We are sharing voices speaking out in opposition the dangerous implications of a Trump presidency from a range of viewpoints.
A Texas “classic hits” station - Texarkana’s Hits 105 posted a message on its Facebook page that they have “indefinitely” banned Madonna’s songs from their station because she spoke out forcefully and passionately against Trump at the huge Women’s March in Washington, DC. The station manager said “it’s a matter of patriotism” because Madonna “has shown un-American sentiments.” Madonna took their lead from us, that would send a powerful economic message to Madonna.” This after top people around Trump -Reince Priebus and Newt Gingrich called for Madonna to be arrested ...
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by Michael Dietler, professor of Anthropology, U. of Chicago: This day, of all days, should raise awareness of the danger that Donald Trump poses to this country, and to the world. The contrast with Martin Luther King could not be stronger. Today the nation honors a fearless champion of human rights and human dignity, a man of principle who dedicated his life to the service of others and was willing to be sacrificed in the struggle against injustice. We also honor all those heroes of the Civil Rights movement, those thousands of ordinary people who courageously put their bodies and ...
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Green Day - "We Live in Troubled Times" Lyrics begin: "What good is love and peace on earth? When it's exclusive? Where's the truth in the written word? If no one reads it A new day dawning Comes without warning So don't blink twice" https://youtu.be/9cVJr3eQfXc ...
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"Decision", by Outernational - "Deception! All the lies! America was never great Eat your apple pie and genocide Decision! Of your life! How will you live? What will you decide?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Dr4k12LCs ...
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Pianist/composer and organizer Arturo O'Farrill's opening remarks from the Musicians Against Fascism Benefit for RefuseFascism.org Jan. 19, 2017: Tomorrow a very bad man will take the nation's highest office. His biographer called him a sociopath. His behavior towards women is lamentable. His racism is legendary, He has lied repeatedly. He has questionable ethics and the conflict of interest between his ill-gotten office and his business dealings is shady at best, and criminal at worst ...
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On January 19, some 140 people attended an emergency forum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. The event, “In the Name of Humanity, Refuse to Accept a Fascist America—A Call to Action to Academics and Intellectuals,” was inspired by the Call to Action from RefuseFascism.org and was part of the National Month of Resistance. A great sense of urgency pervaded the room. Professors from MIT, Harvard, and other nearby universities were there, along with students and activists. Many were entering into political life for the first time, or “re-entering”--shaken and outraged by the Trump presidency ...
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Matthew Rothschild is the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit, nonpartisan political watchdog group. His January 21 article titled, “The fascist overtones in Trump’s inaugural address” starts underneath a photo of Benito Mussolini, leader of Italy's National Fascist Party from 1922 until 1943, and says in part: It was hard to listen to Trump’s inaugural address without hearing some not-so-faint echoes of fascism ...
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Refuse Fascism initiators Cornel West and Carl Dix on Fox News https://youtu.be/tyH-3xDgvik ...
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January 14, 2016 Dear Colleagues, What we are seeing with the Trump/Pence election is every bit as terrifying as we rightly feared. We cannot underestimate the harm this regime represents to this country and the world. As members of the academy we believe it is imperative that academics and intellectuals find collective, organized and direct ways to act in the face of this threat ...
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Katy Perry serves as executive producer on a new public service announcement that questions whether Donald Trump's xenophobic rhetoric is a sign that history could repeat itself. "Don't normalize hate," Perry wrote to her 95 million followers on Twitter. The PSA tells the true story of 89-year-old Japanese-American Haru Kuromiya, who recalls being registered and placed in an internment camp for four years during the outbreak of World War II ...
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Singer Jennifer Holliday rescinded her agreement to perform at a Trump pre-inauguration event on Jan. 19. She said her agreement to do that was a “lapse in judgment." She announced: "My only choice must now be to stand with the LGBT Community and to state unequivocally that I WILL NOT PERFORM FOR THE WELCOME CONCERT OR FOR ANY OF THE INAUGURATION FESTIVITIES!" She explained, "I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarized country."But she said, "Regretfully, I did not take into consideration ...
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From 8 March Women Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan): In Solidarity with “NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE TO Accept a Fascist America!” We all know that 20th January Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the president of the US. This has concerned hundreds of million not only in the US but also all over the world ...
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A Call to Professors and Scholars: In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America “No Classes As Usual” on Thursday/Friday, January 12/13 The Trump-Pence regime is completely illegitimate. It is fascist. Millions must rise up and flood the streets of DC and across the country before the Inauguration. To prevent this catastrophe before it comes. The atmosphere on the campuses must become charged with the message and determination: NO! To that end, we call for: --“No classes as usual” on Thursday/Friday. Classes should become forums to discuss Trump and what fascism is and the lessons of ...
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Scott Gilbert, RefuseFascism-Boston: "In the Name of Humanity, Never Again" Revolution (revcom.us) recently interviewed Scott Gilbert, an activist with Refuse Fascism, whose family's experience with Nazi Germany is very relevant to what is happening today. Revolution: I’m here with Scott, and I know you’ve changed your life around to jump into the call put out by RefuseFascism that says “NO! In the Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America!” I understand this is, in part, rooted in your own personal history. Do you want to tell me a little bit about that? Scott: Sure. I grew up ...
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By David Zeiger (co-initiator, Refuse Fasism): Kurt Gerron was a successful and beloved Jewish actor and director in Berlin during the heady days of the Weimar Republic. He lived and breathed film. Nothing else mattered. His most famous role was as Mack the Knife in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera. Then the Nazis came. He was fired from his directing job and unable to work. So he moved to Paris, to wait out the Nazis. They couldn’t possibly last. He eventually found work, but within a year the anti-Jewish fever had spread into Paris and he had ...
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By Bonnie Darves: I missed the protests of the 1960s because I was too young. I was on the sidelines of 1970s activism because I was working and trying to get through college. In the 1980s I had young children. In the 1990s I was working a couple of jobs and did little more than sign the occasional petition. I have no excuses for not doing more to support or protect what I believe in, during the aughts and beyond, other than complacency—I am a journalist and I am well read, so I have absolutely no excuses ...
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By Joe Veale and Terry Cotton: We former members of the Black Panther Party call upon ALL former members—and ALL people—to sign and ACT on the Call from RefuseFascism.org which appeared on in the January 4 edition of the New York Times and appears this week in the Washington Post ...
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Immigrants Rights Activist From CASA Latino at the Sessions Hearing: “We are all going to lose if we don’t fight for justice and real democracy” Q: Tell us what happened in the confirmation hearing. Young woman: We went inside. There was a very diverse group of activists. And citizens that are very, very much concerned about the possibility of having somebody like Sessions as our Attorney General. The person who becomes the Attorney General is going to be basically the architect who’s going to shape the policies that effect immigrants, Muslims, the LGBT community, women, and African Americans, basically ...
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January 10, 2017 Code Pink was one of the organizations that disrupted the Senate confirmation hearings of Jeff Sessions today. The staff of refusefascism.org interviewed Code Pink spokesperson Medea Benjamin on what they did, and why. ...
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More than 130 artists and critics have signed a petition calling for cultural institutions to close on Friday, Jan. 20, the day of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration to protest “the normalization of Trumpism.” Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra, Louise Lawler, Joan Jonas and Julie Mehretu were among the art stars signing the invitation for a “J20 Art Strike,” which urges museums, galleries, concert halls, art schools and nonprofit institutions to close in opposition to “the normalization of Trumpism,” according to a statement ...
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The United Teachers of LA (UTLA)—the union representing teachers and support service personnel throughout the massive Los Angeles Unified School District—has called for a Pre-Inauguration Citywide Action: We #SchoolTrump ...
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On Sunday night, January 8, Meryl Streep received The Cecil B. DeMille Award, an honorary Golden Globe Award given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.” In accepting the award, she said, in part: There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most ...
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Shaun King: We’re Not Opposing Donald Trump with the Unified Fierceness He Deserves (Originally From the New York Daily News) A man who some believe to be a pretty terrible human being is scheduled to become our next President in less than three weeks. I won't make yet another rundown of all of the awful things he has said and done. I've done that a dozen times. Pretty much every reputable news outlet in the country has covered Trump's lies, deceit, failed commitments, his unethical business dealings, and his personal admissions on mistreating and sexually assaulting women. We knew ...
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By Gregg L. Greer Two weeks from now our country will inaugurate the new President of the United States of America. But much about what the new era will bring remains unclear. Around the country- there is deep-rooted skepticism with Donald Trump’s inauguration, as well as the political office he conquered through "questionable," means. I must note: also like much of the rest of the country -it remains confused and uncertain about what to expect from the soon-to-be President and the party he represents which is the "Conservative" Republican Party of the United States of America ...
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The #Earth2Trump Roadshow is coming — or has already come — to a town near you this month ...
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Lawrence M. Krauss is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and director of its Origins Project. He was one of the producers of the documentary film The Unbelievers, which promotes a scientific view of the world. An article by Krauss appeared in the December 13 issue of The New Yorker titled, “Donald Trump’s War on Science ...
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The Villager BY ALAN KAUFMAN | Do Not Go Gentle!... Poets Strike Against Trump Jan. 15 Rage, rage against the dying of the light — and the coming of the Trump ...
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interview with Ted Sirota, jazz musician, originally on the site Revolution revcom.us You are the initiator of Degenerate Artists Against Fascism. You have been making it clear that you refuse to live in a fascist America—what is it that you see happening that compelled you to become an organizer of this artist network? It’s kind of what I didn’t see happening that compelled me to form the group. I saw a lot of musicians sharing their fear and disgust but I wasn’t seeing organization of people coming together to act. I felt that if I didn’t do it, ...
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Some members of the Mormon church are protesting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing at Trump’s inauguration. A petition saying “Mormon Tabernacle Choir Should NOT Perform at Trump Inauguration” has now been signed by close to 19,000 people. It says in part: “As members and friends of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we strongly urge the Church to stop this practice and especially for an incoming president who has demonstrated sexist, racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic behavior that does not align with the principles and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The online petition can ...
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Responding to Trump saying he wants to “strengthen and expand” the nuclear capabilities of the U.S., actor George Takei tweeted on Thursday, December 22: “Trump wants to expand our nuclear arsenal. I think of my aunt and baby cousin, found burnt in a ditch in Hiroshima. These weapons must go.” Takei and his family spent years in one of the U.S. concentration (“internment”) camps for people of Japanese descent during World War 2. In his November 18 op-ed for the Washington Post titled, “They interned my family. Don’t let them do it to Muslims,” Takei wrote: “During World War ...
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The world cannot afford a fascist America. Why we must do whatever we can to stop it! In 1937, Martin Niemöller, a German pastor and theologian who initially welcomed Hitler’s 1933 appointment as Chancellor of the German Reich. However, after publicly renouncing the regime, he was arrested and imprisoned in German concentration camps. The powerful and poetic statement(below) expresses Niemöller’s deep regret for not having acted sooner to take a decisive stand against the rise of fascism in Germany. First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for ...
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Law Students Speak Out Against Trump’s Attorney General Nominee: “Sessions stated that he believed the Ku Klux Klan was okay” After Trump nominated Alabama white supremacist and Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, the American Constitution Society (ACS) at Harvard Law School—one of the most prestigious law schools in the world—wrote a letter to Trump opposing the nomination and began distributing it for signatures through ACS chapters across the country. As of December 22, it was signed by 1,060 law students from many different schools. The letter points at some of Sessions’s outrageous record: *“As a four-term member of the ...
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1,500 Past and Current Fulbright Scholarship Recipients: “The consequence [of Trump becoming president] could be dire for both international cooperation and peace” The Fulbright Program, funded by the U.S. government and private sources, gives prestigious scholarships to about 8,000 recipients yearly—for students, academics, artists and others in the U.S. to study and do research abroad and for recipients in other countries to do the same in the U.S. After the presidential election, three past and current Fulbright grant recipients wrote an open letter expressing alarm at Trump’s victory. The letter has gathered signatures from over 1,500 other past and current ...
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Andrew Sullivan is a well-known conservative writer and online commentator, currently a contributing editor to New York magazine. On November 9 an article by Sullivan titled “The Republic Repeals Itself" was published. Sullivan made important points worthy of reflection. Read Andrew Sullivan's piece here ...
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Hostility to immigrants and refugees strikes particularly close to home for us as historians of the Jews. As an immigrant people, Jews have experienced the pain of discrimination and exclusion, including by this country in the dire years of the 1930s. Our reading of the past impels us to resist any attempts to place a vulnerable group in the crosshairs of nativist racism. It is our duty to come to their aid and to resist the degradation of rights that Mr. Trump’s rhetoric has provoked. However, it is not only in defense of others that we feel called to speak ...
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In a November 10 speech in the Irish Parliament, Senator Aodhán Ó Riordáin made a strong speech denouncing Donald Trump as a fascist—and condemning the Irish government’s conciliatory response. This Irish politician just said what many American leaders are too scared to say about Trump pic.twitter.com/Q2MeB815jz — NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 17, 2016 ...
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In the November 10 issue of their online newsletter “Endangered Earth,” the Center for Biological Diversity included a statement saying, “We're only thinking about one thing right now: stopping Donald Trump from destroying the planet.” The statement goes on to say, “If President Trump carries out the disastrous promises he made while campaigning, the Environmental Protection Agency will be gutted, the Endangered Species Act will be repealed, old-growth forests will be clearcut, hard-fought global climate change agreements will be undermined, and polluters will be given free rein over our water and air.” And the center vowed, “There's no way in ...
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In a December 1 article for the Washington Post online edition, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar calls for resistance against Trump. Writing from his viewpoint of protecting this country’s “most sacred values,” Abdul-Jabbar criticizes others and their “hide-beneath-the-bed tactic”—like Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress, who says “we should take a look-and-see approach” and Black Entertainment Television founder and Hillary Clinton supporter Bob Johnson who said African Americans should give Trump “the benefit of the doubt.” He writes that the appointments Trump has been making already show that “these people and their contra-constitutional view are a clear and present danger” and ...
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By Warren M. Hern, November 11 As I’ve headed to work in recent days to see abortion patients in my office, I have felt bereft: All the premises of my life, work, education, and future were gone. Something very profound in the meaning of the America I know has been destroyed with the election of Donald J. Trump as president ... Under an unrestrained Donald Trump and this Republican Congress, I fear for my life, I fear for my family, and I fear for my future. I fear for my staff and my patients. Even more, I fear for my ...
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Two days after Trump’s election, Robert Ivy, the CEO and executive vice president of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), sent a memorandum to the organization's members saying, “The AIA and its 89,000 members are committed to working with President-elect Trump to address the issues our country faces, particularly strengthening the nation’s aging infrastructure. … It is now time for all of us to work together to advance policies that help our country move forward.” When Frederick “Fritz” Read, the founder and head of Read & Company Architects in Baltimore, saw this, he acted immediately. He sent a letter condemning ...
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