Diane Galloway

Tell you what, my mood is wrecked

I appreciate that so much, but Sarah is a LOT more important and influential than I am and for good reason. Have you read “Hiding In Plain Sight?” It is important work. If she was suspended for something connected to her reporting, I’m finished here. But I’ll find a way to stay in touch, fear not

I need to know why @bsky.app has suspended Sarah Kendzior. I would like anyone, @aaron.bsky.team or @pfrazee.com or anyone at @support.bsky.team or @moderation.bsky.app can answer this question but I need to know. If it’s a non-answer I’m going to draw conclusions. We all know her work. Explain.

I’m really steamed about this.

Yeah it was me. I’m planning a different post. Before I fucking leave this place that used to be cool. If they can’t answer a simple question about why a journalist was suspended — won’t even tell the journalist why — and she’s famous for calling out Trump’s criminal acts — what are we doing here?

I used to like it here.

First sentence of a story I’m finishing today:

“She appeared like a mirage in the coffee line, a sunny blonde echo from the past.”

Hello @support.bsky.team

I heard from Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior.bsky.social that her account was suspended.

Can you please look into this and reinstate her account? She’s a published author and scholar on authoritarianism. Her presence here is valuable.

cc:
@jay.bsky.team
@aaron.bsky.team

<joyce carol oates voice> en garde--i'll let you try my wu tang style

Thank you, I have read most of this already.

In my experience, when the base realizes they’ve got that kind of coward negotiating on their behalf, they tend to abandon their organization all together — or take it over from the inside. Which one do y’all think we should do in this instance? 14/end

When the base is fired up to organize themselves organically, like we’re seeing with No Kings and last Tuesday’s results, good leadership sees that as a favorable wind and hoists a sail. Bad leadership goes into a room with the Powerful and tries to stop the wind from blowing. 13/x

GOOD leaders, the ones I’ve had the privilege to watch making REAL change, draw their courage straight from an activated and engaged base, and let the anger of the base flow through them like a conduit. They don’t douse the flames because of their own fear and capitulation to the Powerful. 11/x

And

Again, I’ll get to that in a minute. Another reason leadership tends to be more conservative than their base is 2) they’re fucking scared! Pissing off the Powerful is scary, and folks don’t often realize how much courage it takes to be the person who has to tell a Gov. or a Speaker to fuck off 10/x

That protect-the-status-quo-but-amend-it-somewhat effect grows more pronounced the longer the same leaders remain in their positions. And it’s not just true in union organizing, this effect is on display nowhere more clearly than in our current congressional leadership 9/x

This produces a down-stream effect of leaders having more invested in the status quo, which the Powerful wish to preserve, than the radical change they ostensibly want to bring about for those they represent. Many leaders get elected as radicals and then the system files off their sharp edges 7/x

Focus their energy on lobbying, giving interviews, and showing up at legislative hearings, rather than focusing on the true and honest source of their power: the rank and file. This leads to disaffected membership, but also to leaders having more in common with the Powerful than their members 6/x

But it’s ALSO, and crucially, the wrong way to go about getting things done. In my experience, there’s a tendency to think we need to be “in the room where it happens” with the Powerful in order to make change. I have watched this misunderstanding lead well-intentioned union leaders to 5/x

Than, say, going to visit rank and file educators in their break rooms to hear about classroom issues and principals who play favorites. This is just human nature, I think: constituent services and direct listening are labor-intensive and less glamorous. People are drawn to what they enjoy 4/x

While the state president of, say, a teachers union fundamentally exists to represent the teachers’ interests directly to state executives and key committee chairs, oftentimes the allure of spending time in high-stakes talks with the Powerful becomes more attractive to that state fed president 3/x

This is generally to their extreme detriment, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First let’s talk about WHY this is the case: 1) leadership has to maintain a relationship of some kind with the “boss,” which in the case of state employees includes legislators, governors, AGs, etc. (the Powerful) 2/x

Comrades, it’s time for another thread about lessons I learned as a union organizer writing/working campaigns for public employees across multiple states from 2008-2024. Here’s a big one: leaders of progressive organizations are often FAR more conservative and risk-averse than their base 🧵 1/x

Just watched one dog eat an entire paper towel while the other dog refused to get off my lap so I could go and prevent it — they’re acting in concert now

HAVE A BLAST FRIEND, you deserve it

I do think this is a point of radicalization because a lot of angry, angry normal people were ready to dig in and suffer a lot in order to make fascists suffer a little, and their resolution was sold out and made into a mockery

Black and white still of Ted Danson, early ‘80s — handsome guy with thick brown hair and hairy forearms leaning on a countertop in a white shirt with a neutral pleasant smile

Same guy blue shirt in a scene from season 1 ep 1 of Cheers, smiling at a bar patron

Ayup

People seem to forget that before Ted Danson was an attractive, affable retiree (Good Place, Man On The Inside) he was a goddamn snack in Cheers

Got a short story deadline tomorrow so naturally I’ve chosen today to go through every stitch of clothing in the house and sort into repair-donate-replace-store-discard piles