This week the nation recoiled in horror as ICE agents first murdered a Houston homebuilder who had lived in the US for decades, and then killed a young father in Biddeford Maine. ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastian Guerrero, neither of whom was under investigation.
Protests by themselves will not halt ICE terror, but they are nevertheless important in letting elected officials and targeted communities know that Americans will not tolerate government-sponsored killings.
Today (Tuesday), there will be a demonstration against ICE terror at Copley Square at 5:30. More info here.
Join a Zoom call for Justice for Lorenzo on Wednesday, July 15th at 8 pm Eastern. Callers will gather in solidarity to hear from Lorenzo’s loved ones, get updates about the case, and learn how to use a powerful visual symbol during the World Cup final.
How you can help keep the Nov election free and fair
If you thought that Trump’s war on election fairness would concentrate only on swing states, think again. On Monday, the Department of Justice announced they would send thugs election monitors to Boston and New Bedford, as well as 13 other cities around the country.
How can you help ensure election fairness? Here are two options:
Join Indivisible’s “Hands off our vote” team — sign up here.
Connect with True North Boston and Common Cause to learn to be an election monitor — sign up here.
Donating, Part II - How to Give to Candidates
Last week we suggested that you never donate in response to an email or text. So how can you directly support a candidate? Start by googling the name and the office, like “Homer Simpson for Congress.” When you get to the site:
Make sure the candidate’s name and the site’s name are spelled correctly.
Look for a notice like this at the bottom of the front page:
The Donate page should have an address starting with https://secure.actblue.com/ or another reputable fundraising hub.
Make sure, as you are filling out the form to donate, that the FEC contribution rules are displayed and that you are asked for your occupation and employer.
If you scrutinize campaign sites in those 4 ways, you won’t fall for any scammers.
It’s “Good Trouble Lives On” Week!
Next weekend there will be events every day to celebrate the late Congressman John Lewis’s legacy of creating “good trouble” — nonviolent direct action to fight injustice.
It’s also another week of action against Citizens Bank, with 33 actions scheduled at branches around the state to urge them to divest from ICE private prison companies; see the schedule here.
More Summer Reading
Here’s the next installation of our subscribers’ Summer Reading recommendations.
(Remember that besides books, you can also recommend your favorite podcasts and substacks here.)
Here are this week’s recommendations:
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clive Smith. Beginning in his own hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader through an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and those that are not-that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.
The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by Walter Isaacson - Provides an in-depth analysis of the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID by Nicholas Enrich - A whistleblower’s account from inside USAID of the illegal and appalling dismantling of the organization.
If you missed the earlier book recommendations, here are links:
On this date…
On July 14, 1789, a mob of ordinary citizens stormed the Bastille, Paris’s towering prison. There were only 7 prisoners there at the time, and 4 were Bernie Madoff-type scammers who were sent straight back to jail. But the storming of the Bastille kicked off the French Revolution, which shattered the western world’s consciousness by introducing the concepts of secularism, popular sovereignty and human rights.
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