Resources
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Websites where we can offer help
National Network of Abortion Funds: https://abortionfunds.org/
https://www.rescue.org/article/how-help-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-under-president-trump
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/the-aclu-is-fighting-back-against-trump
Google: how to help migrants in Travis county Texas
Allied websites
UMC bishops denounce political violence, authoritarianism: https://www.unitedmethodistbishops.org/newsdetail/umcbishops-denounce-political-violence-18654125
https://criticalresistance.org/updates/2024-election/
BlueSky social media app
https://prospect.org/politics/2024-11-12-trump-resistance-2-0/
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Christian nationalism: The documentary “Bad Faith” reveals how Christian Nationalist leaders have spread fear and anger for decades, distorting political issues into Biblical battles between good and evil.
Financed through the secretive Council for National Policy, Christian Nationalists have succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, turning it into a powerful weapon to demolish democracy from within. The movie will explore the origins of this organized grasp for power, and the grassroots coalition of secular and interfaith leaders bravely confronting the unholy forces threatening democracy.
Distinguished documentarian Ken Burns called “Bad Faith” a “great and powerful and timely film, filled with the dread this moment engenders; the cynical misuse of religion to advance aims diametrically the opposite of Christianity’s mission.”
https://www.badfaithdocumentary.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtYIXPeOim0
Christian nationalism: The documentary “God & Country” takes a deep dive into Christian nationalism, the belief that America should be defined as a Christian nation, with government adherence to this ideology. “God & Country explores the dangerous implications, and explores how a base of Christians has radically stoked a movement erasing the line between Church and State.
The documentary speaks directly to the almost 200,000,000 Americans who identify as Christians — Christians who fear their faith is being hijacked by an extreme right wing political movement known as Christian nationalism.
God & Country features many of the most prominent and well respected voices of Christianity. Their presence in the film will be a powerful tool in persuading Christians to watch.
https://godandcountrythemovie.com/
https://godandcountrythemovie.com/resources/
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Education: New Yorker article details how a parental effort in Southlake, Texas, to confront racism in their schools fell prey to a national backlash over critical race theory. The article cites this event as triggering Texas’s attack on public education
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Environment: Cipher News covers the technological innovations we need to combat climate change and transform our global energy systems.
https://ciphernews.com/about-us/
Environment: The World Resources Council’s (WRI) mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations
https://www.wri.org/about/mission-values
Protecting Hill Country water resources
Intro to the Central Texas Water Coalition
What YOU can do to protect our water resource (CTWC)
Sign up to volunteer with CTWC
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Mothers for Democracy Institute: Check out their podcast "The Voucher Scam" at
https://mothersfordemocracyinstitute.org/
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Keep up to date with state and national politics from a progressive perspective.
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Commentary by the celebrated progressive film maker and observer Michael Moore. Also produces a podcast Rumble with Michael Moore.
Robert Reich, the Clinton Administration Labor Secretary, provides us with brilliant insights and supporting facts to help us promote progressive goals, and to enlist others.
https://robertreich.substack.com/
Timothy Snyder is an award-winning historian who, though primarily a scholar of twentieth century Eastern European history, with additional interests in US history, contemporary politics, international relations, digital politics, health, and education.
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Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language, cognition, and social relations, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic, and is the author of twelve books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature,The Sense of Style, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.
NSD Book Shelf
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"Poverty, By America," by Matthew Desmond (2023): Why people suffer in poverty in the richest nation in world history, and what can be done about it
New York Times https://tinyurl.com/nhebj5ff
Goodreads: tinyurl.com/bdhevmcs
Supersummary: tinyurl.com/2p8e8jwr
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"Hidden Roots of White Supremacy," by Robert P Jones (2023): How a little-known church doctrine paved the way for mistreatment of natives and imported slaves. Discusses in detail such horrific events as the Emmet Till lynching; lynching in Duluth, Minn, of three black circus workers; mass execution of 38 Dakota men; murders of 300 African Americans in Tulsa, Okla; and the Trail of Tears
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New York Times: https://tinyurl.com/49sshujw
Guardian: tinyurl.com/yb4wpfuh
PRRI: https://tinyurl.com/2s4dhc2p
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“Democracy Awakening,” by Heather Cox Richardson (2023): Historian Richardson sees history as a roadmap for the future of the US. She began writing a daily Facebook essay during the impeachment of 2019. The plain-language essays put current events in a historical perspective. That ballooned to a newsletter with a readership of more than 2 million. In “Democracy Awakening,” Richardson explains how, over time, a small group of rich people have made war on American ideals.
New York Journal of Books: https://tinyurl.com/49yz976s
New York Times: https://tinyurl.com/49jk92m6
Publishers Weekly: https://tinyurl.com/2s4yn3zr
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“The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science,” by Peter J Hotez, MD, PhD (2023): Dr. Hotez discusses how an anti-vaccine movement became a dangerous political campaign promoted by elected officials and amplified by news media, causing thousands of American deaths.
John Hopkins University Press: https://tinyurl.com/yfhcx25j
WBUR.org: https://tinyurl.com/5ekk9nf6
New Scientist: https://tinyurl.com/2c9pabtw
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“The Parrot and the Igloo,” by David Lipsky (2023): Lipsky unfolds the dramatic narrative of the long, strange march of climate science. There were the scientists who sounded the alarm once they identified carbon dioxide as the culprit of our warming planet. And we meet the hucksters, zealots, and crackpots who lied about that science and misled the public in ever more outrageous ways. Lipsky masterfully traces the evolution of climate denial, exposing how it grew out of early efforts to build a network of untruth about products like aspirin and cigarettes. (Description from amazon.com)
New York Times: https://tinyurl.com/2nbced2h
Washington Independent Review of Books: https://tinyurl.com/bdfvztva
Publishers Weekly: https://tinyurl.com/5buzey6e