Too Much Everywhere All At Once

I spent the better part of this weekend obsessing about what to focus on when writing this newsletter, and unable to land on any one thing.

FIRST, I THOUGHT... I could write about the on-going terror inflicted on Southern California by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including the tragic death of a Guatemalan man named Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdés who was hit by a car in Monrovia while trying to flee the modern-day gestapo. Or, the outrageous story of ICE agents shooting at a vehicle in San Bernardino as its frightened driver drove off after the thugs refused to identify themselves.

...THEN I THOUGHT... Oooh, I could expound on Donald Trump and the Republicans' shocking deployment of armed National Guard troops to Washington DC and the White House's attempt to federalize the DC police at a time when violent crime has plummeted.

...AND THEN I THOUGHT... Hmmm, I could mourn the insanity of the Republican administration attempting to end a program in Dallas, Texas that successfully helped unhoused people transition off the streets by... [drumroll]... ensuring they had permanent housing and tailor-made wraparound services.

...AND THEN I CONSIDERED... delving into the redistricting war between Texas and California ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

I couldn't settle on a single topic. And the more I thought about it, the more overwhelmed I felt. Until I went for a walk on Sunday evening and realized that if I was feeling this way, my subscribers and readers probably were as well.

Welcome to the end-of-summer edition of Trump-engineered overwhelm, designed to stun, stall, and saturate us into inaction.

If you're feeling this way, you're not alone. I have no words of wisdom other than to urge you to hang in there and find at least one thing you can plug into in order to push back.

(Also, don't flee the country. Most of us simply can't afford to but those who have privilege and can flee also have more power to change the status quo, so... just don't.)

As is always the case when repression rears--people are fighting back. Everywhere:

• In LA, union workers with SEIU and the Garment Worker Center are pushing back and a Boycott Home Depot campaign is gaining steam.
• In the nation's capital, the FreeDC Project is becoming a hub for organizing and a beloved local activist, Afeni who was arrested by police was finally freed.
• In Texas, protesters showed up and showed out against the Trump Takeover.

So, I'm going to take my own advice and focus on one issue at a time and serve you, my subscribers, the stories of resistance, how they're connected, how you can participate, and how, together, we can face the deluge of disasters one step at a time.

In the mean time, check out my first regular Truthout monthly column focusing on Black-Palestinian solidarity:

And if you're in the LA area, come say hello to me and author Stephen Vittoria at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena this Thursday: