We're Coming Together to Build a Blue Wave Coalition
The NY22 Summit is Tomorrow!
Are you ready for our biggest NY22 Summit yet? We're up to more than 180 registrants heading to Cazenovia tomorrow from all over the district and beyond. The event is scheduled in person for Saturday, Feb. 4th, 10am-4pm at the Hampton Inn in Cazenovia. The costs including lunch are covered by Indivisible organizing grants. Register HERE. Please remember these details, which you should have received in an email after you registered:
The Summit will begin promptly at 10am at the Hampton Inn, 25 Lakers Lane in Cazenovia.
Please arrive early enough to sign in and get settled.
We ask that you take an at home Covid test one to two days before the Summit. We want everyone to stay healthy.
If you have been exposed to Covid or are feeling a bit under the weather, please wear a mask. We will also have hand sanitizer at each table.
We will provide a "grab and go" lunch. We have noted which of you have requested vegetarian meals.
Please dress comfortably: no need to impress!
WE NEED TO GIVE THE HOTEL AN UPDATED COUNT FOR SETUP AND MEALS. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO CONFIRM YOUR ATTENDANCE!
If you would like a ride and need to be connected to a carpool/someone driving from your area, please email Kathy Wojo ASAP: kwojcie1@twcny.rr.com.
Finally, IMV Steering Committee would like to thank Sarah Reeske and Kathy Wojo for representing us on the NY22 Summit Planning Team, and working so hard these last few months on every aspect of the preparations for this major event. See you in Cazenovia!
IMV's February 2023 Meeting
Please make sure that our IMV February 2023 Meeting is on your calendar for Tuesday, Feb. 21, 7-8:30 pm on Zoom. We'll hear from our local candidates and ask them how we can help and support them in their challenging 2023 races. We'll talk about our take aways from the NY22 Summit and our NY State legislative session advocacy and much more. Here's the Zoom link for your calendar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85484125928
Invest in Our NY Update
We hope that you enjoyed hearing directly from Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins last night. Great job to Empire State indivisible's Shannon Stegman who asked her important and tough questions about the state budget and statewide organizer Sarah Reeske, who once again brought ASC to meet with Indivisible OneNYS! Following the Governor's budget presentation on Wednesday, we are now in the full thick of the budget process--a full court press for Invest in Our NY that goes until April 1st.
Want to know more?
Here are our IONY spending priorities.
One-pager from IONY on 2023 Tax/Revenue Bills
IONY Messaging Guide
Want to take action?
Here is the letter that our Invest in Our NY Coalition is using for tabling around the state. Please fill out the letter and send it in!
There is an IONY Action Day Thursday, Feb. 9th in Albany. More info & registration HERE.
Climate Crisis Working Group
Three Actions That You Can Take at Home to advocate for climate:
On Wednesday, NY Renews released a statement about Gov. Hochul's 2023-2024 executive budget address. But we know that the budget must put us on track to meet the mandates of New York’s Climate Act which was passed three years ago but has not yet been funded and implemented. Take these three actions to be sure that your state assembly member and senator, the key committee chairs for climate, and the Governor, Senate Majority Leader, and the Assembly Speaker all hear your support for the Climate, Jobs and Justice package.
One click email to ask your assemblymember and senator to support the Climate, Jobs and Justice package.https://www.nyrenews.org/email-your-legislators
One click email to tell key committee chairs to support the Climat , Jobs and Justice Package https://www.nyrenews.org/chairs
Join our call relay this Friday, February 3rd, to tell New York’s leadership that they must put climate and environmental justice at the top of their fiscal agenda in 2023. Together, we’ll call Governor Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Heastie to demand they prioritize funding building renewable energy, creating good union jobs, and lowering energy bills for households and communities statewide. We’ve included easy-to-follow instructions on how to call this Friday, it should take no longer than five minutes. (Script is in the link.)
Indivisible Truth Brigade: Join The Team
Do you ever feel like you care about an issue in the news but you are not sure how to write a good social media post about it? Do you see your family and friends being swayed by disinformation about politics and public policy? Indivisible's Truth Brigade resources can help! Anyone can join the Truth Brigade for the regular overview every two weeks on Wednesdays and/or email updates to get the latest messaging tools.
Sign up for the Truth Brigade's: BIG TRUTHS Campaign Launch on Wednesday, Feb. 8th at 6:30 pm
Want to learn more about Truth Brigade Messaging? Here are the Basics to get started. Learn how to build a nutritional and effective Truth Sandwich. Below are a couple examples intended to fight disinformation on last week's hot political topics:
GAS NOT GASLIGHTING TRUTH SANDWICH
"I want our leaders to focus on what matters. So when I see alarming lies about gas stove bans that don't exist, I have to wonder what the rumor-mongers are trying to distract us from. Let's check the facts before we react! Here's an AP article. #TruthBrigade #GasStoves"
IRS ADMIN TRUTH SANDWICH
"Taxes are too complicated and it's way too easy for the wealthy to not pay their fair share. So why are pundits and politicians lying about the new laws that actually fix the #IRS? #TruthBrigade Find facts here in this Reuters article."
Quick Take Explainer
If you receive the regular Truth Brigade materials you'll have toolkits with graphics, links to reputable news sources, and helpful quick take messaging that you can post on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. Find out more on the Feb. 8th Zoom.
We Make the Future: Race Class Narrative
This past week we came across a new treasure trove of RCN videos that are perfect for sharing with friends over email or on social media. Here's a great example of a message that uses a parody of a pharmaceutical ad to talk about how revenue from the super wealthy and corporations is the prescription we need to heal and strengthen our communities: https://youtu.be/1HASeAyy5Po
You can see more We Make the Future videos HERE.
Want even more, including messaging guides? Click on the Resources tab at We Make the Future.
ICYMI: Important Indivisible Message Re: Tyre Nichols
Please read this full statement, from Indivisible Staff Black Caucus member Bear Bellinger, on ways to process and discuss the killing of Tyre Nichols. In all your discussions online and offline, keep the following key points from Bear in mind:
"Do not share the video. As Black people, we have been inundated, traumatized, and re-traumatized by videos of our people being murdered. You are not sharing anything new with us. If we want to see it, we can seek it out just like anyone else. Sharing the video is sensationalizing violence while minimizing the pain that it imparts on Black bodies. Share solutions. Share actions. Share outrage. Do. Not. Share. The. Video.
Do not get caught up in the discourse that says “but they were Black too.” This conversation ignores the larger power structure that leads to anti-Black violence in order to individualize the actions and insulate the system from critique...“Violent crime” framing criminalizes Black and Brown peoples before any evidence of a crime exists. When we empower bolder, stronger police presence, we encourage the militarization of Black and Brown communities which leads to our deaths. The Black men involved are a symptom, not the cause. Focus on the cause."
What Politics Looks Like in the Months Ahead
Recently a friend sent me the transcript of a recorded lecture and Q&A with Angela Davis from 2016. (Note: she is also speaking at Hamilton College on Feb. 23rd.) It was full of her rich analysis of liberation movements and the struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice. She highlights the importance of the arts and creative expression, of music, dance, and collective practices like yoga for healing and intersectional and intergenerational renewal. She also talks about the problem that we certainly experience in our political work in IMV--that we work and work and work, and sometimes it seems that public policy goes backward not forward, or stalls out, on issues that really matter, or that electorally, we lose far more than we win. And that "losing ground"--or even the slow pace? It can be demoralizing. She reminds us that the work that is truly important--work that heals the earth, liberates people, and brings people together in ways that guide us beyond the harmful capitalism that treats both individuals and communities as means not ends--this work is not accomplished easily or quickly. And so, she urges us toward a longer time horizon.
"Our problem in this country," says Davis, "is that we’re always focused on outcomes. This is the damage that the nonprofits have done because they want to know immediately, What is your project, what are you going to do, what are you going to achieve, and how can you evaluate that? Some of these things are not achievable right now. We have to think about 20 years, 40 years, 50 years, 100 years, 200 years, 500 years. This is, again, what I really appreciate about indigenous cosmologies, the ability to think about life in those vast historical terms so that we recognize that what we do at this moment will have consequences for people five generations from now. I think that anti-capitalist projects have to have that long view of future history at their core."
The coming months are going to be hard. MAGAs in Congress and in our own community are going to try to set us back on issue after issue. For every bit of organizing we do to gain support in the public and with voters, it will seem that they do so effortlessly as people watch Fox News and listen to their elected officials who reinforce the talking points of the greedy few who are lining their pockets and pulling the strings. How can we fight our inner hopelessness when we see this pattern again and again?
1) Remember that the big stuff takes time. A quick dunk on Twitter is easy--and it's worth nothing. A big win on health care or climate legislation, or convincing Congress that we need to tax vast wealth much more than hourly wages or changing the story on crime based on real facts--that will take time. Building the full vision of what we imagine for equality, community, and justice in American politics and society? Even longer.
2) Enjoy the journey. What we do is not just about the outcomes; it's about the process. When we volunteer on a campaign, the value is not only in the results on election night. It's in the shared experience, the new friendships, the connections made with voters at the door that may not yield a vote...yet.
3) Come together and stay together. When we show up at events and stay in touch, we can support, motivate, and energize each other--like we did at Celeste's campaign announcement or the recent Women's March. Like we will do at the Summit tomorrow. See you there!
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Breathe....then push.
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