Issue 4: Pizzagate and Positive Things
Dear Friends,
This week a man with an assault rifle drove to Washington, DC from North Carolina and essentially took an entire neighborhood of Northwest DC hostage in his quest to find evidence in support of the conspiracy theory (aka completely made up lie) known as “Pizzagate”. It pains me to have to devote even minimal word space to this madman and his cohorts, but unfortunately I can’t so easily divorce myself from the problem. You see my partner works at the book store three doors down from the local pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, that is at the center of the scandal. On Sunday, he was at work. They had to shelter in place for several hours while police patrolled the neighborhood, guns drawn, not knowing exactly where the gunman was, getting news updates only from social media. My partner described the experience of carefully walking down a long, narrow hallway in the building to lock the back door. All he could think was that if the gunman had appeared at the end of the hall before he could look the door, there would be nowhere for him to hide.
For those of you unfamiliar with Pizzagate, it is a conspiracy theory that originated on the horrible website 4chan. The story is that Comet Pizza in DC is the site of a child sex trafficking ring headed by high-ranking Democratic officials such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This belief is based on the fact that the word “pizza” appears numerous times in John Podesta’s hacked emails, as well as some truly crazy linking of the imagery on Comet’s logo to supposed pedophilic imagery. These idiots believe that “pizza” is code for the children being trafficked. There is an excellently detailed article written by DCist here, which I highly recommend, that goes into what little “reasoning” exists. The institutions near Comet and their employees have been receiving death threats for several weeks over these lies. Employees at the cafe next door were told by an anonymous person on the phone that he wanted to “line them up in front of a firing squad”.
This conspiracy theory reaches very deeply into the issues that I care about most, and the heart of what this newsletter is about. Besides the fact that relatives of top Trump officials actively promote Pizzagate (this relative, the son of Michael Flynn, Trump’s NSA pick, has recently been fired from the transition team, but his father remains Trump’s NSA pick despite his own troubling history with reporting fake news and conspiracy theories); besides the fact that this is a real world implication of fake news, which I discussed in my very first issue; and besides the very real danger that a loved one of mine was put in by this dangerous lie…even if none of that were true, even if this had happened months ago, before Trump was elected and not involving anyone I knew, I would still care. Pizzagate reminds me almost *exactly* of the sexist campaign of harassment known as Gamergate that began a couple of years ago, which also originated on 4chan, and which touched on my life as a gamer and a feminist on multiple fronts. These sorts of things, unfortunately, happen all the time.
I have no good answers for you on how to stop them. I stand by what I said in the first issue about fake news and checking your sources, but I don’t believe any of you are likely to fall prey to a conspiracy theory to begin with, let alone take a firearm and walk into a public place with it in an attempt to prove said conspiracy theory.
So this week I’m doing something different, because it is something I myself need and because all of you are beholden to my whims.
I am going to write a positive, activism-free issue. I am going to combat something horrible with a list of nothing but positive things RELENTLESSLY until it all makes us feel a tiny bit better. Because you know what? Sometimes we need that. The last month (and it has indeed been one month since The Before Time, since Donald was elected) has been pretty crazy for all of us. Demands on our time, money, and attention have been numerous and often unrelenting. So I will say this loud and clear: it is neither self-indulgent nor lazy to take breaks; to return to the pursuits you enjoyed last month and last year; or to tune out. Self-care can indeed become self-indulgent, but you can be your own judge and jury on that one. Next week I am starting a three part series on what we know post election about voter data and how to make it better next time, so consider this my holiday break issue, a little early.
Here is my list of things that will hopefully make you feel good:
-My favorite podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour (which is excellent in and of itself), is specifically doing a “Pop Culture Advent Calendar”, with one tiny thing in pop culture that they enjoy every day until Christmas. This is anything from a single shot in a TV show they love to full length drag performances.
-TWENTY female comedians released comedy albums in 2016. TWENTY! Buy or listen to ALL of them! I personally recommend Aparna Nancherla’s album and Cameron Esposito’s, but only because I have not heard the other 18 yet! Both of those two and several others are also on Spotify.
-Speaking of female comedians, Ali Wong has a Netflix special called Baby Cobra that I literally watched twice back to back and could not stop laughing at (I’m actually kind of torn about linking that Netlifx trailer to you because it undersells what I think is one of the best jokes BUT if you’re the kind of person who needs a preview to be persuaded, go for it). It’s one of the funniest stand-up routines I’ve ever seen.
-Speaking of WOMEN, remember how women literally made history in the Senate elections OVER and OVER again this year? No? Remember now friends! 21 female Senators, the most ever! Also the most women of color ever! The first Thailand-born Senator, the first biracial woman in the Senate, and the first Latina Senator were all elected. Also a Somali-American woman was elected to the House in Minnesota!
-Speaking of DIVERSITY, this year Beyonce performed with the Dixie Chicks at the Country Music Awards and it was GLORIOUS. “Is this really diversity?” you ask. Yes! I know none of you are insinuating that Beyonce is not black, but what you may be overlooking is just how dismally white the history of country music is (not in actual fact, but in acknowledgement from the Country Industry(TM)). Read this piece on why the performance was a feminist triumph — a black woman and three women who were shunned for their political critique of the Iraq war kicking ass together on stage. You do not have to care about country music to love this. Plus look at Bey’s outfit:
-Speaking of MUSIC, the Hamilton mixtape is pretty good guys
-The number of tigers increased this year for the first time in 100 years, at 3,890 now up from 3,200 in 2010
-NASA’s Juno probe reached Jupiter earlier this year after five years of space travel. Juno took pictures of Jupiter’s polls for the first time EVER, and recorded audio of Jupiter’s auroras. NASA uploads the raw data images to Juno’s webpage and you can edit them using the photo software of your choice to get things like the below image, called Jupiter-rise. AND NASA refers to these people as “Citizen Scientists”. Nerds…never change.
-I’m totally gonna get you guys hooked on newsletters because they are great, but Two Bossy Dames has an especially excellent one for happiness. They are full of gifs of sassy women, Hamilton puns, and general amazingness. In addition, following them on Twitter either as Two Bossy Dames or separately as Sophie and Margaret will bring you tweets of cute dresses, life advice, and book news. They’re both librarians so what’s not to love?
-I am also going to plug the book Unmentionable: The Victorians Ladies Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners, a humor book by Therese O’Neill on what it would REALLY be like to live as a woman in the much-romanticized Victorian era. (HINT: it involves crotchless undergarments. No that’s not a joke.) How can you resist a book in which the following is said, on allowing a man to flirt with you?:
“That is what happens when you ignore your God-given sense of shame, lambkin. He wants to put his arm around your waist. You bashfully allow him to. He realizes you’re a dirty slut and wants nothing more to do with you. A + B = C, and C = you dying alone with syphilis.”
-The scene in the new Ghostbusters movie when Holtzmann shoots a million ghosts to the Ghostbusters theme song and then yells “you’ve just been Holtzmann’d!” is…yeah. Worth a rewatch.
-In October, Polish women held a massive strike known as Black Monday to beat back a total abortion ban proposed in very conservative Poland, and thanks to a legal challenge from Montreal’s SPCA the city’s so-called “pit bull ban” was suspended indefinitely; just two examples of protest and other civic action working this year.
-The veterans who deployed to Standing Rock, ND to be a human shield for the water protectors took a knee and asked the tribes to forgive them for the military atrocities committed in the pa
st against Native Americans. Reading that was incredibly moving.
-Harriet Tubman is going on the $20 bill
-This phone alert from the Washington Post made me giggle. Like, that is just a good alert. And that guy actually was horrible (REALLY horrible) and he lost.
-NPR’s 2016 book concierge has a lot of wonderful books on it presented in a really lovely way. I have used the book concierge to pick my reading material for the last three years. They do an excellent job. They also have a playlist of the year’s best 100 songs
-Spain is taking streets named for fascist men from Franco’s regime and naming them after notable women instead. In many cities in Spain, only 5% of the streets are named after women, and they are often historical martyrs and virgins, and they’re trying to change that. The policy is not a one time name change: “Valencia’s Equality Commission has decreed that four out of every five streets named from now on (emphasis mine) will be named after women”. Go Spain!
-Bitch Magazine is featuring a lovely photo essay on black feminist joy that I found to be illuminating and challenging
-This wonderful read on the movement to write sexually explicit romance novels and how it “set the genre free”, as well as how the history of romance is tied to the history of feminism, is RELEVANT to my life and interests and if it’s not even TANGENTIALLY relevant to yours I’m not sure I want to know you
-Finally, I would like to end with Rebecca Solnit’s essay on hope (she also has a book on the subject):
“It is important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and destruction. The hope I am interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It is also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse one. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings.“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivety,” the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova recently remarked. And Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, early on described the movement’s mission as to “Provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams”. It is a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist.”
I still have hope, and I hope (haha!) that you do too.
Good Night and Good Luck
In the interests of shortening these letters overall, I’m going to do more of a “link roundup” style news column and offer a lot less of my own commentary.
-Donald had a phone call with the President of Taiwan this week, which may have been a brilliant foreign policy strategy to warn China that he’s tough OR a serious foreign policy blunder…or both! You decide!
-The Army Corps of Engineers officially blocked construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, denying the company the easement necessary for them to drill under the Missouri River. The fight isn’t over, but this is a victory for sure for the water protectors.
-The Democratic governor’s race OFFICIALLY officially ended, with Pat McCrory formerly conceding to his Democratic opponent on Monday
-Ben Carson was chosen as Donald’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, despite being completely unqualified
-In continuing to push for local and state level activism, I feel compelled to tell you that Republican legislatures in Texas, Michigan, and New Hampshire are pushing voter restriction bills, likely to go unchallenged under Donald’s administration AND Ohio has passed the nation’s strictest anti-abortion bill, banning abortion after a heartbeat can be detected, which is around 6 weeks. Despite my promise not to ask you to do anything this week, if you have any ties to Ohio you can call Governor Kasich a urge him to veto this bill at 614–466–3555. Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant at 6 weeks, and the law includes those pregnant through incest and rape.
-Donald’s team is considering not submitting a budget to Congress at all next year for reasons you can read about here
-Recounts in Michigan have hit several stumbling blocks this week
-On Tuesday, Donald took to twitter again to criticize Boeing for high costs on the Air Force One rebuild project, tanking Boeing’s stock temporarily in the process. Politifact rated Donald’s claim as “half-true”.
-Also on Tuesday, the DC Council passed the Universal Paid Leave Act in the first round of voting!! The DC Council votes twice on everything, so the final vote on this bill will be on December 20.
This has been a tough week for me friends. I really appreciate your support of this newsletter, which has given me something to do with all of my frustration. I hope the departure from politics was acceptable, perhaps even enjoyable, and that something on my list made you laugh or smile or roll your eyes delightedly…is that a way one can roll one’s eyes? Not sure. It is now!
I’d also like to make a couple of corrections from the previous letter. First, I referred (repeatedly….ugh) to Donald’s HHS Secretary as Tim Price. His name is actually Tom Price, and “i” and “o” are in fact different letters that can create completely different words, so, lesson learned! Additionally, in the piece on Standing Rock, I used the terms “protesters” and “water protectors” (or just “protectors”) interchangeably. Since writing that, I’ve been made aware that they really prefer the term protectors, so I should have just stuck with that.
Check out my Pinterest board for if you want to find most of the political articles and things I’ve linked to in the past month, and leave anonymous feedback telling me how these letters are making the sun shine brighter on my Google feedback form. Tell your friends, family, co-workers, and pets to subscribe to The ForeRunner at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner or read my back issues, all of which are public, at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner/archives. I also now have a Medium page, which is the blog version of these letters, and those are more easily searchable than the archives. Every time a new person subscribes, another eyeroll gif is born.
In solidarity,
JM
This week’s picture of my dog, Maple, brought to you by Tommy:
This week’s event link round-up (local to DC unless otherwise noted)*:
December 8: CNN Panel on the Election hosted by Politics and Prose (facebook link)
December 8: DC Organizing Meeting — Get involved in the Counter-Inaugural hosted by ANSWER Coalition (facebook link)
December 9: Stand with Comet event to support our local pizza business against Pizzagate (facebook link)
December 10: Standing Rock and Beyond #NoDAPL March (facebook link)
December 10: Organizing for Non-Organizers in the Face of Trump hosted by Good Guys DC (RSVP required; they added this second training because the one from two weeks ago filled up)
December 1: March to the White House for #NoMuslimRegistry hosted by MoveOn.org and others (facebook link)
December 12 OR 15 (Arlington, VA): Arlington Dems Open House hosted by the Arlington County Democratic Committee
December 15: Lobby Training for Local and Federal Activism hosted by Citizens Climate Lobby DC (facebook link)
*These events are vetted in a sense by me. I will try to tell you if they’re full, and I only post them if I think they’re legitimate or worth going to.
