Afton Indivisible Updates
2025-08-12
Greetings
In this newsletter you will find information about:
- September Membership Meeting
- Saturday Bridge Brigade
- Aug 14, 7pm Poetry readings/fundraiser for Gaza (zoom)
- Training opportunities
In the news:
- Journalists killed in Gaza
- Epstein is only the tip of the iceberg
- Everything costs more
- Shooting at the CDC
- Criminalizing mental health
- Texas & the redistricting wars
- Tech, the environment, & AI
- Messaging & strategy
Inspiration:
Events & Trainings
September 2025 Meeting
- When:
- September 11, 6:30pm
- Where:
- Memorial Lutheran Church
15730 Afton Blvd S
Afton, MN
Our meetings are casual and give us a chance both to connect with neighbors and to take action on local or national issues.
Bridge Brigade Visibility Action
- When:
- Every Saturday, 11:00am–12:00pm
- Where:
- Stagecoach Trail/County 21 overpass on I-94
Park on the frontage road. Put "Lucy Winton Bell Athletic Fields" into your map app. We'll protest on the east side of the overpass. Bring BIG signs or just come wave!
An evening of poetry readings and a fundraiser for Gaza
A Virtual Fundraiser for Gaza
"The homeland dwells in poetry"
— from a poem by Saleh, a 17-year-old Gazan poet
Sponsored by PALI Coalition, PALI Birds, Muslims for Progress, East End for Peace & Justice, and the Warp & Weft Archive. Co-sponsored by Mizna
- When:
- August 14, 7:00pm (ET?)
- Where:
- Zoom
"At this juncture the need for humanitarian aid is a matter of life and death. We are urgently requesting your generous presence.
"Join us for this fundraising event - an evening of poetry read by brilliant Palestinian poets Mosab Abu Toha, George Abraham, and Sara Abou Rashed.
"We will hear from local NY activists, and enjoy musical talents while raising vital funds for Gaza.
"Please use the link below to register for the event. This is a private fundraising event and only registered participants will be permitted to join."
One Million Rising: One Million Trained, Millions More Empowered
Hosted by No Kings
- When:
- Wednesday August 13, 7:00–8:00pm CDT
- Where:
- Online
"One Million Rising — a national effort to train one million people to help lead in this moment and gain the skills to lead others. This is how we build people power that can't be ignored. You're invited to join us—and lead."
Building Partnerships and Coalitions, featuring Cristina Jimenez
Hosted by Indivisible
- When:
- Monday, August 18, 6:00–7:30pm
- Where:
- Online
"Become equipped with strategies and best practices for forming, managing, and sustaining effective coalitions to amplify social, community support, and advocacy efforts."
News
The Israeli Assassination of Journalist Anas al-Sharif and Five Colleagues in Gaza City
Israel has now killed 238 journalists in Gaza
from Drop Site News
"The prominent Palestinian journalist Anas al-Sharif was buried in Gaza City on Monday, a broken slab of rock used as a headstone, one day after his assassination by the Israeli military. Five other journalists —four from Al Jazeera, Mohammed Qraiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammed Noufal, and one from media outlet Sahat, Mohammed Al-Khalidi—were killed alongside him and also laid to rest.
"All six were killed on Sunday night in an Israeli airstrike on their media tent outside Al-Shifa hospital in what the Israeli military proudly proclaimed was an assassination targeting al-Sharif. Israel has now killed 238 journalists in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office."
The Last Words of Anas al-Sharif
Murdered in an Israeli attack on a tent for journalists near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City
from the Guardian
"This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice."
Epstein Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg: The Trump Protection Machine and the Epidemic of Violence Against Women
from Meditations in an Emergency (Rebecca Solnit)
"One reason this violence is so unacknowledged is that it is in the most literal sense not news – there are tides of hatred and violence against other groups that ebb and flow, but violence against women is global and enduring, a constant rather than an event. Another is that law enforcement and the legal system have often been more interested in protecting perpetrators, and society has often normalized and even celebrated violence against women.
"Imagine that we had no word for cancer and no recognition of the varieties of ways it manifests, so that we just had occasional lurid news stories about strange and sometimes fatal growths in various parts of various people, not connecting the versions in brains to the versions in prostates and breasts (and of course if we didn't recognize the common denominators we couldn't develop diagnoses and treatments or address root causes). Feminism has in fact offered a diagnosis, steadily, for decades and centuries: that the cause is misogyny and the violence is intended to perpetrate the inequality, exploitation, and subordination of women. But the one-case stories avoid this recognition by treating something ubiquitous as exceptional and isolated."
Trump voters wanted relief from medical bills. For millions, the bills are about to get bigger.
from Minnesota Reformer
"The president and his Republican congressional allies have brushed off the health care cuts, including hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid retrenchment in the mammoth tax law. 'You won’t even notice it,' Trump said at the White House after the bill signing July 4. 'Just waste, fraud, and abuse.'
"But consumer and patient advocates around the country warn that the erosion of federal health care protections since Trump took office in January threatens to significantly undermine Americans’ financial security.
"'These changes will hit our communities hard,' said Arika Sánchez, who oversees health care policy at the nonprofit New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.
"Sánchez predicted many more people the center works with will end up with medical debt. 'When families get stuck with medical debt, it hurts their credit scores, makes it harder to get a car, a home, or even a job,' she said. 'Medical debt wrecks people’s lives.'"
Minnesota could pay additional $86 million annually thanks to SNAP cuts in Trump tax bill
from Minnesota Reformer
"In addition to the new state cost-sharing for SNAP, Trump’s tax bill also expands work requirements for adults to those under age 65, up from age 55, and to families with children older than 13. In Minnesota, about 29,000 additional adults will need to meet the work requirements or risk losing their benefits.
"The purported goal of the work requirements is to force recipients to get jobs so they won’t need SNAP assistance in the future, but research shows that work requirements don’t increase employment or earnings. The overwhelming outcome is that people lose their benefits.
"Trump’s bill also restricts SNAP to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, meaning that the 8,000 SNAP recipients who are refugees, asylees or hold another legal immigration status will not be eligible."
STAT(S) of the Week: Tariffed Enough Already
from Rachel Bitecofer
"Tariffs are taxes. They always have been. And Trump’s “tariff strategy” is, in effect, a massive new federal tax—on top of the one you already pay every April. Call it the Trump Tax: a second pipeline of revenue flowing from American wallets directly into the U.S. Treasury.
"And now, thanks to new data from the Treasury Department, we can see just how much we’re paying."
Bullets in the Windows
from Your Local Epidemiologist
"I’ve spent the past 36 hours trying to process what happened. What is clear is this: it wasn’t random. Violence rarely is. And it goes far beyond what happened Friday.
"The perpetrator was shooting at public health workers—the people who devote their careers to keeping communities safe. The ones who work to stop the spread of disease and reduce gun violence. And in this case, targeted because of their work on the Covid-19 vaccine."
ACLU Condemns Trump Executive Order Targeting Disabled and Unhoused People
from the ACLU
"Scout Katovich, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality, issued the following statement in response to the executive order:
"'From the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ that will strip health care from millions to this dangerous executive order, every action this administration takes displays remarkable disdain for the rights and dignity of vulnerable people.
"Pushing people into locked institutions and forcing treatment won’t solve homelessness or support people with disabilities. The exact opposite is true – institutions are dangerous and deadly, and forced treatment doesn’t work. We need safe, decent, and affordable housing as well as equal access to medical care and voluntary, community-based mental health and evidence-based substance use treatment from trusted providers.'"
Democrats Refuse to Flinch
from Robert Hubbell
"On Tuesday, US Senator John Cornyn and President Trump threatened to send the FBI to arrest Democratic state legislators who fled the state to break quorum in the Texas legislature. See Texas Public Radio, Donald Trump says FBI 'may have to' get involved in ending Texas quorum break. The threat was blatantly unconstitutional and pathetically desperate. Democrats refused to flinch. Indeed, the threats seemed only to embolden Democratic state legislators.
"As Democratic Texas legislator Texas Rep. Armando Walle said,
"'The price to pay [for breaking quorum] pales in comparison to the rights of everyday people, everyday constituents that we represent proudly. Not scared. Not scared at all. Come and take it.'"
How to end the forever redistricting wars
from If You Can Keep It
"This week, America’s forever redistricting wars reached a new low — Texas Republicans and the White House are attempting an aggressive, mid-decade redraw of the state’s congressional map to try to keep the GOP in control of the House of Representatives in 2027.
"Most modern democracies don’t have legislative districts represented by only one legislator — which is why most don’t struggle with gerrymandering like we do. Instead, a majority of democracies today use proportional multimember districts (we’ll get back to what this means in a bit), which makes gerrymandering “prohibitively difficult” in practice, in the words of that same study. Our decision to use single-member districts makes gerrymandering possible in the first place.
"The good news is that our Constitution doesn’t require them."
You launch a power-grab when you fear your voters
from Ezra Levin — Indivisible
"You launch a power-grab when you fear your voters. Last month, Trump signed into law the most regressive and least popular bill in modern American history which, among other things, cut emergency response services nationwide. That same day, a massive flood hit central Texas, and both the local warning system and the state/federal response were so horrifically inadequate that more than 130 Texans -- including 37 children -- died...
"It’s time to fight back. The fight for justice and democracy against an authoritarian force often starts this way. The options are few. The odds are long. It looks dicey. In moments like this, you need leaders with intense strategic clarity. You need someone like a Texas State Representative James Talarico to say: 'We are not fighting for the Democratic Party. We are fighting for the democratic process, and the stakes could not be higher. We have to take a stand.'"
The trillion-dollar AI arms race is here
from the Guardian
"Tech companies are fighting to claim the title of having the world’s most advanced AI. The goal is to supercharge their bottom line and keep investors and Wall Street happy. But developing the world’s most advanced AI means spending billions on data centers and other physical infrastructure to house and power the supercomputers needed for AI. It also means a drain on natural resources and the grid in the areas surrounding data centers worldwide."
"Claims that artificial intelligence will help solve the climate crisis are misguided, with the technology instead likely cause rising energy use and turbocharge the spread of climate disinformation, a coalition of environmental groups has warned."
Data Center Download — Water
from MCEA
"Proposals for data centers are popping up all over the state. In some cases, cities aren’t even revealing if large industrial proposals are for data centers at all, using non-disclosure agreements to keep communities in the dark. In response we’ve started making information requests for communications between the cities and companies that they’re legally obligated to provide.
"In fact, as it stands, these data centers don’t need to apply for their own water withdrawal permits at all. Instead, they are using a permit that the city already has, and asking the city to apply for larger withdrawals. From the outside, it may look as if the city needs more water for residents and businesses, but in fact, a single user has come in and doubled the demand.
"This also creates a perverse incentive for cities to compete against each other to market their water resources to attract these facilities, and disincentives cooperation among cities to plan for sustainable regional water use. With at least 10 data centers proposed on the outer edges of the Twin Cities, and no scrutiny of individual permits or analysis of the cumulative effects of these large increases, this is an unsustainable situation that will harm Minnesota’s water resources."
Surveillance Company Flock Now Using AI to Report Us to Police if it Thinks Our Movement Patterns Are 'Suspicious'
from the ACLU
"The police surveillance company Flock has built an enormous nationwide license plate tracking system, which streams records of Americans’ comings and goings into a private national database that it makes available to police officers around the country. The system allows police to search the nationwide movement records of any vehicle that comes to their attention. That’s bad enough on its own, but the company is also now apparently analyzing our driving patterns to determine if we’re “suspicious.” That means if your police start using Flock, they could target you just because some algorithm has decided your movement patterns suggest criminality."
De Flock
Flock Camera Locations
"Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are cameras that capture images of all passing license plates, storing details like the car's location, date, and time. These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles—regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. While these systems can be useful for tracking stolen cars or wanted individuals, they are mostly used to track the movements of innocent people.
"LPRs are a threat to your privacy and civil liberties. They're regularly used to track everyone's movements without a warrant, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion. Law enforcement agencies use them for various purposes, including ICE raids and tracking abortion seekers across state lines.
"Learn more about how Flock, the most popular ALPR vendor1, is being used in your community on the independent site: Eyes on Flock."
Flock's Surveillance System Might Already Be Overseeing Your Community
Millions in Public Funds, Zero Public Input
from Drop Site
"Flock is a $7.5 billion surveillance technology company, operating in over 5,000 communities across 49 states. Flock has a proven playbook to expand through securing local government contracts, often behind closed doors.
"Flock's technology has been used to assist with everything from ICE investigations in Illinois to abortion investigations in Texas. 'Local police around the country are performing lookups in Flock's AI-powered automatic license plate reader (ALPR) system for 'immigration' related searches and as part of other ICE investigations, giving federal law enforcement side-door access to a tool that it currently does not have a formal contract for,' 404 Media reported in May. A Johnson county sheriff searched over 83,000 cameras to prosecute a woman traveling over state lines to obtain an abortion, including searches of thousands of cameras in Washington and Illinois where abortion is legal, according to data obtained by 404 Media.
"The technology brings into question the presumption of innocence, the legal principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. Charles Siefe, the former NSA employee who spoke at the June 10th meeting in Scarsdale, explained to Drop Site how Flock provides a system of 'persistent severance' through interconnected Live View Cameras (LVCs) and License Plate Readers (LPRs). 'You can actually go into the database and look for stuff to see if you can tag that person with a crime.' He compares this to traffic stops, saying, 'police officers know if you follow someone in a car for a couple of miles, the likelihood is you'll be able to pull them over for something.'"
Agencies that use License Plate Readers (LPR)
from Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (MN)
"This page contains information provided by Minnesota law enforcement agencies about their use of License Plate Reader (LPR) technology. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) publishes this information on the BCA website as required by Minnesota law."
Stillwater MN PD Transparency Portal
"Stillwater MN PD uses Flock Safety technology to capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy. Stillwater MN PD utilizes retroactive search to solve crimes after they've occurred. Additionally, Stillwater MN PD utilizes real time alerting of hotlist vehicles to capture wanted criminals. In an effort to ensure proper usage and guardrails are in place, they have made the below policies and usage statistics available to the public."
Capitalism is Illegal
from Progressive International
"This year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on 25 July—the date by which humanity has already used up more resources than the planet can regenerate in an entire year. Two days earlier, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a historic ruling: states are legally obliged to stop this planetary overshoot, and to hold those responsible to account. In effect, the world’s highest court has confirmed what movements across the world have long insisted: the climate crisis is not just a political failure. It is an economic and a legal one. And the system driving it—capitalism—is, by every meaningful measure, illegal.
"In an unanimous advisory opinion issued on 23 July, the 15 judges of the ICJ found that: The 1.5°C limit is not just a target—it is a legal threshold; all states have binding legal obligations to prevent 'significant harm' to the environment; fossil fuel production, consumption, and subsidies may constitute 'internationally wrongful acts'; and wealthy countries have additional legal responsibilities to lead the fight against climate change.
"Importantly, the Court affirmed that climate inaction is a breach not only of environmental treaties but of general international law and human rights law. In the words of Professor Jorge Viñuales of Cambridge University, the Court 'essentially sided with the Global South and small island developing states.'"
Pivoting From Defense to Offense
from The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook (Scot Nakagawa)
"Defense (necessary but insufficient):
- Protests: Express opposition but often reinforce the system by asking for permission and staying within prescribed boundaries
- Critique: Names the problem but doesn't disrupt power relations
- Legal challenges: Important but rely on institutions that authoritarians are capturing
- Electoral politics alone: Playing by rules that authoritarians are rewriting in order to assure they can’t lose elections
Offense (power-shifting):
- Mass noncooperation: Withdraws the consent and compliance that all governments require
- Economic disruption: Hits power where it matters most - profit and economic stability
- Joy and celebration: Creates magnetic alternative culture that draws people in
- Prefigurative organizing: Builds the democracy we want (diversity, pluralism, power-sharing, transparency) while fighting the authoritarianism we reject"
Truth & Share
from Indivisible
"We’ve put together a social toolkit that tracks Trump's most unpopular policies and biggest failures. Share these posts with your networks and customize your messages so they break through the social media algorithms."
Inspirations
The Basic Struggle Today
How to live a moral life in an age of bullies
from Robert Reich
"Throughout history, the central struggle of civilization has been against brutality by the powerful. Civilization is the opposite of brutality. A civil society doesn’t allow the strong to brutally treat the weak.
"Yet in my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a breakdown. I’ve seen a change occur — from support of decency and constraints on brutality, to tolerance of indecency and support for unconstrained cruelty.
"Trump is not the cause. He’s the culmination.
"So how do we lead moral lives in this age of bullies?"
How ICE’s Arrest of a High School Student Activated a Massachusetts Town
from Mother Jones
"The arrest of the Brazilian-native honors student has thrust Milford into the national spotlight, making it a flashpoint for President Donald Trump’s turbocharged immigration enforcement. It has also served as a catalyst for resistance in a town where dynamics around immigration have at times created fissures. 'It definitely brought the community much closer together,' said Coleen Greco, the mother of one of Gomes da Silva’s volleyball teammates. “I hadn’t seen that kind of activation in the 22 years I’ve lived here. Nothing like it.'
"Word of Gomes da Silva’s detention spread quickly through Milford, a 30,000-person blue-collar town 40 miles southwest of Boston. When he didn’t show up to volleyball practice that Saturday morning, his teammates and coaches assumed he must have overslept. Then coach Andrew Mainini got a text from a player, an undocumented 17-year-old who was in the car with Gomes da Silva. ICE had let him go along with an exchange student from Spain, but held onto Gomes da Silva. Mainini recalled feeling shocked and helpless. 'We didn’t know what to do,' he said...
"The mobilization immediately after Gomes da Silva’s arrest struck Low as a 'pivotal moment' for Milford, where Trump won 42 percent of votes in 2024. 'It’s really the first time I can remember that there’s been a significant portion of the community speaking up on behalf of the immigrants who live here,' Low said, noting that he hadn’t heard a public official in the town espouse such a pro-immigrant stance in all his years of organizing work. 'I think that’s really important going forward.'"
New Construction
Imagining a progressive era
from Wolves and Sheep
"If Trump’s destructive legacy will give us an opportunity to rebuild America, we first need to envision what we want to emerge from the rubble he leaves behind...
"Let’s start with the two drivers of change that led to the Trump reaction: economic inequality and the emerging majority minority America. Trump is exacerbating the former and resisting the latter. A progressive era would do the opposite. It would reverse economic inequality and embrace a diverse, multicultural nation...
"And a new foundation will need to be built. Because creating a country where rights are expanded and government works for those who can’t afford to purchase access to it requires more than simply winning an election. It requires an earthquake.
"An earthquake comparable to the one that enabled the expansion of rights after the Civil War.
"An earthquake that made possible the establishment of social welfare policies after the Depression."
Pussy Riot's Cathedral Performance
Russia, 2012 — Another Lesson In Creative Cultural Resistance
from Scot Nakagawa
"In 2012, the feminist punk collective Pussy Riot staged a provocative protest performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Wearing colorful balaclavas and dresses, the group performed their "punk prayer," a chaotic and defiant act that criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church's complicity in authoritarianism and patriarchy. The performance lasted only minutes before security intervened, but its message echoed far beyond the walls of the cathedral.
"The performance became a flashpoint for global conversations about authoritarianism, sexism, and corruption. The harsh punishment meted out to the performers—long prison sentences for 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred' — underscored the regime's intolerance of dissent. At the same time, the event catalyzed international solidarity campaigns, brought attention to the intersection of art and activism, and made Pussy Riot an enduring symbol of resistance."
Afton Indivisible Stats
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We collaborate with other organizations to organize events and build strong networks of support.
If you haven't already:
Thank you for all that you do!
We hope to see you at upcoming events and at the September Membership Meeting.