Baltimore Activist Alert -- June 12 - 18, 2025

53] Phone bank for the Tax Scam – June 12

54] Power Half-Hour for Gaza – June 12, & 15, 17 & 18

55] Pressure Maersk – June 12

56] Speak Out Socialists – June 12  

57] DSA branch meeting – June 12

58] United We Dream – June 12

59] Twenty years of war – June 12

60] National Fight Back call – June 12

61] Hear from an exoneree – June 12

62] DSA social housing meeting – June 12

63] Victory Call – June 12

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53] –Phone bank with Indivisible to Stop the Trump Tax Scam on Thurs., June 12, Wed., June 18, Wed., June 25 and Thurs., June 26 from  11 AM to 12:30 PM0 ET. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/792462/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=_20250604

On Wednesdays and Thursdays in June, join Indivisible for a phone bank where we’ll be calling voters and connecting them directly to their Senator. Together, urge Republicans to oppose the Trump Tax Scam—a reckless GOP tax plan that prioritizes billionaires like Elon Musk while selling out working families. Republicans in Congress are trying to ram this through using budget reconciliation, bypassing bipartisan support to give trillions in tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. Their plan? Slash Medicaid, SNAP, and early education programs—all so billionaires can hoard more wealth while everyday Americans pay more. You will use Scale to Win, an easy-to-use calling tool, to make sure voters can speak out and be heard.

54] – Jewish Voice for Peace is doing a Power Half-Hour for Gaza: Channel grief & outrage into action to stop a genocide.  A year into the genocide in Gaza, we are overwhelmed with sorrow and rage. There are no words to describe the devastating pain of the past year in which the Israeli military has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 17,000 children. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have both declared that Israel must stop the genocidal acts being committed on the Palestinian people. And the U.S. government is actively supporting the Israeli military as it wreaks devastation on the over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. JVP continues to come together as a political community in its daily half-hour to take action. Join in and take collective action to demand an arms embargo to Israel, immediate end to the genocide, a lasting ceasefire and an end to Israeli siege, apartheid, occupation, and oppression of Palestinians and Lebanon. All are welcome. All are needed. Get involved at 3 PM ET on Thurs., June 12, Mon., June 16, Tues., June 17 & Wed., June 18. Visit https://jvp-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Un0Lupy1SFObVVXJaZO5UQ?_x_zm_rtaid=8L0JUS3pQkenMGtx9ha3mQ.1732760660364.03949df73aedc7035fc618f76c52fc75&_x_zm_rhtaid=249#/registration

55] – Between 2019 and 2025, Maersk transported half of all known F-35 wing shipments—including every F-35 delivered to Israel since at least March 2022. The company has also shipped weapons components to Israeli military contractors like Elbit Systems, making it complicit in war crimes. Join the power hour and social media storm on Thurs., June 12 at 3 PM ET to pressure Maersk to stop fueling genocide. https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6917413730309/WN_N_2FQ_wUQa-ihAnHSUEaHw?emci=37102a8e-3946-f011-8f7c-6045bdfe8e9c&emdi=a3e56542-4146-f011-8f7c-6045bdfe8e9c&ceid=6668252#/registration

56] – Speak Out Socialists Baltimore <baltimore@speakoutsocialists.org> informed me that on Thurs., June 12 from 6 to 8 PM ET check out How Can We Change Minds and Build Power? This is a Speak Out Socialists meeting at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218. See a documentary and join a discussion of a portion of “You Got to Move: Stories of Change in the South.”

57] –The Monthly Northern Virginia Branch Meeting will take place on Thurs., June 12 from 6:15 to 7:45 PM at the Culmore Community Library, 6101 Knollwood Dr., Falls Church, VA 22041. Email novabranch [at] mdcdsa [dot] org. RSVP at https://actionnetwork.org/events/nova-branch-general-body-meeting-june-12th?clear_id=true&link_id=11&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-05292025-nova-branch-dsa-upcoming-actions-and-events&email_referrer=email_2763085&email_subject=06052025-nova-branch-dsa-upcoming-actions-and-events&&

Discuss current campaigns, recent events, organizational questions and updates from allied organizations. New members are always welcome. You must be vaccinated/boosted to join in-person events.

58] – United We Dream [info@unitedwedream.org] on Thurs., June 12 at 6:30 PM ET is inviting you to From LA to Boston: Building Community through Art.  You are not alone in caring and fighting for your community. Grieve the absence of our immigrant neighbors and loved ones who have been disappeared from your communities by ICE, millions are ready to fight back alongside you. Over the weekend, as ICE raids erupted across Los Angeles, thousands of working people in communities came together to defend immigrant neighbors, teachers, and classmates who are being torn from their homes and families.  Now, with our rights and future at stake, we must come together as one to protect one another.  RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/unitedwedream/event/801106/?utm_source=email_06.11&link_id=0&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&email_referrer=email_2771463&email_subject=rsvp-now-from-la-to-boston-building-community-through-art-__&

59] –On Thurs., June 12 at noon, Neta C. Crawford, Internationally known expert on military & climate will discuss Blood and Treasure: United States Budgetary Costs and Human Costs of 20 Years of War in Iraq and Syria, 2003-2023. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMkf-6gqjgoHdEXfUvOLnuHUw8JcWqRPdLp

 Crawford is the author of "The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions" (MIT Press, 2022). Crawford is also the author of three other books, "Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post-9/11 Wars" (2013), "Soviet Military Aircraft" (1987) and "Argument and Change in World Politics" (2002), named Best Book in International History and Politics by the American Political Science Association. 

60] – Popular Democracy [cpd@populardemocracy.org] on Thurs., June 12 at 7 PM ET will hold a National Fight Back call. Get trained in EMPOWER, a powerful relational organizing tool that can multiply your reach. Learn about which districts and members of Congress we'll be focusing on as we push back on the new administration's right-wing, extremist agenda. Get connected on strategic opportunities to take action at home and in DC. These calls will continue on Thursday through December 18, and the next one will be on June 26. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/cpda/event/550558/?ms=EM+NationalCallFeb132+PD&emci=1adcad8a-8ae9-ef11-90cb-0022482a94f4&emdi=1bdcad8a-8ae9-ef11-90cb-0022482a94f4&ceid=447376

61] – Pennsylvanians against the Death Penalty [askus@witnesstoinnocence.org] on Thurs., June 12 at 7 PM ET are hosting an Evening with Death Row Exoneree Daniel Gwynn and Attorney Jim Moreno. Death Row Exoneree Daniel Gwynn and Attorney Jim Moreno​ on proving Daniel's innocence. This will be a powerful discussion with Daniel Gwynn, who spent nearly 30 years on Pennsylvania’s death row under the threat of execution for a crime he did not commit, and his attorney, Jim Moreno, to share their story of proving his innocence. RSVP at  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-death-row-exoneree-daniel-gwynn-and-attorney-jim-moreno-registration-1357848303829?can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-an-evening-with-death-row-exoneree-daniel-gwynn-and-attorney-jim-moreno&email_subject=an-evening-with-death-row-exoneree-daniel-gwynn-and-attorney-jim-moreno&email_referrer=email_2771692&link_id=2

62] – On Thurs., June 12 at 7 PM, get over to a Social Housing Organizing Meeting. Host Email social.housing.wg@gmail.com. A link to attend this virtual event will be emailed upon RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/june-12-2025-social-housing-organizing-meeting?link_id=90&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-23-2025&email_referrer=email_2755117&email_subject=metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-30-2025&&

63] – Progressive Democrats of America [info@pdamerica.org] on Thurs., June 12 at 9 PM ET will share the Good News on the Campaign to Victory Call. Register and the machine will email you your secure codes: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrcuGgrDItHdeYV7F9QQsruFMypvcMt5Fc?emci=16e075a5-c72a-f011-8b3d-6045bded8cca&emdi=a7413d8f-512b-f011-8b3d-6045bded8cca&ceid=2907617#/registration

Share good news about campaigns and candidates that will turn US politics around for a safer, more peaceful, more prosperous, and more generally-progressive world for all. You'll leave more hopeful, energized and organized.

To be continued.

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, and 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph.: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Baltimore Activist Alert -- June 11 - 17, 2025

43] Phone bank to highlight the tax scam – June 11

44] Future without nuclear weapons – June 11

45] Power Half-Hour for Gaza – June 11, 12 & 16 and 17

46] Protecting migrants – June 11

47] Baltimore sign waving – June 11

48] Chris Van Hollen on the shore – June 11

49] Entry Ban – June 11

50] Defend our Healthcare -- June 11

51] War is not Green – June 11

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43] –Phone bank with Indivisible to Stop the Trump Tax Scam on Wed., June 11, Thurs., June 12, Wed., June 18, Wed., June 25 and Thurs., June 26 from  11 AM to 12:30 PM0 ET. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/792462/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=_20250604

Every Wednesday and Thursday in June, join Indivisible for a phone bank where we’ll be calling voters and connecting them directly to their Senator. Together, urge Republicans to oppose the Trump Tax Scam—a reckless GOP tax plan that prioritizes billionaires like Elon Musk while selling out working families. Republicans in Congress are trying to ram this through using budget reconciliation, bypassing bipartisan support to give trillions in tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. Their plan? Slash Medicaid, SNAP, and early education programs—all so billionaires can hoard more wealth while everyday Americans pay more. You will use Scale to Win, an easy-to-use calling tool, to make sure voters can speak out and be heard.

44] – In a time of geopolitical fractures, the potential use of nuclear weapons has become an escalating risk. Ward Hayes Wilson, Executive Director of RealistRevolt, dares to reimagine a future without nuclear weapons. Join in on Wed., June 12 at 12:30 PM ET for a conversation with one of the leading voices for nuclear disarmament. Moderated by Stimson Center co-founder Barry Blechman. Nine countries in the world possess nuclear weapons—four of which are engaged in ongoing or recent conflicts. Compounded with technological progress, geopolitical crises have only increased the risk of nuclear weapon deployment, causing mass fear and anxiety. RSVP at  https://www.stimson.org/event/a-future-without-nuclear-weapons/?utm_source=Stimson+Center&utm_campaign=031a4c5943-RA%2FComms%2FT%26T+Congressional+Arms+Oversight&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c4f5c92f3d-633887609

45] – Jewish Voice for Peace is doing a Power Half-Hour for Gaza: Channel grief & outrage into action to stop a genocide.  A year into the genocide in Gaza, we are overwhelmed with sorrow and rage. There are no words to describe the devastating pain of the past year in which the Israeli military has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 17,000 children. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have both declared that Israel must stop the genocidal acts being committed on the Palestinian people. And the U.S. government is actively supporting the Israeli military as it wreaks devastation on the over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. JVP continues to come together as a political community in its daily half-hour to take action. Join in and take collective action to demand an arms embargo to Israel, immediate end to the genocide, a lasting ceasefire and an end to Israeli siege, apartheid, occupation, and oppression of Palestinians and Lebanon. All are welcome. All are needed. Get involved at 3 PM ET on Wed., June 11, Thurs., June 12, Mon., June 16 & Tues., June 17. Visit https://jvp-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Un0Lupy1SFObVVXJaZO5UQ?_x_zm_rtaid=8L0JUS3pQkenMGtx9ha3mQ.1732760660364.03949df73aedc7035fc618f76c52fc75&_x_zm_rhtaid=249#/registration

46] – Freedom United [team@freedomunited.org] on Wed., June 11 at 3 PM ET will hold a special event—Lessons from the frontline Protecting migrant workers in California.

‌Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_geuu7XWCSdiFBhawWqU3gw?trk_msg=DE73404MQ2J4T3ML8TV7PJIEKS&trk_contact=CLM465Q1ION47L3FT15J0RGU94&trk_sid=VJ55AQ17OR9BERU88PTS287M5K&trk_link=OPIQMJI976S4H2SN4I7I0B3OBG&utm_source=Listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Reserve+your+spot&utm_campaign=FU-EN-10JUN25-CAMigrants-WebinarReminder-actives&utm_content=FU-EN-10JUN25-CAMigrants-WebinarReminder-actives#/registration

This conversation will pull back the curtain on how trafficking and exploitation are hiding in plain sight in California’s labor system—and what the state can do about it. Hear from two former US TIP Ambassadors, who have come together to support California Assembly Bill 1362.  Hear exclusive insights from leaders who’ve worked at the highest levels of government to stop forced labor and protect vulnerable workers.

47] – On Wed., June 11 from 4:30 to 5 PM join Baltimore Sign Waves at West 40th St. & Roland Ave., Baltimore 21211. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/763996/?followup_modal_context=nonexclusive_newsletter_closest

The Wednesday Movement launched on March 12, 2025 when disgruntled seniors took to the streets in Baltimore to make their feelings known. The Movement, a weekly Pro-Democracy, Anti-Trump, Anti-Putin vigil, gathers on a heavily trafficked Baltimore street corner. We invite others who feel the same way to join the Movement. You do not need to be old to join this movement. This event will continue through June 25.

48] – Jared Schablein [admin@lowershoreprogressives.com] on Wed., June 11 at 5:30 PM ET wants you to hear Senator Chris Van Hollen give the Our Shore Legislative Wrap-Up: Legislative Wrap-Up 2025: From the Capitol to the Coast.  Many members of the Maryland legislature will also make presentations. This virtual town hall will offer invaluable insights into what’s happening at both the State and Federal levels, and how it’s directly impacting the Shore communities. Gaining a deeper understanding of these issues is key to engaging our communities more effectively - and it’s the first step in how we win in 2026. Sign up at bit.ly/ShoreLegislative25

49] – Muslims for Just Futures [community@muslimsforjustfutures.org] on Wed., June 11 at 6:30 PM are encouraging you to attend a call to discuss our organizing in this moment and other resources we may need to deal with the Entry Ban, Organizing in Our Communities and Continued ICE escalation. Register at ushttps://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/0sTLb4jCSzWbtAqRj_JWPw#/registration

50] – On Wed., June 11 at 7 PM, Defend Our Healthcare Is holding a National Campaign Call on what’s happening in the Senate and what to do to stop Trump’s bill to fund the wealthy by taking from the poor/#HandsOffOurHealthcare. Contact Patty at patty@progressivemaryland.org for more information.

At this national Teach-In you'll hear the latest about the fight to stop the Republican's big, bad, deadly budget bill. The action now is in the US Senate, and you will get to know about the cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act that will take health coverage from millions of us. If you don't know what (or what more) you can do, you will be given a list of actions you can take. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/progressivemaryland/event/798992/?emci=bd9b1521-7045-f011-8f7c-6045bdfe8e9c&emdi=1f8154af-7545-f011-8f7c-6045bdfe8e9c&ceid=136680

51] – On Wed., June 11 at 7:30 PM ET, join CODEPINK for a War Is Not Green community meeting. When it comes to climate, the US war machine is the elephant in the room as the #1 institutional polluter in the world and with over 800 toxic bases around the world. To fight climate chaos, we need to demilitarize, end wars and US imperialism, free Palestine, facilitate the repatriation of Indigenous land, and get the mainstream environmental movement to join in along the way. Email aaron@codepink.org. The world's climate movement must hold anti-militarism as a core pillar!  This is no time for business as usual. RSVP at https://www.codepink.org/wing611?utm_campaign=wing_ctp_6_10_alert_no_kings&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink

To be continued

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph.: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Conservatives want to reform higher education. Johns Hopkins is helping.

Friends,

As long as I have been in Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University has been opposed by the peace and justice community for its weapons contracts.  The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in a 2019 report labelled JHU as the #1 School of Mass Destruction.  Then the Hopkins Justice Collective exposed the university as being complicit with genocide.  Recently the university sent out a memo urging students to cooperate with ICE on campus—inform Trump’s agents where students being sought are located.  And now we read that President Ron Daniels, echoing Trump, is working to make JHU a MAGA educational hub.  The American Enterprise Institute, its new ally, is a right-wing think tank that ignores the scientific evidence regarding Climate Chaos. As we prepare for the 41^st commemoration of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you can be sure that JHU will be challenged at our events. Kagiso, Max

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/education/higher-education/johns-hopkins-university-american-enterprise-institute-OKLLJQVW75DTDAKK7D2DFQQJ4Q/?schk=YES&rchk=YES&utm_source=The+Baltimore+Banner&utm_campaign=e791302bc7-NL_ICYMI_20250531_1100&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fed75856d2-e791302bc7-557839324&mc_cid=e791302bc7&mc_eid=b94838c280

 

Conservatives want to reform higher education. Johns Hopkins is helping.

Ellie Wolfe

5/30/2025 5:30 a.m. EDT

 

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(Yifan Luo for The Baltimore Banner)

 

A new partnership aims to bring more political balance to the faculty

Conservatives who want more influence in higher education have a surprising new ally: the president of an elite university.

Ron Daniels, president of the Johns Hopkins University, has invested more than a year into a collaboration with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, to recruit conservative voices into academia. So far, the collaboration has produced a two-day conference in Washington, D.C.; a fellowship exchange for research and teaching collaboration; and a program to recruit and support conservative graduates in careers in higher education.

The venture comes amid growing tensions between colleges and the American right. President Donald Trump’s administration has stripped universities of billions in federal funding for research (Hopkins itself is facing hundreds of millions in losses), pondered changing accreditation systems and favors raising the endowment tax.

The institute does not endorse political candidates and has occasionally criticized the Trump administration. But the administration has hired former institute employees, and some of the institute’s senior fellows have published articles criticizing financial aid, advocating for ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and cutting off federal funding for colleges.

Those positions are unusual in academia, which skews more left-leaning than most professions. Half of all professors who responded to one 2022 survey identified as liberal; just 26% identified as conservative.

“Throughout my career, I have seen many brilliant conservative scholars flee the academy for think tanks, where they feel their ideas will be more readily welcomed,” Daniels wrote in his 2021 book, “What Universities Owe Democracy." ”This brain drain cannot be healthy for the university."

 Daniels’ book helped spur the collaboration, which was announced in April, said Jenna Silber Storey, a senior fellow at the institute.

“Johns Hopkins has been very willing,” she said. “This project has strong institutional support.”

The partnership’s Graduate Student Intellectual Diversity Initiative “aims to encourage conservative, libertarian and heterodox students and graduates to consider a career in higher education.”

The initiative supports students through the job search process, and leaders have already begun to work with department chairs and senior faculty across the country, including those at Harvard and Princeton universities, to recruit qualified students into doctoral programs.

The program is focused on providing “intellectual mentorship” so students feel supported in joining the academy, said Hahrie Han, director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Hopkins.

“I’ve been pleased by the robust levels of enthusiasm and support that we’re getting from faculty both at Hopkins and elsewhere,” she said. “There’s a real appetite for these kinds of projects.”

Storey, of the institute, said universities have begun reaching out to her about the programming.

“I’ve heard from a lot of other universities since the collaboration has been announced,” she said. “They’re very interested in what we’re doing.”

The partnership also formed JHU-AEI Fellowship Exchange Program, an opportunity for scholars from the university and the think tank to work together on research, teaching or other projects.

The exchange program was developed during a series of salon dinners that Hopkins faculty had with institute scholars, and according to the university, more than two-dozen faculty members have expressed interest in the collaboration.

Hopkins is “really serious about finding creative ways that bring about more viewpoint diversity,” Storey said.

Under Daniels’ leadership, Hopkins has made a number of other pushes to add conservative voices to the university. Daniels created faculty groups to help departments at the university recruit scholars with “demonstrated interest and expertise in conservative theory and perspectives.”

These programs will help higher education with the “pursuit of truth,” Han said.

“We know from decades of research that no matter who you are, we all have cognitive biases,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important to have a diversity of viewpoints.”

The long-term goal, she added, is that the programs disappear.

“It would be great if we didn’t have a program that specifically is about trying to diversify the graduate student pipeline,” she said. “We want a program that becomes so effective that it’s no longer necessary.”

Ellie Wolfe

ellie.wolfe@thebaltimorebanner.com

 Ellie Wolfe reports on higher education at the Baltimore Banner. Raised in western Massachusetts and a proud graduate of Bates College, Ellie spent a year reporting on higher education at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson before moving to Baltimore.

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

Baltimore Activist Alert -- June 10 - 16, 2025

32] Witness for a moral budget -- June 10

33] Power half-hour for Gaza – June 10 – 12 & 16

34] Fair pay for teachers – June 10

35] Federal workers town hall – June 10 

36] Movement building – June 10 

37] Labor Working Group meeting – June 10

38] ICE Watch training – June 10 

39] Relational Organizing 101 – June 10 

40] Fund healthcare – June 10

41] Undocumented Workers Rights Training – June 10

42] Enough is enough – June 11

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32] –Faith in Public Life [commongood@faithinpubliclife.org] on Tues., June 10 at 10:15 AM is asking others to be at the Capitol for a Pentecost witness for a moral budget. In this season of Pentecost, remember a sacred truth shared across many faith traditions: the power of spirit and community can move us from fear to courage, from silence to public witness. Together, call on Congress to reject budget cuts that would harm the most vulnerable among us and violate our deepest moral values. RSVP at https://sites.google.com/georgetown.edu/pentecostjustice?usp=sharing&emci=c1b86909-3042-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&emdi=0707c80a-5042-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&ceid=741284

 Vigil at Upper Senate Park, 200 New Jersey Ave. NW, then join procession to the Senate steps.  Eventually meet in offices of various senators.

33] – Jewish Voice for Peace is doing a Power Half-Hour for Gaza: Channel grief & outrage into action to stop a genocide.  A year into the genocide in Gaza, we are overwhelmed with sorrow and rage. There are no words to describe the devastating pain of the past year in which the Israeli military has killed over 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 17,000 children. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have both declared that Israel must stop the genocidal acts being committed on the Palestinian people. And the U.S. government is actively supporting the Israeli military as it wreaks devastation on the over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. JVP continues to come together as a political community in its daily half-hour to take action. Join in and take collective action to demand an arms embargo to Israel, immediate end to the genocide, a lasting ceasefire and an end to Israeli siege, apartheid, occupation, and oppression of Palestinians and Lebanon. All are welcome. All are needed. Get involved at 3 PM ET on Tues., June 10, Wed., June 11, Thurs., June 12 and Mon., June 16. Visit https://jvp-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Un0Lupy1SFObVVXJaZO5UQ?_x_zm_rtaid=8L0JUS3pQkenMGtx9ha3mQ.1732760660364.03949df73aedc7035fc618f76c52fc75&_x_zm_rhtaid=249#/registration

34] –Baltimore County teachers are rallying for fair pay on Tues., June 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM in Towson. Our teachers show up for our families day in and day out. The Teachers' Association of Baltimore County (TABCO) recently collaborated with CASA to pass a resolution through Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) to affirm the rights of immigrant students, and some of their members helped organize the historic Baltimore May Day rally. Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) and the Baltimore County Executive are backing out on gains that they secured to help recruit and retain educators. "Baltimore Families for Justice" - the new parents' group that organized the May Day "Family Feeder March" - will be there with snacks, noise makers, etc. The rally will be in the parking lot of the BCPS headquarters, next to a safe grassy area: Greenwood Building E, 6901 N. Charles Street, Towson 21204. The Rally will be held rain or shine, as ponchos will be available. RSVP at https://secure.ngpvan.com/edFRk82iykebORYnkQFj9Q2?emci=3bff93a7-4a41-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&emdi=ba04bdc3-5241-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&ceid=4262904

35] –Get over to the Battle for Public Service: Federal Workers on the Frontlines Town Hall on Tues., June 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at John Wesley AME Zion Church, 1615 14th St. NW, WDC 20009. Email fundcoc@gmail.com. The Federal Unionists Network (FUN) event will feature leading and rank-and-file union members of public sector labor unions, DC government agencies in support of affected workers, and inspiring and activating remarks from our panelists and keynote speaker, labor historian Professor Joseph A. McCartin! Through this evening of empowerment and organizing, help build deeper relationships among federal union locals, connect with unorganized federal workers across different agencies, create a network of support among our public sector worker siblings, and continue to grow our movement in defense of US democracy. RSVP at https://actionnetwork.org/events/federal-workers-on-the-frontlines-town-hall?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwKuY8BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp-OIo9pTK9fs1AQpoO01rcaLDk3KN9C4_FU620IQtivtjorUrtUk7WYFG9aQ_aem_fDtNH11uc-Tokc9TNIOR8w&link_id=56&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-30-2025&email_referrer=email_2764550&email_subject=metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-june-6-2025&&

36] – Attend "Movement Building in this Political Moment," with Hahrie Han on Tues., June 10 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM at Stony Run Friends Meeting, 5116 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21210. Join Be the Change Bmore and Allies for Democracy for food, conversation, and a presentation and Q&A with Hahrie Han, who is the author of "Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in An American Church" and the director of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the “Possible, Probable, Powerful” P3 Research Lab, which studies civic and political engagement, collective action, organizing, and democratic revitalization. Dinner will take place from 5:30-6:15 PM, followed by Hahrie's presentation at 6:30 PM. RSVP at https://www.mobilize.us/alliesfordemocracy/event/792145/?emci=7418e154-8c3c-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&emdi=8a46b102-923c-f011-a5f1-6045bda9d96b&ceid=4262660

37] – The Metro DC DSA Labor Working Group is having a hybrid meeting on Tues., June 10 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the MLK Library 401- D, 901 G St. NW, WDC 20001. Email labor@mdcdsa.org. At this meeting, discuss updates from ongoing labor campaigns, identifying action steps for solidarity, and sharing opportunities for further organizing. This hybrid event is open to both DSA Members and supporters. The Zoom link will be sent after you sign up. RSVP at https://actionnetwork.org/events/labor-working-group-june-meeting?link_id=80&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-16-2025&email_referrer=email_2747438&email_subject=metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-23-2025&&

38] –IfNotNow [info@ifnotnowmovement.org] on Tues., June 10 at 8 PM ET will promote Jews against Deportations: a virtual training. The Trump regime has been kidnapping, imprisoning, and deporting pro-Palestinian organizers — and claiming to do so in the name of Jewish safety. Now, ICE agents are terrorizing and abducting people at routine immigration court hearings. Join this Sanctuary Everywhere ICE Watch training on what to do if you see ICE in your communities.  Learn about how anti-Arab racism is baked into the detention and deportation machine, discuss what to do if ICE shows up in your community, and explore new ways to plug in and act on our values to not comply.  RSVP at https://actionnetwork.org/events/sanctuary-everywhere-jews-against-deportations-ice-watch-training?source=6325Email&link_id=4&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&email_referrer=email_2760900___subject_3260118&email_subject=jews-against-deportations-virtual-training-next-week&

39] –Join CODEPINK Co-Director Danaka for an anti-war organizer training on Relational Organizing 101 on Tues., June 10 at 8 PM ET. Cover foundational skills of how to bring new folks into your organization, build a strong foundation of caring relationships, and how to start organizing in your community. RSVP at https://www.codepink.org/antiwartraining0609?utm_campaign=june_member_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink

40] –The Nurses' Campaign to win Medicare for All [info@medicare4all.org] on Tues., June 10 at 8 PM ET is holding a Fund Care Not Billionaires Strategy Call. With President Trump and the Republican Party aiming to pass their budget bill with over $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and other health care programs in the Senate by the Fourth of July, this is an urgent opportunity to learn how you can take action to stop it in these final weeks. RSVP at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_JMDam-0KSKGnMMgdfH_nGQ?akid=264536.162593.BGOyaR&rd=1&t=2#/registration

41] – On Tues., June 10 from 9:30 to 10:30 PM ET, get with Be Prepared, Not Scared: Undocumented Workers Rights Training.  Contact Hannah at 202-706-9777 or charjur2021@gmail.com. Join every Tuesday night for a lively, no-stress session where you will practice your 4th & 5th Amendment protections, from traffic stops to front-door chats with police or immigration enforcement at the workplace. You can easily share what you learn with co-workers, neighbors, and friends to help everyone get informed of their rights! RSVP at https://actionnetwork.org/events/be-prepared-not-scared-undocumented-workers-rights-training-2?link_id=82&can_id=4b9d4061aec5469758759317ac0f5285&source=email-metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-may-30-2025&email_referrer=email_2764550&email_subject=metro-dc-dsa-weekly-newsletter-for-june-6-2025&&

42] – The Baltimore Rapid Response Network (BRRN) [info@baltimorerapidresponsenetwork.org] indicates that CASA is organizing an urgent "Enough is Enough" rally on Wed., June 11 at noon starting at CASA's Baltimore Center, 2706 Pulaski Hwy., Baltimore 21224. Share their Facebook and Instagram posts, and bring your family and friends.

To be continued

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph.: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

The Most Dangerous Thing About Trump's Fascism? Getting Used to It

Friends,

As we begin planning for the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemoration, we will include the issue of fascism as a main topic of discussion.  Thom Hartmann warns us not to be complacent and urges us to be part of the resistance.  Kagiso, Max

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-fascism-2672311142?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=7f62a8451b-Top+News%3A+Fri.+6%2F6%2F25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c56d0ea580-600270383 

 

 

 Billboard by Grow Up Art featuring caricatured world leaders and politicians dressed up as German Nazis with the title The Turd Reich on the 13th of May 2025, London, United Kingdom. The Turd Reich is a satirical play on Nazi Germany's idea of a Third Kingdom, dog waste and the caricatured featured people. The people featured are (from left to right) US President D. Trump, US Vice President JD Vance, British politician Nigel Farage, US billionaire Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Russian president Putin. (Photo by Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)

The Most Dangerous Thing About Trump's Fascism? Getting Used to It

This is how fascism seduces a nation: not by storming the gates, but by wearing down our ability to be outraged.

Thom Hartmann

Jun 06, 2025Common Dreams

It wasn’t all at once (although sometimes the last three months seem that way). Authoritarianism never is. It happens drip by drip, crisis by crisis, until people forget what normal even felt like.

This is how fascism seduces a nation: not by storming the gates, but by wearing down our ability to be outraged. And Donald Trump, more than any political figure in modern American history, has weaponized this steady march into moral and civic numbness.

Ten years ago, if you’d told Americans that a U.S. president would attempt to overturn an election, openly praise dictators, take naked bribes from both foreign potentates and drug dealers, call the press the “enemy of the people,” cage children, pardon traitors and war criminals, and promise to act as a dictator on his first day in office, they’d have laughed. They would’ve told you, “That can’t happen here.”

But it did. And now the real danger is that we’re getting used to it.

When we stop being shocked, we stop reacting. And when we stop reacting, democracy dies.

Let’s not forget:

— When Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in 2020, the political class gasped. Now it’s barely discussed.

— When he orchestrated an attempted coup on January 6th, 2021, it was the top story in the world. Today, most Republicans call it “a protest” or a “tour.”

— Had any previous president invited an immigrant billionaire who promotes fascist memes to rip the guts out of the Social Security Administration and shut down USAID (handing our soft power to the Russians and Chinese) there would have been hell to pay. Now Musk’s extraordinary damage to our government is barely discussed.

— When Trump began calling undocumented immigrants “animals” and labeling judges and prosecutors as “scum,” it horrified the media. Now it’s part of the daily churn.

— When a federal judge’s son was murdered by a Trump campaign volunteer it shocked America; now judges are routinely threatened and Republicans won’t even give the judiciary control over the US Marshall’s Service to protect them.

— When Trump praised Putin and Viktor Orbán and suggested suspending the Constitution, the headlines flared, but then faded fast.

— When he arrested a Tufts University student for having written an op-ed in the student paper critical of Netanyahu and threw her into prison for months, the country was appalled. Now he’s rolling out loyalty tests for civil servants and investigating the social media posts of American citizens returning to the country and nobody’s even discussing it any more.

— When ICE agents showed up in Portland in 2020 in unmarked vans without uniforms and their ID missing, kidnapping people off the streets without warrants, Americans and the media were shocked. Now seeing jackbooted thugs with masks covering their faces and refusing to identify themselves has become “normal.”

This is the playbook. Fascism doesn’t arrive with jackboots; it arrives with media and voter fatigue. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt warned, the very banality and ordinariness of evil is its greatest weapon.

Victor Klemperer, a Jew who converted to Lutheranism and then chronicled the rise of Nazism in Germany, saw how average people learned to live with, to adapt to, to bear the unbearable. In his 1942 diary he wrote:

“Today over breakfast we talked about the extraordinary capacity of human beings to bear and become accustomed to things. The fantastic hideousness of our existence... and yet still hours of pleasure... and so we go on eking out a bare existence and go on hoping.”

Sebastian Haffner, another German observer, noted in Defying Hitler that even he, a staunch anti-Nazi, found himself one day saluting, wearing a uniform, and marching (and even secretly enjoying the feeling of authority associated with it).

“To resist seemed pointless;” he wrote, “finally, with astonishment, he observed himself raising his arm, fitted with a swastika armband, in the Nazi salute.”

And Milton Mayer, in They Thought They Were Free, described how good, decent Germans came to accept fascism. He was a Chicago reporter who, following World War II, went to Germany to interview “average Germans” to try to learn how such a terrible thing could have happened and, hopefully, thus prevent it from ever happening here.

“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people,” Mayer wrote, “little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security....”

He wrote about living there and the ten Germans he befriended: I found his description of a college professor to be the most poignant. As Mayer’s professor friend noted, and Mayer recorded in his book:

“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. ...
“To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it — please try to believe me — unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.”

In this conversation, Mayer’s friend suggests that he wasn’t making an excuse for not resisting the rise of the fascists, but was simply pointing out what happens when you keep your head down and just “do your job” without engaging in politics.

“You see,” Mayer’s friend continued, “one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next.
“You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not? Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
“Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. …
“But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33.
“But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
“And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jew swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose.
“The world you live in — your nation, your people — is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays.
“But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God.”

Sound familiar?

Stephen Miller’s recent musing about suspending habeas corpus to lock up immigrants and even protestors without trial? That would’ve sparked emergency hearings a decade ago. Now it’s barely a blip.

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a blueprint to purge civil servants and replace them with regime loyalists in complete defiance of the Pendelton Civil Service Act (and the reasons it came into being), should be setting off alarm bells. Instead, it’s getting the same treatment Trump gave Covid and his multiple defiances of the law and the courts: denial, deflection, delay.

It all comes back to normalization, as M. Gessen so brilliantly chronicles in The New York Times:

“And so just when we most need to act — while there is indeed room for action and some momentum to the resistance — we tend to be lulled into complacency by the sense of relief on the one hand and boredom on the other.
“Think of the trajectory of the so-called travel ban during Trump’s first term. Its first iteration drew thousands into the streets. The courts blocked it. The second iteration didn’t attract nearly as much attention, and most people didn’t notice when the third iteration of the travel ban, which had hardly changed, went into effect. Now Trump’s administration is drafting a new travel ban that targets more than five times as many countries.”

When we stop being shocked, we stop reacting. And when we stop reacting, democracy dies.

But there is a path forward.

The antidote to normalization is resistance. Not just in voting booths, but in the streets, in courtrooms, in classrooms, in boardrooms, in pulpits, and at dinner tables.

Thucydides, who had one of the clearest eyes in history about the dangers faced by democracies, said:

“The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet nonetheless go out to meet it.”

We must regain our vision and resensitize ourselves. We must reclaim our capacity to be appalled.

That means when Trump calls Democrats “vermin,” we don’t say “that’s just Trump being Trump”; we say “That’s fascist rhetoric.”

When he promises to use the military against American citizens and sends out immigration officers dressed up like soldiers at war, we don’t shrug; we organize.

When Project 2025 tries to turn federal agencies into tools of vengeance, we don’t wait and see; we fight back now.

If we still believe in this republic, in its ideals, and in the sacred value of a free and fair society, then our answer to Trump’s authoritarianism must be more than words. It must be peaceful action.

When armed federal agents hide their identification and their faces the way terroristic police do in dictatorships as they kidnap people off our streets, we call them out.

History won’t forgive us for sleepwalking into tyranny. And our children won’t either.

This is the time to remember that democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires outrage. It demands vigilance. And sometimes, it needs us in the streets with our fists in the air and our boots on the pavement.

If we still believe in this republic, in its ideals, and in the sacred value of a free and fair society, then our answer to Trump’s authoritarianism must be more than words. It must be peaceful action.

Don’t get used to fascism.

Get loud. Get active. Get in its way.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

 Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.

Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212.  Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs