Category: action

Things you can do.

Take Action: There’s nothing OK about the idea of a Muslim registry

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My colleague Khadija at MomsRising asks how we will explain this to our kids. How can I tell my son, who only has a dawning understanding of how our nation was founded on the principle of religious freedom, that our own government is preparing to single out people based on their faith or ethnicity and take away their rights?

As a Jewish family we are even more profoundly aware of how dangerous this kind of thinking is. The racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim fervor that has been inspired and embraced by Donald Trump is more than reminiscent of Weimar Germany when Hitler was able to step in to a leadership vacuum and wasn’t taken seriously by the people who thought he was crazy until it was much too late.

Please join me in signing this open letter to President Obama now to protect Muslim families from having to register.

 

(Photo: Dorothea Lange – American internees in mess hall line at Tanforan Assembly Center San Bruno CA April 29, 1942.)

Keep Pounding: how grassroots organizing and popular protest defeated NC’s bathroom governor

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Analysis from Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling on how Pat McCrory shoved through unpopular policies (including but very definitely not limited to HB2) and then wasn’t able to hide from the people thanks to the Moral Monday protest movement!

Pushing back hard on McCrory worked. The seeds of his final defeat today were very much planted in the summer of 2013. And it’s a lesson for progressives in dealing with Trump. Push back hard from day one. Be visible. Capture the public’s attention, no matter what you have to do to do it. Don’t count on the media to do it itself because the media will let you down. The protesters in North Carolina, by making news in their own right week after week after week, forced sustained coverage of what was going on in Raleigh. And even though it was certainly a long game, with plenty more frustration in between, those efforts led to change at the polls 42 months after they really started.

Keep Pounding.

Source: Why Pat McCrory Lost and What It Means in Trump’s America – Public Policy Polling

Support the protesters that are supporting the earth for all of us! #NoDAPL

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The camps that are leading the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline need your support. There are numerous different camps that exist at Standing Rock. Each serving a different role and responsibility. We know that it can be confusing as to who to support. So please take a moment to read about each camp we have listed and donate or send supplies!

Source: Support the Camps – #NoDAPL Solidarity

Help women chose their own futures

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I’ll be rolling in the the National Abortion Access Bowl-a-thon again this year, and I hope you’ll support me by making a donation on my fundraising page.

I’m raising funds for the Carolina Abortion Fund because I know fortunate I was to be able to have an abortion 25 years ago. If my family and doctor had been less supportive, I would have become a mother well before I was even ready to take care of myself.

izzy & rubyThanks to the ability to choose, and my family’s ability to PAY for it, I was able to wait until I was ready. My wonderful son is a testament to that choice.

When you support me in the Bowl-a-Thon, you’re not only directly helping a woman to access necessary medical care, you’re also giving her back the opportunity to pursue her hopes and dreams. You’re ensuring that no woman is forced to carry a pregnancy to term because she couldn’t come up with the bus fare to a distant clinic, or because she had the wrong insurance, or was short $100. You’re helping a woman decide her future.

repro justive leagueThank you for supporting me and my team, the Reproductive Justice League (at right) and the Carolina Abortion Fund to lower barriers for women who want and need abortions. See this page to see how we’re doing: http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/nnafbowl/fundevent.asp?nnaffundid=85&eventid=145

I stand for a free and open Internet.

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A few weeks ago as many of us were patriotically wishing a happy birthday to the United States of America, a coalition of organizations including the ACLU and EFF launched a Declaration of Internet Freedom. I love how simple they kept it, while also encouraging engagement with the statement in a variety of online communities. The declaration is below, in text as well as the obligatory infographic format.

Individuals are invited to sign it at  Access, ACLU, CREDO, EFF or Free Press, and to comment on it at on reddit, Techdirt, Cheezburger (yes, really!), Github and Rhizome. They have also invited organizations to sign on. I signed it on behalf of HASTAC, where I work. Have you or will you sign it?

Continue reading “I stand for a free and open Internet.” →

Don’t shop tomorrow

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BND Happy Thanksgiving! I try to emphasize the gratitude part of this holiday and less of the consumption of turkey and everything else in sight. Don’t forget tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day – a great time to reconnect with your community and avoid the throngs who are beginning their yuletide season by buying lots of crap made in China.

If you are in Chapel Hill, stop by Internationalist Books who always have a fun program of skill shares, free food, swap meet, and no books for sale!

Irrepressible content

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Another great online strategy from Amnesty International: to counter growing censorship and repression of Internet speech, they have created http://Irrepressible.info where you can sign a pledge for Internet freedom and get your own badge to dynamically display censored content on your own blog.

Por ejemplo:

They also have a public API! (They do lose points for having a typo in the code for the badge above. Good thing I know how to spell “fragments” and fixed it myself.)

Remember

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As Brian said:

America is so lucky to have had a human like Dr. Martin Luther King born among us. His work reaches way into the future and teaches us still. I’m confident many many future generations will benefit from his work.

When I listen to his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence I want to cry. Not because of the horrors that he speaks against but because of the beauty of his soul. Dr. King was RIGHT! WAR IS WRONG!

Please read a transcript or listen to his Beyond Vietnam speech. It could so easily be said today and be called Beyond Iraq.
– Beyond Iraq: King is right! at Yesh.com

We best honor the man by remembering his words and actions so that we may continue the struggle that he brought to the forefront of the American psyche. Volunteer if you like, but King’s legacy is ACTION.

Read or listen here.