First things first. In less than a week, Israel plans to annex parts of the West Bank, virtually ending Palestine's prospects for realistic statehood; it's bad enough that some 25 miles separate the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but to turn the West Bank into a kind of Swiss cheese makes it considerably worse. Hence Avaaz helps you tell European leaders use their power to stop this annexation, while Jewish Voice for Peace helps you tell your Congressfolk to stop military funding for Israel. If you think all of that is "not being a friend to Israel," then navigate away from this page right now, because being an actual friend, in real life, means standing up to your friend when you think they're doing wrong, and Israel is doing wrong here, and not even insuring its own security. When you occupy someone else's land, after all, you make a lot more problems for yourself, not least in the people of that land retaliating against your rule after you've demolished their homes and moved your own citizens in. Then again, for some "thinkers," keeping chaos going is a feature, not a bug. We need to move past that as a civilization.
Meanwhile, you've seen COVID-19 cases spiking over the last few days, right? Listen only to our President and you'll think it's because WE DOEZ TEH MOSTESTZ TESTZ EVAHZ!!!!!!, but though we may be doing more tests than any other country, we also have more people than almost any other country, so bragging about "doing the most tests" -- rather than, say, doing the most tests per million citizens, where we currently rank a bit outside the world's top 20 countries -- is meaningless, since you're not trying to win a race but control a pandemic, a task made easier when you test enough people. And if that's harder because America has a lot of people, well, you don't become the greatest country on Earth by making excuses! Anyway, although our President's votaries are falling all over themselves asserting that he didn't really ask "his people" to "slow down the testing," our President is defunding over a dozen test sites, which is the difference between a mound of dung the flies have found and a mound of dung they haven't found yet. Hence both Demand Progress and Public Citizen help you tell your Congressfolk to stop the closure of these testing sites.
In other news, Progress America helps you tell your local politicians to ban police use of tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protests. And if you're asking what if protests become violent, remember that the answer is "powerful people want protests to become violent!" And sending police to a protest with riot gear doesn't exactly cut down on violence! We are starting to see, I think, that a lot of our "solutions" to law-and-order issues over the years have created most of our actual problems, the main "solution" being "insisting on solving every single problem in society with a police officer." I bet a lot of police officers are sick of that, and I also bet they're sick of the paradigm that says the only way to deal with protestors is to crack their skulls -- or put their eyes ou, as rubber bullets have been known to do. And let's not fall for the rubbish that the anti-mask protestors armed with assault rifles got on better with the police because they were "more peaceful." Black folks who protest police brutality try to change the system; armed white dudes who whine about having to wear masks are the system.
Finally, the Coalition on Human Needs helps you tell your Senators to increase food stamp and child nutrition funding during this pandemic. Because working families ain't working! And that'll still be true even if our President decides to masturbate in public over our economy adding another few million jobs this month, when he was blaming everyone but himself as it lost over 30 million jobs because he blew off dealing with a coming pandemic. Really, it is a testament to us, the American people, that we're doing as well as we are, and we're doing that well in spite of our President. But I digress. When all these good Americans can't work during a pandemic, that's the time our government has to step in and help folks out. With our money, of course -- I mean, that's what food stamp money is, since we paid into the system designed to help us out during hard times. And if you still think of food stamps as something "those people" get -- rather than something you could get if you fall on hard times! -- well, I guess you don't understand the whole concept of community.
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