March 3rd, 7-8pmET - John Bonifaz, Constitutional lawyer & President, Free Speech for People, the national group working against corruption and for accountability in our govt.
Recordings of previous meetings are always available here.
Teams are the engines of Indivisible. Because the Project 2025/MAGA agenda is so universally destructive, there are too many fronts for any one person to reasonably resist in any sustainable manner. Therefore, we’re creating teams to focus on particular issues, such as protecting vulnerable communities, reproductive freedom, etc., or tactics, such as writing, calling, canvassing, etc..
These teams began at our first post-election in-person meeting on Dec. 7th, which drew an incredible 80 people! Folks identified issues of interest and then divided up into the teams listed below - teams we hope you’ll join!
Teams meet separately from the full group to dive deeply into understanding the challenges, and even more importantly, the strategies to effect change regarding their selected issue(s). Team members will then educate and facilitate the paricipation of the larger group in these informed and effective actions.
This way, we can sustain ourselves for the long haul of creating together a more just, equitable and democratic nation.
A description of the teams is below. Please email the team’s contact person for more info, including the next meeting date.
New Issue Oriented Teams
Protecting Social Safety Net: Watching for proposed changes to any part of the social safety net; e.g., Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, Vet benefits, etc. and planning responses. Creation of a list of resources.
Climate: Working in collaboration with other climate-focused groups supporting state, regional and local initiatives to increase Massachusetts' role as a climate leader.
Massachusetts State Action Team: Working on multiple issues in MA to help protect us from federal government overreach, including sanctuary cities, Safe Communities Act, Sheriffs not helping ICE, not housing ICE detainees in MA jails, Legislature transparency, HIP funding, and more.
Social Media & Disinformation: Our goal is to help promote democracy and fight disinformation in social media. Our first step is to attend a 3-part training on social media from Swing Blue Alliance. Please click here to join us for this training and then join our team!
Phone Banking: Calling voters (usually in swing states) with information and encouragement to vote for or against specific candidates or policies. We meet together on zoom, and there’s always a full training to start and lots of support throughout. All are welcome!
Letters to the Editor: The IN-SLWM LTE Writing Team is an intrepid group of activists who enjoy reading, writing, and sharing ideas. We look forward to our meetings every 2 weeks on Zoom where we discuss important issues and share ideas for writing Letters to the Editor for our local papers (and beyond).
Thursdays, from 5:30 - 7:30 PM ET Phonebank to Keep a
Fair Wisconsin Supreme Court!
Trump and his fascist & billionaire enablers continue to trample on our democracy, intent on driving us to despair and submission.
They don't know us.
We may well be terrified, horrified, outraged - but we are also taking a breath, seeing the multitude around us also breathing and standing. And we are mobilized and organized and focused - to Block, Delay, Expose. And win.
One of the many places we can win right now is in the critically important Supreme Court race in Wisconsin!
Join us as we call voters in Wisconsin to give them the information and inspiration they'll need to elect Judge Susan Crawford to the State Supreme Court, thereby maintaining that court's newly won liberal majority. (Newly won, thanks to activists like YOU!)
We'll be using an autodialer, so your personal phone number remains private, there's a full training to begin, and lots of support throughout - so, join us!
Here's some information if you like to prep ahead of time:
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Always with a full training and loads of support!
Writing
Postcards to WI! Elect a Democrat to the WI Supreme Court!
This postcard campaign has ended, but we'd thought you'd like to know that we're back in action.
With barely a chance to catch our breath, we are back on the front lines. Once again in defense of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, where the retirement of a justice is prompting another election There are many important local and judicial races across the state, including that of Susan Crawford, the Democrat running for WI Supreme Court Justice. A win means we maintain the 4-3 liberal majority that helped put in place fair maps and rolled back Scott Walker’s anti-union laws
In the Streets
Thank Congressman Jim McGovern
IN-SLWM is planning to stage a photo-op thank-you at the office of Congressman Jim McGovern for his two resounding NO! votes on the despicable Laken Riley bill and for his steadfast commitment to good governance, democracy, and justice. We hope you will join us for this event.
Details on date and time to come.
Other Ways to Pitch In
Spread the Word About RISE
We all need to be supporting and promoting the work of Gen Z-led RISE, which is doing phenomenal and impactful work helping youth register, vote, and engage with the political process! Through grants, they pay their young volunteers, so a wider range of youth can actually afford to do the work of connecting with other young people throughout the year.
NEWS
ANNOUNCING – THE IN-SLWM COMMENTARY COLLECTION
We’re pleased to announce a new service to the IN-SLWM community. Many of you see a variety of political commentaries that we post on our Facebook page and group. Starting now, we’re also providing these commentaries on a Google Doc – The IN-SLWM Commentary Collection. Authors include Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, Joyce Vance, Robert Reich, Jay Kuo, and others. Many of them post daily, and the Commentary Collection provides links to all of them. The big difference between seeing them on Facebook and accessing them through this document is that the pieces in the Collection will continue to be available indefinitely for you to read whenever you want or to re-read sometime later. You’ll also be able to search the document for a particular author, title, keyword, or date.
The newest commentaries are posted at the top and go backward from there. To keep the document to a reasonable length, we’ll archive each month’s entry into a separate file for anyone wanting to go further back to find a piece.
We also have a dedicated email address for any comments you may have. We especially welcome suggestions to include other authors or sources that we haven’t included yet. The address is commentary@in-slwm.org.
We hope you find this helpful as we all try to keep up with issues and informed opinions in these challenging times.
Project 2025 Infographic
As you know, Project 2025 is a perilous threat to our democracy, but few people understand it because its manifesto is 920 pages long. The "Talking Points Team" of the Longmeadow Democratic Town Committee (LDTC) has been hard at work for weeks building an infographic to make this critical information more digestible. Click on the image below to see the full online version.
IN-SLWM at Bombyx on MLK Day
On January 20, 2025, Indivisible Northampton-Swing Left Western Mass participated in the Dr. Martin Luther King Day of Service, organized by The Florence Congregational Church, Beit Ahavah, Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity, and Wake the Dead Donuts. About 200 people attended and heard from 25 groups offering opportunities to engage in meaningful acts of service in the community.
Many of them browsed the IN-SLWM table, and engaged in conversation about our work. 34 people signed up to learn more about or to participate in our team efforts! The outpouring of energy and enthusiasm was inspiring and energizing. Sustenance and commitment for the demanding work ahead!
ICYMI - Videos From the Archive
Videos of previous meetings are now available on our website:
That Zen saying is also the name of a daily email from activist and Substack columnist Jessica Craven. On weekdays she offers a bunch of actions for subscribers to take, such as phoning senators and representatives – often with different scripts for Democratic and Republicans – about issues needing their attention. On the weekends, she highlights items from the news that are encouraging, under the headline “Celebrate This!” Here’s the link to her substack page.
SPEAKING OF FACEBOOK…
If you’re not already subscribed to either our Facebook Page or group, consider joining! We share daily posts from political historian-commentator Heather Cox Richardson, occasional posts from other sources such as Robert Reich and Robert Hubbell, announcements of our public Zoom meetings, and opportunities for action. To follow our Facebook Page (followers do not post) , click here. To join our Facebook Group (members can post), click here. Both receive all IN-SLWM announcements and the daily Richardson posts.
Trouble Joining the Meeting?
When you click the link in your confirmation email, a Zoom page will open in your web browser and the Zoom app will open.
If the Zoom app does not open, here are a few things you can try. You will need to know the meeting id, which is embedded in the address of the Zoom page that opened. On the page that opened in the browser, in the address bar you'll see an address that looks something like this:
