Liz Loeb

Please ignore the utterly inaccurate numbering of the replies in my attempt to make a thread. Typos are my love language.

(20/18). At core, these are too many words trying to say let's love each other through this moment. Nothing can take away our ability to show up for one another, to love and love and love.

In it, with you, whatever that means.

xoxoxoxoxo

(19/18). We have the ability to shape the constraints by which executive power operates. We do. Even in impossible times.

(18/18). In fact, the white male landowners and enslavers on the Atlantic Coast who rejected the British Monarchy and launched an armed revolution were, at least in part, protesting this exact abuse of power over taxes by an unconstrained executive.

(17/18). Or to impound, halt, or block funds duly appropriated by Congress from the resources of the collective people.

(16/18). While the President derives their authority from elections as mediated by the structure of the electoral college, the President does not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally determine tax spending.

(15/18). And that if a government is going to garner the resources of a collective people, the use of those resources should be determined, in some part, by the collective people.

(14/18). The theory of government being that as a large and locally elected body, Congress provides a representative mechanism for democratic agency.

(13/18). People in the United States pay taxes. Congress determines how those taxes are spent.

(12/18). Third, we open towards conditions towards transformation. For me, right now, that means understanding Executive Impoundment in a constitutional and historical context.

(11/18). We call every single one of our elected representatives and let them know that we need on them to fight, and that we expect them to fight. These orders depend on implementation. We can organize ways of impacting that implementation. Ways that matter.

(10/18). We call churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, meeting houses, meditation centers and coordinate food, housing, basic needs. We offer care.

Second, we address the circumstances causing violence. We push back. We push back HARD.

(9/18). And so I am thinking of the wisdom of healing justice folks, and especially what I have learned from amazing practitioners like Raffo Susan and Adrienne Maree Brown.

First, we help one another make it through. We share resources in concrete ways. We check on each other.

(8/18). We know that this administration depends on chaos and overwhelm. They are counting on an overreach so terrible and audacious that we don't know where to start. They need us to act as if we do not have power.

(7/18). Millions of people will lose access to food, housing, child care, transportation, education, and basic health care tomorrow.

I can feel the panic in my body, the jangled quickening, the need to know what to do. I bet you're feeling some of that too.

(6/18). The federal grants impacted by the Executive Order are 23% of our country's GDP. Millions of people will lose their jobs this week - not just at the federal level - at the state and county level. At service organizations and agencies and universities. Everywhere.

(5/18). All of the tax money appropriated by congress to support the basic functioning of our systems. Water, food, hospitals, sanitation, roads, public elementary schools, head start programs, nutrition assistance, small business loans, farm subsidies, emergency management. Everything.

(4/18). That doesn't mean only schools and universities, though that would be terrible enough. It means everything.

(3/18). Last night's executive order broke something foundational for many of us, even beyond the attacks on our communities and our people. As of 5pm today, the Executive Branch will attempt to halt all federal grant funding.

(2/18). If you are able, if it feels even a little bit ok, find a place to ground. One breath and then another. A tree outside your window. Warm water during a morning shower. The way a friend laughs when they're happy or amused. Music on the radio. Life yearns for life. Life wants to find a way.

Post 1/18. Continued below.

Beloved ones.

The actions of the U.S. Executive Branch in the past week have targeted almost everyone I know and love, and almost everyone each of you know and love.

We are scared, uncertain, hurting. We are finding one another at the edge of what feels possible.

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Thank you Joelle Novey. ❤️

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Hello!

Green grass and multicolored river stones in a flowing stream.

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings."

Ursula Le Guin
#meansofproduction