I recently spoke with your weirdo friend about their video essay “Declaration of Dissent.” Since this conversation is about that video essay, I link to it below:
During our talk, I mentioned how your weirdo friend’s invocation of boundary-setting matters so much right now. I pointed out that there are laws the currently exist on the books but which have never been evenly applied to elites.
Weirdo added to my point that people who have been traumatized by their government don’t even think they have the right to set a boundary to begin with – that’s why they want to keep people in trauma. Those who are alsolated and afraid make themselves small and allow abuse to go on, because they think there’s nothing they can do.
But to be able to set a boundary and alchemize it into action, one first has to access and experience their own anger. This country does everything it can to pathologize anger, because those in power know anger, when alchemized, mobilizes positive change.
So if you have been feeling frozen, or dissociated, in the face of what’s happening around you, I invite you to join us in this conversation. Maybe something we mention here will help shift something for you.
Show Notes: Weirdo’s References
Jeannine Amber’s “In Her Own Words: Marissa Alexander Tells Her Story”
Kenyon Farrow’s “CeCe McDonald Deserves Our Support, ‘Innocent’ or Not”
Karen Matthews’ “‘I can’t breathe’: Eric Garner remembered on the 10th anniversary of his chokehold death”
Sam Levin’s “‘Hunted’: one in three people killed by US police were fleeing, data reveals”
Georgia Lyon’s “New poll finds voters concerned about presidential power and strongly support constitutional checks and balances”
Heather Cox Richardson’s “American Conversations: Zohran Mamdani”
Alan Johnson’s Power, Privilege, and Difference
Duluth Model’s “Wheel of Power & Control”
Richard Schwartz’s No Bad Parts
Janina Fischer’s Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors
Karla McLaren’s The Language of Emotions
UPCOMING SUBSTACK LIVE
REALITY CHECKING THE BULWARK - EPISODE 2
Saturday, February 14 at 2pm EST / 11am PST
With Steward Beckham
