We are featuring here some of the voices of individuals and organizations—coming from a diverse range of political perspectives and viewpoints—who are courageously speaking against the brutal inhumanity of the Trump/MAGA fascist regime. Now is a time to unite all who can be united to demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW! In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!
Voices of Resistance, October 14 to present >>
Voices of Resistance, August 18 to October 13, 2025 >>
Voices of Resistance, June 23 to August 17, 2025 >>
Voices of Resistance, May 12 to June 22, 2025 >>
Voices of Resistance, April 7 to May 11, 2025 >>
Voices of Resistance, January 21 to April 6, 2025 >>
Voices of Resistance November 3 to November 10, 2025
Dodgers' Kiké Hernández: "All people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights."
Posted on October 31
October 31 Interview in The Guardian with Harrison Ford:
Harrison Ford: Trump’s assault on climate policy ‘scares the shit out of me’
In a blistering attack upon the president, Ford told the Guardian that Trump “doesn’t have any policies, he has whims. It scares the shit out of me. The ignorance, the hubris, the lies, the perfidy. [Trump] knows better, but he’s an instrument of the status quo and he’s making money, hand over fist, while the world goes to hell in a handbasket.”
The actor, who is 83, added: “It’s unbelievable. I don’t know of a greater criminal in history….”
Ford, a longtime environmental advocate, said Trump’s dislike of wind turbines was because “he has just not seen a gold one” and that the president’s legacy on the climate crisis would be “a clear expression of ignorance, of hubris and purposeful subterfuge”.
Richard Gere Slams Trump as “One of the Bad Guys,” Calls His Immigration Policies the “Greatest Crime”
October 2, Actor Richard Gere on Donald Trump: “We have a president who’s not only crazy, he’s a dark, dark presence. And it’s happened so quickly. Six months, he’s almost destroyed our country”
Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka on the U.S. revocation of his VISA:
“It has nothing to do with me personally. It has to do with the brutal, cruel and often unbelievable treatment being meted out to strangers, including Nigerians.”
“A principle is involved. Human beings deserve to be treated decently, whereever they are.”
On October 23, 2025, the Nobel Laureate author Wole Soyinka, 91, received a letter from the U.S. State Department revoking his non-resident visa for the U.S. He was told it was because "additional information became available after the visa was issued.” Soyinka has long been outspoken against Trump, cutting his green card to pieces after Trump was elected the first time. Soyinka believes the current revocation may be because he recently referred to Trump as a "white version of Idi Amin," a reference to the dictator who ruled Uganda from 1971 until 1979.
See Sunsara Taylor, "Is Wole Soyinka right? Is Trump acting like a “white version of Idi Amin?”
Country singer Bryan Andrews goes viral after criticizing Trump's immigration policies.
Bryan Andrews released “The Older I Get” on October 10, 2025, and since then has made a number of shorts using elements from the song to go after the horror of Trump’s program, especially the immigration policies. See his channel for more like this one:
“Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview”
An Open Letter from Chicago Clergy
Over 210 Chicago-based clergy of various denominations published an open letter on October 24 decrying the immorality of what Kristi Noem and ICE are doing, and pledging their nonviolent resistance to “stop this evil.” It read in part:
“Can I use my pastoral expense account to buy a gas mask?” It’s a question dozens of Chicago pastors asked our church boards this month. Few of us expected to be met with this degree of hostility and cruelty at the Broadview detention center, as we remain committed to nonviolent action and the peaceful exercise of our First Amendment rights. Our group comprises dozens of pastors and is still only a fraction of the clergy who are showing up and standing in support.
Unfortunately, peaceful actions—such as prayer and communion—have meant little to ICE agents. They lob tear gas, use pepper spray and bully sticks, body slam and drag protestors. One of our colleagues was hit in the face multiple times with pepper balls and rubber bullets. This is the brutality we are now accustomed to. We come offering bread and prayer, hope for justice and healing—we leave washing pepper spray out of each other’s eyes.
We willingly submit to these risks. What Kristi Noem and her ICE agents are doing is immoral. They aren’t arresting criminals; they are arresting our neighbors. They are tearing families apart. They wait at bus stops to detain children and use them as bait to lure parents from their homes. People of all ages are in hiding, businesses shuttered, and our friends and congregants—the people we have been ordained to serve—are being taken to Broadview in unmarked vans….
As Christians, we cannot look away. We must act to stop this evil and witness to the goodness and dignity of all God’s children. For us, the stakes couldn’t be higher. As Matt 25:46 clarifies, those who refuse hospitality to the stranger, refuse to see Jesus in the faces of the persecuted, stand condemned.
The Christian Century: Facing Fascism:
“The crisis isn’t coming; it’s here. Yet it remains easy to become paralyzed in inaction. Autocrats count on this.”
The Christian Century is an independent progressive religious magazine, noted among other things for being the first to publish Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” On October 29 they published an editorial headlined “Facing Fascism” which read in part:
….some Americans know exactly what time it is, because it’s their families, neighbors, parishioners, and communities under threat—ICE has brought the problem to them. And they’re responding: by organizing mutual aid networks and the like but also by putting their bodies on the line—getting beat up, tear gassed, and shot with nonlethal weapons—to prevent people from being taken.
When the rest of us encounter ICE, we can take guidance from their courageous witness. If you see agents confront someone, and if you yourself feel comparatively safe, then go toward the trouble—don’t walk away. Get in the way of oppressive power. Throw sand in the gears. Publicly shame those tasked with brutalizing people—it turns out ICE will sometimes stand down when confronted by a crowd willing to make some noise (and record some video)…..
We believe that nonviolent action is the only moral option (see “A time for nonviolence,” November). But all who seek to protect their neighbors from Trump’s jackboot thugs should wear his antifa smear as a badge of honor. Because fascism is indeed what we face, and resisting it is the urgent challenge of this moment.
Neil Young releases “As Time Explodes” as message to Trump
Neil Young released “As Time Explodes” October 30. It is a video montage of images that critiques Trump and billionaires, and then shows images from No Kings Day. An instrumental track behind the images is a nod to his song ‘Be The Rain’, which he released with Crazy Horse in 2003, the chorus of which is “We’ve got a job to do. Save Mother Earth.”
The Gaza People’s Tribunal issues final judgment and moral judgment:
“Genocide in Gaza is the concern of all humanity. When states are silent, civil society can and must speak out.”
The Gaza People’s Tribunal, an international civil society initiative composed of jurists, academics, and human rights advocates, on October 26 in Istanbul issued its final statement and moral judgement after four days of public hearings and a year-long process of investigation.
The panel, which examined testimony from witnesses, legal experts, and survivors, was chaired by Professor Christine Chinkin, an expert in international law, and presided over by Professor Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. The jurors came from multiple continents.
The Final Statement read in part:
The jury condemns the ongoing genocide and the crimes listed below. We believe these crimes and their impact on the Palestinian people should be separately named to understand the holistic nature of the genocide, its dehumanization of the people, its sadistic character, and its temporality. These crimes did not commence in October 2023 and they will not end with the ceasefire. Deaths and severe physical harm will continue. The physical and psychological trauma of the surviving population will be transmitted through the generations….
The jury finds a coherent and consistent pattern of exterminatory violence in the intentional and targeted destruction of homes, water supplies, schools, hospitals, clinics, universities, cultural and religious institutions, agricultural land, and natural ecosystems. The weaponization of hunger, denial of medical care, forced displacement are not collateral damages of war. They are instruments of collective punishment of an entire population and of genocide. They are not justified by any claim of military objectives….
The jury affirms that the struggle is with Zionism as a racist supremacist settler colonial enterprise, not with Jews or Judaism. The strategic horizon is a single rights-based political order grounded in equality, decolonization, restitution, and the unfettered right of return. Only this course can end the ongoing genocide and open a path to just and durable peace for all who live in Palestine and beyond.
We issue this statement in the name of justice, dignity, and peace, and in remembrance of all those who have perished in Gaza and throughout Palestine. Silence is not neutral. Silence is complicity. Neutrality is to surrender to evil.
To read the findings of the panel, go here: final-verdict-1.pdf
Retired Army Colonel Steve Gabavics: “No reasonable doubt” Israel intentionally killed Al Jazeera journalist
Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was a prominent Palestinian-American journalist who worked as a reporter for 25 years for Al Jazeera, before she was killed by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022. At the time, she was wearing a blue press vest and covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Retired Army Colonel Steve Gabavics, the only U.S. official to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh on the ground in May 2022 has now gone public opposing the U.S. conclusions that it was not intentional. In an October 27, 2025 interview with Mehdi Hasan and again with the New York Times on October 28, he said that his findings left "no reasonable doubt" it was intentional.
Fascist ICE advertisement uses video game “Halo’s” Master Chief for recruitment: Many fans furious—“Don't use the game I grew up on to advance your dogshit political bullshit”
The game “Halo” is a military science fiction video game, with battles against the Covenant, a grouping of aliens who are called “the Flood”. ICE’s October 27 post on X.com called on people to join ICE to “Destroy the Flood” meaning to destroy the flood of immigrants into the U.S. Many game players responded with outrage.
ICE uses Halo game imagery to recruit people ICE
"My 12-year-old self never could have imagined my favorite video game franchise of all time, would be posted by Homeland Security in the form of meme propaganda slop bullshit. Eat shit"
"Can you please keep your filthy barbaric inhumane ugly fat greasy butt digging unclean deformed bloated infected hands off of halo"
"You literally are the covenant. stop using master chief and the halo franchise in your posts. You are antithetical to everything master chief stands for. He went rogue when he started getting orders from people like you."
“The only difference is the uniform” (image of Nazis and ICE)
Voices of Resistance October 21 to October 27, 2025
Two Illinois National Guard members:
"There is a point where if you didn't stand up to the Gestapo, are you just actively one of them now?"
Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois's 13th District, and Capt. Dylan Blaha, who is running for Congress in the same district, spoke to CBS News for an article published October 28, 2025.
"It's disheartening to be forced to go against your community members and your neighbors," said Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Latina guardswoman and state legislative candidate from Illinois's 13th District. "It feels illegal. This is not what we signed up to do."
"I signed up to defend the American people and protect the Constitution," Blaha said. "When we have somebody in power who's actively dismantling our rights — free speech, due process, freedom of the press — it's really hard to be a soldier right now."
Asked if she would refuse a direct order to deploy to Chicago, Palecek didn't hesitate. "Absolutely. I would definitely say no," she said. "I'm not going to go against my community members, my family and my culture. I believe this is the time to be on the right side of history."
"Look at 1930s, 1940s Germany," Blaha said. "There is a point where if you didn't stand up to the Gestapo, are you just actively one of them now?"
Below are IG posts by Palecek and Blaha.
LCD Soundsystem & Pulp, (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang at the Hollywood Bowl
LCD Soundsystem & Pulp did a cover of Heaven 17’s (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang at the Hollywood Bowl September 26. Heaven 17 originally released the song March 13, 1981. The original included lyrics describing Ronald Reagan as a "fascist god in motion" and was banned by the BBC.
John Cusack to Trump: “Go to Hell”
Actor John Cusack participated in No Kings Day October 18, 2025 in Chicago, and when asked by a reporter about Trump, he responded:
Rosie Perez: “We do not have time to waste, and we do not have the privilege to be fearful.”
Rosie Perez is a Puerto Rican actress, choreographer and activist. After receiving the Hispanic Heritage Award for Leadership at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on September 4, 2025, she said:
CarlLa Horton, Executive Director Hopes Door, NY: Trump’s statements on domestic violence send a dangerous and emboldening message to all abusers.
Donald Trump does not consider domestic violence a crime. On September 8, he commented “If the man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime.” Two days later CarlLa Horton responded:
Michael Varga, former diplomat: “
Michael Varga is the author of “Under Chad’s Spell." He was a Foreign Service officer, serving in Dubai, Damascus, Casablanca, and Toronto. In an op-ed on Fulcrum.us on October 13, he wrote in part:
Michael Varga at No Kings Day October 18, 2025 Michael Varga
“This moment has compelled me to take to the streets to raise my voice against what I see as a dangerous attempt to remake our country according to the Project 2025 blueprint. For me, resistance means showing up, standing firm, and saying NO. But each American must decide for themselves how best to respond. Some may choose the ballot box, others may write, organize, or speak out in their communities.
“Whatever your conscience calls you to do more, I honor that. Love of country requires each of us, in our own way, to defend the core democratic values that have guided our nation for 250 years.”
Oak Lawn Methodist Church in Dallas responds to governor's order banning rainbow crosswalks
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church (OLUMC), which describes itself as a long-standing inclusive faith community started painting its front steps October 21 in the colors of the rainbow. This was their response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s directive ordering the removal of rainbow crosswalks throughout the Oak Lawn neighborhood, a neighborhood which is widely considered the center of Dallas’ LGBT community. Abbott's order claims that such crosswalks—funded privately by community members—constitute “distractions” to drivers.
Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, Senior Pastor of Oak Lawn UMC, said: “It’s important because silence is not neutral — silence in the face of harm always sides with the oppressor. At Oak Lawn UMC, we believe love belongs in public. Painting our steps in the colors of the rainbow is a visible witness to the gospel we preach: that every person is created in the image of God and worthy of safety, dignity, and belonging.
"When forces of power try to erase symbols of queer joy and inclusion, the Church has a choice — to retreat into comfort or to step forward in courage. We’re choosing courage. This is not a political act; it’s a pastoral one. It’s an expression of our faith in a God whose covenant love is wider than fear and whose grace refuses to be painted over. The rainbow is a reminder that God keeps showing up — especially for those the world tries to silence....
"The church’s leadership hopes the rainbow steps will serve as both a statement of solidarity and a sanctuary of hope for the LGBT community and allies across Dallas."
San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore displays large banners: ‘Pity the nation’
On October 21, City Lights Bookstore hung a series of quotes across its building, displaying some choice lines from “Pity the Nation,” a poem by San Francisco poet and City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill: “This paper is anti-fascist. It cannot be otherwise.”
Jennifer Fumiko Cahill is editor of the North Coast Journal of Politics, People and Art in Humboldt Country, California. She published this editorial October 23, 2025.
A few years ago, this would have been neither controversial nor necessary to say. But here we are.
The fascist tenets of nationalism and racial superiority, the crushing of individual rights and freedoms, and the suppression of dissenting voices through intimidation and force are in absolute opposition to the mission of journalism. That they directly oppose the Constitution and its ideals (realized or not) is lately necessary to state as well, as we watch those sworn to protect it embrace fascism with alarming enthusiasm.
The Trump administration has trampled due process in its frenzied and racist deployment of ICE, literal masked thugs racially profiling and grabbing brown people off the streets. The campaign promise of deporting criminals has unsurprisingly grown into a purge of immigrants in general, the threatening of naturalized citizenship and an unmasked effort to strip our country down to a white, Christian extremist shadow of itself. It is an impossible right-wing fever dream, but one for which the president and his cadre are willing to harm us all in pursuit of….
To say nothing does not make us safe — not our community or our families, and not those who work for this paper. Refraining from naming the forces that encroach on our freedoms does not shield us from them. Pretending at objectivity or neutrality does not absolve us of our responsibilities, especially to those most under threat. The more dangerous it is to say it, the more vital it is to say, if only to each other and the people we need to protect.
This paper is anti-fascist. It cannot be otherwise.
Open Letter from Jews Demand Action: “We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.”
More than 450 prominent Jewish figures, including former Israeli officials, artists, and intellectuals, released an open letter on October 22, 2025 urging the United Nations and world leaders to impose sanctions on Israel for “atrocities” in Gaza amounting to genocide. Signatories include former speaker of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, British author Michael Rosen, Canadian author Naomi Klein, Oscar-winning film-maker Jonathan Glazer, U.S. actor Wallace Shawn, Emmy winners Ilana Glazer and Hannah Einbinder, and Pulitzer prize winner Benjamin Moser among many others. The letter read in part:
As Jews and as human beings, we declare: Not in our name. Not in the name of our heritage, our faith, or our moral tradition. The monumental scale of the killing and destruction, the forced displacement, the deliberate withholding of life-sustaining necessities, and the ongoing criminal actions in the West Bank must end and never be repeated.
We deplore the fact that Israeli leaders have repeatedly taken to the world stage to declare that these actions are committed in the name of the Jewish people, as a manifestation of Jewish destiny. The Israeli government may claim to speak on behalf of the Jewish collective, but it does not speak for us.
This affront to our collective conscience cannot stand. It must be challenged. These are not Jewish values nor are they guided by the lessons we draw from our peoples’ history. Instead we see in many of those standing up for Palestinian rights a reflection of the people who stood with Jews in our times of need. Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, then, but a fulfillment of it. When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians.
We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid. We write in the hope that this initiative further emboldens a moment of renewed Jewish commitment to act with conscience and compassion. We vow to work urgently to achieve equality, justice, and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis.
Jan Egeland, during a visit to the West Bank: “The ceasefire in Gaza should mark a turning point for all Palestinians, not be a pretext to tighten control over the West Bank”
Jan Egeland is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). During the week of October 23 he traveled to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The press release about his trip noted “While attention has been fixed on Gaza, violence and restrictions in the West Bank have intensified. Since January, at least 199 Palestinians have been killed and more than 3,200 injured by Israeli forces or settlers. Military operations in Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm refugee camps have displaced over 30,000 people, yet humanitarian groups remain barred from assessing the full scale of destruction.”
Egeland said in part:
As there is hope at long last in Gaza, the West Bank is being intentionally and brutally carved up. The same violence and impunity we saw in Gaza is dispossessing whole communities in the West Bank. Recovery in one part of the territory cannot come at the cost of destruction in another.
Humanitarians cannot even reach parts of Jenin and Tulkarm camps to verify the devastation, and communities are not allowed to return. Restrictions and intimidation are silencing the truth about what is happening.
I witnessed how Israeli settler violence, backed by the authorities – including Israeli cabinet ministers – is driving vulnerable Palestinian communities from their homes…..
Pop Singer Reneé Rapp has words for ICE and Trump:
October 21 in Austin Texas.
Dr. Stacey Patton: “I, for one, want never again, for EVERYONE.”
Dr. Stacey Patton is a Black, award-winning journalist, author, historian, child advocate, and college professor. Her Oct 24, 2025 essay on her Substack said in part:
Left, Gaza 2025. Right, Auschwitz, 1945. @Dr. Stacey Patton
Look at these two photos. Look at them good….
In 1945, the world swore Never again.
Never again the camps. Never again the mass graves. Never again the industrial logic of extermination.
But “never again” was too often understood as “never again to us.”
We built monuments and museums, but not moral muscle. We taught people to memorize the names of the dead, but not to recognize their reflection in the living.
Now, in Gaza, families are digging graves with bulldozers. Mothers identify their children by scraps of clothing. Doctors, who once saved lives, spend their days unzipping body bags. The cycle of dehumanization that once consumed Europe is not repeating itself in form, but it rhymes in spirit. The rhyme is the refusal to see the other as fully human.
Both photographs ask a question that no political slogan can answer: What does it mean to remember “Never again” if the shape of atrocity keeps repeating itself, not identically, but with enough resemblance to make the stomach turn?....
The promise of “Never again” was not a shield for one nation or one kind of people. It is supposed to be a moral covenant for all humanity. To betray it anywhere is to betray it everywhere.
Plus, the heart cannot survive on partial empathy. If grief is only legitimate when the dead look like you, then you have learned nothing from history.
I, for one, want never again, for EVERYONE.
The Dude: “Get ICE off our streets, and into our beverages.”
Jeff Bridges on Jimmy Kimmel October 8, 2025
Voices of Resistance October 14 to October 20, 2025
Actor Bradley Whitford: “I am living in a world where we have internment camps!”
"We are giving these internment camps funny names, like there is some fun to be had in it all. It’s a disgrace.”
In the days leading up No Kings Day protests on October 18, dozens of prominent voices used their platforms to call people into the streets including Sally Fields, Robert DeNiro, John Legend, Spike Lee, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Stiller and others. Here is Stephen Colbert:
Fall of Freedom National Call to Action
The Fall of Freedom call was initiated by Dread Scott, a revolutionary visual artist, Lynn Nottage, a playwright and screenwriter, and 15 other artists. The Call reads in part:
Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.
Obliterated Power. Artist Dread Scott. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
This Fall, we are activating a nationwide wave of creative resistance. Beginning November 21–22, 2025, galleries, museums, libraries, comedy clubs, theaters, and concert halls across the country will host exhibitions, performances, and public events that channel the urgency of this moment. Fall of Freedom is an open invitation to artists, creators, and communities to take part—and to celebrate the experiences, cultures, and identities that shape the fabric of our nation.
Art matters. Artists are a threat to American fascism.
Artists create “melting democracy” ice sculpture on National Mall in Washington, DC
A giant ice sculpture of the word “democracy” was unveiled on the National Mall on Wednesday, October 15.
The melting piece of art is meant to symbolize “America’s weakened democracy and the costs of its failure amid growing militarism and authoritarianism,” organizers say.
Marshall Reece, one of the artists who worked on the huge sculpture, said “It’s hard being an American to think that we need pro-democracy advocacy actions and groups, but that’s what we do…. I hope that people see this and are inspired to get to work to save our democracy.”
Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers:
“I’m trying, I’m trying; I mean, it’s just awful what you watch and see, people getting zip tied. I mean, that’s not this country. That’s not what we’re about.”
Doc Rivers was interviewed by The Athletic (NYT) before the game Sunday October 12 and denounced mass arrests by ICE:
“I think the [Chicago] mayor’s done an amazing job with everything he says,” Rivers said. “You know, I think this is starting to separate us all, which I hate. This is not; you can be pro-civil rights or what’s right and not be, like, anti-White. And I think that’s what it’s starting to become in some ways. And it shouldn’t be. It really shouldn’t be. I would hope that if these were Ukrainian immigrants being detained, that everyone of both races would fight for it. That’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”
Media Refuse to Comply with Fascist Silencing of the Press at the Pentagon
On Wednesday, October 15, reporters from almost all press organizations walked out of the Pentagon press conference in defiance of an order by Pete Hegseth that they should sign a pledge that they would refrain from gathering any information that hadn’t already been authorized for release by the military. This is an opinion piece in the online eNews Park Forest, Illinois, which included statements from several press organizations.
Make no mistake: the United States of America has been swept up in full-blown fascism. We are beyond the fearful stages of tossing around warnings. The authoritarian Trump Administration has waged war on the press. The president who covets the Nobel Peace Prize renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. Today, October 15, 2025, the Pentagon confiscated the government-issued press badges from “virtually every major media organization in America,” according to a statement from the Pentagon Press Association.
Authoritarianism. Full-blown Fascism. Threats to imprison journalists. This must end.
Here are excerpts from statements from press organizations:
Statement from the Pentagon Press Association The Pentagon Press Association’s members are still committed to reporting on the U.S. Military. But make no mistake, today, Oct. 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom that raises concerns about a weakening U.S. commitment to transparency in governance, to public accountability at the Pentagon and to free speech for all.
Joint Statement from Fox News, CNN, NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.
Statement from the White House Correspondents’ Association The White House Correspondents’ Association and the State Department Correspondents’ Association stand in strong solidarity with the Pentagon Press Association as it defends freedom of the press.... The public has a right to know how the government is conducting the people’s business. Unfettered reporting on the U.S. military and its civilian leadership provides a service to those in uniform, veterans, their families and all Americans.
From NPR Editor in Chief Thomas Evans NPR will never be party to limitations on the independence of the press and the objective, fact-based reporting of our journalists. We will not sign the Administration’s restrictive policy that asks reporters to undermine their commitment of providing trustworthy, independent journalism to the American public.
University administrations reject Trump’s “Compact” for education.
The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” was sent by the Trump fascist regime on October 1 to nine universities. The document asks universities to accept and sign onto the fascist definition of gender — which attempts to erase trans people. The regime demands colleges stop considering race, gender and a wide range of student demographics in the admissions process and to require undergraduate applicants to take the SAT or ACT.
On October 17 teach-ins and demonstrations against the “compact” were held at the nine campuses in addition to earlier demonstrations at some campuses. To date, of the nine universities, six have formally responded by declining the offer—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State, Brown University, University of Southern California, Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has led the efforts against the compact. Here are excerpts from two of their statements.
The Rutgers AAUP published a statement that said in part: "Accepting the compact—in effect a loyalty oath to the current presidential administration—would compromise the educational and scholarly mission of the university, prevent us from offering the best possible education to the students of New Jersey, negate our members’ and students’ constitutional rights and academic freedom, cede an unacceptable level of control to the federal government, and likely violates state and federal laws." See full statement
The University of Virginia AAUP statement read in part: “This 'Compact' is the most significant threat to the mission of higher education since the McCarthy era. Complying with these mandates would suppress the independence of UVA and its ability to achieve the vision of its founder, Thomas Jefferson: to be 'bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led.' The 'Compact' represents a bright red line for academic freedom and free speech at universities that cannot be crossed.” See full statement
Rachel Cleetus, Union of Concerned Scientists: It’s Time to Confront the Trump Administration’s Authoritarianism
Rachel Cleetus is the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Her editorial published on the UCS website on October 16 read in part:
Authoritarianism is here
Those of us living in the United States are undeniably facing the rise of an authoritarian regime. The radical overreach for unlimited presidential power that we now see unfolding puts at risk everything we care about in our constitutional democracy. History shows that allowing the administration’s actions to continue unimpeded will only lead to a further consolidation of its power without any guardrails, and a further erosion of our rights and our democracy.
Right now, we exist in a new dual state, where it seems life can continue as normal for some (maybe even most) of us while we watch the news about others being targeted by vindictive court cases, fired without cause from their jobs, or being violently deported without due process. Make no mistake: the administration and its enablers are coming for the people who are easiest to target first, and that’s reason enough to speak out. AND, all of us are at risk of being targeted eventually if the slide into authoritarianism continues.
I am no expert on authoritarianism. Like many of you, I am trying to stay on top of the news, read deeply, and learn from history. But I think we all know that what is happening is NOT normal. This is not about party politics or differences of opinion about policies or how to implement them. The level of cruelty, the scale of wanton destruction, the blatant violation of the Constitution and rule of law, the violence and grasp for power and money—it’s all well beyond the pale. It puts us all in danger.
Resisting together, we are not alone
These are dangerous times because it can feel like all our democratic institutions are fraying. All the checks and balances we took for granted are teetering. Facts are distorted beyond recognition and replaced by propaganda. People in our communities are being arrested, even disappeared, in violation of their rights.
We all have a role to play in what comes next. None of it is preordained.
"From Providence, Rhode Island to Palestine - Fight Fascism! Fight Genocide!"
Jewish Voice for Peace - Rhode Island (JVP-RI) organized a “Free Palestine Contingent" to march in the No Kings Day protest in Providence. They issued the following statement to call people to join them:
Over the past months, the world has been simultaneously rising up against the consolidation of right-wing power, and for Palestinian liberation. It is our obligation to unify these movements. Our struggles are connected, and if we believe in free speech, justice, and inclusion, our fight to save democracy must stand always against genocide and apartheid.
Military occupations and ICE violence are wreaking havoc in Black and brown communities in D.C., L.A., Chicago — and here in Providence. On the streets of U.S. cities, the same weapons and surveillance technologies the Israeli military has used to devastate Gaza are being used in escalated ways against Americans.
We can’t stand for freedom of speech while silencing those who speak out about Israel’s atrocities. We can’t stand against cruelty while ignoring Israel withholding food and medicine from children. We can’t stand against people being snatched from their homes by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] while ignoring people being snatched from their homes by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces].
What we allow fascists to do in Palestine, they will do to the entire world — it is our duty to resist them and fight for a free Palestine, and it is our duty to win.
Global Sumud Flotilla activists boldly continue their mission after being detained and deported by Israel
The Global Sumud Flotilla launched in early July, with 42 vessels and almost 500 people from 47 countries, with the purpose of carrying two tons of desperately needed humanitarian supplies to Gaza and attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
On October 1-5 the Israeli military boarded the vessels in international waters, seizing the boats and aid, and detaining 479 people, who were held in brutal conditions alongside Palestinian prisoners.
All of the activists have now been released and deported to other countries by Israel. Many of them have since stated that whatever they went through was nothing compared to what the people of Gaza have suffered.
Here are two statements, one from the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, and another from Leigh Evans, a retired Welsh nurse.