Congress is contemplating passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill that invests in working families. But we must not compromise on our collective wellbeing.

Rev. William Barber reminds us that “this is bigger than a vote. This is about corporate power learning they can’t bully legislators and abuse the poor and low-wealth people in this country”.

Joe Biden set the tone when he said "it is not enough to restore where we were prior to the pandemic. We need to build a stronger economy that does not leave anyone behind -- we need to build back better."

Democrats must finally become “the party of actual progress - of doing shit and helping people. And whoever cannot get with that, then we will vote them out.

It’s about time we start governing. Hold the line and hold your representatives accountable.

#UntilWeAreAllThriving.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by Zeaink

1. Tell congress to hold the line. We have a historic opportunity right now to invest in federal climate legislation, citizenship, housing and working people across the country. No bill without reconciliation. [click to tweet]

2. Why it took 30 years to convict R.Kelly. Kelly’s trial and the decades of allegations preceding it highlight the systemic and societal failures that enable continued violence against Black women, girls, and trans and non-binary people. [click to tweet]

3. Why climate anxiety falls short. What’s needed is a more nuanced discussion of climate change and mental health—one that de-centers the experiences of White, wealthy communities. [click to tweet]

4. What skin can teach us about interdependence. Mitochondria offer an example of what it means to shift resources to areas that have been harmed and how we can heal from extractive capitalism. [click to tweet]

5. How to share space again. At a time when so many of us feel like we are still straddling two different worlds, how do we move back into unpredictable spaces with some sense of intention? [click to tweet]

Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is on Congress’s docket this week. On the line is medicaid expansion, universal pre-k, lower prescription drug prices, tuition free community college and taxes on the rich and corporations. Since the Democrats have the majority, they can pass the reconciliation bill with a simple majority vote. So what’s the hold up? Big business (Exxon, Apple, Walmart, Pfizer, US Chamber of Commerce, Koch Foundation) are determined to gut the bill and have dumped mountains of cash into buying off key Democrats.

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND TELL THEM TO HOLD THE LINE.

202-224-3121

Art by @BernieSanders/Content by @socialist_alternative

There’s an important new book on the role of everyday resistance in disrupting the logic of violence amid war and genocide. According to our friends at Beautiful Trouble, cultural disobedience is one way we can practice everyday resistance and bravely subvert dominant cultural norms. All of us face unwritten cultural laws that feel oppressive; almost all of us rebel at some point in our lives. We engage in cultural disobedience:

1. To make an invisible oppression visible.

2. To publicly shatter a taboo, or to inspire its total elimination.

3. To normalize something that should be normal in the first place.

4. To prefigure life without an oppressive cultural norm; and show that “another way of living/being is possible.”

5. To be in solidarity with those who cannot safely disobey culture.

6. To draw attention to a larger social injustice in spectacular fashion.

Acts of cultural disobedience don’t have to be spectacular. In fact, many of us are engaged in small, everyday (and sometimes quite subtle) acts of cultural disobedience all the time, whenever we deviate from the expected norm. And when we can cohere our individual acts of rebellion and self-expression into a larger force, cultural disobedience can ignite not just a public dialogue about what is right and wrong, but also social changes that are both profound and lasting.

Words by Beautiful Trouble/Art by Megan J Smith

“It is the obligation of every person who claims to oppose oppression to resist the oppressor by every means at (their) disposal”.

If you missed last week’s CTZN meetup with Tracee Stanley, Michelle Johnson, Hala Khouri and Kate Johnson, you can catch the replay on our patreon community page!

Words by Assata Shakur/Art by @subversive.thread

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