Weekly Check In

[tassosss]

A lot of information has been going through this comm this week, and a lot of it is scary and depressing, so I just wanted to have a check-in post for folks. How are you all doing?


How are you coping? Have you done something to take care of yourself this week?
How goes getting involved?


Three easy things you can do from your computer that take 2 minutes
1. Find the phone numbers for your (onerepresentative and two senators and program them into your phone.
2. Sign a petition for:
Audit on the vote tally for the 2016 Presidential Election More info here
Pledge to Fight for Justice: Take the pledge: Fight On for Justice (sponsored by Kamala Harris)
Stephen Bannon: STEPHEN BANNON HAS NO BUSINESS IN THE WHITE HOUSE (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Myron Ebell: Do Not Allow Myron Ebell to Lead the EPA Transition (petitions.whitehouse.gov)
3. Set up donations to an organization through the smile.Amazon.com program (may be different for folks in UK)


Two easy things that you can do from your computer that require money
1.Donate to an organization that’s gonna need the money in the new administration You can set up monthly donations if you have the funds.
2. Donate to Foster Campbell, the Democrat running in the U.S. Louisiana Senate Run-off race on Dec 10


One challenge-but-you-can-do-it thing you can do with your phone
1. Call your representatives and express your opinion on
a. Bannon’s appointment
b. Oversight of Trump’s financial’s
c. Affordable Care Act - for this you can call Paul Ryan’s office at (202) 225-0600 since he’s doing an automated survey and you don’t have to talk to a person
Call (202) 225-0600
**WAIT** The earlier phone number (before it was overwhelmed) had silence for 40 seconds. This phone number might not, but be patient if necessary
Press 2 to participate when you get prompted to take the survey.
Listen to the long (biased) message
Press 1 to register your support for the ACA
It will give you an option to leave Paul Ryan a message at the end, but his mailbox may well be full.



Let us know how it’s going! I’ll make badges! Even if you haven’t done anything yet, we want to hear from you. We’re also happy to take feedback on the comm to make it smoother. tanaqui and I are figuring things out as we go.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

FYI every last one of those links is broked. Case in point, this is what I see from my reading page (results will vary) for the top link: http://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/%E2%80%9Dhttp://thisfinecrew.dreamwidth.org/1909.html%E2%80%9D

I'm coping okay. It helps that [a related situation I don't want to discuss in public] has eased off. I mean, I won't bet on it staying that way through Thanksgiving weekend, but for now it's background noise.

[tassosss]

Fixed! Thanks for the heads up. It was bad quotation marks from my c&p

[monksandbones]

*Waves hello* I'm leaving the country for a week over American Thanksgiving, which I think will help on several levels (I'm not a citizen or a permanent resident, despite having studied and worked here for the better part of 14 years, and that has been its own kind of hard. I've been trying to find ways to support & comfort my American friends, colleagues, and students, although I'm not sure I've been particularly successful. I'm trying not to think about the H1-B work visa program).

Anyway, I found a link that is potentially useful, about how to protest if you have social anxiety. I think some of its suggestions could also be useful for non-citizens, whose letter-writing and phone-calling aren't so useful because they're not voters. It's here: https://www.bustle.com/articles/195267-how-to-protest-if-youre-socially-anxious

[lynnenne]

That's a great article. Do you mind if I re-post it in this community?

[monksandbones]

Yes, please go ahead! Also, if there is a way you would prefer to get future links should I stumble across any useful ones, please let me know!

[tanaqui]

Feel free to drop links into our Ideas and Suggestions post (the second stickied post at the top of the comm on the recent entries page) or in any relevant post. We're reading all the comments and pulling out links for separate posts (as lynnenne is going to do with this one) when we want to draw extra attention to them.

[rydra_wong]

For info:

smile.Amazon doesn't exist on Amazon.co.uk, but UK customers can still use it for any purchases from Amazon.com.

I do sometimes buy things from Amazon.com (for example, when sending presents to friends in the US, or buying things off US people's wish-lists), so have now set things up so that if I go through smile.Amazon they donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds.

They only donate a tiny percentage (0.5%, IIRC), but obviously if anyone's a heavy Amazon user it'll add up.

[petra]

Thank you, mods, for doing great work. Please remember to take care of yourselves and ask for help if you need it; this is going to be a long haul and it's always better to delegate than get burned out.

[tassosss]

Thanks. I'm actually on vacation this week for American Thanksgiving, so taking it easy is on my agenda. :)

[chanter1944]

Called Paul Ryan and tried voicing my support for the ACA (that biased message is horrid), but I'm afraid it didn't work. Long story, but there were phone issues at a critical moment, and though I hit 1 when directed and finally grumble grumble able to, I would swear the 'thank you for blah blah blah' message came a little too quickly on its heels. I'm not sure if it actually registered my support, or if that was just an automated message set to play after a certain length of time has passed, regardless of survey taken or not taken. If I call again and retry, am I skewing the survey unfairly, and will it even take my second attempt, considering I've called from this number already?

[tanaqui]

From what I know of these kinds of automated systems, they can actually be pretty speedy in their response -- just a fraction of a second -- so it probably did register your vote. (I also personally don't see the harm in trying again, if you feel up to it.)

[chanter1944]

I did end up trying again. For what it's worth, there was more of a delay between my pressing 1 and the automated thank you message that followed this time, so I wonder if there isn't a set window of time that elapses regardless of which option is selected... anyway. I'm fairly sure my selection went through this time, at least.

[tanaqui]

Glad you were able to make your voice heard in the end!

[wendelah1]

I've already set up monthly donations and contributed to Foster Campbell's campaign.

My phone died so I can't do any calling until that gets sorted. Since I live in the bluest of blue states, I don't think calling my senators and congressman is going to be a high priority for me. I know where they stand on the issues. I do know a couple of people who live in a red state so I can try to convince them to make calls.