Close the Camps Protest at Rep. Brownley’s Office – On July 2nd!

When: July 2nd, 11:45am – 12:45pm
Where: Rep. Brownley’s office, 223 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.
RSVP: (and share!) https://www.facebook.com/events/2657967964429858/
Bring: Please bring a sign, your flag, and your most passionate voice!

Trump’s family-separation/detention-center regime is a humanitarian crisis — and Rep. Julia Brownley last week helped scuttle a House bill that would have put restrictions on Trump’s racist excesses. (She voted the same as Nunes and McClintock!)

Please join this protest, part of a nationwide day of action, hosted by Indivisible Conejo, demanding that Brownley stop caving in to Republicans and support legislation that places limits on Trump’s ability to cage children — and urging her to visit a detention center in the coming weeks.

We’ll be protesting outside from 11:45 a.m. – 12:45 p.m., and a small contingent of activists will meet with Rep. Brownley from 12-12:30 p.m.

Please note that Lights For Liberty protests are still scheduled for Friday, July 12, at detention centers and on street corners nationwide.

By participating in this event, you agree to follow all applicable laws and to behave lawfully to ensure the safety of event participants. This event will be nonviolent and will not involve any civil disobedience or other violation of law. In the rare occurrence of counter-protesters, you further agree to not engage and use the “isolate and ignore” model.

6/29-6/30: Your Ventura County weekend activity update!

Share this information with those who need it and those who can help!

Action #1 – June 29th – “Know Your Rights” Workshop 

Sharing link: here

This event, and another offered on July 9th in a different location, are sponsored by Buen Vecino and will be conducted in Spanish. If you’re interested to becoming a Know-Your-Rights educator in English, Spanish or in other languages, check out buen-vecino for further information. Contact casaartearch@att.net for more information.

Continue reading “6/29-6/30: Your Ventura County weekend activity update!” →

Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?

Action #1 – If you  haven’t called your legislators on HR 2415/S.1243 – Dignity for Detained immigrants” yet – start here.

Go to this link and follow the instructions in Action #3 on that page to make a 10-second call to your legislators.

Action #2 – Check out local activities!

Activities listed here.

Action #3 – Congress’s final funding bill must comply with humanitarian basics.

Both houses have passed their bills for funding addressing the humanitarian crisis at the border. Both versions include stipulations regarding migrant care and prohibit the use of the funds for a border wall. However, the Senate bill offers the Pentagon funding and has fewer rules on how agencies can appropriate the funds. The House bill has many more restrictions on how the administration can use the money and contains clear standards for the care of children. It also bans the HHS secretary from waiving requirements for facilities designated as “emergency influx shelters”, which is how the administration has gotten around the 20 days maximum of the Flores Settlement. This is  how some kids in Homestead, Florida have ended up detained for as much as 8 or 9 months. Next, our legislators have to reconcile the two versions.

Continue reading “Thurs 6/27: Yeah, they’re concentration camps…so now what do we do?” →

UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.

Action – Fill in this poll by Friday if you’re interested in carpooling and/or a bus to Adelanto or Otay Mesa Detention Centers for July 12th!

Poll link here.

In Ventura County, a coalition of immigrants’ rights advocates and allied organizations is considering joining these protests in three locations:
1. The High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, near Victorville (about a 90-minute drive);
2. The Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego (about a four-hour drive);
3. A protest in Camarillo, outside an ICE facility and across a freeway (DO NOT FILL OUT POLL.)

Continue reading “UPDATE: Friday deadline 6/28 – Sign-up sheet for those interested in carpooling &/or a bus to detention centers for July 12th – Lights of Liberty.” →

Wed 6/26: Killing Iranian people is not a reelection strategy, Mr. President. Take your war powers back, Congress! 2 actions.

See the full Iran tweet record at Rogue NASA!

Action #1 – Legislators – Publicly pledge support for HR 2354/S.1039 – Prevention of Unconstitutional War with Iran Act of 2019

Though this video is supposedly a comic program, it’s actually a good quick wrap up…

Minimal script: I’m calling from [zip code] and I want to thank Rep/Sen [___] for cosponsoring {Rep. HR 2354/Sen. S.1039} – “The prevention of unconstitutional War with Iran Act“. I would also like Rep/Sen [___] to issue a statement that Congress not only supports diplomacy over war, but the President is not authorized to use any military force against Iran.

  • Rep-check here. Thank Brownley and Carbajal for already being cosigners.
  • Sen-check here. Thank Feinstein and Harris for already being cosigners.

Action #2 – Legislators – Take back the blank check. “YES” on H.R. 1274 – Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.  Finally.

Continue reading “Wed 6/26: Killing Iranian people is not a reelection strategy, Mr. President. Take your war powers back, Congress! 2 actions.” →

Mon 6/24: Mark your calendars. 2 gun show meetings!

Here’s the long awaited Committee Report on Gun Shows  and the associated materials from the Ventura County Fairgrounds Board of Directors  (6/21/2019) and the notices for the next two meetings.

(July 24th UPDATE from Indivisible Conejo concerning this week’s Ventura County Fair Board meetings):
The board has removed any consideration of its gun show policy from tomorrow’s (Tuesday) agenda, and instead will devote the entirety of its special Thursday meeting to the subject. Therefore, if you would like to participate during Public Comments tomorrow at 9 a.m., please feel free to do so, but understand that the board will not be addressing our concerns afterward. We strongly encourage activists to come to Thursday’s meeting and make your voices heard!
A word of warning: It seems clear, based on documents posted to the Fair Board’s website over the weekend, that this debate is not going to go our way. The ad-hoc committee on guns shows will recommend that the board create a formal policy allowing them, with the addition of a few minor regulations. The committee’s sole rationale seems to be that it has not found “a direct link between a firearm sale at the Fairgrounds and an incident of gun violence in the Ventura community.” That preposterously narrow criterion doesn’t begin to account for the broad public aversion to guns and paraphernalia being marketed on publicly owned property, or the trauma our county has experienced so recently at Borderline. It is our job to let the Fair Board members know that their jobs and reputations are on the line with this decision — not to mention the reputation of the fairgrounds itself! Please join us on Thursday at 9 a.m. at the Derby Club on the fairgrounds site.
June 25 is the regular board meeting.
June 27 is a special meeting specifically about guns shows and gun show policy.
Come join us as we make our feelings clear about our state government being mixed up in a business that’s part of our national trauma.

Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.

Quote by Andrea Pitzer, author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps. She describes camps as “a deliberate choice to inject the framework of war into society itself. …You are revoking the human and civil rights of non-combatants without legal justification…. you don’t have to intend to kill everyone to have really bad outcomes.”

(Go here for today’s LOCAL SOCIAL JUSTICE actions)

Action #1 – Take a moment to watch history merge with the present.

Great! We’ve fallen so low that the 99-year-old former prosecutor at the Nazi Nuremberg trials has spoken out in protest of the Trump Administration’s treatment of refugees as crimes against humanity. Below is a fascinating 60 minute conversation with a sharp, humorous, ferociously kind man who discusses our immigration laws, war, war criminals, remorse, reparations and the hope he has for our students. What he says here is why we resist. (Download the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here.)

Action #2 – Be an active resister. Speak out against the Sunday Raids.

Last Monday, our president took a moment from his busy day to threaten immigrant communities with a massive ICE raid, perversely nicknamed the “family op“. Continue reading “Mon 6/24: “Things can be concentration camps without being Dachau or Auschwitz.” Tell your legislators to defund hate and uphold human rights. 4 actions.” →

Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!

There is a philosophy, in both Judaism and Islam, that is paraphrased “whoever destroys a life, it is as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he has saved an entire world.” 33 worlds are now gone.

(Go here for today’s LEGISLATIVE actions.)

“What did you do, grandpa?” – when our country ran amok, when we put scared, desperate men, women and children into freezing cages, when we pulled screaming toddlers from their parents’ grip, when we fed them inadequate or rotten food, or trapped them in vans, or carried their bodies out of our facilities.

Over the last week, we’ve read ferocious arguments on Facebook over the term “concentration camp“. We’ve seen “READ HISTORY!” hurled at each other on Twitter. We watched “Never Again” being reduced from the robust internal tripwire it should be to a verbal tombstone. 

Yes, social messaging is a crucial issue in our modern political world. Everyone should be reminding their media circles that we can’t let shame or denial keep us from hearing the warning 6 million souls are screaming to us. There are also active things we can do to help drive that message, to connect with other resisters and to help affected people directly. Here are some options…

Action #1 – June 29th – “Know Your Rights” Workshop 

This event, and another offered on July 9th in a different location, are sponsored by Buen Vecino and will be conducted in Spanish. If you’re interested to becoming a Know-Your-Rights educator in English, Spanish or in other languages, check out buen-vecino for further information.

Continue reading “Monday – 6/24: Someday, a young person will ask you what you did during the time of concentration camps. Mark your calendars – 3 local actions – Join in!” →

Thurs – 6/20 – Mass Call-in Day for HR 1046 – The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act.

“Time to cut prices so that patients can stop cutting their pills in half.”

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“And time for Democrats to deliver on our promise of Medicare negotiation to address soaring medication costs. Our proposal responds to rampant prescription price gouging in America with an American solution: negotiation and competition,” said Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX-35). “This legislation, sponsored by most Democratic House Members, will repeal and replace the Republican-imposed prohibition of negotiation and authorize expanded use of generic competition to lower prices. Now, President Trump can follow the advice of Candidate Trump by supporting this effective negotiation legislation.”
– Rep. Lloyd Dogged (TX-35)

H.R. 1046 – “The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act“ would authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate drug prices and, if drug companies refuse to negotiate in good faith, it would enable the Secretary to issue a competitive license to another company to produce the medication as a generic.

Action – Join in the call campaign today!

Indivisible groups across the country are joining together for a national call-in day in support of H.R.1046, the the Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act by Rep. Lloyd Doggett. Pressure for your MoCs to support this bill is more important than ever as House Dem Leadership plans to roll out a framework for their competing (weaker) proposal imminently Continue reading “Thurs – 6/20 – Mass Call-in Day for HR 1046 – The Medicare Negotiation and Competitive Licensing Act.” →