Must-Reads and a Big Announcement
"This effort couldn’t be more personal, and it means the world to me to share it with you all during these difficult times."
Greetings friends,
If you want to skip ahead to my big announcement, scroll down. If you’re here for my must-reads list, you can begin at the beginning.
Must-Reads
From an alarming rollback of queer and trans rights in the workplace to the collapse of Elon Musk’s copyright gambit, here are some of the most important articles I’ve read this week.
- 'Catastrophic': GOP Pushes Largest-Ever Cuts to Food Aid to Fund Tax Breaks for the Rich by Jake Johnson. “One recent analysis estimated that imposing harsher work requirements on SNAP enrollees would cause millions to lose benefits at a time of elevated food costs and rising hunger.”
- Far Right Federal Judge Rules Gay And Trans People Can Be Discriminated Against In Workplaces by Erin Reed. “On Thursday, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk—a far-right federal judge in the Northern District of Texas with a record of aligning with the GOP’s most extreme legal positions—issued a ruling declaring that Title VII no longer protects LGBTQ+ people from workplace discrimination.”
- RFK Jr Orders Mifepristone Review as Anti-Abortion Groups Push for Ban by Susan Rinkunas. “The review, he said, was necessary due to ‘new data’ – data that emerged from a flawed analysis that top US anti-abortion groups are now using to pressure the Trump administration to reimpose restrictions on the abortion pill, if not pull it from the market entirely.”
- Stephen Miller Re-Emerges as an ‘Untouchable’ Force in Trump’s White House by Jonathan Allen, Matt Dixon, Katherine Doyle and Sahil Kapur. “Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, is a longtime Musk confidante who worked on his DOGE team, and the couple has formed a close working relationship with the wealthiest man in the world.”
- Newsom’s Model Ordinance Pushes Homeless Sweeps Across California by Zane McNeill. “The proposal would prohibit unhoused people from repeatedly camping in the same location, restrict encampments that block pedestrian access on sidewalks, and require authorities to provide notice and make a good-faith effort to offer shelter before destroying camps.”
- People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies by Miles Klee. “OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment about ChatGPT apparently provoking religious or prophetic fervor in select users.”
- Republicans Sneak “Nonprofit Killer” Bill Into Reconciliation Package by Sharon Zhang. “The proposal was tacked onto the end of Republicans’ tax proposal, unveiled on Monday, which Republicans are planning to pass via reconciliation in the coming months. This means that the bill could pass via a simple majority vote in the House and the Senate.”
- License Plate Reader Company Flock Is Building a Massive People Lookup Tool, Leak Shows by Joseph Cox. “Flock, the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company whose cameras are installed in more than 5,000 communities in the U.S., is building a product that will use people lookup tools, data brokers, and data breaches to “jump from LPR [license plate reader] to person,” allowing police to much more easily identify and track the movements of specific people around the country without a warrant or court order.”
- Mark Zuckerberg Wants to You Be Lonely and Miserable by Paris Marx. “Near the end of his interview with Von, he said that companies are like AI superintelligence, because one man can direct thousands of people to do what they want.”
- Amid Starvation, People in Gaza Are Choosing Death at Home Over Displacement by Shahad Ali. “The world must act before it’s too late. What Gaza needs is not more invasions, but an end to the siege, the violence and the systematic deprivation. We need bread, not bombs. Shelter, not fear. And above all, the right to live in our homes with dignity.”
- Elon Musk’s Apparent Power Play at the Copyright Office Completely Backfired by Tina Nguyen. “What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take over the US Copyright Office by having Donald Trump remove the officials in charge has now backfired in spectacular fashion, as Trump’s acting replacements are known to be unfriendly — and even downright hostile — to the tech industry.”
ICYMI
This week, I spoke with Vision Change Win’s Che Johnson-Long about safety planning and practical actions that individuals and organizations can take right now to create as much safety as possible in our lives and our movements. We talked about what it means to move through fear and how preparedness can help us take bold and necessary actions in these uncertain times. If you’re concerned about safety and security or struggling to manage your fears, I hope you’ll check this one out.
Big News!
I’m excited to share that I have a new book coming out on November 4! Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis is a collection I edited and co-created with some of my most beloved friends and co-strugglers. Like Let This Radicalize You, this book began as a zine and blossomed into something more. It is a bundle of letters written to activists and organizers who are facing the kinds of crises that often occur in our struggles for justice. From frontline parenting to lost campaigns, gender-based violence, grief, and well-founded feelings of dread and panic, there are moments when we all need an outstretched hand or a gentle voice to guide us forward. The messages in this book are tender, fierce, and deeply human. They include stories of survival, refusal, and ways of reaching toward one another when things feel impossible.
Read This When Things Fall Apart is a care package for organizers navigating fear, heartbreak, burnout, and the violence that can unfold within our own spaces. It’s a book to keep close, and to share with those who might need to hear, in a moment of despair, that they are not alone, and that their work still matters. Contributors include Mariame Kaba, Ashon Crawley, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Eman Abdelhadi, Brian Merchant, Stevie Wilson, Shane Burley, among others. The book’s cover was designed by my friend Olly Costello, a beloved Chicago movement artist who has designed banners and imagery for many of the campaigns I’ve co-organized. This effort couldn’t be more personal, and it means the world to me to share it with you all during these difficult times.
You can preorder now from AK Press or Pilsen Community Books, and if you do, you’ll receive a special bonus letter from me, written just ahead of publication, as part of your care package.
While writing letters for this book, and working with people I love and admire to pull it together, I felt like we were creating a homemade gift for activists on countless fronts of struggle. I am so in love with this book and so grateful to everyone who helped bring it to life. I believe Read This When Things Fall Apart has the potential to help frightened, exhausted people of conscience stay in the struggle, and I can’t wait to share it with you all. Like Let This Radicalize You, this is definitely going to be a word-of-mouth book, so I am hoping that you can help me get the word out in the coming months. More on that soon.
For now, I want to thank you all for your kindness and solidarity. Things have been tough lately, as I stumble through a challenging round of physical therapy, and the words of support some of you have shared have meant so much to me. I know that no matter how hard things get, there’s a lot of beautiful work ahead, and I take comfort in knowing that we’re on this path together.
Much love,
Kelly
Organizing My Thoughts is a reader-supported newsletter. If you appreciate my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber today. There are no paywalls for the essays, reports, interviews, and excerpts published here. However, I could not do this work without the support of readers like you, so if you are able to contribute financially, I would greatly appreciate your help.
