What we can and should be doing now. – Update for Sunday 3/6

  • Action #1: Help strengthen democracy here. UPDATE: Join DEMCAST’s Team to fight Russian disinformation!
  • Action #2: Ask Biden to protect Ukrainians currently in the U.S. and prepare for Ukrainian refugees.
  • Action #3: Ask FOX the question…”Seriously, why are you allowing your employees to give “aid and comfort” to an enemy of the United States?” 
  • Action #4: Here’s a list of organizations AND actions to help. 

#1: Help strengthen democracy here.

On Sunday, Swap Meet Justice volunteers headed out in the early morning to set up our monthly citizenship fair at Oxnard College. We did this so good, hardworking people can gain a voice in our country. We did it because the road to becoming an citizen is difficult, racist and unfair. And we did it in the name of our own forebears who left behind everything they knew to escape poverty, famine, brutal repression and yes, war. And now war will again force traumatized people from their homes.

As we watch the Ukraine tragedy unfold, it is disheartening to see our own countrymen, including a former president, giving “aid and comfort” to a war criminal who has attacked orphanages and kindergartens and is now threatening the world with nuclear weapons. However, what we can do right now is concentrate on strenthening what Putin, and his GOP gaslighters (excellent article here) fear most – democracy itself. Join in – here are a few options (Do not be afraid that you’ve never done these kinds of activities before. There is training for you, and questions are always welcomed.):

Action #2: Ask Biden to protect Ukrainians currently in the U.S. and prepare for Ukrainian refugees.  

Send a letter to Biden: Use this link here: https://p2a.co/monTFsR and inject your voice into the pre-written letter, or take what you want of it and sent it directly to President Biden here. https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

(From the National Immigration Forum)

“Yesterday morning, we woke up to news of Russian missile strikes raining down on Ukraine and Ukrainians trying to flee the country, after weeks of tension and fear.  

A large-scale movement of people like this could lead to the largest movement of refugees in Europe since 2015. With authoritarianism on the march, democracies must respond to the weapons of war and the weaponization of migration with moral clarity. 

The Biden administration must swiftly grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for eligible Ukrainians currently in the U.S., as well as Special Student Relief for Ukrainian international students. We cannot force them to choose between staying illegally or returning to a nation under attack. These are simple and powerful steps that send a clear message to the world.  

The U.S. and European nations must also prepare for a potential movement of refugees from Ukraine. The United States has an obligation to offer humanitarian support for those caught in the crosshairs of invasion and political instability — and we must rise to the occasion and offer protection to those facing violence, persecution, or degradation abroad.  

For the sake of Ukrainian refugees today, and those inevitably and forcibly displaced in the future, we must act with urgency and clarity — now. 

Thank you for all you do for refugees across the globe,  

Laurence Benenson
Vice President of Policy & Advocacy
National Immigration Forum

Action #3: Ask FOX the question…”Seriously, why are you allowing your employees to give “aid and comfort” to an enemy of the United States?”

  • Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of FOX Corp: lachlan.murdoch@newscorp.com
  • Suzanne Scott, CEO of FOX News: suzanne.scott@foxnews.com

Here’s our wordy sample: Dear [Mr. Murdoch/Ms. Scott],

In the 1990’s, Milos Vasic, publisher of an opposition paper to the brutal regime of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his omnipresent Radio Television Serbia stated “All it took was a few years of fierce, reckless, chauvinist, intolerant, expansionist, war-mongering propaganda to create enough hate to start the fighting among people who had lived together peacefully for 45 years. You must imagine a United States with every little TV station everywhere taking exactly the same editorial line — a line dictated by David Duke. You, too, would have war in five years.”

Instead of a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, we’ve had you – Fox News. For years — starting long before Donald Trump’s presidency — your company has injected a toxic brew of  racist, antisemitic and anti-liberal tropes into our living rooms. The ADL asked you to fire Tucker Carlson for invoking the fascistic “white replacement theory,” already the cause of horrendous White Supremacist terrorism, but you refused.

Now, you’ve allowed your irresponsible “entertainment” crew to spread disinformation on Ukraine, praise for Putin and disparagement of Biden. Tucker Carlson, who has been publicly rooting for Russia since 2019, has been deemed “‘Indistinguishable’ from Russian State Media,” and is now providing source material for the Russian state media to sell this act of international terrorism to its own people. FOX is therefore responsible for providing “aid and comfort” to an enemy and as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stated “These people and a great deal of the GOP leadership will have blood on their hands. They’re fanning flames, encouraging Putin to attack Ukraine. Putin and his regime perceive opportunities because such fools suggest the U.S. is weak, divided, and distracted.“

It’s time to let your worst offenders go, but this is a still a free country and you can do what you want. We just wish you wanted to do better.”

In the meantime…

Join in these campaigns: Change the Channel, Campaign for Fox-News-Free TV, Fix FOX Now Campaign

Action #4: Here’s a list of organizations to help.

(This is a combined list from DEMCAST and from usatoday.com)

Here are some resources you can go to to support the Ukranian people. Also don’t forget we have a lot of Ukranian churches in the U.S.A that would be happy to steer you in the right direction.

Other options that are appearing to help get money to people in the region…

(NPR) “Some people have found a novel way to get money to Ukrainians as their country is under attack from Russia: booking immediate Airbnb stays they don’t intend to use.

Airbnb hosts are paid 24 hours after a guest checks in, so people abroad are booking stays and letting hosts know that it’s a gesture of solidarity, and they don’t plan to appear.

The idea spread over the last few days, and Airbnb is waiving all host and guest fees in Ukraine for now. On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 61,000 nights were booked in Ukraine from around the world — bookings that grossed nearly $2 million, Airbnb tells NPR.’ 

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