Matching Monday #002: SPLC

The last week has given us plenty to fight against.  It\’s also given us plenty of opportunities to complain that other people aren\’t focusing on fighting the right things.  As a wise lady said recently, \”pick your front, and link arms with those fighting on others… there\’s plenty of fascism to go around.\”  So bear in mind that this week, as every week, I\’m not claiming that this is the most important front to be fighting on – just an important one, and one that I choose to focus on at the moment.  With that in mind, let\’s see how we did last week before we move on to this week\’s charity…

Last Week: RAINN

Thanks to donors Tina H., Eric A., and Maria E., we donated a total of $330 to RAINN in Donald Trump\’s honor.  This includes direct reported donations, employer matching donations, and my own matching donation, which we had already maxed out by the end of the first day.  Thank you, everyone!

This Week: SPLC

Over the past week, Trump has announced his intended nominees for several senior-staff and Cabinet-level positions, and so far it\’s a predicable rogue\’s gallery of bigots and misogynists.  We\’ll be discussing several of them in the weeks to come, but let\’s start with Trump\’s chief strategist and campaign CEO, Steve Bannon.  Bannon is an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite; after he took over Breitbart News, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that it had \”undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right\”, using \”racist,\” \”anti-Muslim\” and \”anti-immigrant ideas.\”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been on the front lines of the fight against white supremacy for nearly fifty years.  They keep track of hate groups in the United States, litigate against them on behalf of their victims (including not only African-Americans but also women, immigrants, and the LGBT+ community), and provide resources for teaching tolerance.

Donate to the SPLC here – some other SPLC donors have set up their own matching program as well, so donations go far at the moment! If you want to donate in honor of Steve Bannon, the best mailing address we\’ve found for him is via Breitbart:

Steve Bannon
C/O Breitbart News Network, LLC
149 South Barrington Avenue
Suite 735
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Then forward your email receipt to matching@pyrlogos.com by Friday evening; once again, I\’ll match the first $100 in donations.  If you would prefer I not list your name (as first name plus last initial, as I did above) in next week\’s post, let me know, and please tell me if your employer is matching the donation as well.

Call to Action

Finally, here\’s another thing you can do, whether or not donations are an option.  This Google spreadsheet details various things you can do to pressure your elected officials; it looks like it will be updated weekly with new things we can do.  Their current focus is on pushing the House Oversight Committee to investigate Trump\’s conflicts of interest, and on overwhelming Speaker Ryan\’s phone poll to express support for the Affordable Care Act, but the spreadsheet also provides a call script for continuing to express opposition to Trump\’s selection of Bannon as an advisor.