I can speak a little bit from an education perspective, like why a lot of universities are acquiescing to federal orders.

Right now, the philosophy at a lot of large universities is that it’s better to survive in some capacity to be able to educate young people (academic freedom is still allowed in classrooms, my university keeps insistently reminding faculty), than be shut down and shot and be unable to educate anyone at all. Also, they have thousands of employees relying on them for a paycheck to feed their families.

I’m still pissed at the loss of minority support systems. Students feel betrayed at the loss of gender neutral housing. There is righteous anger brewing. I’m part of the LGBT community, and seeing my community silenced as an organizational body and deleted from ongoing research boils my blood and makes me want to burn everything down.

But deep down, I get it. We have to keep educating youth about the true history of the USA, keep teaching them about how science works, keep exposing small town 18-year olds to other races and cultures to open their minds to empathy. If we don’t, we’ll have an entire generation that only has right-wing propaganda to teach them about the world.

Higher ed administration has a lot of weight on their shoulders. They of course side with minorities morally, ethically, and as human beings. It’s a really hard place to be in.

I’m wondering if this perspective is driving anyone in federal departments, as well.

I was going to say…sounds like the USA in about three months. (Obviously trans discrimination is already here… I’m referring to the LGBQ discrimination being included.)

I never once blamed the victims. And I never will.

Everything we do that makes dictatorships happy now will be something the USA will have to answer to in the international courts in the coming years.

Thank you for the encouragement. I do need to do this. Especially with the current climate in the USA.

wasn’t there a US news anchor recently saying that everyone on earth should strive to be part of the US?

What?? Really?? That’s horrible! Why are Americans wanting to move toward a colonist/Empire future? We were taught in schools (superficially, I guess?) that that kind of national behavior is BAD and caused a ton of violence and death. I am so baffled.

I vividly remember reading in English class both fiction and nonfiction stories about the atrocities done by the British empire in India and Africa. We all read Anne Frank. We learned in “socials studies” class about the tragedies committed against indigenous Americans. Where did all of this come from?

Agreed. The fact that we have to depend on structurally patriarchal/domineering justice system is the problem… It’s a whole mess.

Great point. Probably a filtering done by our national media so that any interaction with global entities makes it sound like we’re being praised….

I’d love to spread your family’s mindset through the larger white American culture (the one in which I was raised)!

I have! That show absolutely terrifies me, since yeah, a small minority of people convinces a ton of other people to do violence against women in a way that feels very USA 2025. But that’s a great point! When the main character realizes her power, she goes far in protecting herself and others.

It’s difficult because our culture trains us from birth to never realize we can fight back. Like, I have a strong suspicion that if I was suddenly attacked, my brain would dump all ideas of fighting back and just freeze, which of course allows the violence to happen. I don’t think this is a “natural state” of being for women or any person. I think we were just trained this way, which makes it a very difficult mindset to overcome; I believe that this is by design.

So…how do we retrain women and girls to respond with a #traumatizethemback mindset? Seems impossible to do this at the cultural level, at least for several generations.

Yeah, that’s a good point.

The need to be polite and feeling of blame are both an extension of the lie that we are weak and can’t physically stand up for ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether we’re believed if we are ultimately safe from the assault in the first place.

But our culture has made us forget that we are strong and capable, has raised us to never develop the muscles to be able to stop someone, to never tear an assailant’s skin off with our teeth, etc.

I could be wildly out of left field, here, and I am extremely privileged that I’ve never been hurt in this way. I just want to see minorities believe that we are strong…because we are.

Women and some other minorities are raised to not even consider using acts of violence to protect ourselves, like it never crosses our minds as a possibility that we could physically hurt an assailant if we wanted to. We have internalized a sense of weakness that isn’t actually true. This has been detrimental to our safety as well as the safety of other women. Fuck the patriarchy for doing this to us.

Americans fuck around, Americans find out.

This world doesn’t need us. We’ve enjoyed decades of undeserved praise and good will from the world, and it’s inflated our ego enough that we think we’re invincible.

Awesome! I’ll add them to my list!

If American society as a whole devolves so much that I and everyone else are all fighting to survive together because we are all homeless, then society as a whole will look a lot different, structurally. I can’t speak to how resistance will look, in that case, because I don’t know what it will consist of. I imagine that we will have much better community support systems in place, since more will be needing them to survive.

I understand the community-first perspective. I agree that we survive together or die together. But we also can’t pour from an empty cup. I can’t help others if I’m fighting to survive, forced to spend time hunting down food and water and a warm bed, which also takes time away from protesting and helping others.

This American gets what you’re saying. I’m trying to figure out what I can do without ending up homeless.

I assume soda and other bottled drinks are included in this warning, as well as any other container lined with plastic, and I think some canned drinks and food are….which, uh, sucks.

I haven’t heard of those! Do you recommend?