Grateful to @commondreams.org for running this essay about rejecting the questions of distance & privilege: "How much do I have to circumscribe my role and responsibilities to feel like I am fine with this? How far do I have to walk before I begin to feel that her body doesn’t exist?" #ICE #MSP

This model is simple. It requires us to put our bodies on the line and to ask ourselves what, precisely, are we giving up to alleviate the suffering of others? asks @gabriel-furshong.bsky.social.

"Why is it so difficult to see things plainly? Why do we, individually, and collectively as cultures and societies, repress the horrors we witness?"

We are excited to announce the release of a new and expanded edition of our book on the power of mass mobilization! whirlwinddispatches.substack.com/p/tenth-anni...

I wrote this essay for @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social after visiting the memorial for #ReneeGood in #Minneapolis and rereading "A Hanging", Orwell’s masterwork on the numbing agents of distance and privilege that so often keep us from acting in solidarity with others. TY @joshuafrank.bsky.social

My essay for @earthislandjournal.bsky.social made @longreads.com's Top 5 this week. For this piece, I spent the night at a remote Dark Sky Sanctuary in Southeastern Montana and explored all the things we cannot see—in the outer dark and the darkness within. 🙏 @kristastevens.bsky.social

"[AI] can use recurrent neural networks to create piano music & AI can drive cars, but my eyes tire, my eyes are animal eyes with animal need to gaze out" A #poem by @ka-hays.bsky.social with that astounding power to startle readers into seeing the whole truth anew.

"Perhaps then, when we protect dark skies, we are actually providing a sanctuary for understanding, a place of refuge from artificial illumination where we can learn from the dark." @gabriel-furshong.bsky.social @earthislandjournal.bsky.social www.earthisland.org/journal/inde...

A joy to work with @earthislandjournal.bsky.social's talented editors on this essay about the dark skies that are always with us and yet almost always difficult to see. What happens when we finally see that darkness—not just outside but inside of us, too? 🙏 Maureen, Zoe, & @serenarenner.com!

For the Winter 2026 issue, writer @gabriel-furshong.bsky.social visited a Dark Sky Sanctuary in Montana and lost himself in the endless night sky. “Darkness decentered me. It frightened me,” Furshong writes, but it also delivers us from distraction and provides sanctuary that has no bounds.

Last night, Helena, Montana passed resolution preventing the city from coordinating with #ICE following the murders of #ReneeGood and #AlexPretti.

BELOW THE FOLD: Over 300 people pack the capitol for a #veteran led rally demanding that lawmakers uphold their Oath of Office to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution and condemn the use of lethal force by #ICE. ABOVE THE FOLD: Football.

ICE shooting victim claims he was shot through door after letting cousin inside. "We were successful in helping my cousin get inside. ....I closed the door. And as I was locking it, I heard the shot, and that’s when I realized I had been shot in the leg.’” edition.cnn.com/2026/01/18/u...

Over 300 @indivisible.org supporters packed the #Montana statehouse today to hear 4 military officers accuse our governor and federal delegation of violating their Oath of Office. "Right now, our congressional delegation and governor are all AWOL." - Dennis Taylor, former Capt., USMC, Purple Heart

“The growing divide between the haves and have-nots, between a handful of the extremely wealthy and a growing impoverished population, put the very idea of democracy at risk.” #MLKDay progressive.org/latest/mlk-m...

One of my all-time favorite #poems. A immediate escape from what we think matters into what we know matters.

MLK Day provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the legacy of King himself, but also to hold up other heroes of the civil rights movement. In our latest, Whirlwind analyst Miles Goodrich reflects on two greats: Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer. whirlwinddispatches.substack.com/p/celebratin...

That sure would be nice, but it's not likely anytime soon. #Alaska has a top-4 primary that blunts national dichotomies, localizes politics, and makes space for a wider range of candidates AND issues. Without it, #Murkowski would be long gone and #Peltola wouldn't be a #Senate hopeful. .

When money talks, MOST members of BOTH parties listen. Of course, there remain major differences between Ds and Rs, but the astounding similarities should no longer surprise us.

It's not just Renee Good. 32 people (mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers) died in #ICE custody last year. 4 so far this year: Parady La, Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz, Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, and Geraldo Lunas Campos

And in a separate but certainly related milestone, the number of people murdered in #Sudan now exceeds 150,000.

A timely essay on a timeless question—How can #poetry bear #witness to the suffering of others?—by former poet laureate Melissa Kwasny for the Montana Arts Council, including a couple excerpts from my chapbook, forthcoming from @hvwriterscenter.bsky.social. bit.ly/4588pJ9

15% of private land in Montana is now owned by just 13 people.

A scene of sudden solemnity in #Minneapolis last night where #ICE murdered Renne Good. Blocks of Portland St. cordoned off by those who grieve, so we walked among strangers who offered hot food and tea, before reaching a great assembly of flowers and joining a broken circle of those holding vigil.

Another US citizen is dead - on top of 10s of people detained by ICE - as part of DJT's political theater of cruelty & endless lies. This will only end when those guilty of such violence are held accountable & justice is served. Another day, another tragedy. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Great example of how our delegation works at the present time: Answering to Trump and otherwise failing to answer any other question, no matter how essential.

But you don't have to make predictions to make $ on murder. Here are a just a two @cnbc.com headlines I wrote down yesterday: "Investment Opportunities in Venezuela", "Dow Hits All-Time High". The journalistic equivalent of walking over dead bodies while staring at your smartphone.

The New York Times has just confirmed that 40 civilians died in President Trump's invasion. This is the aftermath in one area

@vietthanhnguyen.bsky.social's focus here is critical: This isn't a Trump problem, a GOP problem, or a new problem. It's a USA problem. 250 yrs of war incl. Bush-Clinton-Bush mass murder in Iraq & Biden-Trump mass murder in Palestine. Millions murdered & every person a human, a loved one like us.

"What we are seeing now from the Trump administration is a US empire increasingly willing to dispense with even the perfunctory legal legitimation that past presidents leaned on." www.thenation.com/article/worl...

An incomplete list that has led to incomprehensible human suffering: Guatemala 1954 Brazil 1964 Chile 1973 Dominican Republic 1965 Grenada 1983 Panama 1989 Venezuela 2026

A useful overview of the ways DJT and his goon squad are enriching themselves through corruption. It's hardly a surprise that crypto-currency & petrodollars from the Middle East have allowed the Trumps, Witkoffs and Lutnicks to pocket billions in less than a year. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

From @medicalaidpal.bsky.social yesterday, more evidence of the ongoing Israel effort to make Gaza a permanent and impenetrable ghetto. A reminder to not forget about what's happening in Palestine during this New Year.

What will we lose? Also appropriate to ask what we gain. That is, when western storytelling finally swims away from the clutches of people obsessed with endlessly catching and releasing beautiful fish for fun and then writing about it as if it were some kind of higher calling.

To enable genocide, politicians must constantly reward those responsible for murder and torture.

Montana is removing its numerical water quality standards for nutrients and shifting back to narrative standards, a move that environmental groups say will allow polluters to sully lakes and rivers throughout the state.

Why is it that so many American politicians—and the writers and editors who tenderly profile them—explicitly categorize small, individual acts of political violence as "irrational" while implicitly categorizing massive, state-sponsored violence as rational?

"We Make the Road by Walking" has a hallowed place on my shelf and remains today, more than ever, a reminder that good organizing will always happen eyeball to eyeball, person by person. Digital modes of communication simply cannot cannot conjure the same magic.

Poetry: Digging Season by Gabriel Furshong The generals observed a march of seasons year after year

"In a corner conference room, it was time to party. They traded congratulatory speeches and cut into a sheet cake."

@jmwwjournal.bsky.social just published "Digging Season" a poem from my chapbook "Surrounding the Country a Chasm" which will be published next month by Slapering Hol Press @hvwriterscenter.bsky.social—a poem from #Guatemala about the contested process of exhumation in the wake of #genocide.

BREAKING: Bipartisan effort defeats Trump's push for mid-cycle gerrymander in Indiana. Key word here: bipartisan.

The company’s new Instagram School Partnership Program seems designed to make money. It’s not clear that it benefits schools. #schools #bigtech #education #AI progressive.org/public-schoo...

It was Jesus (Luke 19:40) who said if these keep silent, then the very stones will cry out. - From "A Loud Death" by Richard Jackson #poetry #gaza

A mind boggling 7 gigawatt data center (enough to power 5.3 million homes) proposed for what purpose, exactly? For ceding the joy of cognition—the exhilaration of problem solving and discovery— to LLMs. And for, eventually, monetizing that daily surrender.

Even the most essential assistance to neighbors, in times of great need: a chance to divvy up profits and punishments.

A gorgeous ode to awkwardness by Jed Myers for Bracken:

If I weren't so frightened, then I would simply bask in the humanity of Witt's extraordinary reporting: the overrun farmer, the bewildered customer, the astonished plant manager. But this is a story about "hyper-scale capitalism", which is to say, a story about the push for human obsolescence.

Every generation of New York politics has had its immigrant realignment. The Irish built Tammany, Jewish socialists built labor, Italians powered La Guardia--and now Mamdani is building something new out of bodegas, cabstands, and delivery apps. www.waleed-shahid.com/p/the-long-a...

“This is about as bad as it [gets] outside the Second World War."