08.12.25 Action Center Weekly Update

Side With Love

Welcome to the Action Center Weekly Update. Each week, we will provide a brief analysis of critical issues in this political moment, share immediate actions you can take, and provide helpful resources to deepen knowledge and practice of our collective work to side with love.

Nothing is inevitable. All justice movements are powered by ordinary people who come together to defeat oppression and build a loving world. You are not alone. We have power. Together we can practice and win a just and loving world where all of us thrive.

Remember we build strong movements when we take action together. Organize teams and networks that can take these actions together. For support on practical organizing skills and support check out our Organizing School and Skill Up resources.

Democracy

We are witnessing the consolidation of power in the hands of the few instead of the many. Democracy is a process and practice grounded in our values of interdependence that affirms the inherent worth and dignity of all. We are the majority, but we must organize our communities to build the power to defeat authoritarianism and build a truly multiracial democracy.

The Update:

A thriving democracy depends on a free press, trusted information, and our collective ability to tell the truth about what is happening in our communities. Yet today, truth itself is under siege. This authoritarian regime has deployed troops to Washington, D.C., citing a so-called “crime emergency” despite crime rates being at historic lows. This echoes decades of racist propaganda about urban crime, long used as a pretext for mass incarceration and government overreach.

Meanwhile, disinformation runs rampant on social media. Extremist narratives are amplified while accurate reporting is drowned out. Public media like NPR and PBS are being defunded, and many major news outlets are controlled by billionaires. Abroad, the U.S. remains complicit in a genocide marked by public lies and the targeted killing of journalists.

Our justice movements are not just contesting for power to build the world where we all thrive, they are in a battle for truth, our shared anchor from which we construct that new world. We must continue to be vocal about what’s really happening: the ICE raids, the job losses, the resilience of communities caring for one another. We must also weave networks of care: watching children, delivering groceries, showing up for each other. We share our hopes and dreams, and we express our collective power to define our own stories. Defending the truth is not a side issue—it is the beating heart of democracy.

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Decriminalization & Immigration

Criminalization and dehumanization are a political and spiritual project. We must dismantle the false idea that safety for some must come at the expense of safety for others. As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We proclaim a future where care and safety are abundant because our relationships are cultivated through mutuality, not domination.

Migrant detention and deportation. The school to prison network and mass incarceration. Unceasing police violence toward Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities. Bills making protest and resistance movements illegal. Laws criminalizing poverty, gender identity and expression, sex work, abortion, accessing and providing health care. All of these forms of criminalization are used by the state to disrupt, disempower, and dehumanize our communities.

The Update:

Harriet’s Wildest Dreams in DC writes: “Trump has deployed federal agents into D.C. for the next seven days. This is fearmongering rooted in anti-Blackness—a tactic meant to divide us. For Black and Brown people, it means a higher risk of being harassed, beaten, and caged. But we’ve been here before. We don’t move in fear. We move strategically and in community. We keep us safe. Always.”

This comes just weeks after Trump ordered the occupation of Los Angeles, where he deployed military force against brave Angelenos who dare to speak up for our freedoms. The MAGA regime wants to unleash the military within our borders, threatening our families and communities.  No one should have the power to turn our government into a weapon against our people.

Al Jazeera called on the international community and all relevant organisations to “take decisive measures to halt this ongoing genocide and end the deliberate targeting of journalists”. “Al Jazeera Media Network condemns in the strongest terms the targeted assassination of its correspondents Anas Al Sharif and Mohammed Qraiqea, along with photographers Ibrahim Al Thaher, and Mohamed Nofal, by the Israeli occupation forces in yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom…. In a statement by the Israeli occupation force, admitting to their crimes, the journalists were targeted by a directed assault towards the tent where they were stationed opposite Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza. In which they were martyred. This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities. The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”

Act:

  • Call on Congress to Investigate Cruelty at ICE Detention Centers

    We have seen this pattern before. Horrific reports emerge, officials pledge change, and then nothing happens. But this time the scale of the racist abuse is unimaginable. Oversight is not optional. It is a duty. We must demand it. Demand Congress launch full investigations into ICE’s abuse now.

  • Call your congresspeople and ask them to support H.R. 3565 put forward by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL-3), which calls for limiting military aid to Israel

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Climate Justice

A just and loving world is a flourishing world. If we are to realize a world with no fossil fuels, where clean energy is a human right, and all beings thrive, we need new systems, norms, approaches, and ways of being to bring that world into existence.

The Update:

Since 2009, the EPA's 'endangerment finding' has underpinned federal efforts to restrict pollution from cars, power plants, and industry. This is regulatory language based on overwhelming scientific evidence to monitor and limit greenhouse gas emissions that threaten public health and welfare.

Now, Trump and his EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, are moving to rescind this rule. They aim to remove all regulatory language related to greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously rolling back vehicle standards to prioritize oil and biofuels industries. This is blatant climate denial and a deliberate sellout to Big Oil, stripping away the legal basis for federal agencies to prevent climate-warming pollution and protect communities. It is anti-people and anti-planet.

The Endangerment Finding is the backbone for nearly every climate pollution protection enacted at the federal level, from cleaner car and truck standards to power plant standards. It is a commitment to the health and safety of our loved ones, our communities, and generations to come. The Trump administration intends to use its repeal as grounds to ignore science and reverse the law to roll back those protections, while fossil fuel corporations would be free to spew climate-harming pollution again without limit. Countless court rulings and evidence produced in thousands of studies have confirmed that climate change, fueled by pollution, is causing devastating impacts on people’s lives. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin promised clean air and water for all Americans. But this scheme will allow fossil fuel companies to pump out climate pollution at will, leaving us in danger from more frequent extreme weather, higher risks of wildfires, more disease-carrying insects, less access to safe drinking water, and other health and climate catastrophes. Just after the world’s hottest year on record and with people still reeling from catastrophic climate disasters like the flash flooding in Texas, fires in Los Angeles, the hurricane flooding in North Carolina, and 143 straight days of over 100-degree heat in Phoenix, it is shocking that the Trump administration would attempt this.

People vs. Fossil Fuels is driving public comments and testimony against EPA’s move to revoke the Endangerment finding which is the foundation for climate action. Public comments will be accepted through September 21, while public hearings will be held on August 19 and 20. Attend a public hearing, testify, and/or make a public comment against this attack on climate protections and public health.

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08.5.25 Action Center Update