I wrote this before Cory Booker took a stand in the Senate. I wrote this before Senator Booker broke the record for the longest speech in Capitol Hill. I wrote this before he snatched the record from Strom Thurmond at nineteenth minute of his twenty-fourth hour, protesting not against a civil rights act, but a series of odious acts transgressing the rights of all Americans.

I think Booker did something worth talking about. I think there’s plenty still to criticize the Democratic party for not doing. But I think that without persons like Senator Booker showing out in the Senate, it is extremely difficult to inspire people to show out on the streets. And that’s what I want to do: invite my fellow Portlanders to join me and let us cause some good trouble together.

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I try not to be political as much as I can because I know people want a refuge from the turmoil, from the conflict.

In normal times this was fine, it was a matter of not wanting to stare at a supergiant star. It’s gravitational pull might have been eventually impossible to break free, it’s glare might have been blinding were you to gaze near it too long. But these are no longer normal times.

To all the ladies and gentlemen and folx in between: politics have gone supernova, and we are falling headlong into a supermassive black hole. You are living on the event horizon of a fascist government. I am too. And we as members of an American society are about to find out how just why this type of government is not worth it.

But just because life inside the black hole seems as apparent as it does inevitable does not mean you and I should not be doing everything we possibly can to fight for a course correction. The only alternative to trying to escape the black hole is to let it crush you.

To let it simultaneously string you out of shape and then compress you into nothingness. That is the paradox of fascist existence. The center cannot hold between a democratized populace and a monopolized economics system. An economics system become unitary with our political system.

There is no excuse at this rate. No excuse not to cancel your Amazon subscription, no excuse not to avoid Target or Walmart, no excuse to not cut out CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or whichever cable news channel you would watch. No excuse not to protest the current sociopolitical climate every possible minute one can.

All of these corporations have failed you. They’ve failed your families. They’ve failed our national interest as society of equals. Their cheap mass produced goods came at a cost greater than any pricetag could depict.

The corporate world does not operate within any moral or legal bounds to help maintain a harmonious society. In their resolute search for profit, they feed a speculative machine of gluttonous wealth while impoverishing everyday Americans with stress and beggary. They offload their side of the bill unto social systems and tilt scales towards demagogues who divide the many to profit the few.

Nothing what I have said is new. In the past year, I’ve come to find my basic political theory in Taoist philosophy. Not by choice, mind you, but by happenstance.

It should be no surprise that what is effectively a compilation of koans and proverbs through time would harbor thoughts on politics. Nor is there a lesson that espouses just one correct cure; the Tao Te Ching, in every translation, promotes thinking outside of the box. But there are two I have found illuminating to my sense of society as of recently.

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When kinship falls into discord,
piety and rites of devotion arise.
When the country falls into chaos,
official loyalists will appear;
patriotism is born.

-Chapter 18, Wayne Dyer translation

Dressing magnificently,
wearing a sharp sword,
stuffing oneself with food and drink,
amassing wealth to the extent of not knowing
what to do with it,
is being like a robber.

I say this pomp at the expense of others
is like the boasting of thieves after a looting.
This is not the Tao.

-Chapter 53, Wayne Dyer translation

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These two observations pierce the veil of time to let you know that yes, this has happened before and will likely happen again. As long as there is wealth, there are those who covet it. As long as there is authority, there will be those who pervert it. As long as there is a shortcut, there will be those who take it.

The thing is, philosophy is all good and well for finding your center. But once you find your center, you have to hold on to it. And when forces—be they man, God or government—try to dislodge you from it, that’s when you need to fight.

So in one hand I carry proverbs from the Tao—you may carry something else, whether a rosary like the Virgin Mary or a guitar like Woody Guthrie or just the stars and stripes themselves—and my other hand I keep open in invitation. It’s an invitation to not let the forces greater than us force compliance upon us.

You are not helpless. Within you resides the way of Heaven, the peace of broken bread, the richesse of laughter, the wrath of scorned plebeians, the grief of whalesong, of silence, of trees fallen, of history. But within all of these things hides the promise of helping hands.

Fascism dies when we build alternative support structures outside of authority. That’s why the current administration is working so hard to crush unions, defund community welfare, strip protections on national resources and jam the controls for the heart of the abyssal maw. They want despair and they want helplessness.

And thus my invitation to you: boycott these national chains, though it may be painful; shop local, though it may not be convenient; volunteer at a food bank, a shelter though it may not be fun; and if not for love of country, then for fellow human beings who struggle just as much, protest the injustice, meet and march with new people.

There are plenty of protests to occur; FiftyFiftyOne is a great resource to find them. The two I must mention are a protest on Saturday, April 5 and a general strike beginning on Thursday, May 1. I understand that these are short notice; it’s really hard to go on a general strike when living from paycheck to paycheck and the breath of oblivion seems to always be on your neck.

But it is still important not to despair when faced with a black hole. If nothing else, march, dance, help and let these virtues be your rage against the dying of the light. Let your joy be your act of resistance.

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