up past our bedtime —
the stars swing back around
to check up on us
December 25, 2024
November 30, 2024
The Past Is Prologue
We don't have to imagine what will happen if Trump detains and/or deports huge numbers of illegal immigrants as he has repeatedly said he plans to do.
Twelve years ago, on the heels of some state-wide restrictions on migrant labor, reported Julie Strupp wrote a great piece in MIC:
"We need to face the facts: our agricultural industry is built on illegal labor, and it needs to be reformed."
Read the full article here (it's not long)!
(HT: Flynn Talwar)
Weekend Reading from Kelly Hayes
"Defiance must be woven into the fabric of our daily lives, rather than simply proclaimed at marches or on social media."
Collective Survival, Adaption, and Direct Action
(from Kelly Hayes' Organizing My Thoughts)
Protect the Press
Call Senators re: the PRESS Act
(HT Celeste Pewter, Greg Pak, Senator Wyden)
We need the press. We need them to be investigators, not stenographers. And we need to protect them so that they can keep digging.
(Read more on the PRESS Act here.)
Do you have the phone numbers of your Senators in your contacts yet?
Here's a handy link that can tell you who your elected officials are at the local, state, and federal level: https://myreps.datamade.us
Unrelated:
Weekend Reading from Andrea Pitzer
"Authoritarians aim to destroy the social fabric and to isolate individuals. Anything you do to counter that is good work. We may or may not see heroes in our time, but we can be sure that the most vital work will done on a smaller scale day in and day out by regular people."
Read Andrea Pitzer's excellent full piece, Swept Into The Flood, here:
https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/swept-into-the-flood
Don't Roll Over
Sherrilyn Ifill (former President. & Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund) says,
"Don’t throw in the towel. Rest, then call your Senator - Dem & Repub. Tell them you expect them to do their constitutional duty and have real confirmation review & hearings for Gaetz, Hegseth, Gabbard & all cabinet nominees. Don’t let your Senators give their power to Trump w/o a fight."
Here's a clip: https://bsky.app/profile/sifill.bsky.social/post/3laxiugfhik2j
The Capital Switchboard's number is 202-224-3121. To look up your representatives' contact information, try this handy little tool: https://myreps.datamade.us
Put your Senators' and Representative's DC office numbers in your phone. Then add them to your favorites. Consider moving from a default position of never calling them to a default position of calling them all the time.
Unrelated mic drop:
Protect Your Peace - So You Can Engage
Dear friends and loved ones,
How are you holding up? It's a lot, right? A highlight of yesterday for me was the somewhat surprising and thoroughly satisfying defeat of H.R. 9495 in the US House of Representatives. This was a bill which could have allowed Trump's Treasury Dept to unilaterally revoke tax-exempt status from non-profits it deems as "supporting terrorism." The bill needed a two-thirds affirmative vote to pass, and it didn't get it, perhaps in part because a slew of folks (myself included) called their elected representatives to weigh in. Trump can and does ignore public opinion, but at some level he'll be a lame duck for his entire second term, whereas our elected representatives still need to be thinking about how they'll stay in power, so...
Another highlight for me yesterday was this excerpt from an interview with award-winning Chicago-based investigative journalist Jamie Kalven:
"With this election, we’ve joined the rest of the world. Think of all the other nations that live under moronic, venal leadership. There are models for honorable political lives in those circumstances, but those models are quite different from our dominant notions of citizenship in which we follow politics as a spectator sport and occasionally vote. All over the world there are people in repressive settings who find ways to live as free human beings, act in solidarity with their neighbors, and fashion strategies to resist state power. We’re going to need to get good at practicing that kind of politics.
One of the dangers is that people will instead become demoralized and retreat into denial, that they will seek refuge amid the pleasures and fulfillments of private life. That would give carte blanche to power. There was a term used in central Europe to describe those who opted to retreat into private life under totalitarianism. They were called “internal emigres.” That is certainly tempting at a time like this: to live one’s life in the wholly private realm, enjoying the company of friends, good food and drink, the pleasures of literature and music, and so on. Privileged sectors of our society are already heavily skewed that way. It’s a real danger at a time like this. If we withdraw from public engagement now, we aid and abet that which we deplore."
I hope you will stay engaged, or prepare to be engaged.
Thanks for listening.
in peace,
Shelley