Take Action

Take the Pledge to Stand Up for Workers' Rights

Nation Action on March 1, 2013 - 6:18 PM ET

March 11 marks the second anniversary of the passage of Wisconsin Act 10, Governor Scott Walker’s legislative assault on public sector unions in his state. To mark the movement that rose against Walker’s agenda, the filmmakers of the documentary We Are Wisconsin have designated March 11 the National Day of Recommitment to the fight for workers’ rights in Wisconsin and around the world.

TO DO

Sign The Nation’s pledge endorsing the call to “recommit” to workers’ rights. Visit WeAreWisconsinTheFilm.com to find a screening to attend of “We Are Wisconsin” in your neighborhood or use the #3113 resources to organize your own.

TO READ

The March 4, 2013, issue of The Nation featured a forum on the challenges facing labor in America today with contributors like Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation, Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis.

TO WATCH

“We Are Wisconsin” focuses on six people who came together in the winter of 2011 to protest Scott Walker’s assault on workers’ rights.

Support LGBTQ Immigrants

Nation Action on February 22, 2013 - 6:12 PM ET

As Congress debates immigration reform, it risks leaving LGBTQ people out in the cold. Currently, immigrants in same-sex couples are not eligible for the same fast-tracked path to a green card afforded to married heterosexual couples. If Congress does not address this injustice, thousands of these families could be separated or forced to leave the country.

TO DO

Sign The Nation’s open letter to lawmakers urging them to make sure LGBTQ people are included in any immigration reform legislation. Then, lend your support to United We Dream’s “Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project.”

TO READ

In a recent article in Colorlines, Seth Freed Wessler lays out the barriers facing LGBTQ undocumented immigrants and the possibilities going forward. In a blog post, Aura Bogado reports on Dreamers, including Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project activists, who demonstrated at a House Immigration Hearing in early February.

TO WATCH

In a video by United We Dream, “Undocuqueer” activists explain their decision to stand up for their rights as undocumented LGBTQ immigrants.

Defend Walmart Warehouse Workers

Nation Action on February 19, 2013 - 8:04 PM ET

This past January, the state of California ordered a Walmart-contracted warehouse complex in Chino, California, to pay 865 employees up to $1.1 million in stolen wages. The company denied the charges and is appealing the ruling. In response, Warehouse Workers United has started a campaign urging Walmart to enforce its own “Standards for Suppliers.”

TO DO

Use The Nation’s activism tool to implore Walmart CEO Mike Duke to stand with the Walmart warehouse workers in Chino. Then head to WarehouseWorkersUnited.org and add your name to their petition.

TO READ

In the January 7-14, 2013 issue of The Nation, Josh Eidelson reported that new approaches to organizing—including the inclusion of workers from Walmart-suppliers like the warehouse in Chino—could represent unprecedented opportunities to force the world’s biggest retailer to change its ways.

TO WATCH

This past November, the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting produced a video on the fight to hold Walmart accountable for wage theft at one of its suppliers in Mira Loma, California.

A weekly guide to meaningful action, this blog connects readers with resources to channel the outrage so many feel after reading about abuses of power and privilege. Far from a comprehensive digest of all worthy groups working on behalf of the social good, Take Action seeks to shine a bright light on one concrete step that Nation readers can take each week. To broaden the conversation, we’ll publish a weekly follow-up post detailing the response and featuring additional campaigns and initiatives that we hope readers will check out. Toward that end, please use the comments field to give us ideas. With your help, we can make real change.

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President Obama: Halt the Deportation of Parents

Nation Action on February 14, 2013 - 5:07 PM ET

Addressing the plight of some 11 million undocumented people currently living in the United States, President Obama’s State of the Union trumpeted comprehensive immigration reform. But what immigrant rights activists really wanted to hear was a promise to halt further deportations. Many of these deportations effectively separate families through a jumbled collection of rules, directives and legislation that tear many of them apart and have left thousands of children in foster care after their parents were deported.

TO DO

Join The Nation in calling on President Obama to immediately halt the deportation of parents.

TO READ

This report by Colorlines details the more than 200,000 deportations of parents of US citizens in just more than two years,

TO WATCH

In this video report, ABC’s Nightline made clear the heartbreaking stories being created by the federal government’s insistence on deporting the parents of US citizens.

Save the USPS

Nation Action on February 7, 2013 - 5:23 PM ET

On February 6, the Postal Service announced that Saturday first-class mail delivery is scheduled for elimination at the beginning of August—the latest and deepest in a series of cuts that threaten to so undermine the service that it will be ripe for bartering off to the private delivery corporations that have long coveted its routes. As John Nichols has written, this matters because the USPS continues to provide a vital public service with many post offices serving as de facto community centers and with the mail becoming a critical prescription drug delivery system.

TO DO

Implore your elected reps to block the USPS from cutting Saturday service and to allow it to compete by providing bridge funding for the service and by developing a plan that allows the Postal Service to compete in the digital era.

TO READ

Nichols foresaw the manufactured crisis of the USPS back in August and made clear that the issue was never one of declining mail volume or bureaucratic inefficiency.

TO WATCH

This recent episode of Democracy Now! explained why the USPS's financial “crisis” has been entirely manufactured by critics cynically hoping to privatize the post office.

Open Letter on Academic Freedom From 'The Nation' to New York Elected Officials

Nation Action on February 5, 2013 - 7:34 PM ET

We note that on February 6, seventeen of the nineteen signatories to the letter from Representative Jerrold Nadler & Co. released another letter thanking president Gould for her "leadership," affirming the right of the college to hold such panels and standing strongly against official defunding threats (though they did not apologize for misrepresenting the college's co-sponsorship of the panel as official endorsement of its speakers' views, or for their false allegations that the college had excluded alternative views). The two names missing from the follow-up letter? Assemblyman James Brennan and former Comptroller Bill Thompson. Earlier in the day, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a far less tepid defense of Brooklyn College, saying, "If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea." We also note that the far more threatening and vicious letter from Lewis Fidler & Co., which had ten signatories, is still extant, though two of the original signatories, Council Members Letitia James and Stephen Levin, have withdrawn their names from it.

The Nation supports the right of Brooklyn College to sponsor a panel discussion with Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti on BDS. We urge Brooklyn College President Karen Gould to resist attempts by those who have attempted to intimidate CUNY into canceling, changing, or withdrawing its sponsorship for the panel. We are especially concerned that members of the New York City Council have threatened to withhold further money for CUNY if it does not either cancel the event or withdraw its sponsorship. This is a grave threat to academic freedom and sets a terrible precedent.

TO DO

We urge readers to sign The Nation’s open letter in support of academic freedom at CUNY. After weighing in, share this info with your friends, family and Facebook and Twitter networks.

TO READ

In this post, Katha Pollitt makes clear that perceived election math rather than stated fears for the lofty mission of Brooklyn College are driving the bipartisan denunciations of the BDS panel.

TO WATCH

When Alan Dershowitz led the charge against the BDS forum at Brooklyn College, the pile-on from both sides of the political spectrum was quick and utterly disingenuous, as Chris Hayes explained on Up With Chris.

Stop the Keystone Pipeline, Once and For All

Nation Action on January 31, 2013 - 4:37 PM ET

In the new issue of The Nation, Mark Hertsgaard reports on how the climate movement is trying to appeal to both President Obama’s visionary and pragmatic sides with stopping the Keystone Pipeline being the first order of business.

TO DO

A good first step to putting the US on the path to addressing the climate crisis is for President Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, once and for all. On Sunday, February 17, thousands of Americans will head to Washington, DC, for the largest climate rally in history demanding an end to Keystone’s destructive dreams. Join this historic event to make your voice heard and push the president to start his second term with strong climate action.

TO READ

This fact-sheet on Keystone makes clear that the project will not reduce US dependence on foreign oil, will not decrease gas prices, will not create nearly as many jobs as promised and will introduce grave dangers into our environment.

TO WATCH

This inspiring ten-minute film captures the grassroots energy and diverse composition of the movement against the Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, across the United States for refinement and export on the Gulf Coast.

One Billion Rising Seeks an End to Violence Against Women

Nation Action on January 29, 2013 - 4:55 PM ET

Recent horrifying statistics show that one in three women globally will be raped, beaten or severely violated in their lifetime. That's 1 billion women. And that’s how the One Billion Rising campaign got its name, its impetus and its focus.

TO DO

On February 14, the fifteenth anniversary of V-Day, One Billion Rising will bring women and men across the world together to demand an enduring end to violence against women. There are already thousands of events scheduled in more than 160 countries. Sign up today, find a gathering near you, invite your friends to join the campaign and check out OneBillionRising.org for videos, news updates, information on joining and supporting the campaign.

TO READ

In this Nation magazine profile, Laura Flanders talked to playwright, activist and V-Day founder Eve Ensler about her grand ambition for One Billion Rising.

TO WATCH

This short film by Ensler and South African filmmaker Tony Stroebel gives a glimpse into what organizers of the One Billion Rising campaign hope will happen on February 14, a global day of action to demand an end to violence against women.

Demand Meaningful Gun Control

Nation Action on January 25, 2013 - 1:14 PM ET

Horrified by the shooting at Sandy Hook and frustrated by congressional inaction, the Nation Builders—a group of supporters of the magazine—decided to act. While President Obama signed his executive action and Governor Cuomo tightened restrictions in New York, the Builders worked together to create a collective open letter imploring politicians to support meaningful gun control legislation on the federal level.

TO DO

Use The Nation’s new advocacy tool to send this powerful letter to your state and federal representatives and urge them to act on gun control now.

TO READ

This past December, George Zornick wrote about the highly profitable role retail giant Walmart plays in making the AR-15, used by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook, and nearly 400 other guns popular and easy to obtain.

TO LISTEN

In a recent Nation Conversation, Zornick and Bryce Covert spoke with historian and Nation blogger Rick Perlstein about the strange and surprising history of gun control in the US.

Repeal the Hyde Amendment

Nation Action on January 17, 2013 - 5:14 PM ET

As Nation Editors wrote in looking at the landscape of reproductive rights in the days leading up to the 40th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision, a decades-long anti-choice campaign has resulted in a patchwork system where the legal right to abortion applies, in practice, only to those women lucky enough to live in certain states or to be sufficiently affluent to be able to travel for the procedure.

TO DO

The largest obstacle to low-income women receiving abortions is the Hyde Amendment banning Medicaid funding of abortion. It's unlikely to happen in this Congress but repealing the Hyde Amendment should remain a critical progressive goal. Fund Abortion Now is calling for repeal of Hyde. Add your name to the call and support FAN with your time and money in its efforts to ensure the Constitutional right of reproductive freedom for all women, regardless of income.

TO READ

At the Daily Beast, Jessica Arons argued that today's attacks on contraceptive coverage can be traced directly back to Hyde.

TO WATCH

This video from the Center for Reproductive Rights makes clear the devastating emotional and financial toll for women on Medicaid who are unable to exercise their reproductive rights.