Other

Here you'll find media, music, and non-academic politics.

Other Media

Interview on NPR's Marketplace, June 21, 2018

My proud appearance on a conspiracy theory group’s “Wall of Shame”

Quoted in Daily Cal article on the Muslim Travel Ban executive order, January 28, 2017

Bassist, Producer in Rebel Allianz

Beats N Rhymes

Rebel Tapes

The Occupy Wall Street Mixtape

Alive in the City Vol. 1

What Do We Do Now? An Incomplete List

How Did We Get Here?

Constitutional Structure: Two Parties and Advantages for Small Rural States

• Existence of states
• Senate (not based on population)
• Single member House districts (disadvantages third parties)
• State legislatures set legislative district lines
• Electoral college

Parties: Who Sets the Agenda (Who Determines the Parties’ Positions)?

• The Democratic Party has moved left on LGBT rights, feminism, and some aspects of racial justice, but moved right on policies related to corporations and oligarchy
• The Republican Party has moved rightward and radicalized on every issue
• Ordinary unorganized voters DON’T set the agenda. They can’t hold politicians accountable effectively enough.
  • They don’t know policy or which party/politician supports what
  • They don’t have the resources to monitor politicians between elections and at multiple levels of government
  • “What % of Americans believe in climate change?” is an irrelevant question
• Agenda is set by elites (business, wealthy, media, etc.) and organized activist groups

What to Do Now

Protect Vulnerable Communities in Short Term

• Immigrant rights
• Women’s rights
• Muslim rights
• Join and donate to ACLU, SPLC, Amnesty International, etc.
• Civil disobedience and social movements

Longer Term Tactics to Build Political Power

• Vote and GOTV
  • Primary, midterm, and general elections
• Lobby
  • Phone
  • In person (town halls, trips to legislative offices)
  • Letters
• Go to commission hearings (agencies)
• Protest, rally, civil disobedience
• If you can, talk to EVERYBODY
  • Talk to family, friends, and neighbors
  • Write op-eds
• Recruit candidates and run for office yourself

Failed Tactics: What NOT to Do

• Parachuting in money and “messaging” from the coasts
• Information and facts
• Focusing on aggregate opinion, not power
• Focusing on racist and sexist rhetoric and microaggressions instead of the racist and sexist distribution of power, rights, and resources
• Only pay attention to presidential elections

Build Organizations, both formal and informal

• Democratic Party organizations at all levels
  • Local Democratic Party organization (by assembly district in CA)
• Unions, workplaces
  • SEIU, UNITE-HERE, AFL-CIO/UAW, AFSCME
  • AFT, NEA
  • CNA
  • Fight for 15
  • PIRG
  • Medicine groups: PNHP, White Coats for Black Lives
  • Science associations
  • Tech groups: Debug Politics
• Racial justice
  • BLM
  • SURJ
  • Center for Third World Organizing
  • Brown Berets
  • NAACP
  • National Council de la Raza
  • LULAC
  • Critical Resistance
    • http://criticalresistance.org/chapters/
• Gender rights
  • Code Pink, Planned Parenthood, NARAL
• LGBT
  • PFLAG
• Environmental
  • 350.org, NRDC, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters
• Religious
  • Organize your church, temple, mosque
  • PICO
  • Society of Friends (Quakers)
  • Bend the Arc
  • Moral Mondays
• Other civil society groups
  • Clubs on campus
  • Alumni groups
  • Senior groups
  • Birdwatching, hiking, activity clubs
• Quasi-party/guides/action lists
  • Indivisible
  • 2 Hours A Week
    • http://2hoursaweek.org/
  • Women’s March 10 Actions/100 Days
    • https://www.womensmarch.com/100/
  • Swing Left
    • https://swingleft.org
  • Solidarity Sundays
  • OFA
  • Knock Every Door
    • https://knockeverydoor.org/?source=fb20170117
  • My Civic Workout
  • What Do I Do About Trump
    • http://whatdoidoabouttrump.com/action-map/
  • Irregular News
    • http://irregularnews.com/states/
  • Wall of Us
    • https://www.wall-of-us.org/
• Start your own group with 5-20 friends!
  • Come up with a dope name for your group, like Rebel Alliance.

Readings

• On rebuilding the Democratic Party
  • http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/5/14176156/rebuild-democratic-party-dnc-strategy
  • http://www.salon.com/2017/01/08/what-went-wrong-with-the-democratic-party-three-big-failures-that-led-to-the-current-debacle/
  • http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/11/jesse_jackson_s_presidential_campaigns_offer_a_road_map_for_democrats_in.html
• On lobbying legislators
  • https://www.indivisibleguide.com/download-the-guide
  • http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/15/rep_mike_coffman_sneaks_out_of_event_early_as_constituents_ask_about_aca.html
• Context: How We Got Here
  • Economic inequality
    • Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner Take All Politics
    • Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism
    • Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations”
    • Joseph Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality
    • Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Elites
  • Racial inequality, criminal justice, and mass incarceration
    • Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
    • Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
    • Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself
    • The Black Power Mixtape (documentary)
    • Michael Javen Fortner, The Black Silent Majority
    • Vesla Weaver, Frontlash
  • Women and Gender Politics
    • Alice Kessler-Harris, In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America
    • Dan Carpenter and Colin Moore, “When Canvassers Became Activists: Antislavery Petitioning and the Political Mobilization of American Women”
    • bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman?
    • Carole Joffe, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us
  • Political organizations, participation, setting the party agendas
    • Theda Skocpol, Diminished Democracy
    • Erica Hellerstein, “Inside the Highly Sophisticated Group That’s Quietly Making It Much Harder to Get an Abortion”
    • Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and Theda Skocpol, “How the Right Trounced Liberals in the States”
    • Theda Skocpol and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, “The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism”
    • Vanessa Williamson, “How the Women’s March Could Have a Lasting Historical Impact”
    • Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
  • Public opinion and mass politics
    • Gabriel Lenz, Follow the Leader
    • Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, Democracy for Realists
    • Andrew Gelman, “The Decline of Journalism and the Rise of Public Relations”
  • The radicalization of the Republican Party
    • Christopher Parker and Matt Barreto, Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America
    • Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
    • Katherine Cramer, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker
    • Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan Hajnal, White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics
    • Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics
    • Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, It’s Even Worse than It Looks
    • Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Off-Center