inhumanity

Solidarity with the people of Gaza

/ Tracy Abell / 5 Comments

Once again, I’m pivoting from my usual Climate Movement Monday posts because of the ongoing and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza (although, technically speaking, it’s important to remember that militaries use vast amounts of fossil fuels and greatly accelerate global warming) in order to offer some resources in the face of the U.S.-supported genocide of the Palestinian people.

Al-Rimal, a neighborhood in the heart of Gaza City, has been repeatedly targeted by Israel over recent days. Atia Darwish APA images

More than 1,000 Palestinian children have been killed since October 7 which equals one child killed every 15 minutes by Israeli forces. As I write this, American Jews and allies of IfNotNow.org and Jewish Voice for Peace are blocking all entrances to the White House as they demand a ceasefire now.

Those folks in D.C. are incredibly courageous and, in solidarity with them, here are some actions we can all take at home:

Make phone calls/send emails via the Stop Gaza Genocide Action Toolkit
(Click HERE to access the Jewish Voice for Peace link which makes it VERY easy to call your 2 Senators & 1 Rep . . . and we can call over and over!)
** a Ceasefire NOW resolution has just been introduced in the House so please ask your reps to sign on to this resolution!** (If your member of Congress is Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Jonathan Jackson, Chuy Garcia, Nydia Velazquez, or Bonnie Watson-Coleman — then please call to thank them!)

Donate to humanitarian aid organizations:

Educate yourself
Click HERE to access three free Haymarket Books ebooks about Palestine
Click HERE to read “Gaza Is a Prison Under Siege. This Is My Letter to the World Outside.” by Ahmed Abu Artema, a founder of the Great March of Return
Click HERE to read “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” written/published by Peter Beinart in 2020

These are incredibly difficult days and it’s easy to be overcome by grief and exhaustion. Please, if you can, find opportunities to experience joy each day. I spent a chunk of time this morning watching a squirrel sitting on the deck railing as it devoured a sunflower seed-head, and it felt very good to laugh.

Thank you for reading and taking action on behalf of an oppressed people. Until next time, Solidarity! ✊🏽

#Caturday with Loki

/ Tracy Abell

As anyone who has ever been around a cat for any length of time well knows, cats have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind.  ~ Cleveland Amory

Loki on November 20, 2020

And we’re really stretching their feline patience these days. Come on, human kind. We’ve got to do much, much better.

Eviction is an act of violence

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

This pandemic continues to expose the many holes in our inhumane, capitalism-obsessed society. We’re about to see an enormous surge in the numbers of people who are unhoused. Those figures were already shameful and they’re about to become catastrophic. For the last three days, I’ve worked with the Denver chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as a housing advocate offering support to those facing eviction. The stories I’ve heard made me scream, rage, cry, and cry some more.

Image by Rusty Gouveia from Pixabay

Silly me, I thought it made sense to encourage an elderly couple infected with covid to emphasize their health issues during their eviction hearing in order to buy time before they were forced to move out. Wrong. I listened in yesterday during their virtual court hearing as the husband described the difficulties of his health issues and then reminded the judge that it was against public health and safety to put covid-positive people out on the street. Was the judge affected by this sound argument? Not at all.

The good news is that their eviction notice/notice to quit was served incorrectly and now the process starts over. That will buy the couple time to, I hope, recover before they’re forced from their home. That’s considered a victory in this hellscape reality.

I’m waiting to hear back from a young couple who had their eviction hearing this afternoon. There are three generations living in that apartment and the family has been desperately searching for a new place to live ever since getting their notice to quit. There’s nothing out there for them.

Tomorrow is the hearing for two brothers. One lost his job at the start of the pandemic, but the other still had a job with reduced hours which allowed them to hang on by a thread. Then second one lost his job when the employer couldn’t hold on any longer. Their unemployment benefits took so long to be processed they are now facing eviction. They spent all of July looking for a new home but, surprise surprise, no one wants to rent to two unemployed people.

In both cases, the tenants had always paid their rent on time and tried to arrange payment schedules during this hard situation. Didn’t matter. The landlords are determined to kick them out in the street during a pandemic.

We are a broken society. There is nothing great about a country that not only allows this kind of abuse but intentionally puts laws on the books that inflict trauma on its citizens. Eviction is an act of violence.

It is way past time to rise up.