Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto | 
Hello #SheSaid!
I have to say when this was the first pick, I thought…maybe we needed something stronger for this time in history. BUT! I was wrong…. In an age when actions are meant to exhaust us and then numb us and make us just check out and tune out…this is exactly the right book for right now. Rest and Resist, and Rest as resistance. See you in the comments ;~)
vlwelser This seems interesting so far. I hope it doesn't get too far into the religion stuff. 2d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @vlwelser I hope so too 2d
CatLass007 I tried to listen to the audiobook because I have frequent migraines due to eye strain. I‘m afraid I did not find what I heard particularly restful. It could be because I am experiencing a lot of anxiety this past week due to possible negative effects on my health insurance because of DJT‘s freeze on spending. If I really wanted to rest, I had to listen to something that was fiction. I am going to attempt this section again soon. 2d
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa @CatLass007 I understand, I also have Health Insurance and medications he is poking at. And I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. But this book helped for me, if we stress constantly we will not have the energy to organize back. We need to sleep and rest and not doom-scroll 24/7. It saddens me that a lot of people are going to need to suffer, including most likely me, before people snap out of their trance…. BUT 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ Stressing ourselves into anxiety and exhaustion will not help us either. So I‘m trying to take all tips from those singled out for detrimental treatment before me. (edited) 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @CatLass007 but I understand, it‘s scary times & if you need to read for fun with fiction, I totally understand that…we all need a break from real life & an escape. And for the disabled… at least for mine…regular everyday life takes all my energy and I can not always keep up, hence the label of dis-able, not able to, and I‘ve often complained that the hoops you have to jump through to get the help you need is an added burden very very often. ↩️ 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ and this new onslaught is a fight we may not have the energy to fight by ourselves. I was heartened to see so many jump in when he was going to cut money for everything DEI, because although that seems to be the new N word that they do not want Brown people to get their jobs apparently (my interpretation here). DEI or Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion is Civil Righrs, and includes Women, the Disabled, the Elderly, Vetrans, etc, etc, etc… 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ anyone that gets left out of we do not have DEI. I am not at all surprised he went there, but I think a bunch of his voters will be, many have benefits that will be impacted…and members of congress have to win election again in 2 years and need those votes 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa Sorry for the political rant here… but it probably will not be the last, sorry to say. 1d
AnneCecilie I had really high hopes for this, I‘m all for resting and try to do as much as possible myself. Like @vlwelser and yourself, I hope it doesn‘t get to religious. I also hope she will explain her statement that capitalism is white supremacy and slavery. 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @AnneCecilie I understood that connection almost immediately. The US is a Capitalist country, and has always been run by wealthy corporations and before that wealthy landowners. The easiest way to make money is to keep costs low…cheap labor. Shipping in slaves, breeding slaves, capturing & enslaving natives cut labor costs, and made profits higher. To keep that system in place you had to create a race system where brown natives & africans⤵️ 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ were less than human, less than their white owners…and therefore make the system “ok”. It was common for many European countries to do this as they created colonies around the world too, not just the US. Canada has issues with its native populations historically, England in India, Australians and Aboriginal, every African colony, etc. The idea that the White Europeans were better than, smarter then, more Gods children than the native ↩️ 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ “savages” they found there. And that mindset was what gave them the permission system to …take their land, enslave them, kill them off…they were not entitled to the same rights as the White Europeans…that was the beginning of the race system and White Supremacy. 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa But..as we changed from a plantation system to a corporate system the landowners and eventually companies needed to keep costs low to maximize their profits. So as one system is outlawed, they employ the next. Slavery is out, Jim Crow is in…now you will be arrested for being lazy and leased back to the same plantation or business as a laborer with no rights, Jim Crow is our, Mass incarceration is in where more brown people are arrested ⤵️ 1d
Riveted_Reader_Melissa And imprisoned for the exact same crimes as white people who are given a warning and waved on. Just in the recent CA wildfires they used prison inmates to fight the fire and paid them $10/day. From there it branched out into regular businesses. Why pay higher minimum wage here, if I can ship my company overseas and save money, increase profits. Why have labor laws..like child labor, work weeks, paid maternity leave, unions, etc…if I can ⤵️ 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ keep that down, more profits at the top. We in the US have a widening wealth gap in the US because of policies like this…and a belief that those at the top are smarter, more gifted, etc, so deserve a big bonus, where the day to day labors do not deserve a living wage because they are obviously unworthy, lazy, etc. but sadly very little is based on merit, but based on who your parents were, what education you could afford, etc, etc. 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa So the system of making better profits through Slavery and White Supremacy has morphed into the current Capitalist system. Company boards at the top, workers at the bottom. As companies make record profits, employees do not get a pay raise, instead they get no-fault firing, benefits cuts, etc. which has led yo what she calls Grind culture. You can not pay your bills with 1 job , so to break even you work 2, get a side hustle as they call it⤵️ 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa ↪️ drive your personal car for DoorDash, Uber, etc. So you work more and more hours (& put miles on your personal car, tires, etc) to work for another company to just make enough to pay basic bills. And less rest, less time to question why this is the system, why the heads are making record profits, but just can not pay a living wage, or keep prices steady instead of price gouging. 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa I‘ve seen some compare the current state of things to the days of mining towns & sharecropping. Where you worked for the mine, but all goods had to be bought at the company store. And because they controlled both wages and costs, basically you were always in debt to the company store so owed them more money and more work. Which keeps the workforce basically “enslaved” to that company. (edited) 24h
CatLass007 @Riveted_Reader_Melissa I don‘t blame you for your political rant. It‘s completely understandable. My anxiety has decreased tremendously over the weekend and I might give this book another try today. I have to say that the comments that religion in this book is unwelcome are disappointing. I do not consider myself religious, but I am spiritual. Christianity is another way to belittle and enslave people. I do not consider myself a (cont)⬇️ 24h
CatLass007 Christian. Mainly because of the negative connotations that the word itself has. To quote Ghandi, “I like your Christ very much. It is your Christians I do not like.” I think that all spiritual traditions have merit. But they also have flaws. 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @CatLass007 I am with you there, born Christian, but left the organized church in my area because of some intolerance views they had. I do not think God/Jesus/or whatever you believe in would agree with that. Sadly Christianity has a bad history with imperialism and treating non-Christian‘s as not human. To quote another source “if you preach hate at the service, those words are not anointed” Song - Same Love: Macklemore. (edited) 24h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa I also consider myself spiritual now, but not religious. Maybe we should start our own religion…I think there is a growing number in that group 23h
CatLass007 I‘m not sure what to start my own religion. I just need to find the right spiritual path. 21h
vlwelser Was there a political rant? Did I miss something? 20h
CatLass007 @vlwelser @AnneCecilie @Riveted_Reader_Melissa I haven‘t gotten back to it yet, but I do have to say that every time she said, white supremacy or white supremacist I just kind of mentally inserted white male patriarchy. I think that as women that is a description of capitalism with which we all can identify, no matter our race. Of course it doesn‘t really matter if it‘s capitalism, it also could describe monarchy, communism, fascism, or others. 19h
vlwelser @CatLass007 she's referring to the current (and past) state of the US. Definitely white male dominant. I'm for sure not in charge. 😂 18h
CatLass007 @vlwelser Yes. 18h
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @vlwelser nope me either. 18h
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