Birds of a feather, and loners. Time to share some the birds that hopped or flew across my way while in San Francisco, or simply hung out to be admired.
Looking at them will be the easy part. Reading assignments for today, on the other hand, will involve some effort, one, I PROMISE, that will be highly rewarded. Not a coincidence that I am posting some of my favorite subjects – the birds – after a particularly depressing day given the travesty of the new Supreme Court appointment, and offer readings that will help us battle our despondent states. Or so I hope.
The two authors I picked are birds of a feather in some ways – progressive, politically engaged, extremely talented writers who tackle the pressing issues of our time. Smart women with a laser focus on the topics of their choice, the legal system in one case, women’s issues in the other, both within the context of the history of power distribution in our country.
Dahlia Litwick has a background in Law (she holds a JD from Stanford and clerked for the 9th circuit Court of Appeals) and writes for publication as diverse as Newsweek, The New York Times Op-Ed page (as guest columnist) and Slate, where she is Senior editor. Her writing has developed over the years, becoming increasingly passionate, committed, but never shrill. Two years ago she received the prestigious Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism, deemed to be the best legal commentator in the last many decades. I could not agree more – I turn to her writing on a regular basis, both for the amount of information conveyed, the ease with which it enables me to digest complicated issues, and the cleverness of the way she creates concepts that feel intuitively like perfect descriptions of a given situation.
Case in point: Litwick’s latest essay talks about the mechanisms in which current power distributions both within the legal system and the political realm at large have been cemented and simultaneously used to make us willing participants in a move towards minority rule. If you don’t have the time or energy to read her short piece, here is one excerpt that exemplifies what I mean:
If nobody in any position of authority feels the need to provide information, it’s a decent bet you aren’t in a functional democracy anymore. And I am not here to tell you how to fight the cynicism that comes with being lied to or told you can’t change anything. I am just here to note that the inchoate rage and despair are real, and that even the possible resounding defeat of Lindsey Graham in his race for his Senate seat may not be enough to cure it. I am also here to remind you that some of the reflexive reaction to the daily reminders of your own powerlessness—including your possible hopelessness, blame-shifting, and the ritual saying of “who cares”—really is the reaction they are trying to elicit. It is the object of the exercise. You’re now in the autocracy trainee program. Mitch McConnell’s court coup is designed not just to decrease your political power but to teach you that you should expect yet more political powerlessness. That is how they are trying to ensure that even though there are more of you than there are of them, it doesn’t matter and they still get to call the shots.
Autocracy training program: the perfect encapsulation of the goal to keep the citizenry in check. As she points out eventually, though, it’s up to us to refuse hopelessness. There are ways to resist.
This is a point that is echoed in Rebecca Traister‘s writing as well, the second author I’d like to introduce today. In fact, her most recent book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger is all about the ways of organizing resistance in these times. Writing for New York Magazine and its website The Cut, editing for Elle Magazine, and some years back interestingly also for the New Republic, Traister’s gift for analysis and her wit are equally sharp.
If you have time, DO read the attached article from yesterday’s The Cut. It is long, I know, and the real meat appears way into the description of all of the movements uniting to fight our slide into autocracy, not just the women’s movement. The author is at her best when she lays out the dangers and complications arising from the diverse strands of groups and ideologies who should, must unite to fight the onslaught onto our democracy. Her optimism is tempered by pessimism, which both reflects what so many of us are feeling, and also makes it hard reading because we are so brilliantly reminded of the mountains that need to be climbed, even if the election should produce a new and improved government.
Not to read these kinds of pieces, though, is exactly giving in to the danger that they point out: the fatigue, the helplessness, the retreat into passive lives. I know, I’m prodding. Yield already! Anyone who called on Obama to seat a judge on the US Supreme Court who is a cross between Rachel Maddow and Emma Goldman (in 2009 no less, anticipating what would eventually come true), is worth your time!
