More Resources and Helpful Hints

At The Citizen’s Handbook site there’s a post entitled How to Get Rid of a Dictator.

Both dictatorships and democracies have adopted methods for accommodating marches and protests, and view them as a handy way to let people blow off steam with little or no disruption to the business of the state. (source)

What follows is a listing of 207 methods of nonviolent action and persuasion. These strategies (198 of them anyway) are from Gene Sharp’s book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Two, The Methods of Nonviolent Action.

Marches are nice but I don't see them, on their own, as being especially effective at bringing about change. They feel more like morale boosters for those of us without power or big bucks. In conjunction with other relentless actions though, maybe they're the cherry on top of the resistance sundae?

Check out this informative, helpful post up at Wired—The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance.

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are some steps you can take to evade it.
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Ahead of that impending new reality, WIRED asked security and privacy experts for their advice for hardening personal privacy protections and resisting surveillance.

Here are just a few of the their recommendations (which include clear explanations and illumination):

Tulip Sundaes, Wayne Thiebaud

Encrypted Communications
Securing your data starts with securing your communications, and securing your communications means using end-to-end encryption.
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Encrypted Devices
Just as important as encrypting your conversations is strongly encrypting your devices themselves.
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Cloud Storage
Cloud storage has huge advantages—you never run out of hard drive space, and your data won’t be lost forever when an ill-fated Diet Coke spills on your laptop. The trade-off, though, is that storing data in the cloud adds a third party to the mix….

Cloud companies that hold and manage your data can almost always access it, which means they can be compelled to hand it over to governments. US law enforcement gathered evidence about now-convicted former Trump campaign chair Paul Manaforte in part by accessing unencrypted iCloud backups of his WhatsApp chat histories. And in 2020, the FBI got access to a protester’s iCloud account from Apple —including photos, videos, and screenshots—over accusations that he lit police cars on fire in Seattle.

Assata Shakur

There’s more, including a few paragraphs about burner phones and how they can become not so safe and untraceable. 

Go read the whole article. It’s enlightening.

With Trump’s announcements of that ridiculous fraud, Dr. Oz, to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and fellow bag’o’nuts Brainworm Boy to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services, I can easily see that we’re royally fucked. By “we” I mean, all US citizens but especially those of us who aren’t blessed with flawlessly running bods (*cough* ME! *cough*)

Luckily, I live in Massachusetts so I might not be hopelessly, thoroughly, and irremediably screwed. MAYBE, during this administration of idiot asshats and their reign of terror and inevitable obscene errors, I won’t die or go broke.

I’m not really counting on it though.