a step in the right direction and would be an improvement over the current situation, but it also it isn't enough. Not all journeys can be currently purchased as a single transaction.

I think it's important that the EU hears from us that (1) this is issue is something that we care about, (2) Their proposal would meaningfully improve #CrossBorderRail in Europe, and (3) it's only the minimum and should be adopted and built upon even further in the future.

If you are seeing this before September 22, 2025 you should go give your own feedback!

Here is what I wrote:

As a frequent user of cross border rail in Europe, for work, to visit family, and exploration of our shared continent I (unfortunately) have first hand experience with the shortcomings of the current ticking situation. The proposed changes are an important step in the right direction and would make a real and meaningful difference for us, the passengers. However, while necessary, they are only the bare minimum.

There is still work to be done to ensure that it actually becomes possible to purchase most trips as a single transaction on a ticket platform. And even then, there will be journeys where purchasing tickets in a single transaction is not possible for technical reasons such as how they are sold or when they become available, or because of the use of local discount cards, etc., for which this narrow approach is simply insufficient.

I hope that a strong and robust version of the current proposal is enacted and can be used as a basis for further legislation in the future.

And here are takes from some other folks:

• Thoughts from Jon Worth
• Oliver Blanthorn’s comment
• Cycle-on-Rail’s feedback

I like Eurovision. I have very fond memories of Eurovision. I am also deeply pained by Israel's participation and Moroccanoil’s sponsorship of Eurovison. What to do with this? I can boycott, of course. Just not watch. Simple and just. But I also want to take a moment on what is lost. It's not just a fun and silly night with friends. It's the way that the global seeping horror of the neo-fascists steal our joy, how they corrupt and degrade our social spaces and interactions, how we are increasingly left with the no-win choice of staying or leaving (twitter, eurovision, the country, etc.) as everything feels icky and principals feel empty. So I can not watch. I can even come up with some counter programming with friends and have a joyous evening. But the next morning what will I chat about with folks at the coffee shop, the gym, the neighbor on the stairs, and all the other small human interactions that knit together the social web? I will have to explain why I didn't watch then. I will have to play all my cards and hope and even though the stakes are low (this time) suddenly I'm forced to play a game I maybe wasn't up for.

It's a hallmark of fascism, as opposed to just regular right-wingism, that it seeks to colonize and pervade the social sphere. Youth groups, sports teams, social clubs of every kind, are all subsumed, made complicit, tainted. And again, you can refuse, but I'm trying to highlight what that means. Sometimes it means clear consequences, like Stan Cullis getting cut from the team for refusing to give the Nazi salute in 1938 Berlin as part of the English national football team. But often it's quieter, the quiet separation from your neighbor, coworker, friends. Forcing that separation is part of the point, of course, forcing a constant you're either with us or against us system at every level of society, even—or especially—when the stakes seem low. All of which is to say I'm angry. I'm angry at this feeling that they are taking Eurovision—riotous, campy, pan-European, and just plain fun Eurovision—away from us and angry at the feeling of impotence that the most I can do is not watch. This is shit. This is bullshit. This is the fascism we face and that we have to deal with together.

I feel the need to add a small anecdote. I was a 12 year old kid living in Jerusalem when Dana International won in 1998. It was a big, huge, massive, deal. Already then, and even as a kid, there was a feeling that the ultra-nationalist religious right was taking over the country. Now, as an adult with a more sober analysis of history and ideology I can look back and say that already then, and already in 1948, and likely already before, it was too late and Zionism wasn't so much tainted as inherently shit…but I digress. In 1998, as a secular kid living in Jerusalem (but not from Israel originally, life and nationality are complicated), there was a real feeling that the enemy was the religious right. Friends were already thinking about the army and then you saw some Haredi kid across the street who would never have to serve. The politics of the day was dominated by Aryeh Deri & all that nonsense. Fights about Shabbat street closures regularly led to Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at passing cars.

And then…

A trans woman representing Israel won Eurovision! And singing in a Mizrachi style too! (kind of/sort of a similar dynamic to Lil Nas X making it big with a country song). And Jerusalem was going to host all that queer camp goodness with Dana at the center of attention! It felt really good.

After all that it's only fair that I give you with a glorious Eurovison entry, so here is Croatia from 2023 with ŠČ.

I should highlight one more thing: capitalism. Part of what makes boycotting things like Eurovision or the World Cup so hard is that while one the one hand they are owned and driven by monied interests, they also belong to and are given life by us, the fans, the community, the social relationships and connections that are the real reason we care about any of it. This goes back to what I was saying about how it's not just that it sucks to not enjoy watching Eurovision but that it sucks to not talk about it with friends afterwards. But it's worse than that because boycotting means facing up to the fact that we never really owned Eurovision to begin with—even though it's our love for it that gives it value. It's a bit (and I mean this in a hand wave-y metaphor way) like the worker who suddenly can't take the means of production with them when they quit. This duality is even more striking with football. It's absolute bullshit that the beautiful game has been taken hostage by FIFA, sponsorships, sports washing, etc. And it hurts that no matter how much we love, not just the game but the fandom, the community and the connections, that we can't just yank it back from the smug suites in the VIP lounge selling our passion to the highest bidder. We can build and support parallel alternatives, of course, but that doesn't entirely alleviate the pain.

I put together alternative haggadah for Passover. It aims to be radical, revolutionary, and subversive. It is 100% functional and you can use it, just as you would any other haggadah, to guide you through a Passover Seder. It follows all the same steps in the same order. But your Seder will not be the same.

You can download it right here!

The afterword explains in more detail the thinking that went into putting it together. You can, of course, use it as is or remix it for your own needs.

In the violin world when people ask questions like “how do I maintain motivation to keep practicing?” the answer is: habits are better than motivation. Instead of relying on motivation or inspiration to hit, you should make a plan, have a routine, build the habit of practicing day in day out. Politics are the same. When folks ask "how do we get people to care?" the answer is: culture and ideology are better than individual feelings. Instead of hoping people feel moved to act on a specific topic we need to build norms, and yes, habits.

Part of the power of unions is inculcating that culture and identity of “we are union people, which means we show up in solidarity when shit goes down.” Part of the power of anarchism is that you have a ready ideological framework for understanding power and don't have to reanalyze every new situation from scratch. You know what side you're on. You know what to do. You’ve practiced this with your friends.

I know the pervasive Liberalism of our age makes many uncomfortable with this idea. A call for constructing “the human nature of the revolutionary,” or whatever, sound hopelessly outdated. People like to seem themselves as approaching everything with an open mind and thinking for themselves. But that’s a trap. Having the right “hot take” isn’t politics. That’s how you end up arguing about Musk’s Nazi salute is a true reflection of his interiority and whether to be kind to people who voted for Trump and generally feeling overwhelmed, paralyzed, and isolated.

When shit gets real you need to have community and habits to fall back on. You get there by building a shared culture of resistance where norms and practices have become not just second nature but, yes, the new human nature of the revolutionary.

… or why make yet another one?

This is the draft afterword to the alternative haggadah I am working on putting together. It’s also a very roundabout start at saying more about social magic and its role in politics.

The short answer is because we needed one. But haggadahs are no place for short answers. So … do you know the old joke about the Jew who went to sea? They were caught in a shipwreck and marooned all alone on an island. Finally, many years later, a mighty ship with an unfurled sail showed up to rescue them and bring them forth from the island. Before leaving, the old Jew offers to give the captain and crew a tour of the island and show how they had been living all this time. They show off the hut they built, their favorite fishing spot, the best tree for taking nap under, the clever tools they had fashioned, and so on. “And these,” proudly gesturing to a cluster of modest but sturdy structures, “are the three synagogues I built.” The captain and crew are a bit confused. Why three? “Are you very religious?” they ask. “Not at all,” the old Jew replies, “I usually only attend services during the high holidays.” So why three? “This first one, this one here, is the synagogue I go to when I do attend. That one over there, well, I used to go there but I got into an argument,” they continue as a flash of true anger passes over their face, “and I won’t be going back there again.” And the third? Did you quarrel with them as well? “Oh no!” they exclaim with just a hint of smug self righteous satisfaction, “That’s the synagogue that I would never ever go to!”

So when I say we put this together because we needed one, it’s not because we didn’t have any haggadahs on our bookshelves. We have traditional haggadahs and alternative ones; very old and very new; texts full of dense commentary and simplified ones for children; beautifully printed and bound editions and lovingly mimeographed and stapled exemplars; at least four languages and in general just plenty of options. But, like the Jew on the island, we still needed to build our own.

Partially, of course, we wanted texts and references that resonated for our own time and place. Ursula K. LeGuin and Walter Benjamin are touchstones for us. You probably have your own. There is nothing universal about this haggadah. That’s also why we followed the long standing tradition of naming haggadahs after a place (e.g. Sarajevo, Amsterdam, Washington), to emphasis that it’s is a product of context. We created this when we lived in Southern California and, even though we all live elsewhere now, this haggadah is still of then and there. Plus, I also like how easy it is to accidentally refer to it as the “so called” haggadah.

But this is not just an exercise in localization. Even the most traditional seder, one that follows the text to the letter, has plenty of room to for additions as the participants contribute ex tempore commentary that forges connections to their present. After all, connecting past to present is at the core of the seder. And it’s also not that we went beyond addition and into subtraction. I mean, we did. We took out most of the bits with god and all of the bits with odious ethno-nationalism, which together are quite a lot of the bits to be honest. But the point wasn’t to just end up with a haggadah “light”, one that is striped of all the religiosity we happen to not like, keeps the rest, and then leaves the whole evening nothing more than a thin morality play that confirms what we already want to be true. Because it’s precisely the evening as a whole that is important.

Focusing on the written text of the haggadah, looking at it primarily as a story, misses something very important. It treats the haggadah as a narrative that is read when it’s actually a magic spell that is enacted. It is a magic spell in that it is a manual for the performance of a ritual, the ritual of the seder as a whole. And we really do mean magical ritual in the most literal sense. Everyone knows what it takes to cast a spell. You draw your sacred circle. You put in your magical items. You follow the steps and say the magic words of the spell. Sitting around the table together is our circle. The seder plate and everything on it are the magical items. The order of the seder are the steps, and the words of the haggadah are the spells and incantations.

We realize that this runs somewhat counter to how haggadahs—including this one!—often present themselves. Alternative haggadahs in particular like to frame themselves as telling the story of liberation. Telling the story is supposed to serve as a reminder, bear witness, and be a celebration of the past. They hope to raise awareness and morale. To do this, to emphasize their new exegesis, they go about their work like a musician playing a variation on a theme. But we, to tap into the power of the traditional haggadah while creating our own magic, looked for a contrapuntal line to the original. And, to be clear, that power does not come from any inherent truth or true tradition but entirely from the thick accretion of years, community, and reenactment. What this meant in practice was that we had to move according the rules of magic-logic. That’s why we were careful to follow the structure of the haggadah closely. We grappled with the purpose of each step of the ritual, what its role and function was in the proceedings. We meditated on what the spells invoked and manifested. And we tried to carefully craft not just the text of the haggadah but the experience of the participants who would perform it.

And it was important to get it right because this magic is powerful. For us, the seder is a ritual that prepares us for revolution. It’s an act of communal magic that, if successful, fundamentally transfigures us. Through the creation and manipulation of a symbolic structure we hope to change our collective consciousness. But, the truth is, like many great conjurings, we’re not actually entirely sure ahead of time what form the result will take. The future revolution is behind a veil that only a leap of magic can pierce.

Magic is dangerous like that.

The bad faith slippage of moderation = censorship rests on the fundamentally mistaken conception of moderation as the use of rules to decide what content is allowed and what content should be removed.

The problem of moderation—in this (mistaken) conception—then becomes “fairness,” situated either in the rule creation and/or rule application. From here also stems the temptation for a quick technological fix, since technocrats inherently peddle the myth that a technical approach can transcend human messiness and thus be “fair”. But that isn't even the biggest issue.

The bigger issue is that by focusing on the rules moderation becomes entirely oriented towards the individual. Moderation becomes the judging of individuals and their actions according to the rules to determine whether content can stay or must go. Not incidentally this is also what liberal, and especially libertarian, ideology gets wrong about how society works.

Because that’s not what moderation is at all. Moderation is about structuring a space to allow for the community you want. You don’t moderate for individuals, you moderate for the group. The reason for taking an action as moderator isn’t because someone is guilty of breaking the rules but because of how they are affecting the community. This is a fundamentally different guiding principle for moderation. (And also points to the limitations of so many online moderating tools that only focus on removal/limiting who can see what.)

I’ll give just one, very innocuous and apolitical, example. I am a mod on reddit for r/violinist. We have rules and procedures around asking questions that are addressed in the FAQ and are sometimes very strict about it. People then complain that we have unjustly removed their perfectly legitimate question. And, that’s sort of true. There is nothing inherently bad about asking “can you help me pick my first violin?” … except when you’re the Nth person to ask that day and the stream of similar questions is making it difficult regular community members to engage in meaningful and helpful conversation.

This is of course true beyond online spaces. We are always making decisions about how to structure spaces to allow for the people and interactions we want. Thinking of moderation this way helps us escape the trap of focusing on rules and slipping into conversations about censorship. I think it also invites us to rethink a little what we want our online spaces to look like and how we want them to function.

I have been putting my old zines up on my website. Today it's the turn of “Theory Head № 1” … a short zine about the role of theory in the struggle for social change.

I put this together back in grad school to try to explain to my anarchist punks friends why I thought bothering with theory was worth it. As a zine, I still really like it! It's pretty and coherent and satisfying. And, I still think analysis and reflection are important. But, I also think I was far too kind to the world of theory. A lot of it is wordy milquetoast. Instead of offering this to my friends as a defense of theory I should have turned to fellow theory heads and challenged them to do better.

Anyway, here it is for you to enjoy.

I’m seeing a lot posts from folks in the US-sphere about how to “prepare” for the next four years. And they’re mostly good, (though, not entirely¹) and folks are right to fear what may come. For a lot of folks the coming years are going to be hell; let’s call that category 1. But, in a way, I’m more afraid that, for many nothing, will come at all, or at least only very little will change for them. I don’t mean the rich and racist who are salivating for future horrors; let’s call that category 3. I mean all the folks who with a small shrug and a bit of adaptation will blithely and happily continue along with their lives. This is category 2. The thing is, I strongly suspect that a lot of folks (not everyone; I’m not saying that at all) posting, reading, thinking about “preparing” actually fall into this second category, even though they might think they are in the first.

I think a lot of folks are going to be all geared and gussied up to fight fascism and then find that it has come in the night to beat up some folks in that other neighborhood (you know the one) and they at most heard some sirens in the night. I think folks are so focused on being prepared, on their own safety, on knowing how to react, on being the target that they’re going to miss the fact that fascism might not care about them all that much. A story my Grandmother used to tell was that after the war ended a neighbor a few doors down knocked on their door and said proudly (smugly?) “I knew what you were doing and I didn’t rat you out to the Germans.” and my Grandmother politely said “thank you” but in her mind was thinking “That’s the absolute bare minimum you asshole [I’m paraphrasing here]; that’s not being part of the resistance. That doesn’t make you one of the good ones.”

I’m not saying bad shit isn’t going to happen and lots of folks aren’t going to get hurt. That is definitely going to happen. But, well, for example. You’re book club isn’t going to pick Trump’s “Stories of True Patriots™”…but it only has 4 members. The local church, a nice normal church, might though because Lucy really wants to, and the President did ask everyone to read it, and what’s one book to stay friends with Lucy? You aren’t part of that church. What are you going to do about it?

I’m glad so many folks are interested and eager to think about the work ahead. I really am! And I’m not offering a full blown solutions here, which is a weak-sauce cop-out, I know. But I would like to offer one small correction and one small addition to the present discourse. First, yes be prepared but be realistic about what you—you specifically—are actually going to face. Second, to that end, look more closely at how historical and present day fascist and totalitarian states operate. Present day Hungary and India, recently Philippines and Poland, historically East Germany and Portugal are all good examples. Unfortunately there are many. The scenes that play in the popular imagination of jackbooted thugs smashing down your door and sending you to a camp to die the day after you dared say “the Leader is a poo-poo head” are … simplistic. Those regimes are/were scary and awful as fuck. But also more complex and janky than a Hollywood hero movie.

And now this post is starting to veer into what fascism actually is and isn't and how it's not just anything ultra conservative or any big shot who wants to be a dictator but a specific combination of the two that has love of Power (with a specific capital P) combined with a totalitarian outlook, and totalitarian not just in the political sphere but also the cultural, civic, and social sphere which I think we haven't seen play out in the U.S. to the same extent yet.

But that's not what I wanted to say today! I just wanted to say (tl;dr:) I’m glad y’all are thinking about how to prepare but just keep in mind they might not actually be coming for you, or even your next door neighbor, and certainly not necessarily in an overt show of force way and you should also be ready to handle a thousand soft choices while the black shirts are terrorizing that other neighborhood (you know the one) and do you actually know anyone over there? Because—and be honest with yourself about this—your neighborhood might actually continue unscathed for a good while yet. That’s one of the scariest things about fascism.

My grandparents were in the resistance during WWII. They mostly forged and printed identity documents and ration cards. At the end of 1944 they produced a booklet containing a short story by Vikenty Veresaev called «The Star». A few years ago I translated it from their Dutch edition into English. And now you can read it too. I don't entirely understand why, in such a dark hour, they chose to use precious resources to share this particular haunting story.

• The Star — screen
• The Star — print