Hey. Different newsletter than usual because the times are unusual. Much more unusual than they usually are, even.

I’ll dispense with the professional updates quickly, just to respect the purpose of the newsletter: I got three off-Broadway callbacks last month, booked none of them, and am doing some short films. The plan proceeds as intended, at least until I need to renew my work permit this summer, at which point who can say what will happen because will there be a government to renew it with, even? That’s up to you.

A rambling pep-talk for my American colleagues who might need the encouragement: get in the street, please!

Your country is sleepwalking through a fascist coup, in case you haven’t heard. Your government is being dismantled by the richest man on earth, a world-historical freak who cheats at video games when he’s not huffing speedballs and impregnating employees. Meanwhile, your wheezing pustule of a president is seizing the powers of congress and the courts while your representatives zip themselves into gimp suits, asking for more punishment please. It’s a disgrace, it’s a joke, it’s a nightmare. The good news is you can wake up screaming. Start screaming and don’t stop. Follow the instructive example of your enemy and scream until the world takes the shape you prefer. That’s what I’m doing right now!

Some easy screaming targets are the open phone lines of your elected Democrats (and Republicans!) who are refusing to wield their official powers in your defense for whatever reason they’ve ashamedly sidled into today. Scream at them to get their shit together for once, and to use their power before it’s gone. And if you can, register before Friday in the NYC primary to get rid of Eric Fucking Adams.

And then get in the street. Get in the street! Break stuff! Burn stuff! Make it more painful to enact these policies than to accede to the meagre demands of, I don’t know, planes that don’t fall from the sky? Drinkable water? Your children not getting polio? Your neighbours not getting deported? Women having autonomy? Whatever you care about, this is the time to get out there and mean it, because your vote clearly wasn’t enough and once this stuff is gone, it’s not coming back.

In 2012, the year before I finished high school, 250,000 students in Québec went on strike when the government tried to raise tuition by $1,500 (roughly $10 USD). They shut Montreal down for months. Many were arrested, many were hurt, but they won, for a time.

What became clear to me and to the newly open-eyed young people watching was that nobody was fighting for our future except ourselves—especially not those who claimed to be acting in our interests, like administrators and government ministers and cops. La police au service des riches et des fascistes. Every single one of those protesters left a heroic legacy, not just because they smashed some cop cars (god bless), but because they shouted NO to power and meant it and kept shouting until they were heard and kept being heard until things changed. They demonstrated to us that to get what you want, simply make it easier for the powerful to surrender than to keep trying to shut you up. All who came after benefitted, while those students got the unique pleasure of spitting in the faces of those who would make them suffer, even just to the tune of $1,500. That’s good politics, baby.

A few years later, international students’ tuition rates were going to be massively hiked. I was a student journalist at the time, and covered the muted protests around this. I recall one moment, the night the board of university directors were going to vote on the increases, a handful of student leaders fought their way to the floor of the board meeting. There was no mass movement this time, because who cares about international students? Still, a small group understood the stakes, and acted. That meeting was disrupted and the vote delayed, protecting thousands of students from exploitation, at least for the year. However, the administrators trusted that based on the meagre resistance shown, there wouldn’t be a sustained enough campaign to kill the hikes for good. They were right.

Those tuition increases went into place the next year, followed by further hikes on out-of-province students, and since then tuition has skyrocketed for everyone in Québec (due to that precedent and other successful efforts to undermine public education). I was one of the last Canadians to benefit from the legacy of 2012 and get an almost fully socialized education, all because a few assholes wanted to save some cash in the short term and thought ripping off generations of young people in their care was a fine tradeoff. Who was going to stop them from leveraging our future against their bottom line? We tried, but there weren’t enough of us. Let that be a lesson.

The same simple tactic gets repeated because it works: target your campaign to enrich or empower yourself on the misery of others in order from most to least vulnerable, and as long as it moves slowly enough up the ladder that a critical mass of folks aren’t moved to respond, soon enough the whole thing’s fucked. Trans rights, mass surveillance, abortion, privatization of public goods, the entire capitalist project against a livable planet—it’s the same deal, again and again, when the strong don’t step in to support the weak. I don’t know what happened to the willingness to stand in solidarity, even just a little bit. I think it died somewhere on the floor of an Amazon Fulfillment Center.

I bring all this up because the principle of solidarity is that when acting en masse, the relatively weak are shielded by the relatively strong. I’m very weak here as a non-resident alien, in ways I don’t think many citizens can conceive. All of the rights you take for granted are contingent for me (and will become for you if you let them): getting tagged by facial recognition at a protest means getting harassed or barred at the border; getting arrested means getting deported; writing a letter like this means likely losing a future visa. I’m not helpless, mind you; weakness isn’t an excuse for inaction, but rather an invitation for help. I could really use your help, your strength.

What surprises me as a bystander to the last few years of American history is the reaction now that everyone is under attack, not just the weak. The collective national body has responded to the functional end of constitutional rule at the hands of two of the stupidest motherfuckers that ever lived with a half-hearted shrug. That’s not going to cut it, folks! It’s your country! Do something!

And by do something I do not mean, in any sense, post about it. Please, do not funnel your time and energy into activity that enriches your enemies and diffuses your power. I mean use your actual voice in your actual community. I mean break things. I mean get. In. The. Street. There are protests happening. Join them. Start them. Call your reps. Block ICE officers from entering buildings. My white citizen friends, your bodies are more valuable than ever; the police will not go through you to hurt a black or brown person. Use your power or don’t. It’s a choice, regardless.

Tuition doesn’t go down. Bullets don’t go backwards and neither do deportation flights. Like history, they go one way only. You can shape which way that is. You can’t do it alone, and you can’t do it forever, but right now is the moment that matters. Don’t let your future be stolen without a fight. Don’t let mine, either.

Love ya,

Carl

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yes this is about social media

This is the Carl Bindman Newsletter, for members of my professional or personal networks whom I think should get the scoop and be kept in the loop.

This newsletter was written on Lenapehoking, the occupied land of the Lenni Lenape.