Must-Reads and the Work of Unsettling

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Must-Reads

Your weekly curated list of must-reads is here. There’s a lot happening, and I couldn’t narrow the list as much as usual, so I’ve divided it into subcategories. 

Damage Reports From the Ongoing Administrative Coup:

• The Birth of a Monster: America's Oligarchs and What They Want by Jared Yates Sexton. “The parasitic relationship between the oligarchical class and the state was always going to lead us here. Eventually, when concentrated wealth reaches a certain point, corruption and control breed a total takeover of the apparatus.”
• America’s Food Safety Is Now in the Hands of Don Jr.’s Hunting Buddy by Katherine Eban. “Late last week, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency purged the division of an estimated 89 staff members, leading to the resignation of James Jones, the deputy commissioner for human foods … Among the employees dismissed were those with ‘highly technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, food safety response and even 10 chemical safety staff hired to review potentially unsafe ingredients in our food supply,’ according to Jones’s letter.” 
• This Animal is on the Edge of Extinction. Trump Just Fired the People Trying to Save It by Benji Jones. “Experts who have spent decades trying to save black-footed ferrets say these impacts threaten the broader prairie ecosystem. Efforts to conserve ferrets and their prey sustain this important American landscape, a home for insects that pollinate our crops, plants that store carbon in their long roots, and streams that provide us with fresh water.”
• Who Benefits from Trump’s Move to Shut Down Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? by Eric Petry and Ian Vandewalker. “From the perspective of the finance industry and its allies, some of whom have made no secret of their disdain for the CFPB, the agency’s consumer protection activities impose unacceptable costs on business.”
• The U.S. Is Cutting Off Foreign Aid. My Youngest Patients Are Paying the Price by Jennifer Furin. “Before rounds started, the nurse on the ward pulled me aside to whisper that we were down to our last 20 packets of ready-to-use therapeutic food. Therapeutic food is an amped-up peanut butter that is given to put calories, protein, and vitamins into children who are starving to death. The average malnourished child will need three packs of this miracle spread a day, which means I only have enough to give 6 children for one day.”

Surveillance Updates:

• Your Boss Wants You Back in the Office. This Surveillance Tech Could Be Waiting for You by Sophie Charara. “The project breaks the tech down into two categories: The first is technology that tracks desk presence and room occupancy, and the second monitors the indoor location, movement, and behavior of the people working inside the building.”
• Campus Police Are Using Israeli Spy Tech to Crack Down on Student Protest by Tara Goodarzi & Brian Dolinar. “UIUC is a test case for the militarization of campus police. The University of Illinois Police Department (UIPD) had a total budget in fiscal year 2022-2023 of $13.5 million. There are currently 2,300 cameras installed throughout the campus. The university recently won a federal grant of nearly $1 million to establish a Real Time Crime Center that will allow police to monitor surveillance cameras, search databases and use license plate readers.”

On Fighting Back:

• Sudanese Activists Are Fighting US and UAE Complicity in Sudan’s Genocide by Shireen Akram-Boshar. “The People’s Arms Embargo is a material intervention — not just a call for sanctions or a moral condemnation, but a strategy to undermine imperialist war-making through collective action.”
• Health Care Workers Strategize to Protect Undocumented Patients Amid Rollback of ‘Sensitive Locations’ Guidelines by Tamar Sarai. “Saadi said that since the first Trump administration, advocates in the health care field had already begun to develop protocols for handling ICE. The coalition Doctors for Immigrants has outlined over a dozen actions in a toolkit designed to make facilities safer and more welcoming to immigrant patients.”
• Reject the Linguistic Coup: Speak Up for Trans People by Willow Schenwar. “Trans people deserve to be legally recognized for who we are, and hopefully this civil rights abuse will be blocked in the courts. But regardless of what it currently says on my Social Security card or passport, my name is Willow, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m a transgender woman.”
• Protest Rights Are at Stake as Pipeline Company Brings Greenpeace to Trial by Cody Bloomfield. “Engaging a dangerous theory of collective liability, Energy Transfer Partners’ lawsuit seeks to hold Greenpeace responsible for protesters who threw Molotov cocktails, burned construction equipment and brought knives to protests.”
• What Felt Impossible Became Possible by Dan Sinker. “George Dale lost so much in his battle against the Klan. A battle that must have felt so lonely and so difficult so often. A battle that cost him his home, his savings, and, for a time, his freedom. But he won. And so will we.”
• Reinterpreting "Speak Truth to Power" in an Era of Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics by Scot Nakagawa. “We need to speak truth to the people, not just to power. The powerful refuse to be accountable to the truth, and in fact this lack of accountability is part of their strategy for seizing and maintaining power.
• Blueprints for Survival: Zines, Self-Publishing, and Community Building by Queer Archivist. “Zines have the ability to spread like dandelions seeds (I love dandelions), spreading without interference from corporate stakeholders or manipulative algorithms, just the wind guiding them where they must go, where they are most needed. I truly believe that zines are tools for resistance, truth-telling, and survival.”

ICYMI

My latest feature piece, "How To Be a Fighter When You Feel Like a Punching Bag," is an exploration of why so many people feel stuck right now, how we can act with agency, and why we need to relearn togetherness in these times. 

Toolkit

The Unitarian Universalist Association has created a toolkit for people who want to take action.

Description: “This guide is designed to offer practical support in this chaotic environment. It provides clear guidance and resources to help you engage in this moment prophetically, responsibly, and sustainably. If you find yourself asking, ‘What should or shouldn’t I post on social media?’, ‘Whose lead should I follow?’ or ‘Is this safe?’—this guide is for you.”

Political Education Work

As some of you know, I am part of a grassroots political education effort called the Doing Justice Collaborative. This formation began its work last year, and spent most of 2024 focusing on the needs of student organizers. This year, we have already sponsored a convening where representatives from 20 grassroots organizations gathered to learn from each other and discuss how we can grow our movements. Our hope is to spend the rest of the year organizing political education events that help on-the-ground organizers meet the moment. These efforts will include organizing 101s, harm reduction workshops, strategic planning, and much more.

We don’t take photos of our events, so artist Monica Trinidad was kind enough to create the image featured above, which depicts me leading a workshop. I love this image and I am so grateful for Monica’s support.

If you want to support the work of Doing Justice Collaborative, you can do that here.

Final Thoughts

I managed to take a walk to the lake today. It was 50 degrees in Chicago, and it felt good to stretch my legs in weather that didn’t make my troubled spine ache. As the temperature rises, in the coming months, I look forward to participating in more outdoor events and protests. Chronic pain has been disrupting my plans lately, but this, too, shall pass.

I believe this Spring will be an energetic time for our movements. We are being battered by greedy, incompetent hands, but amid all of the horror and heartbreak of this moment, our collective potential is stirring. I can feel it—like a beating heart that’s growing louder.

On Friday, students at a public school in my neighborhood staged a walkout to protest Trump’s deportation agenda. I didn’t know about the protest in advance, but I was not surprised by it. Acts of resistance are happening all around us. Decentralized #TeslaTakedown protests have popped up in dozens of locations around the country—including showrooms in New York, Kansas City, Seattle, and cities across California—as the company’s stock tumbles and its sales drop. (If you want to find a #TeslaTakedown protest in your area, you can look for that here.) We have a long way to go, in terms of building the power we need, and honing strategies that will undermine our opponents, but I am heartened by the pushback we are seeing.

From protest to noncooperation and rebellious acts of care, we must encourage each other to reject the edicts of the techno-fascists, billionaires, and politicians who would destroy us. We must remember that most people living under authoritarian regimes do not rebel. They try to reconstruct some semblance of normalcy and live as well as they can. We must resist the impulse to settle in, and that will sometimes mean unsettling others. 

If you're still trying to find your footing, in this moment, I suggest hosting a discussion group. Bring a group of people together to discuss an article, a podcast episode, or an organizing resource. Even a low-stakes conversation, where no specific commitments are made, can help people find their way forward. Enliven the connections between yourself and others, and encourage people to be curious about what’s happening and what we can do about it. See where those conversations take you.

I am looking forward to Spring and to the resistance I believe will blossom in the months ahead.

Much love,

Kelly

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