My husband and I are thrilled to be a part of the expansion of an idea of the revival of the Paperclip resistance movement to a growing nationwide and now international campaign. Our goal is to “PAPERCLIP THE NATION” January 6th as a day of UNITY not division. The Paperclip family has grown beyond our wildest dreams and yet our dreams continue to grow beyond what is imaginable. Thank you for connecting with us and a special thanks goes to Kristin for writing such a wonderful article that captures our story. As the leader of the French Resistance, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade once said,
“They appeared from out of the shadows, and suddenly you felt that you had always known them. The connection formed by a threat to one’s country is the strongest connection of all. People adopt one another, march together. Only capture or death can tear them apart.”
We need to start doing some structure tests for a national strike, to test our readiness. Would love to see national days calling for wearing a paperclip combined with arriving late to work or school or similar. This is necessary to build the national strike muscle and the symbolism of the paperclip is so resonant.
What's obvious to me immediately is the same thing I've seen at my local protests - these movements are made by and for older people. There is no video content or social media available as resources. The photos are all older adults. And that's fine and good, but a movement requires the young. How might we engage them and play to their strengths? Where are the college movements and high school resistance - and how might we align with them?
As one of a group of daily protesters for 6 months while living in NM, we had the same question. It turns out that young people resist in active ways- following and recording ICE, helping to organize people in poor communities to get services and repairs due to them, and in so doing getting the individuals there participating and engaged in democracy. Law students advocating against elitist admissions policies, etc, etc. I'm okder. I protest in our new home state at an ICE facility. We, hundreds are almost all older. I know many younger ones are out there doing something else.
Give it time. This movement is young and growing fast. During WWII, teachers and students started the paperclip resistance movement. It spread throughout the country! Young people are beginning to join us; they will supply the necessary numbers and energy to not only topple the present regime, but provide a base for future resistance to any elements of national fascism.
I agree with your points expressed briefly in your paragraph and in the advocacy piece here on Substack with only a bit of the his\herstory of the movement included or referenced. My reading of the plethora of articles about the Norwegian Paperclip Revolution Movement found in online search is a social activist mosaic coming into focus the more I immerse myself in the his\herstory.
Here's the Wiki after finding in my search that virtually all info available online (save for reliable and blessed Wikipedia) emanates from a Dot Com.
Where is the non-profit far more trust-worthy journalistic coverage (in the U.S. and Canada at least) of this intriguing and barely U.S. Media-worthy revolutionary movement in our hyper-speed and threatening polarizing that cannot all be blamed on shrewd Cold War or other E-Con ideological rivalry in never-ending class warfare motivated anti-social sabotage & subversive subterfuge?
I look forward to months of 'free-time' cross-referencing as time and energy allows. Earning the rent and human necessities and monies to repay the kind friends and family who've bailed me out of hard and mostly non-union job seeking times and decades of necessary health insurance and all but theft insurance for my old junker of a car eventually stolen from this apartment renters' complex's reserved parking with many dear if not valuable possessions in the compact if beat-up Saturn car's trunk and docs in the glove compartment. Wage Stag-Nation on the long-term deeper hole that employment digs for most of US workers is all I can point to as my acquired "Reward" after once soon after college and burdened with that state-school's university loans being frustrated on-the-job but at least capable of covering my own human necessities, while insurance took the rest.
Even as liabilities for living the working class life kept adding up like vacations spent trying to find out how to pay off or properly default on the rising cost of living a non-acquisitive life as somebody else's leveraged and Ever-Rising-Inflationary Cost-of-Living Free HuMan\Wage Stag-Nation Slave in barely ever enforced Anti-Trust-Free Corporate-Captured anti-competitive Zones of consolidated ownership.
Now that I'm over 65 years old Social Security leaves barely low-use utilities covered after most of my monthly allotment of my own withheld pay and the bonus Washington gets for those that die before ever earning back what was so methodically and reliably withheld from every paycheck earned over a working life-time.
Meanwhile, I prefer to imagine myself intuitively ahead of the curve wearing paper clips as puckish office solidarity jewelry and for as long as I've never had either the breeding or "taste" or any appetite or desire to ever accumulate or wear jewelry (as in precious metals or stones) or stylish clothing as decoration, hobbies or status symbols.
Guess I was born to the starchy or cardboard collared 'clerical' class and have never felt comfortable seeking to rise any higher than spare and spartan Wage Slave's life-style brought me in our western value system. That is driven in overdrive by and revolves around shiny tokens and pagan consumer totems signifying we've taken advantage of enough human beings to 'lord it over' other reality-constrained working stiffs here in the Empire where Acquisitions, anti-competitive corporate-capture and Selling Out to all-but-monopolies in scale and size and live to leverage lured\trapped Wage Slave and carefully isolated workers at every turn to get their time cards and so much more 'punched' out....
"...Whether born slave or free, African Americans in the North found themselves at the center of the conflict over slavery. Read about three African Americans who became well-known for their involvement in the most important issue of their day..."
"The wage Slavery"
"In the decade between 1846 and 1855, more than three million immigrants came to the United States, with a vast majority of them settling in the free states of the North. By 1855, foreign-born residents were becoming a majority group; immigrants approached or exceeeded half the total population of several Northern cities."
"The new Americans arriving in this burst of immigration were nothing like those who had come before. Before 1840, three-quarters of all immigrants had been Protestants. Most were single men from the British Isles. Of those, a fifth became unskilled laborers or servants, and the remainder worked as farmers, skilled workers, or in professional occupations. But in the two decades after 1840, the typical immigrant's profile would radically change. More than half of all immigrants in these years were Catholics. Two-thirds were from Ireland, with the remainder from German-speaking countries. And the percentage of them who worked as unskilled laborers doubled..."
"The growing industrial economy of the North swallowed these new workers into its factories, employing them for long hours at low wages. These manufacturing jobs were repetitious and sometimes hazardous. And from their meager earnings, Northern laborers had to pay for every one of life's necessities."
"For some Southerners, the situation of Northern workers looked a lot worse than slavery. In fact, they argued, unlike the "wage slavery" of the North, the slavery system in the South provided food, clothing, medical care, and leisure to slaves, caring for them throughout their lives. Prominent defenders of slavery, including George Fitzburgh, based their pro-slavery attitudes on a racist assessment of African Americans as inferior to whites..."
"On top of its fundamentally racist outlook, this Southern justification of slavery ignored the central issue of self-determination: Northern workers could make their own choices, leaving their jobs or possibly heading West to the frontier, while slaves could not."
Paperclips are a great idea, but I wonder whether whistles on lanyards are more appropriate for these times. They serve as both a symbol and a tool. They psychologically make the wearer feel powerful. They let the world know we won’t put up with ICE.
Seniors Taking Action, Markers for Democracy, Team Min and Downtown Nasty Women will be joined on Wednesday November 19th at 11AM ET by the indomitable E. Jean Carroll, journalist and author, paper clip promoter and winner of two lawsuits against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
Her new book, Not My Type is characterized on Amazon as
“A hilarious, hopeful, revelatory behind the scenes account of the trials that riveted the nation”.
In this time of new and damning revelations from the Epstein files about Trump’s involvement, hearing E. Jean’s perspective is sure to be insightful, relevant and entertaining.
The best path I can think of is Occupy Wallstreet level peaceful protests in front of the Supreme Court building, shaming and mocking SCOTUS' destroying of the Constitution (and American Values) they swore to defend.
If only 2 of the 6 Traitorous Injustices grew a spine or conscience, Democracy would have a 5 to 4 advantage. It's not impossivble: Roberts and Gorsuch actually sounded like Supreme Court Justices discussing Trump's crazy Tariffs.
Historically, Supreme Court Justices often have done what they felt was right, rather than what the President who appointed them expected them to do. Yes, they will fear, and probably suffer retribution if they decide to quit being Trump's Toadys or Slaves. But History would praise them for saving mankind's best hope for sustained human civilization
In discussing the Paperclip Resistance with Janice and Ollie, they don't see this as a stand alone project but a symbol of all the resistance movements and something that can be incorporated into the overall protest movement.
I agree. It isn't either/or. The more avenues of resistance, the better. Symbolic and active.
I mention this approach because I think the best chance for a significant decrease in the likelihood of full autocracy is to try to change the minds and votes of 2 smart people already in a position of extreme power, and relatively (though not completely) immune to retaliation. Gorsuch and Roberts seem most likely now to grow a spine and/or a conscience, but any 2 would do.
5-4 votes for preservation of constitutional rights and precedence would be the most significant, and most likely good path that I, at least, can imagine to preserve the country we, and in the past, even Republicans, treasured.
oh is that what the dang Clippy profile pic thing is on YouTube? I've been wondering that for weeks or however long. gotta track down some paperclips now 📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎
Our evolving Paperclip Resistance:
https://sites.google.com/view/communitiesrisingus/bound-together
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1skCSDDa9ZCCSgf7ztyfbmmmEeQPvFijv/view?usp=sharing
My husband and I are thrilled to be a part of the expansion of an idea of the revival of the Paperclip resistance movement to a growing nationwide and now international campaign. Our goal is to “PAPERCLIP THE NATION” January 6th as a day of UNITY not division. The Paperclip family has grown beyond our wildest dreams and yet our dreams continue to grow beyond what is imaginable. Thank you for connecting with us and a special thanks goes to Kristin for writing such a wonderful article that captures our story. As the leader of the French Resistance, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade once said,
“They appeared from out of the shadows, and suddenly you felt that you had always known them. The connection formed by a threat to one’s country is the strongest connection of all. People adopt one another, march together. Only capture or death can tear them apart.”
We need to start doing some structure tests for a national strike, to test our readiness. Would love to see national days calling for wearing a paperclip combined with arriving late to work or school or similar. This is necessary to build the national strike muscle and the symbolism of the paperclip is so resonant.
What's obvious to me immediately is the same thing I've seen at my local protests - these movements are made by and for older people. There is no video content or social media available as resources. The photos are all older adults. And that's fine and good, but a movement requires the young. How might we engage them and play to their strengths? Where are the college movements and high school resistance - and how might we align with them?
As one of a group of daily protesters for 6 months while living in NM, we had the same question. It turns out that young people resist in active ways- following and recording ICE, helping to organize people in poor communities to get services and repairs due to them, and in so doing getting the individuals there participating and engaged in democracy. Law students advocating against elitist admissions policies, etc, etc. I'm okder. I protest in our new home state at an ICE facility. We, hundreds are almost all older. I know many younger ones are out there doing something else.
Give it time. This movement is young and growing fast. During WWII, teachers and students started the paperclip resistance movement. It spread throughout the country! Young people are beginning to join us; they will supply the necessary numbers and energy to not only topple the present regime, but provide a base for future resistance to any elements of national fascism.
This Paperclip Resistance to could re-designed to target young people.
https://sites.google.com/view/communitiesrisingus/bound-together
I agree with your points expressed briefly in your paragraph and in the advocacy piece here on Substack with only a bit of the his\herstory of the movement included or referenced. My reading of the plethora of articles about the Norwegian Paperclip Revolution Movement found in online search is a social activist mosaic coming into focus the more I immerse myself in the his\herstory.
Here's the Wiki after finding in my search that virtually all info available online (save for reliable and blessed Wikipedia) emanates from a Dot Com.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_resistance_movement
Where is the non-profit far more trust-worthy journalistic coverage (in the U.S. and Canada at least) of this intriguing and barely U.S. Media-worthy revolutionary movement in our hyper-speed and threatening polarizing that cannot all be blamed on shrewd Cold War or other E-Con ideological rivalry in never-ending class warfare motivated anti-social sabotage & subversive subterfuge?
I look forward to months of 'free-time' cross-referencing as time and energy allows. Earning the rent and human necessities and monies to repay the kind friends and family who've bailed me out of hard and mostly non-union job seeking times and decades of necessary health insurance and all but theft insurance for my old junker of a car eventually stolen from this apartment renters' complex's reserved parking with many dear if not valuable possessions in the compact if beat-up Saturn car's trunk and docs in the glove compartment. Wage Stag-Nation on the long-term deeper hole that employment digs for most of US workers is all I can point to as my acquired "Reward" after once soon after college and burdened with that state-school's university loans being frustrated on-the-job but at least capable of covering my own human necessities, while insurance took the rest.
Even as liabilities for living the working class life kept adding up like vacations spent trying to find out how to pay off or properly default on the rising cost of living a non-acquisitive life as somebody else's leveraged and Ever-Rising-Inflationary Cost-of-Living Free HuMan\Wage Stag-Nation Slave in barely ever enforced Anti-Trust-Free Corporate-Captured anti-competitive Zones of consolidated ownership.
Now that I'm over 65 years old Social Security leaves barely low-use utilities covered after most of my monthly allotment of my own withheld pay and the bonus Washington gets for those that die before ever earning back what was so methodically and reliably withheld from every paycheck earned over a working life-time.
Meanwhile, I prefer to imagine myself intuitively ahead of the curve wearing paper clips as puckish office solidarity jewelry and for as long as I've never had either the breeding or "taste" or any appetite or desire to ever accumulate or wear jewelry (as in precious metals or stones) or stylish clothing as decoration, hobbies or status symbols.
Guess I was born to the starchy or cardboard collared 'clerical' class and have never felt comfortable seeking to rise any higher than spare and spartan Wage Slave's life-style brought me in our western value system. That is driven in overdrive by and revolves around shiny tokens and pagan consumer totems signifying we've taken advantage of enough human beings to 'lord it over' other reality-constrained working stiffs here in the Empire where Acquisitions, anti-competitive corporate-capture and Selling Out to all-but-monopolies in scale and size and live to leverage lured\trapped Wage Slave and carefully isolated workers at every turn to get their time cards and so much more 'punched' out....
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lincolns-north/
"...Whether born slave or free, African Americans in the North found themselves at the center of the conflict over slavery. Read about three African Americans who became well-known for their involvement in the most important issue of their day..."
"The wage Slavery"
"In the decade between 1846 and 1855, more than three million immigrants came to the United States, with a vast majority of them settling in the free states of the North. By 1855, foreign-born residents were becoming a majority group; immigrants approached or exceeeded half the total population of several Northern cities."
"The new Americans arriving in this burst of immigration were nothing like those who had come before. Before 1840, three-quarters of all immigrants had been Protestants. Most were single men from the British Isles. Of those, a fifth became unskilled laborers or servants, and the remainder worked as farmers, skilled workers, or in professional occupations. But in the two decades after 1840, the typical immigrant's profile would radically change. More than half of all immigrants in these years were Catholics. Two-thirds were from Ireland, with the remainder from German-speaking countries. And the percentage of them who worked as unskilled laborers doubled..."
"The growing industrial economy of the North swallowed these new workers into its factories, employing them for long hours at low wages. These manufacturing jobs were repetitious and sometimes hazardous. And from their meager earnings, Northern laborers had to pay for every one of life's necessities."
"For some Southerners, the situation of Northern workers looked a lot worse than slavery. In fact, they argued, unlike the "wage slavery" of the North, the slavery system in the South provided food, clothing, medical care, and leisure to slaves, caring for them throughout their lives. Prominent defenders of slavery, including George Fitzburgh, based their pro-slavery attitudes on a racist assessment of African Americans as inferior to whites..."
"On top of its fundamentally racist outlook, this Southern justification of slavery ignored the central issue of self-determination: Northern workers could make their own choices, leaving their jobs or possibly heading West to the frontier, while slaves could not."
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My next show will be called Paperclip
Thank you for sharing about this wondeful idea and project. As a retired history teacher it fits me well and is a project I intend to be a part of.
That is wonderful. Thank you for sharing.
Paperclips are a great idea, but I wonder whether whistles on lanyards are more appropriate for these times. They serve as both a symbol and a tool. They psychologically make the wearer feel powerful. They let the world know we won’t put up with ICE.
WE’LL ALL BE WEARING OUR PAPERCLIPS
Seniors Taking Action, Markers for Democracy, Team Min and Downtown Nasty Women will be joined on Wednesday November 19th at 11AM ET by the indomitable E. Jean Carroll, journalist and author, paper clip promoter and winner of two lawsuits against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
Her new book, Not My Type is characterized on Amazon as
“A hilarious, hopeful, revelatory behind the scenes account of the trials that riveted the nation”.
In this time of new and damning revelations from the Epstein files about Trump’s involvement, hearing E. Jean’s perspective is sure to be insightful, relevant and entertaining.
If you’d like to join us, please write to us at seniorstakingaction21@gmail.com and we will send you the Zoom link.
Just emailed you. Thx.
Interesting, but not very powerful.
The best path I can think of is Occupy Wallstreet level peaceful protests in front of the Supreme Court building, shaming and mocking SCOTUS' destroying of the Constitution (and American Values) they swore to defend.
If only 2 of the 6 Traitorous Injustices grew a spine or conscience, Democracy would have a 5 to 4 advantage. It's not impossivble: Roberts and Gorsuch actually sounded like Supreme Court Justices discussing Trump's crazy Tariffs.
Historically, Supreme Court Justices often have done what they felt was right, rather than what the President who appointed them expected them to do. Yes, they will fear, and probably suffer retribution if they decide to quit being Trump's Toadys or Slaves. But History would praise them for saving mankind's best hope for sustained human civilization
In discussing the Paperclip Resistance with Janice and Ollie, they don't see this as a stand alone project but a symbol of all the resistance movements and something that can be incorporated into the overall protest movement.
I agree. It isn't either/or. The more avenues of resistance, the better. Symbolic and active.
I mention this approach because I think the best chance for a significant decrease in the likelihood of full autocracy is to try to change the minds and votes of 2 smart people already in a position of extreme power, and relatively (though not completely) immune to retaliation. Gorsuch and Roberts seem most likely now to grow a spine and/or a conscience, but any 2 would do.
5-4 votes for preservation of constitutional rights and precedence would be the most significant, and most likely good path that I, at least, can imagine to preserve the country we, and in the past, even Republicans, treasured.
oh is that what the dang Clippy profile pic thing is on YouTube? I've been wondering that for weeks or however long. gotta track down some paperclips now 📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎🖇️📎