Call to Action May 31, 2020

PROTECT OUR QUALITY OF LIFE
Take Action In Solidarity with Minneapolis
Like you, the Call to Action team has watched the events of this week with what has unfortunately become the ordinary amount of disbelief, another black man killed by the police for no reason other than being black. Rioting in Minneapolis. Protests and violence across the country. Rioting in Seattle. A president who wants to send out the attack dogs. So, what to do?
 
A good place to start is on the OI national site: https://indivisible.org/resource/taking-action-solidarity-minneapolis. They have a solid group of recommendations.
 
Second, consider donating to the Black Lives Matter Seattle Freedom Fund. The funds collected through this fund will go to the immediate release of people protesting the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Manuel Ellis (May 2020). Any remaining funds will continue to be used for future bailout efforts as an ongoing community bail fund project.
https://blacklivesseattle.org/bail-fund/?fbclid=IwAR1BDgw45f0OJ5THF-Dz5i8rYgKxkIEpOyiM5u4zBKzYS73V0fVeAeA0dBI
 
Third, consider joining or donating to CARW (Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites) https://www.carw.org/, a Pacific Northwest organization. You can get a good idea of their mission here: https://www.carw.org/about/
They have current actions taking place you can support.
 
End Police Brutality and Demand Restructure of All Law Enforcement Agencies
 
“Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Ilhan Omar (MN-05), in partnership with Congresswoman Karen Bass (CA-37), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13), introduced a resolution to condemn police brutality, racial profiling and the excessive use of force. The resolution comes days after the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, as well as the recent murder of Breonna Taylor by police in Louisville, Kentucky and the hundreds of other lives robbed by police violence.” *
 
https://pressley.house.gov/media/press-releases/following-george-floyd-murder-reps-pressley-omar-bass-lee-introduce-house
 
https://pressley.house.gov/sites/pressley.house.gov/files/A%20Resolution%20Condemning%20Police%20Brutality_0.pdf
 
ACTION: Call Representative Heck’s office 202-225-9740 or 360-459-8514 
 
Ask him to support the Pressley-Omar Resolution to stop police brutality, racial profiling and excessive force. Too often police respond to incidents as if they are in a combat situation, yelling commands and intensifying anxiety, this is especially true when interacting with people of color. This must end. We don’t need warriors in our communities to confront us as enemies, we need police to de-escalate tense situations, to give people a sense of security not fear. How long can this go on before America is a complete police state?
 
SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY
Coming June 10, 7:00pm – OI Endorsement Team Presents Candidates for Your Endorsement Vote
Wednesday, June 10, at 7:00 PM the OI Endorsement Team will present their research on candidates for the fall elections. Members will be sent a link to the Zoom meeting. Those wishing to review candidate questionnaire  responses prior to the meeting may do so at https://www.olympiaindivisible.org/endorsements.html
 
From the Endorsement team:
We can assure you that the endorsement meeting for the general membership will be an exciting event. We will introduce all the candidates who will be on the endorsement ballot with PowerPoint presentations, highlighting their bio's, viability, alignment with OI core values, strengths and weaknesses. This will enable OI members to make an informed choice, especially if they go on the OI website, where there will be more candidate info and videos of the town halls for some of the key candidates and races. OI can be a key element in deciding who becomes the next congressperson for our district, flipping the Board of County Commissioners to be a progressive body, and finding the best replacement for Beth Doglio. The primary is happening in only a few more months. We need to select the best progressive candidates and then work to help get them to the general election. So, be there or be square, as we used to say.
 
Following the presentation, OI will hold an endorsement vote lasting 7 days. We will use Opavote as we did in the 2018 and 2019 endorsement votes.
 
This time, as decided by our membership, we will be using Rank Choice voting, rather than plurality voting with a 66% supermajority required for endorsement, as we have done in the past.
 
A great 2 minute video explaining Rank Choice voting can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgo-eJ-D__s
 
WANT MORE?
Common Purpose Lecture Series
 
One of the founders of Common Purpose, David Domke, is a professor of Communications and Political Science at U/W. He is an impressive speaker and committed progressive activist and he has two lectures that are relevant to our work coming up in June:
 “HOW JOE BIDEN CAN WIN.” This is a two-lecture series June 7 + June 11. Here’s the details: Joe Biden is a former US Senator and a former Vice-President. Now he is about to become the oldest major-party nominee for the Presidency in US history. He was first elected to the US Senate in 1972, and half a century later he seeks to become America's 46th President. Can he do it? This two-lecture series maps out the pathway forward for Biden and more broadly for the Democratic Party as it seeks to regain leadership on a national level. Biden can win and so can the party, and these are the key essential steps in the journey. There are five levels of registration for these lectures, starting at FREE and working their way up. The lectures will be Livestreamed live at 7 pm Pacific time on the dates AND recorded for folks to watch on your own timing.  Registrants will receive viewing instructions one day in advance of each lecture and then two hours before each lecture, via email.  To register for the lectures, here’s the signup:
 https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-joe-biden-can-win-tickets-105670752064
 “VICE-PRESIDENTS: FROM JFK TO JOE BIDEN.” This is a two-lecture series June 14 + June 18. Here’s the details: There are differing theories of the best ways to select vice-presidential candidates. Sometimes the goal is to expand a presidential candidate’s Electoral College map. Other times the goal might be to double-down on a presidential candidate’s ideological or personal “brand”. And sometimes the goal is to show boldness. These lectures examine VP selections in the television era -- beginning with JFK’s choice of LBJ in 1960 -- and lays out what might we expect in the next two months from Joe Biden, who is on track to become the oldest major-party nominee for the Presidency in US history and thus faces a pivotal VP selection. There are five levels of registration for these lectures, starting at FREE and working their way up (the content is the same across the levels; the different price points are merely for you to pick the one you wish!). The lectures will be Livestreamed live at 7 pm Pacific time on the dates AND recorded for folks to watch on your own timing.  Registrants will receive viewing instructions one day in advance of each lecture and then two hours before each lecture, via email.  To register for the lectures, here’s the signup:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vice-presidents-from-jfk-to-joe-biden-tickets-105709945292
 
 
Documentary: SLAY THE DRAGON
Take a look at this excellent documentary about voter suppression in the US since 2008.  Rent if for $6.99 - it’s well worth the 7 bucks!i
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JIclJSJEvU
 
After the 2008 election, a secretive, well-funded partisan initiative poured money into state legislative races in key swing states to gain control of their redistricting processes and used high-tech analytics to dramatically skew voting maps based on demographic data. The result is one of the greatest electoral manipulations in U.S. history, one that poses a fundamental threat to our democracy and exacerbates the already polarized atmosphere in Congress and state houses across the country. The new documentary Slay the Dragon shines a light on this timely issue, and follows a handful of citizens' groups, outraged by what they see as an attack on the core democratic principle that every person's vote should count equally, as they battle party operatives and an entrenched political establishment to fix a broken system.