PNN Newsletter: Protest With Our Wallets, Visit Fetterman, Prison Oversight Board, More
- tim621396
- Feb 21
- 4 min read
PNN’s mission is to engage, educate and empower our neighbors to make our City a better place to live. Here’s what’s coming up in each of these areas:
Engage: How to Keep Our Heads from Exploding While Defeating MAGA
Educate: Prison Oversight Board, Tenant Organizing Conference
Empower: Protesting with Our Wallets, Visit Fetterman's Office, Housing Podcast
How to Keep Our Heads from Exploding While Defeating MAGA
Thursday, March 6th, 7PM, via Zoom
Every day our inboxes are flooded with calls for emergency actions that we need to take immediately or very soon. It's enough to give you a headache. Us, too.
So, we have devised a (non-medicinal) way to help relieve that headache. We're organizing. Please join us for the Social Services Action Group meeting on Zoom on March 6th at 7 PM where we'll discuss how to fight back in a manageable and strategic way.
Teaser: No issue silos will be allowed. We’re going to figure out how we fight for all of our essential services, together.
We're asking you to lend your voice to this conversation. Because the work ahead of us is going to be made easier when we're all doing it together.
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Protesting With Our Wallets
Using Our Money as an Organizing Strategy
We're watching it happen in real time - craven corporate honchos are bowing to a bully's demands to remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. So they readily obey because they are afraid of losing customers, even government contracts.
But, what do you think would happen if, just for one day, we the people kept our wallets closed to these corporate cowards in protest? What if it went on for days? Or weeks? Or even months? What if it turned into something like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, only on a national scale?
The point of these boycotts are to inflict financial penalty on corporate cowardice and make the boardroom boys more afraid of we the people than they are of Don the Con and his band of fascists. Read more about the plan to boycott here.
There is even a call for a National Strike on Friday, March 14th to show the power of the people to affect positive outcomes by simply not showing up for work at every corporate business and educational institution.
Here are some of the "Pocketbook Protests" in which you can participate:
Blackout Friday (We're Not Just Targeting Target)
Friday, February 28th - Keep your money in your wallet or spend it supporting local businesses. Joining Target among the DEI cowards are Amazon, McDonald's, Pepsi, Walmart, GM, Ford, Meta, Lowe's and John Deere.
Oligarch #1 Protest: Don't Buy from Amazon
March 7th thru March 14th - Buy local or Buy Direct from the Company, Not Amazon
National Strike: No Work for 24 Hours
Friday, March 14th - Take a Long Weekend. You could use the break.
Will any of this work? We won't know until we try. But we do know that if we don't do anything, then we will surely lose this moment to stand up to oligarchs and fight back against cruel policies that only hurt ourselves and our fellow Americans.
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Tenant Organizing Conference
Saturday, March 8th, 9AM-3PM, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut Street
Join with tenants, lawyers and organizations from across the city for a conference designed to bring us all together to make plans to fight to put an end to the current housing crisis. We'll share information and strategies on how best to organize to protect ourselves, our families and our communities.
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"Financing Philly's Future" Podcast on Housing
Tuesday, February 25th, 4:30PM-5PM, Zoom
Join us for this monthly podcast as pension expert Tom Sgouros will be our guest. Sgouros will discuss the November 2024 report “Investing for the Common Good: How Workers’ Pension Funds Can Help Solve the Housing Crisis.”
Join us on Zoom on Tuesday at 4:30PM by using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85835928783
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Let's Pay Fetterman a Visit
Every Friday, 2PM, 200 Chestnut Street
What's going on with John Fetterman? Supporting Israeli war on Gaza? Supporting the Laken Riley Act? Going along with Trump's dangerous Cabinet picks? Pam Bondi? Visiting Mar-a-Lago?Really?
It appears that our very big Senator is making very big problems not only for himself, but for all those people who stand to be victimized by the radical policies emanating from the White House.
So every Friday, we'll be joining our friends from Indivisible in front of Fetterman's office to remind Big John that he works for us - the people who busted our butts getting out the vote to barely nudge him to victory against that quack Doctor Mehmet Oz.
He owes us his victory. We need to make sure he gets the message. Put it on your calendar. If you can't make it today, try to join us another Friday.
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Help Make the Prison Oversight Board a Reality
In December, City Council passed legislation allowing Philly voters to authorize a citizen-run, investigation-based Prison Oversight Board for all of Philadelphia’s prisons. This spring, it will be up to the residents of Philly to make this Board a reality by voting to make it part of our City Charter.
But, a lot of folks don't know about the Board and what it will do for the people, many awaiting trial, who are sitting in jails that have become uninhabitable. Human decency requires us to provide a clean, safe environment to those being detained. If enacted, this Board will shed a much-needed light on what happens inside Philadelphia’s carceral facilities.
If you'd like to help spread the word to put this Board in place, sign up below.
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This Week in History
Feb 21, 1965 – Malcolm-X Assassinated. Black leader Malcolm-X was gunned down while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity in NYC.
February 24, 1988 - SCOTUS Defends Satire. The Supreme Court rules 8-0 to overturn the $200,000 settlement awarded to the Reverend Jerry Falwell for his emotional distress at being parodied in Hustler magazine.
February 25, 1862 - Paper Becomes Legal Tender. In order to pay for the funding of the Civil War, Congress passes the Legal Tender Act, authorizing the use of paper notes to pay the government’s bills instead of using only gold or silver.
February 26, 2012 - Treyvon Martin Murdered. Walking home from a trip to a convenience store, the 17-year-old was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer, who later was acquitted of murder.
Thanks for your activism!
Tim Brown, Organizing Director
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