July 15, 2025
Networks, old and new . . .
I want to take a little detour today, because it just hit me that the Resistance News Digest is about to pass its 100-post milestone - it already has, if I count the posts that went out as direct emails in the first few weeks I was doing this. It’s still small by Substack standards - we have several hundred subscribers, but that’s not much compared to most of the sources I follow (some of which have hundreds of thousands of readers).
That’s fine by me.
In fact, that’s what I really want to talk about, so I hope you’ll indulge me. . .
At the time of the American Revolution, when the founders of our country were communicating their discontent back and forth and coming to decisions about what to do about King George and his monarchic over-reach, they wrote letters to one another. They printed pamphlets - like The Federalist Papers. They posted notices in gazetteers and newspapers. And they talked to neighbors, who talked to their neighbors, who wrote letters to their relatives, and so on - until the news spread, and the word got out eventually, and people rose up.
During the 1930s in Europe, the news went out via radio. Foreign correspondents reported by telephone to their newspapers across the ocean. Newsreels shown before feature films spread images from around the world. And, of course, people still wrote letters to friends and family, who talked with their friends and family - until the news got out eventually, and people rose up.
For most of our history, news flowed from person to person. Sources were trusted people we knew. There was time to think about what we read and to consider how it fit together and what our reactions should be. That isn’t as true any more. News moves at the speed of light, and we get overwhelmed and blinded when it comes from all different directions. We tune things out.
That’s understandable, but it’s not a good reaction. It doesn’t make us safer to hide.
That’s why some people who know my interest in following the news asked me to send them “links to reliable sources that talk about some of the important things we should pay attention to,” I started sending out emails - and eventually, we’ve ended up here. I like doing this, and I intend to keep doing it as long as I am able to, because it’s something I think is helpful and useful.
Something we know about totalitarian and authoritarian regimes is that controlling the narrative, controlling the news, is hugely important to them. As the writer of The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide puts it:
They will subjugate state media, turning them into a propaganda tube. Then, through convoluted laws and threats they will attempt to control all mainstream media and limit press freedom. They will ban critical press from their briefings, calling them “liars”, “fake news”. They will brand those media as “unpatriotic”, acting against the People.
We’ve watched that happen in other countries; we’ve seen that happening already in this country. I don’t need to repeat all the instances again.
But in countries that have fought against authoritarian regimes, sharing information has been a critical part of resistance. In Resist: Surviving the Slide to Autocracy (one of the books on the Resistance Bookshelf), the author talks about “los paquetes” - the underground, offline “packets” of information that Cubans downloaded and passed around in hard copy or on flash drives to share critical news and information with one another when the government tried to suppress access. They knew that you can’t fight back if you don’t know what’s happening.
In a very real sense, that’s what this Digest is all about. I’m fortunate enough to have access to good information sources via cable, internet, and print, when many people live in areas where access to some news networks is limited or their finances don’t allow them to subscribe to publications. (I can’t subscribe to everything I’d like to either, but as an experienced librarian I’m decent at ferreting out equivalent sources and evaluating them for accuracy.)
If you get these Digests via email as a subscriber, I hope you feel free to share them with others. Treat them like the “paquetes”. If you forward them to friends, maybe add news about things that are happening in your own community - a local protest, a community group that’s helping immigrants, a city council or school board meeting where you can speak up about an issue. We’re building networks of resistance, and that means we’re building networks to share the news and information with one another.
And you are a part of it!
OK, I think that will do as tonight’s Resistance Action. Let’s get on to the news . . .
Misc. Short Takes
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee just signed a Freedom to Read Act that is the first in the nation to guarantee writers abolster their protocols and training to prepare for federal immigration activity occurring on City property, establishes an LAPD working group and expands access to resources for impacted families.nd readers a special right of action against censorship - for example, authors whose works have been subjected to censorship can bring action seeking declarative or injunctive relief.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed a directive that orders all city departments to bolster their protocols and training to prepare for federal immigration activity occurring on City property, establishes an LAPD working group and expands access to resources for impacted families.
Trump lost his appeal in of the $5 million verdict in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. He now has 90 days to ask the Supreme Court to hear an appeal; but there is no automatic right of appeal for a civil case such as this.
The administration is moving away from its previously stated position that FEMA should be abolished; officials have said that “no official action is being taken” to dismantle the agency at this time. Only 9% of Americans believe the agency should be dismantled entirely, although there is a clear partisan divide with more Republicans saying it should be either reduced or eliminated.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has introduced a bill to cancel the Medicaid cuts that were included in the budget bill signed by Trump on July 4. (Of course, the budget bill only passed in the Senate by one vote - which means that if he really felt that strongly about it, he could simply have not voted for it two weeks ago. . .)
Last week, the State Department issued layoff notices to over 1,300 employees worldwide. According to a report in the New York Times today, those layoffs included senior analysts for both Ukraine and Russia, which is likely to have a major impact as the administration is trying to negotiate an end to the war between the two.
Finally - and this is a biggie - in a July 8 memo from the acting director of ICE, the administration declared that millions of immigrants are no longer eligible for bond hearings that would allow them to be released while they are waiting to fight deportation hearings in court, and that they must be detained while they are waiting. This has technically been a rule for some time now, but only applied to newly arrived immigrants near the border. As of July 8, however, it is being applied to immigrants nationwide and in some cases to people who have been in the country for decades.
OK, that’s all for tonight, folks! I’ll be back tomorrow -- there’s still a lot to cover. But until then, remember to stay strong, stay loud, and never, ever give up!