Join IMV for our January 2023 Meeting
Our First Meeting of 2023 is Jan. 10 on Zoom!
Can you believe that IMV (that's all of us!) has been doing grassroots political activism for six years? We're ready to make our seventh year our very best one yet! Please join us on Zoom this Tuesday evening, and invite a friend. We have a lot to cover, including some time we'll be devoting to planning the seventh annual Utica Women's March. Bring your ideas!
IMV January 2023 Meeting
Tuesday, Jan. 10th, 7-8 pm
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86726474591
Celeste Friend's Utica for All
If you haven't seen the invite to Celeste Friend's event tomorrow you may have been living under a rock. It's everywhere, and thanks to all of you who've been sharing with friends and social media. Everyone is invited to:
Utica For All: A Celebration Hosted by Celeste Friend at the Delta Hotel Ballroom, 200 Genesee Street, Utica. Saturday, Jan. 7th at 1:00 pm
The event is family friendly with music and fun activities including: Tabo Bo founder of Nomadic Voice, poetry reading * Monk Rowe and Ann Carey: musical performances * Voter registration and merch * Kids art and crafts * Popcorn, half-moons, and more! There will be live music, family fun including kids arts & crafts, food, voter registration. Bring family and friends! Share your vision for the future of Utica and hear a special announcement from Celeste.
Are You Registered for the NY22 Summit?
We're having an in person NY22 Summit! Everyone is welcome! Please register NOW for the Summit. We are inviting a wide range of progressive political groups and allies. It's going to be an amazing day! The event is scheduled in person for Saturday, Feb. 4th, 10am-4pm at the Hampton Inn in Cazenovia. Register HERE.
Building a Broader WE: Messaging that Wins
If you want to learn about race class narrative, the framing guidance that pulls persuadables and our base closer to us, come to this awesome author event hosted by Indivisible on
Building a Broader We: A conversation with Ian Haney Lopez
Rich powerful elites have used strategic racism and dog whistles as an insidious class weapon to achieve their economic agenda for decades. These attacks are ramping up and threatening our fragile democracy. The Race class gender approach exposes the limitations of how the left has historically called out racism and provides a roadmap for building a truly cross racial progressive movement, winning elections and saving our democracy.
Join us for a conversation with Berkeley law professor, author and Race-Class architect, Ian Haney Lopez. We encourage you to read Merge Left but if you’re short on time never fear! We have provided a menu of options to familiarize yourself with the author’s work including podcasts, television interviews and a Medium article in this resource: Reading/Resource List
IMV’s Climate Crisis Working Group: Activism Works!
In December, we asked our members to call the Governor and Senator Kavanagh to tell the Governor to sign the extended producer responsibility bill for carpet (A09279A/5027C) WITHOUT amending the bill to allow burning carpet and counting that as “recycling”. And our calls, and those from other environmentally conscious groups, worked! The Governor signed the bill without the amendment! We won’t always win if we call, write and lobby, but we’ll never win if we don’t. Let’s keep up the pressure for the 2023 legislative session starting with some of the actions below!
1. Join Climate Crisis Working Group members and NY Renews for an in person lobby day in Albany on January 18th for the Climate Jobs and Justice package. Email Maggie or Jennifer if you can attend and if you need a ride. jgeiger777@gmail.com or margaret_reilly@mac.com
2. Join IMV Climate Crisis Working Group members on Tuesday, January 24th for a rally and lobby day sponsored by Alliance for a Green Economy to Kick Fossil Fuels Out of Buildings, one of the steps needed to implement the CLCPA and transition to a green economy. If you can attend and if you need a ride, please email Maggie or Jennifer. jgeiger777@gmail.com or margaret_reilly@mac.com
3. Send a message with one click! The new legislative Environmental and Energy Committee Chairs have been announced! Because committee chairs have so much power over the legislative process, we want to give them a warm welcome and push them to put the Climate, Jobs and Justice package at the top of their committee agendas. You can help to ensure that the Climate, Jobs, and Justice package makes it through committee and into the state budget by using this one-click tool to send the new committee chairs a message advocating for the Climate, Jobs and Justice package.
News from Dick Meili & the LTE Group
Just what you’ve been waiting for, an LTE Report! The anticipation has been palpable. Really, as we begin a new year of activism I think now is a good time to look back at our recent Letters to the Editor accomplishments and, more important, consider our future course. To quote a phrase I recently heard, ‘glance at the rear-view mirror as we look through the windshield’.
Since the LTE Group started in early 2021, 24 IMV members have had 87 letters published in 13 newspapers -- rather impressive. While the (Rome) Daily Sentinel has been our ‘go to’ NY-22, Central NY paper, we’ve had letters published in the Syracuse Post Standard/syracuse.com, Auburn Citizen, Oswego County Today and Utica Phoenix. (The Utica OD appears to be a lost cause. It published only about a dozen letters for all of 2022, and none after July 3rd.) Some IMV members live in Herkimer County, NY-21, so during the election we had letters published in the Adirondack Daily Express (Saranac Lake), My Little Falls and NNY360.com (Watertown). I thank all who wrote and submitted an LTE. Special thanks to those who wrote multiple letters. I appreciate that I had to only throw out the ball and all of you ran with it.
Looking through the windshield, what’s ahead for us in 2023? Certainly there will be many issues, developments and -- most likely negative -- proposed legislation that warrant LTEs. Congressional Republicans are in disarray as they try to choose a Speaker of the House. Whatever the outcome, predictions indicate we’re in for a series of made for TV investigations and impeachment hearings playing to the MAGA base. Additionally, our NY-22 Rep. Brandon Wilson’s votes will undoubtedly provide LTE material. Need I mention New York’s foremost embarrassment, Rep. Elise Stefanik? On the positive side, right now we have time to remind voters of President Biden’s many legislative achievements that benefit all of us. And let’s not overlook the important local town and village elections.
Even in this time of print media’s decline, there’s still a role for Letters to the Editor. The recently published (National) Indivisible’s 2023 Guide for election strategy specifically lists LTEs in the section “What to Do if You Have a Republican Member of Congress”. Hey, that’s us! I’m sure all of us, especially those who have written multiple letters, would appreciate seeing letters from new people affirming our messages and thereby increasing their impact. So if you’ve not been involved, please consider joining our LTE effort. Need some guidance on getting started? There are people who are very willing to help. Just contact me at 315-841-8231 or meilinys@frontiernet.net.
Have You Seen This Republican Clown Show?
Twenty House Republicans are preventing any action in the House of Representatives because Republicans cannot coalesce around a speaker, and as of this writing, there have been ten (10!) failed Speaker votes. Currently, because members-elect cannot be sworn in, we do not have a sitting House of Representatives and the guy who is supposed to be representing us now in NY22 is just standing in the coat closet twiddling his thumbs.
Check out yesterday's email from the Indivisible Team: "In response to what a potential speaker would need to do to earn the votes of the MAGA extremist legislators holding out, one holdout said that the speaker needs to commit to using government shutdowns and debt ceiling defaults as a threat to cut spending and must follow through on those threats if needed.”
That’s right. These fanatics won’t agree to allow the House to do any of its work unless the new speaker agrees to commit to potentially shutting down the government and causing economic chaos.
If that sounds outright ludicrous to you, it does to us too! Who could have predicted this level of dysfunction and sabotage? Oh, that’s right, we did!
'Republicans will sabotage everything not nailed to the floor. A concrete action to expect is threatening - or actually causing - government shutdowns by refusing to pass government funding bills.'
^That is an excerpt from the 2023 Indivisible Guide. Oddly prescient, isn’t it?
We swear we’re not psychics and we don’t own DeLoreans. We are a group of dedicated political activists with a strong finger on the pulse of what’s happening in Washington -- often directly thanks to the works of Indivisibles on the ground.
Our Guide is the culmination of part of that work -- a comprehensive strategy providing a unified vision of how we can win. We put this together so that Indivisibles across the country have a framework for how they can come together to defeat MAGA extremism in all facets. You activists then can use that framework to drive progress and make this world a little better every day.
To get there together, we need mutual understanding. Here’s where we start:
1. Read the 2023 Indivisible Guide. Catch up on where we stand, explore our game plan for the current Congress, and find out how to get involved. Our wins over the last six years have been because we were coordinated, energized, and informed; let’s make sure we go into 2023 with that same foundation in place to fuel more wins.
2. Register for the Deep Dive on the New Guide: Our 2023 Indivisible Guide Launch Call on Thursday, January 12 at 8pm ET/5pm PT. Join Indivisibles from across the country as our team breaks down the main focuses of the Guide, walks us through activation strategies that can be applied locally in 2023, and creates a community space to reconvene and launch into a new year.
The dysfunction in the House of Representatives is not a symptom of the MAGA Republican Party’s extremism, it is their goal. We’re seeing firsthand what that sort of disorder means -- a complete inability to govern. The organizing we do now will set the stage for how progressives approach 2023 and beyond. While Republicans play chicken with Congress, let’s come together and prepare for our next steps."
We're the Movement: Let's Get to Work Locally!
Please make sure you have both IMV's Jan. 10th meeting AND the Feb 4th NY22 Summit in your calendar. Sign up here for the Summit now.
If we're going to win elections and win on issues, if we're going to make change, WE NEED YOUR VOICE AND YOUR VISION! Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Follow us on Twitter using @indivisiblemv and of course our Facebook page and IMV Activism Group.
