Timothy Snyder's post

NOTE:  This is something that was circulating on Facebook, which is very ephemeral.  I knew I was going to want to go back and read it again so I thought I would post it here to save it.  

Here is what I copied: 

"Tuesday, on Facebook, Yale historian and Holocaust expert Timothy Snyder wrote: "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so." Snyder's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (which includes former Secretaries of State), and consults on political situations around the globe.

He says, "Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of "our institutions" unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of "terrorism" and "extremism." Be alive to the fatal notions of "exception" and "emergency." Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it."
ETA: Feel free to share, but please copy+ paste into your own status or else it will not be viewable to all of your friends."

Strategic Plan for Spending my Schole

Schole is an Hellenic term, most often translated as "leisure" but what it really means is that time in which you are not consumed with the necessary business of life.  It is the time outside of working; getting ready for work; coming home from work; cooking; cleaning, eating; taking care of children and elders; taking care of your body...which includes sleeping, exercising, and resting; shopping; errands; paying bills...all of the things that are necessary.

Aristotle said that how we spend our schole determines our character.  I believe he is exactly right.  Do we spend our schole in dedication to our polis and/or improving ourselves?  Is it meaningful?

I am currently going through a major audit of how I am spending my schole and making a plan to use it more effectively.

On an average work day, I have about 2.5 hours of schole, including 1/2 hour in the morning. I may be able to squeeze in 3 if I cut back on sleep or manage some efficiencies somewhere else.

So, here is my current game plan.

• 1 hour a day on something that feeds my soul.
• 1 hour a day of service to Apollon and Athena
• 1 hour a day doing something for the resistance

At the end of each day, I am going to write in a little book that I carry with me:

1.  What I did to feed my soul

2.  What I did to be of service to Apollon and Athena

3.  What I did for the resistance

I am going to keep an ongoing list of the things that I need to do so that I will have it to come back to.  I will ensure that every day there is something in each of those three categories.  And I will not beat myself up if it doesn't end up being a full hour each day...but I will be sure to have something in each of the three.  

And I will get far more ruthless about how I use my time.

Why I will wear a safety pin

For anyone who somehow missed it:

In WWII the Dutch resistance wore safety pins as a sign to Jews in their midst that they stood in solidarity with them.

After the rise of hate crimes in the UK following the Brexit, people wore safety pins to show their solidarity with vulnerable populations.

In light of the rise of hate crimes following the election of Donald Trump, many people are wearing safety pins to demonstrate that if a vulnerable person feels threatened, they are ready to step in and intervene.  It is a symbolic pledge.

Now, there is a counter-camp that is angry and says that this is just about privileged people making themselves feel better and people who are wearing safety pins should be taking more practical action...as if these are mutually exclusive conditions.  While I get the anger, functionally, I find this to be a destructive approach.  This is why I will wear a safety pin.

1. Symbolic action matters.  Symbolic action, when taken, increases commitment by making it a public display.  It increases the likelihood of taking risks to enact the values behind the symbols.  Any scholar of religion can tell you this.
2. Shared symbolic action builds a sense of cohesion, commitment, and again...increases the likelihood of taking action in alignment with the values behind the symbols.  So, me wearing my safety pin does not only functionally increase my commitment...anyone seeing my safety pin in alignment with their values, it increases their commitment.
3. Deterrence.  If someone is being harassed, are they going to look for a safety pin?  Probably not.  But if someone is the kind of person who is going to harass others, who is feeling emboldened by the symbolic silent majority who did not show up on the polls but who voted for Trump and are now thinking "this country is filled with silent people who have my back if I lash out against this 'other'" then seeing safety pins tells them that, in fact, they are not surrounded by others who agree with them.  Imagine, for example, a woman in a hijab is on the bus and a hate-filled person is about to harass her.  S/he may think that everyone secretly hates Muslims and s/he is just giving voice to what everyone else thinks.  Emboldened, s/he attacks.  Now imagine s/he looks around and sees 8 or 9 people on that bus wearing safety pins.  People who clearly don't agree and have, in theory, made a pledge to step in.  S/he might think twice.  This is why I also think the protests right now are important.  It is important to be visible.

So, I will wear my safety pin and I will take that pledge seriously.  I will be visible in what I stand for.  I encourage everyone to do the same.

And now...the Resistance

The United States just elected Donald Trump and his platform, built on hate and destruction.  Our first and best line of defense was to elect Hillary Clinton.  That effort failed.  For those of us who care about and love:

• Our sacred planet
• People of color
• Immigrants
• LGBT people
• Muslims
• People with disabilities
• Women's rights (even though a good chunk of White women voted against them..but many of us did not)
• Adherents of minority religions

Our job now is to consolidate and build the resistance.  The outcome is unclear.  It is, in fact, totally up to us.

However, I am also a witch.  In times of great turmoil, in times when we are standing on the threshold of disaster...and make no mistake...that is where we are...in these times, we can also break some of our chains that we maybe didn't even realize that we had.

I am now going to begin using this little blog to organize information relevant to building the resistance.  Many of us have been doing a lot of Facebook.  That is ephemeral.  We won't be able to find it later.  I am going to start putting it here.

I have some immediate principles that I am going to get down now.

1. We must face the world as it actually is.  We cannot hide behind fantasy.  Don't let hope keep you from planning.
2. No one is going to save us.  It is up to us.
3. This is not a sprint.  Therefore we must consciously build our individual capacity and the capacity in our communities to keep going.  That means self-care and cultivating joy.  Grim determination only really works when it is an expression of love.  Most importantly...we need to be spending time with people, face to face and build our joy.  We will need it.
4. The way to play a dirty propaganda war is to get the opposition to turn on each other.  The left is prone to being manipulated in this way.  Analyze everything through the lens of functional analysis.  What does this or that piece, DO?  Before you write something or say something in a public forum, what does it DO?  If it undermines solidarity, don't give it your power.
5. Given the above, we all need to develop a pretty thick skin.  People who should be our allies will be manipulated.  When they are, disengage and follow your own conscience.  Don't give the sovereignty of your mind to anyone else.  People lash out in grief and pain.  If you feel yourself about to do it, go write in a diary...not on social media.
6. We can't let ourselves be made hate-full.  I am angry and I will do what I need to do to stop our nation from using its power to unleash hate, but I do not want the rights of others stripped away, even if I disagree with them.  If we become filled with hate ourselves, we lose.
7. Don't let yourself be gaslighted.  I have been told that I am acting hatefully.  I know that I'm not.  Denying Christians the ability to force their values on the rest of us is not denying them the ability to live by their values.  Standing up against hate and speaking out loudly against it is not hating the other side.  A minority is wielding the power of government with no checks and balances because the system is rigged in its favor.  Refusing to give into that does not make you a sore loser, hateful, or anything else.  Check your own heart and be honest with yourself, but don't let someone else tell you what your Truth is.
8. Don't under-estimate the power of good symbolic action.  I'm a witch and scholar of religious studies.  The left has severely underestimated the power of real symbolic action.  Something like the safety pins...it, frankly, isn't that someone being harassed is going to be looking around for a safety pin.  It is deterrence.  If someone prone to be harassing someone in a hijab were to get on a bus and see 8 people around wearing safety pins, they will think twice about harassing someone.  It's a display of numbers and force.  Additionally, we KNOW that taking symbolic action increases commitment, solidarity and the willingness to take riskier actions.  
9. Don't over-estimate the power of symbolic action.  This is also going to take a lot of real action.
10. We must educate ourselves more thoughtfully.  Read real news.  Read history.  Read analysis.  But also, do not give up the sovereignty of your mind.  Read critically and think.

Orlando Massacre and Other Mass Shooting Accountability

We have been through far, far too many of these travesties and watched too many of our beloveds die so that the gun lovers of America can have their assault rifles that can kill dozens of people in a few minutes.  There is a sick irony in our willingness to ban or recall products that are far, far less dangerous than this (lawn darts?) because they are too dangerous for us, but not militaristic weapons designed to kill many people in a short time span.

Sexual minorities, women, and people of color are particularly likely to be targets of gun violence so any argument against sensible gun regulation is at least complicit in furthering homophobia, sexism and racism.

I'm not interested in getting into a debate about gun legislation.  Honestly, if you aren't convinced by Orlando, if you aren't convinced by Sandy Hook, if you aren't convinced by the regularity of these horrors and the lives cut short...I'm not going to convince you.  And I don't need to.  I don't need you.  You aren't worthy of my breath.  You're barely worthy of this paragraph.

What I'm interested in doing is getting any public official who blocks sensible gun legislation out of office.  I'm interested in getting any public official who refuses to acknowledge hate crimes against LGBTQ people and the role hatred against sexual minorities played in the Orlando massacre out of office.  I'm interested in replacing anyone whose actions about these issues are out of alignment with their words of sympathy later out of office.  And to do that, we need to not forget who they are.  So, I'm trying to pull together the lists that are floating around on social media so that we don't forget who needs to get tossed out of public life.

1.  Did your representative take money from the NRA?  Find out here:  http://whoismyvoice.com

2.  Who voted for and against background checks in the Senate after San Bernadino?  (Note, Harry Reid voted against as a procedural move to allow it to be brought back to the floor later - so not a real "no" vote) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/number-senators-voted-against-background-checks-proposal

3.  Who voted against the Matthew Shepherd, James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act that, among other things, classified violence against sexual minorities and minority gender presentation as a hate crime?  http://www.vox.com/2016/6/12/11912076/orlando-florida-mass-shooting-gay-hate-crime-law

4.  Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan bear a special responsibility because of their willingness to use their positions to block legislation from reaching the floor.

I will be gathering more.

Rebirthing vs. Reconstructing

I recently encountered a Wiccan who has a devotional relationship with some Hellenic deities and she shared with me that she is regularly told by those on the reconstructionist side that she is not worshipping Them correctly.  As someone who has a foot in both worlds, this sticks in my craw.  My understanding from working with the Hellenic Theoi over decades within the context of this incarnation is that Their goal is to be back in relationship with us in powerful ways.  So I strongly believe that those who are creating uncertainty and hesitation amongst those They have called are working against Their divine will.  I'm not sure, specifically, who I am addressing...but I've seen enough of this often enough to know it is a problem.  If you recognize yourself in this description, stop it!

What is the point of religion?  It is to build and maintain relationships with the unseen, especially the gods.  All of the other stuff is means to that end. Now, I am a huge, huge, huge proponent of doing the research, learning as much as one can, and judiciously using what has been learned.  Many of the old forms work well (and work in adaption) because they have thought forms behind them that, through centuries of repetitive use, act as a signal and calling card to particular Great Ones.  It is fabulous when you can harness that.  It is also not necessary.

Similarly, I always say that it is essential to get to know the Great Ones you are intending to work with and to have a thorough understanding of who and what They are and what They want.  This helps you deepen the connection and provides a behavioral understanding for you about how to interact with Them.  But They are BIG.  They are much bigger than us.  They can adapt to our behavior and forgive us our confusion.

As far as I am concerned, if one of the Great Ones has called you, and it is not a one-time kind of thing, but clearly one of Them is reaching out to be in relationship with you, it is a really good idea for you to go do the research and be sure that you want to say "yes" before you agree to Their work.  No harm, no foul if you want to say no.  You are a Divine being living in a body and have free will.  So, get a clear understanding.  I'm also going to say that there is some wisdom in only accepting life-work from one or two at the most.  You really can't serve as a priest/ess of more than that and do a good job of it....although you can do particular acts for some of the others.  That's a limitation based on our energy and time.  But if you really have been called and you decide to say "yes" then don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

All of the other stuff is means, not ends.  It is good to learn it.  If you have taken up that kind of work, you should learn as much as you can...but it is better to learn it judiciously rather than uncritically.  After all, cultures shift and change.  Our written records for ancient Hellenic religion run from about 800 BCE to 500 CE - that is a long time and any living culture shifts and changes.

I have said many times in various contexts that if you call to the Great Ones and They answer - whatever form you use - you are doing it right.  If you call the Great Ones and They do not answer, it doesn't matter how ritually perfect or historically accurate your form, you are not doing it right.

I consider what I am doing to be rebirthing rather than reconstruction, specifically because I am not even trying to carefully reconstruct historically accurate forms.  I learn everything that I can and take inspiration and modify ancient forms and bring them into rituals because doing so taps old energy currents and helps...but if I am doing my own inner and devotional work (and I am) then They come even without that.

 I use the lore to get a really good understanding of what these Great Ones want...of what their agendas are.  I use that to inform how I interact with Them.  For example, I know the old sacrifices to Poseidon, but I'm not going to do meat sacrifices.  I don't raise animals and it would be inappropriate for me to do so in my current circumstances.  I can walk to a grocery store and buy meat vs. carefully raising an animal and then going through the slaughter and giving up most of the meat on that animal to the community.  As a sacrifice, it doesn't have the same meaning it would in a different context.  But what I know, what I absolutely KNOW, is that Poseidon cares for the seas.  So my sacrifice for Poseidon is that whenever I see plastic lying on the ground, knowing that without my intervention it will go into a gutter and end up polluting the ocean, I pick it up and throw it away and tell Poseidon, while I am doing it, that it is in honor of Him.  THAT gets His attention.  That helps me build relationship with Him.  I am both doing something in alignment with His agenda, in service of what He cares about, and I am calling Him to mind over and over and over again, strengthening His form and His power as an intercessor for the health of the seas.  Obviously, you will never find any reference in the lore to picking up plastic trash, but it works and is important.

This, to me, is the difference.  I do believe in the power of research.  I believe it is essential to understand as much as you can about the Great Ones you are working with.  I think there is a tremendous amount of power to help your magick and worship if you can use references back to old thought forms and tap those lines of repeated activity and pull them into your work.  But in the end, it is about the gods.  It is about our relationships with the gods.  And that means that it has to be about now and our current context.  They want to be in relationship with us and it is an act of impiety to inhibit or discourage that relationship from one who has been called to Them.  We should be empowering each other to build these relationships, even if those relationships look different than ours.  That is the work that all of us are called to perform.

The Importance of Trusting Experts

This is really a FB post that just got so long that I am putting it here.  It is not particularly spiritual, although I think the contemplation of where do we and should we trust is important.  It is about the Hillary Clinton email scandal and my concerns with the way in which this is being conducted.

My biggest issue with the Clinton email scandal is an issue about trust...but it is not, for me, about trusting Hillary. It is about the fact that in order for any of us to function, including the President of the United States, we have to be able to and allowed to trust experts and that, when this is made impossible, no one can function and no one can govern. None of us are self-sufficient and to think that we are is narcissism.
So, for example, I am the chair of the Institutional Review Board for the protection of human subjects in my university. In that capacity, I approve (or deny approval) to research projects, some of which are not minimal risk. In other words, for some of the research proposals I review, it is possible that people can get hurt or die and what I have to evaluate is whether or not that risk is acceptable in light of the potential benefits and whether the mitigations to those risks are sufficient. What I am competent and capable of doing is identifying when data security is vitally important for protecting people...as I said, sometimes potentially protecting their lives. If you are going to a refugee camp to interview people about how they are being treated by authorities...that is potentially life threatening and the inability of anyone in power to figure out who said something critical is vitally important. So, I can say, "you must have rock solid data security." What I am not able to do is to say what a rock solid data security plan looks like. For that, I refer that piece of the analysis to our data security experts. I have to trust them. The researcher has to trust them. Both the researcher and I understand well the gravity of the situation (the researcher's competence in understanding risk is part of what is evaluated before permission is given) - but we have to trust (and obey) the expert counsel on how to set up and use a data security plan. If we were at a point where we could not trust in the expertise of data security experts, all such research just couldn't get done...or worse, you have non-experts trusting their own knowledge over listening to expertise and coming up with inadequate solutions.

What this situation about the email scandal looks like to me is that Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State. She is undoubtedly briefed on the various levels of confidentiality required for specific documents and types of documents. She surely consults with the higher-up permanent employees of State about how to follow those guidelines. Apparently, the last few people in her position, Secretary of State, had a private email server set up and used in the way in which she used it...so, it seems to have been the standard operating procedure used by the past few Secretaries of State and was recommended to her about how to handle her email. She apparently sent her IT expert to consult about how to set it up, believing that this would then meet the qualifications about how to handle the security and her email. I'm sure that after it was set up (as had been done by the last few people in her position as part of their standard workflow) she thought that if she did what she had been told to do, she would be in compliance. She has to trust the experts who were in permanent positions and IT experts. Now, retrospectively, we think this is a security risk...and maybe it was. Maybe this was a terrible way for this to have been done all along and it never will be done this way again after this kind of scandal...but that is retrospective. Holding her responsible for something that was clearly normal procedure is problematic. And let me explain why this is so deeply unsettling...in addition to the fact that it just looks like one more time that the Inquisition is out for Hillary Clinton's blood...something I have been watching for almost all of my politically aware life.

I live in Washington, DC. I am not a professional government employee, but I am surrounded by them and I know something about how the federal government works. The vast majority of the work of government comes from civil servants. They often get a bad rap (they are portrayed as being lazy and overpaid). That is NOT what I observe. I observe a bunch of deeply dedicated professionals, the storehouse of expertise in our government. They are the ones who bring coherence to our government when the elected players switch over continuously. Yes, a government worker in DC may make a salary that would make people elsewhere in the country scream that they are being overpaid...my rent in DC for a one bedroom is $2100 a month and buying is completely outside of my capacity. I don't think our civil servants are overpaid.

Part of what our civil servants have to deal with every few years is a regime change. The upper leadership of everything is shifted out and reappointed...usually by people who have to learn the ropes while the business of government keeps on moving. The people at the top usually bring with them political ideologies and often change priorities in their institutions. So, part of what we need these new appointees to do is to have some trust of the civil servants beneath them and to listen to their expertise....because without it, you have a bunch of politically motivated folks playing for the cameras of the media and acting without the benefit of actually understanding what it is that they are doing...or serving special interests without knowing how it fits into the overall picture. Anyone who has been through a regime change in the civil service knows this.

What I want in a President is someone who will listen to, try to understand, and be guided by expertise. And we have a lot of expertise in our civil servants. I want someone whose opinions can be shifted when presented with good reasons - and there are a lot of instances of Hillary responding this way that are on record...I don't see that as "waffling," I see that as a virtue and indication of a reasonable mind. The way in which this email investigation is being conducted, from where I sit (trying to retrospectively hold her accountable for following what was the standard operating protocol for people in her position) undermines the ability of ANY President or political appointee to be able to trust expert opinion. Whoever wins this election, that is a dangerous precedent...we are about to have yet another regime change no matter who wins.  

I believe that if this situation were being handled appropriately, I think that it should have caused a reevaluation of that procedure and a change in the procedure...because there are always things that we are currently doing that look like not as a good an idea in retrospect...that is growth. Instead, though, what we do is to blame individuals and hold them "accountable" rather than address things systematically. I don't see any good that comes from this way of dealing with things...and I see a lot of harm. One of the other things that I know (and I know people personally in this situation) is that this way of approaching problems does not create systematic change, it creates situations in which individuals get scapegoated and creates fear in which sometimes experts are afraid to speak up. I know people who have been scapegoated. I know dedicated civil servants who have had their careers destroyed in our desire to hold people "accountable" for doing what they were supposed to do when our beliefs about the rightness of those actions has changed. We need to have some way for re-evaluating our procedures that does not require us to throw people under the bus for doing their job.  

I'm not talking about gross negligence of duty or recklessness that a reasonable person would recognize as such. I'm talking about things like...why would Hillary Clinton question the advice about data security on an email server that she got from the professional IT experts at State? That's not reasonable. So long as she actually did what she was advised, that is what a reasonable person in her position should do. We need our appointed officials to be able to trust the expertise of the civil servants in their employee. If that becomes impossible, we are in for an unbelievably huge mess.