What You Can Do to Help Right Now
Finding Meaningful Participation During Renewed US American Imperialism
To begin, a lament for the grief of those we have lost.
Dear friends, colleagues and very kind followers,
I have many more posts on dance, survival, technological creativity and embodied history complete and waiting in the wings. Right now, however, I would like to share for those interested some explanation as well as specific actions you can take to help US Americans work to counteract and hopefully end our government’s harm.
Our lives here are in very real danger, and many both in fame and obscurity have already died in this long fight against tyranny since colonization began. The innocent and brave alike continue to perish for the interests of the few. Daily more people are very aware that our action and inaction here have very real consequences for those around the world.
The work I am encouraging remains profoundly embodied, and intends to find counter-motions to new totalitarian choreographies operating at scale. Our world—for better or worse depending who you ask—is rapidly being destabilized in particular by a handful of billionaire gangster bankers who are stealing all our tech, knowledge, natural resources, our children and so much more. Their goal seems to be the same as ever for any despot: to control all life on earth. Some methods are old. Some are new. All must be met by someone—hopefully enough to make real change.
I have so much love for our world, and I don’t want to see more people, animals, trees, mountains, waters hurt by greed and hatred. Many of you are more worldly and wise than me, so please do chime in, correct and advise as you know how. We should have never gotten here and yes, it is the mess of USians to clean up. That’s said.
First I will provide some context many may not have, and then things you can do to help if you would like to. Many of you are not from or are in the USA, and you know far better than I what you need to do in your own countries and communities to protect yourselves, so I’m not trying to dictate that. I come from a people who have never started any wars, so I cannot condone or authoritatively speak on violence other than physical self-defense. I also have multiple disabilities that would make me a significant burden to others in a crisis situation. My advice is for those looking to help US Americans who are resisting.
The assistance I am advocating for grows from striving to find leadership in what I call meaningful participation. This stems from a greater principle of survival embodiment, which is what it sounds like. However, these dances of the continuity of life need some updates for 2026. This is something I’ve dedicated my life to as a dance academic, embodied historian, technologist and human being.
Survival Embodiment centers life-nourishing practices within knowledge systems, societal choreographies and the business of being alive.
Meaningful Participation evolves to find mutually beneficial communication and engagement within the complex, unstable web of social interaction emerging within the 21st century.
I begin with the tedium of tech and publishing because it’s relevant and continues to shape the very nature of how we communicate, and it is now in the hands of the few who wish to, according to many sources, re-colonize the planet. (I remind everyone the last time this happened at this scale so many millions died the earth’s climate changed.) In the many attacks on life around the world, it is a struggle to find how to make helpful, productive, supportive and meaningful contributions to resistance. This is intentional. I have worked for America’s largest publishers for a decade, and I can guarantee every single one of you have used tech one of my teams have built. I have observed how this kind of communication has been undermined in the following ways:
Billionaire-owned press. The rich and private equity firms have spent over a decade buying up every single one of our presses. Everything really stems from this but there are details I will elaborate.
Profit. Close behind this was the desire for profit over integrity, which is pretty obvious to anyone who is reading on Substack. People are paying to be entertained, no longer paying to be informed.
Digital Publishing. In the presses I worked for, only print journalists were protected by the unions. Younger, digital members of the press face harsh quotas that end up creating click-bait journalism. They have to produce so much content there’s no time for depth. Paywalls and incentive systems obfuscate what is breaking news and what is OpEd. Ad placements end up controlling content and so much more.
Senior Staffers Betrayed the Public. When the elites bought up all the presses, the dangers of this were instantly clear to everyone in every single role. Senior staffers, who overwhelmingly have very privileged backgrounds—the kind you and I can only dream of—did not resist these changes in any substantive way that prevented the worst from happening. An article or two was published warning everyone, people griped at happy hours, a few days of strikes…and that was it.
Silent death of investigative journalism. The press’s most powerful tool is investigative journalism: the ability to find something out that no one else but the baddie knows that is of great interest and importance to everyone. This has been in steady decline for decades, but was accelerated during the 2007/8 crash when corrupt companies and criminals were exposed. This could not happen again to Johnny Joe at the country club again, “he’s actually a great guy” kind of stuff (people have literally said this to me about our most genocidal presidents because they had dinner with them). Investigations didn’t end overnight however. They turned into exposé’s about things that already happened that everyone knew about, not really putting anyone at risk anymore of prosecution and litigation. And then this too went away. Twitter was the last major source of investigative journalism with the potential to change headlines. There’s a reason why it was so important for the rich to acquire and degrade this publicly traded company that should have been a commodity operated by the people.
Manipulation of Time. There is a careful cadence between breaking news, in-depth reporting, opinions, satire and other traditional forms of journalism. This has all been shattered, and the end result is that the timing of each of these is now scattered. Our sense of what is happening—already broken by the ever-alive decay of the internet—can now be freely directed wherever they want it to go for however long they want it to go.
Social Engineering Attacks. Many have written about the perils of social media, and some have written about how bad actors harvest attention online through bots and troll farms. What is not known is that all attempts to stop this election-shaping, harmful practice were—you guessed it—attacked by the trolls and bots. My favorite company for researching and combating this, https://graphika.com/, had to cease operations because they were accused of being part of the “deep state” propaganda. Every accusation from the baddies is indeed a confession.
The Private Equity-ness of the Press. The thing about private equity is that it cares about capital > profits, which profit itself already had destroyed any sense of (w)right and wrong. America is being carved up because the sale of each business in parts can be worth more than the profits from the business itself. This is late-stage capitalism—when it begins to eat itself.
Performative Leadership. As Moten and Harney said, revolution has to come from the outside and the fringes, it literally cannot come from the academic center. As an academic myself on the margins, I ask you to consider how many people just a couple years ago were outspoken activists for the marginalized and the resistance. Where is their leadership now? For most, their position and privilege in the end has meant more than your safety. All the same, I am grateful for what they taught me.
Okay I hope that was informative in some way, and if you work in the press you might keep asking more questions and demanding more change, or build anew. I know how to build and operate every single part of multi-billion-dollar publications at scale, and let me say I never thought I would have that ability. You can do it.
For everyone else, I hope that this helps you understand the urgency and need of finding meaningful participation—and sharing these routes, tables and moments of rescue with each other.
Here we go:
Re-Post Evidence. Then Post it Again. Most Americans do not have access to reliable news, so social media and direct messaging videos of incidents seems to be the most effective at getting people to understand the peril and to act. Seeing Eric Garner be strangled to death by Police in NYC a decade ago woke me up. For others, seeing Renee Nicole Good get shot in the face yesterday by an ICE agent has woken them up. Let everyone know what the system is doing.
Share History. The internet and commentary is flooded with hot takes that are right now clogging up the few communication channels that we have. This buries meaningful participation, and is intended to do so. The bots love this. So many of these quips and opinions are on a some race to the bottom of the awfulness of human history, which is understandable given how little sense of history most people have. If you need to go there, share specific facts about the history of empire. You will definitely educate at least a couple people, and we need that. For example, I’ve been educated by Canadians about American imperial history I did not know, and I grew up on the border.
Listen to Black, Indigenous and People of Color. This is a generalization, but I do find that historically oppressed people understand how systems create harm. And they know how to resist it. If they are kind of enough to share their knowledge, please show respect and say thank you. If this is you, thank you.
For the love of god stop attacking American activists. I understand so many domestically and around the world want revenge, but telling us how awful you think we are is wasting critical time and attention that could otherwise be spent on meaningful participation. We are all that stands between the world and war. Once this is over I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me how mad you are.
Keep confronting fascists. One of the most helpful things I’ve seen online is foreigners confronting ICE agents, trumpers, harmful elites and white supremacists about the disparities of their narratives. People are coming around. Your outrage is working. We have been fighting them for a decade and many of us have run out of time to educate them. It helps a lot when you do.
Stop the undermining of your democracies. Banning X and regulating other platforms is a direct, immediate benefit.
Stop injustice at home. Every nation does bad stuff, know what yours is and do something about it. Every bit helps.
Boycotts. Y’all know what you’re doing on this one.
Do Not Post Organization. Soon ICE will be doubling their numbers and going door to door. Loose lips sink ships. Do not expose things that do not need exposing.
Read. Project2025 and the CIA handbook for psychological operations are open and available. Give them a read. There are so many great books, like Arendt and Snyder. Share yours below.
Pressure Your Politicians. You can pressure your elected officials to disinvest, boycott and speak out. You might be surprised how many secretly still support this because they or their families are physically threatened or because they are being blackmailed by a global sex, human trafficking or pedophile ring.
Amplify Meaningful Participation. If you find a voice you think is helping or can materially change thing, re-post and share them.
Keep Doing the Real Work. The world is awakening to what has been stolen from us—nature, intuition, connection, creativity, peace and love. Remember this is what we are all working to protect, so keep doing it <3
Get creative. Anymore ideas?
If you liked this post, please signup for my newsletter. Very soon I will be beginning “embodied survival” workshops every week or two, and I’d like to keep you informed and welcome you to the conversation.
Remember, your mind cannot process all this. But I promise you, the heart can bear it all.1
