Blog 19
February 23, 2017
“Not the Best of Times”
Spring Training has begun, and my friend Monica is posting baseball news on
Facebook to help relieve the political glut Thank you Monica. I ‘ve been in New York and have spent six
days romping on the floor with my three grandchildren and their parents. I hope the rest of you are developing ways to
relieve the pressure. Patrick and I have also devised a plan if we are
deplannng in the U.S. and are asked to show our I.D. One of us will comply, leave the plane and call
the ACLU. The other one will refuse
stating that he/she wishes to remain silent. In this crazy repressive climate
of control we need plans for how to respond if our rights are denied. We may also find ourselves as witnesses to
ICE raids, and it is imperative to have in hand the ACLU information about “Know
Your Rights”. https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights.
For perspective, I am working in my sculpture studio to make art that tells
the refugee story. I encourage you to read poetry, write, draw, sculpt to discover
and express the larger meanings of what we are experiencing.
This week Ruth Bader Ginsberg spoke about our current political
situation. She used the image of a
pendulum for our country and she said, that
if it swings too far in one direction it will swing back in the other
direction. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39065535. One can only resist and hope.
There are people out there speaking to us and supporting us in our work. Indivisible continues to lead the way giving
directions for how to keep resisting and working together. Robert Reich gives daily Resist Reports on
Facebook and this week there was a terrific video made by Dr Glenda Russell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRnb8JVyveU How to Truimph in Trumpland, which gave
me a great boost. These many not be the
best of Times, but as Ruth Bader Ginsberg said we are not sitting still. There
is more political organizing and resisting right now than there has been since the civil rights and anti- Viet Nam protests. We shall overcome.
Excerpt:
On most days, Mr. Trump is 90
percent of the news on my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and probably yours, too.
But he’s not 90 percent of what’s important in the world. During my break from
Trump news, I found rich coverage veins that aren’t getting social play. ISIS is retreating across
Iraq and Syria.
Brazil seems on the verge of chaos. A large ice shelf in
Antarcticais close
to full break. Scientists may have discovered a new continent
submerged under
the ocean near Australia.
There’s
a reason you aren’t seeing these stories splashed across the news. Unlike
old-school media, today’s media works according to social feedback loops. Every
story that shows any signs of life on Facebook or Twitter is copied endlessly
by every outlet, becoming unavoidable.
Scholars
have long predicted that social media might alter how we choose cultural
products. In 2006, Duncan Watts, a researcher at Microsoft who studies social
networks, and two colleagues published a study arguing that social signals create
a kind of “inequality” in how we choose media. The
researchers demonstrated this with an online market for music downloads. Half
of the people who arrived at Mr. Watts’s music-downloading site were shown just
the titles and band name of each song. The other half were also shown a social
signal — how many times each song had been downloaded by other users. The
volume isn’t sustainable.
It’s
only been a month since Mr. Trump took office, and already the deluge of news
has been overwhelming. Everyone — reporters, producers, anchors, protesters,
people in the administration and consumers of news — has been amped up to 11.
For
now, this might be all right. It’s important to pay attention to the federal
government when big things are happening.
But
Mr. Trump is likely to be president for at least the next four years. And it’s
probably not a good idea for just about all of our news to be focused on a
single subject for that long.
Action:
From Franny Yep contact your Senators about
From Franny Yep contact your Senators about
HJ Res 43 Congressional disapproval with Title
X Requirements
Cuts off federal funding for family planning and related
preventive care for low-income, uninsured, and young people across the country.
Every year, more than 4 million individuals access life-saving care such as
birth control, cancer screenings, and testing for sexually transmitted
infections (STIs) including HIV at Title X-funded health centers (Planned
Parenthood, community health centers)
NOTE: falsely characterized as anti-abortion. Federal
funding for abortions already cut. This kills funding for birth control and
basic preventive care like PAP smears, mammograms, wellness exams.
This was passed by the House and now moves to the Senate for
approval.
CONTACT YOUR SENATORS NOW: VOTE NO! Support birth control
and preventive health care. https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC
Votes: 230-188 passed. Votes along party lines (Republican
for, Democrats against) except
Dem Daniel Lipinski Il-3, Collin Peterson MN-7 voted yes
Rep John Faso NY-19, Cgarkes Debt OA-15 voted no
DID NOT VOTE: Karen Bass D CA-37, Carlos Curbelo R FL-26,
Sanford Bishop D GA-2, Bobby Rush D IL-1, Cedric Richmond D LA-2, Dave Trott R
MI-11, Ryan Zinke R R MT, Mark Amodel R NV-2, GK Butterfield D NC-1, Kevin
Cramer R ND, Joe Barton R TX-6, Chris Stewart R UT-2
Towns all over the
country are organizing and developing values based programs and processes to
support social justice for all.
http://48hills.org/2017/02/10/san-francisco-braces-for-possible-immigration-raids-training-volunteers/ What to do if you are able to
attend to ICE Raid. Send out to vulnerable families
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