The Heat's Still On: August 2019

Hello Teen Resisters! It's been a while, huh? This serves as our official August list before we resume our regular biweekly schedule for the year. We have an exciting year ahead, full of election news and lots of wonderful work. But before we jump into that... we hope everyone has had a great summer amid this hectic news cycle. We're sending lots of good vibes for the new school year!
So let's get you briefed on some of this news.

What Went Down:

Fires in the Amazon: 
The Amazon Rainforest is on fire. The months of July and August mark the dry season in the Amazon and the 2019 dry season has been the driest since 2013, with an 83% increase since 2018 according to INPE, Brazil’s space research center. The agency has detected a record number of fires so far this year (almost 75,000), due in part to the extremity of this dry season. Reuters reports that the fires have been contributing to growing concern about the Brazilian President, ultraconservative Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental policy. Bolsonaro took office in January with the promise of developing Brazil for mining and farming, which requires the burning of forest land to clear it. Cnet reports that President Bolsonaro believes these fires were started by non-governmental organizations in response to reductions in their funding; others believe Bolsonaro gave the orders to start the fires. The Atlantic confirms that they were definitely human-induced and could not have been purely natural. Brazilian warplanes have begun dumping water over the forest in attempts to control the fires. 
This tragedy was receiving minimal media attention until there was a public outcry on social media. #ActForTheAmazon was trending on Twitter, with information (and misinformation) spreading around many platforms. 
The Amazon Rainforest has often been referred to as the Earth's Lungs because of the high amounts of oxygen it releases. Beyond that, it contains some of the world's most diverse ecosystems and is home to a variety of indigenous peoples whose lives are threatened by the fires.
Here's a great article explaining the links between Bolsonaro's government and the fires.
What You Can Do:

• Donate! Here are some organizations who are doing super important work to protect the Amazon along with some information from their respective websites:
  • Protect an Acre: “Protect An Acre (PAA) grants support grassroots leadership and local organizations in forest regions to protect threatened forest lands and to protect the human rights of communities that have co-existed with and depended on these regions for generations.”
  • The World Wide Fund for Nature: “With the money raised, our Amazon teams along with local organisations will carry out urgent work on the ground including: Supporting key local and indigenous communities’ needs for medical support, fire fighter training and security; Working with local governments where possible on procedures for fighting fires and deforestation; Campaigning for stronger action from the government.”
  • Amazon Conservation Association: “Protecting the Amazon means safeguarding millions of species of animals, plants, and insects who call it home. It means allowing indigenous communities and locals whose livelihoods depend on the forest to thrive. It means stabilizing our planet's climate and protecting 20% of the oxygen production of our world. It means a lot.”
• Reduce your intake: beef production and paper production are both linked to deforestation. By reducing the amount of beef you eat and paper you use (and by encouraging those around you to do the same), you can contribute to ending deforestation.
• Use Ecosia.org: It’s a search engine which plants a tree for every 45 searches you place through their engine!
• Sign this petition started by Greenpeace telling President Bolsonaro and his government to protect the Amazon.
• Continue to fight against fascism and climate change in big ways through governmental change. Head to our Index by Issue page to look at more of our coverage on Bolsanaro and climate change.
• Listen to the indigenous Amazonian activists who are speaking out about the fires-- they are the people whose lives are most affected by this destruction and also the people who know best how to take care of the rainforest.

Indigenous activists protest President Jair Bolsonaro amidst the Amazon fires

Trump's Trade War with China: ​As the 45th Group of Seven (G7) Summit is taking place right now, economic pressure is increasing for President Trump. The reason for this? While he’s boasted about America’s economic boost during his presidency, economists all around the world are disagreeing. Instead, some economists are even predicting an economic recession heading its way to us in 2020. The root cause of this is Trump’s ongoing trade war with China. G7 leaders are especially concerned about this because, despite considerable warnings, Trump is still continuing the trade war headstrong, with China retaliating with equal force. 
In fact, this past Friday, Beijing announced that they are going to impose new tariffs on $75 billion worth on American goods. Trump responded, saying he plans to raise tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods from 25 to 30% as well as a tariff raise of 10 to 15% on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods. Another tariff on automobiles is simultaneously being set to start this year on December 15th, which will be 25%. In short, trade is becoming too tense for comfort. 
The greater problem is that this tensity has tangible impacts on our economy. The more tariffs grow, the more investors lose faith in the economy. What’s frightening is that this has been a precedent for every recession in the past 50 years. The significance of the US-China trade relationship isn’t anything to be taken lightly, either. In 2018, $700 billion worth of goods were traded between the two, not to mention that America is currently China’s largest foreign creditor. This massive relationship shows its importance both quickly and vastly. Just with last week’s raised tariffs on China’s side, the Dow Industrial Average has shown to plunge 2.4% so far. With the way things are looking, it’s unfortunate to say that it’s safe to assume we can be expecting more of these economic plunges in the near future.
What You Can Do:

1. With the 2020 presidential elections just around the corner, you can most definitely help the situation by looking into the candidates running against Trump and see what their ideas are to improve the economy. Follow along with our upcoming 2020 campaigning resources.
2. Talk to the adults around you. Not only can you learn more about the US-China trade war with discussions, you can also help to let them know what President Trump is actually doing, despite his campaign approach of boasting about the economy booming. Whether it’s your parents or even new voters that are upperclassmen, you can notify them that when they vote, they should keep in mind what each candidate is willing to do about the trade war and the economy in general.
3. Scott Kennedy, director of the project on Chinese business and political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies champions that one of the largest problems about the trade war is that Democrats and Republicans are disagreeing and not seeing the devastating effects and potential impacts. The best we can do is to talk about this on social media, political clubs, etc. to help get everyone educated on this!
4. Leave a note on the White House Comment Line telling Trump that this trade war needs to end. 
   Number: 202-456-1111
   Head to our Basics page for script help.
   

Planned Parenthood's Withdrawal from Title X: 
On August 19th, 2019, Planned Parenthood was forced to withdraw from the Title X program due to Trump and Pence’s restrictive rules regarding abortion stances for the organization. This rule prohibits Title X recipients from providing or referring patients for abortion except in the instances of rape, incest, or medical emergency. The new regulation is also a severe shift from the previous 2000 Title X Rule, where Title X providers were allowed to refer abortion centers to people who asked for them. Due to the violent clash with this new rule and Planned Parenthood’s ethics and ideologies, an attorney for Planned Parenthood thus made the statement that Planned Parenthood clinics “now have no option but to withdraw from the Title X program.” (Want to understand the history of Planned Parenthood and reproductive justice? Check out our Repro Rights, Comprehensively feature.) Less than a week later, the effects of this decision were imminently seen. In Cleveland, OH, a Planned Parenthood mobile clinic had to reduce its staff to part-time employees and now, may possibly shut down. In Minneapolis, MN, clients accustomed to free checkups are now being billed $200 per visit. Planned Parenthood has served members of the low-income community for decades and helps 1.6 million Title X participants receive affordable health care - cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and treatment, abortion, and more; thus this rule placed by Trump’s administration is detrimental.  

What You Can Do:

• Text PROTECT X to 22422 to find out how to take action at your location. 
• Sign the growing Bans Off My Body petition here: https://www.istandwithpp.org/bans-off-my-body

• Donate to Planned Parenthood here.
• Use this helpful Planned Parenthood calling kit to call your Senators about the Title X situation. This page offers a script, number, and info.

August Shootings: In a span of fewer than 24 hours on August 3rd and 4th, two mass shootings—the first in El Paso, Texas and the second in Dayton, Ohio—left a combined total of more than 30 individuals dead and more than 50 wounded. The El Paso shooter, now in custody, killed 22 people in a Walmart near the Cielo Visto Mall. The massacre has since been characterized as a hate crime: directly before the shooting, the shooter posted a political document to the online message board 8chan detailing his hatred of Latinx immigrants and so-called “race-mixing,” in addition to other white supremacist messages. As figures such as Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker have pointed out, some of the language of the manifesto—warnings of a “Hispanic invasion” and against Democratic “open borders”—is directly reflective of Trump’s tirelessly racist rhetoric. The Dayton shooter killed 9 before being shot fatally by police. 
This horrific pair of events followed another 2 shootings on August 2nd in Maryland and Virginia, claiming a total of 5 lives, and the Dayton shooting marked 251 mass shootings in 216 days. Amnesty International recently joined a growing list of countries in issuing warnings for travel to the U.S. because of an increased risk of gun violence. The facts and figures and stories are endless, and we are devastated to have to address these massacres because they were senseless and preventable. We send all of our love and strength to those impacted by the shootings most harshly—the families and communities of victims—and we pledge to stand with them in every way we can. 

What You Can Do:

• Call/email the Walmart CEO, Doug McMillom, urging him to alter the way that Walmart sells firearms—either by banning the sale of them completely or by working with retailers and leveraging ultimatums to force them to make weapons safer. (Read more about it here.)
  • [email protected], 479-273-4000
• Research gun control initiatives in your state governments—especially if you live in a state with a Democratically-controlled legislature, where gun control bills have a greater likelihood of being passed—and call your representatives to demand that they become their first priority.
• Check out our Index by Issues Gun Violence section.
• Make connections between Trump’s/other politicians’ racist rhetoric and the prevalence of hate crimes, and then continue to call them out—through social media, letters to the editor of a newspaper, etc.—in every way you can​

The nine victims of the shooting in Dayton, OH

18 of the 22 people murdered in El Paso.

Hong Kong Protests: Hong Kong Update
The current protest movement in Hong Kong has been happening for months, since a proposed bill in the Hong Kong legislature that would have allowed it to extradite criminals to mainland China. Hongkongers opposed to the bill argued that it would China too much power, including the power to arrest and detain Hongkongese critics of the Chinese government. Though this is not the first Hong Kong protest movement (protests have occurred periodically since the region became semi-autonomous, but still technically Chinese, in 1997), it may be critical in determining Hong Kong’s and China’s future. 
Facing overwhelming opposition, the legislature agreed to suspend the bill, but many protesters wanted the bill gone completely. Anti-government and anti-establishment sentiments have grown dramatically: a recent survey of a thousand Hongkongese protesters found that 80% of them supported radical and/or violent action against the government if it continued to not comply with their demands. 
While many demonstrations remain peaceful, violence has become increasingly frequent. The Hong Kong police, who have been criticized internationally for their usage of excessive force, have fired tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets and “warning shots” at protesters, and have even disguised themselves as protesters in order to make arrests. There have also been reports of police arresting children, as many of the leaders of Hong Kong’s new movement are young people. Public outrage at police action has inspired yet more protests, and there is little sign of them ending soon. 

What You Can Do:

• Stay informed on the situation in Hong Kong. 
• If you live in Hong Kong and support the protests, you have a right under the Constitution to peaceably assemble. Use that right, and be mindful of your safety.
• Support the Hong Kong Free Press, which has been documenting the protests and abuses of power by police.

We know that's a lot of news to digest. Have a great last couple days of summer and an amazing start to school!

Puppy Video!