HOSTS

PETER SHAMSHIRI

MICHAEL LIROFF

RHIANNON HAMAM

Leon Neyfakh: Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this episode of 5-4, Peter, Rhiannon and Michael are back with their annual tradition: the 5-4 giving guide. If you're feeling hopeless or nervous about what's to come in the year ahead, this episode is a reminder that there are things you can do and organizations you can support that will directly help some of the communities that will likely be under attack. You can send money or volunteer your time. And if you can't do those two, at the very least keep listening to 5-4 and telling your friends about it. Every little bit helps. This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. And this week only, what you can do to make it suck a little less.

Peter Shamshiri: Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have been stalking our civil rights like drones stalking New Jersey. I'm Peter. I'm here with Rhiannon.

Rhiannon Hamam: Hello!

Peter: And Michael.

Michael Liroff: Peter, have you been shining little laser lights at the drones now that you live in New Jersey?

Peter: I'm, as always, ready to die.

Rhiannon: Finally, somebody's monitoring Peter.

Peter: Yeah. Every day I go out and wait, just wait for one of the drones to strike me down.

Michael: Not yet though, huh?

Peter: No. It's very funny how freaked out people are. Like, my wife is in the local Facebook groups and she will just sort of report to me on whatever the most insane thing from that day is. And there are people being like, "Does anyone know what's going on with the drones?" And then someone will be like, "Don't worry about it. Like, it's no big deal." And they're like, "Easy for you to say. I have children."

Michael: [laughs] I think my favorite so far has to be the Governor of Maryland, the Republican Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, posting like a minute-long video of what he believed were drones hovering in a line, and it was just the constellation Orion.

Rhiannon: Yeah, Orion's belt.

Michael: Orion's belt.

Rhiannon: Yeah.

Peter: There are also politicians who have been tricked by a digitally-altered video showing a tie fighter flying across the sky.

Michael: Yes.

Peter: The average person is so fucking stupid that ...

Rhiannon: Men in Black-ass storyline.

Peter: It's really hard to, like, talk to anyone about this stuff. Because, like, I was at a party over the weekend, and people were like, "What are you guys making of the drones? And I was like, "What do you want from me here?"

Michael: [laughs] Right.

Peter: Even if it was the government of Iran attacking us, what do you think my role in this is? Like, "Yeah, I'm on it. Don't worry." What are you talking about?

Rhiannon: Yeah, there's, like, flooding the lines of like, city hall in your suburb and demanding that, like, some clerk do something. Yeah.

Peter: Also, like, I promise you, this is NASA doing an experiment so boring that halfway through the explanation, you'd never want to think about drones again. Like, that's what's happening. That and people looking at airplanes and being like [gasps].

Michael: Yeah.

Peter: So happy holidays.

Michael: Happy holidays. I'm wearing a Christmas sweater. It says "Naughty. Nice." And then the last box that's checked says "On a government watch list." A friend sent it to me.

Rhiannon: Perfect!

Peter: Nice. Nice. That's a good one. Another magical holiday season is upon us, and we thought we would do our annual giving episode, perhaps more crucial than ever. And also I feel like this sort of like, mutual aid and community is where we're all gonna be looking in the next few years for, like, sources of energy and affirmation. So what better time? And I think I can get the ball rolling. We are only $25 short. Kamala 2024. Go to ActBlue.org.

Michael: Help her retire her campaign debt.

Rhiannon: [laughs]

Peter: "We are $300 million in debt. Please help."

Rhiannon: God, how embarrassing. Yeah. No, I'm glad we're doing this. This is what, the fourth time we are doing this annual giving episode? I think it's a really good opportunity for us to talk about, you know, not just like issues and organizations and places that are near and dear to us personally, but also it's a really good way, I think, to talk about how our listeners can have really important impact in a way that's not sort of like just Supreme Court focused. It's not just like, you know, looking for community for, like, energy and affirmation. But, you know, this is material impact as well for lots of places and lots of issues that really need this kind of support.

Michael: Yeah.

Peter: Yeah. Although if you do want to put your money towards Supreme Court-related efforts, get a handful of change and whip it at Dick Durbin's car.

Michael: There you go.

Peter: All right, who wants to start?

Rhiannon: I can start. Okay, just to jump in with the first place that I am asking people to consider donating to. Listeners, if you've been listening, then you've heard me talk about this exact organization before: the Middle East Children's Alliance. That's MECA. M-E-C-A. They are a nonprofit that has existed for decades, working all over Palestine and also in Lebanon on emergency services, life-sustaining services, but also before this war, working on psychological aid, children's programming, education for kids and families, again all over Palestine.

Rhiannon: What I think is really unique about the work that Middle East Children's Alliance is doing right now in Gaza for instance, is that they are on the ground. And employees of MECA are actually Palestinians in Gaza who have had jobs with this organization since before the war, though it's not about, like, kind of, like, international humanitarian aid where foreign aid workers come into Gaza. And in fact, many of those organizations have pulled out of Gaza because it has been deemed too dangerous. So MECA is doing really, really, really critical work delivering clean water, food, shelter and also medical aid and life-sustaining services to people in Gaza right now. There was an international fundraiser with a goal of raising $1 million. That goal has been reached. There's a new goal, it's $2 million. So you can head to ShutItDown4Palestine.org/fundraiser. And that four is the number 4. ShutItDown—the number 4—Palestine.org/fundraiser.

Peter: I know we got some rich listeners. Get in there and drop that mill. Go the whole way.

Rhiannon: Seriously get us—if a 5-4 listener just gets us to $2 million, I can't—can't say what. Can't say on the podcast. [laughs]

Peter: I was about to say damn, "What is Rhia about to offer?"

Rhiannon: I'll kiss them right on the lips, baby. [laughs]

Peter: In that vein, one of mine, Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, PCRF.net They provide humanitarian aid in Palestine with an emphasis on medical care. Should go without saying how important that is now. I don't want to belabor it too much. I think the sort of necessity of this type of work at this point is obvious. Also, they are not a religious organization, meaning you won't get put on a terrorist watch list. Let's put it this way, it's worse that you're listening to this.

Rhiannon: [laughs] Your patreon subscription to 5-4.

Peter: Much more dangerous.

Rhiannon: Yeah.

Peter: Yeah. That's PCRF.net.

Michael: Switching gears a little bit to the domestic sphere. The first organization I want to highlight is The Debt Collective. It's a debtor's union, which means if you have student loan debt, you can join, you can become part of the debtor's union. But they also would love your time or money. They use the money for a variety of things, but a big one is for debt jubilees. They buy and forgive student debt. They buy and forgive medical debt. And a new program that they just announced is specifically abortion-related debt, which is going to be a big thing in this country going forward. Really recommend the organization. I know some people who work with it. They're all great. They do good advocacy towards getting legislators to want to cancel debt in addition to just the buying and canceling of debt themselves. So check them out. It's DebtCollective.org.

Rhiannon: Debt Collective rocks. They also were a collective. They published this book, Can't Pay, Won't Pay. And the subtitle is something like, you know, The Case for Debt Abolition and Debt Disobedience, or something like that. It's really good. I learned a lot from it. Debt Collective is great.

Michael: Yeah.

Rhiannon: For the next organization that I want to talk about, Vocal-TX. Vocal Texas is really a community-building, community-organizing organization. They are building a movement of low-income people who are dedicated to economic and health justice in a lot of different ways, dedicated to ending the AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, ending mass incarceration and ending homelessness. And the really important thing I think to highlight is, just to repeat again, they're building a movement of low-income folks. These are people who have or currently experience homelessness, have or currently experience, you know, sort of routine or multiple bouts of incarceration, have experienced addiction and criminalization for addiction.

Rhiannon: And what Vocal-TX does is build those folks up, helps them gain skills in public speaking, in advocacy, in drafting letters and drafting policy, in making their voice heard and building power locally to affect that kind of change from wherever they are. This is a really, really impactful organization here in Austin. They have had real impact on wins around better housing policy in Austin. And some of their guiding values really come from the understanding that the issues that impact our communities are really driven by institutional oppression, by classism, not personal failings. So if you want to check out Vocal Texas, you can go to Vocal-TX.org, click on donate. Again, Vocal-TX.org.

Peter: All right. Next from me, Tahirih Justice Center. This is an organization that our buddy Hasan turned me onto. They do legal and social services for immigrants who are the victims of gender-based violence. So, you know, at a time where there will be increasingly large numbers of people trying to immigrate into America, fleeing gender-based violence and being turned away, I think this sort of work is critical. They provide direct services, they do advocacy, they do training. The website is Tahirih.org. That is T-A-H-I-R-I-H.org. T-A-H-I-R-I-H.org.

Michael: Now I don't know about you guys, but there have been some events in the last few months that have had me souring on human beings, so I'm gonna start talking about some animals now. Let's go to ...

Peter: Classic Michael move.

Michael: Forget about humans. So an organization I want to highlight is the Marine Mammal Center.

Rhiannon: Hell, yeah!

Michael: They do work in California and Hawaii.

Peter: We will also do unspeakable things if you donate a million dollars to the Marine Mammal Center.

Michael: Absolutely.

Peter: Fund the saving of some orcas.

Rhiannon: Y'all know how I feel about marine mammals.

Michael: Yes, that's right. This is a very cool org. They do conservation stuff, but they also do animal rescue, animal rehabilitation. They have, you know, seals and stuff, like, in their veterinarian facilities right now that they're nursing back to health to release back into the wild. They field something like 10,000 calls a year about animals in distress, marine mammals in distress, and do I think something close to 2,000 actual rescues a year. So very cool stuff. If you live in California or Hawaii, very cool volunteer opportunity, because you can work with seals and dolphins and shit, and help nurse them back to health after just going to a training.

Rhiannon: The dream.

Michael: I would be extremely jealous of you if you did that. But they could also use your money, obviously. It's their 50th anniversary, so I think they have a big donation drive right now where there's big wealthy benefactors giving matching funds and stuff, so it's a great time to donate. That's the MarineMammalCenter.org check it out.

Rhiannon: That sounds amazing. My last organization is Detention Watch Network. Detention Watch Network is an organization that is focused on abolishing immigration incarceration in the United States. Immigration incarceration meaning immigrants who are detained at immigration detention facilities because of the criminalization of immigration in the US. Obviously, with mass deportations being a sort of main pillar of the Trump 2.0 platform, Detention Watch Network has an even more important role here in the next few years. They really come at the problem of immigration incarceration by sort of recognizing that, you know, immigration detention is a key component of how the US immigration enforcement apparatus works. That, like, one of the ways that mass deportations can be facilitated, the kind of mechanics of mass deportation is that in the US, there is a mass immigration incarceration infrastructure.

Rhiannon: So what DWN does is bring together a bunch of different strategies. It's a multi-pronged approach to ending that detention. There's organizing, there's advocacy, there's litigation, direct services, research, and also trainings and communication and building up peer networks across the country of people who have experience confronting and working to shut down immigration detention facilities with historic wins that this organization has collected. So DWN was just putting on a series of a couple of seminars for folks to join to train up on deportation defense. You know, lawyer or not, you can sign up for these trainings and start to learn about what you can do to prepare for the mass deportations that we're being promised are coming. DWN is really, really putting in incredibly important work. So check out Detention Watch Network at DetentionWatchNetwork.org, and you can hit donate now. Read all about their work. DetentionWatchNetwork.org.

Peter: All right, my last one. I admit I sort of cheated and I'm repeating one from last year, but I couldn't find an organization that I thought ...

Rhiannon: Was better?

Peter: No. Yeah, it was better. This is the best organization on Earth.

Rhiannon: [laughs] In the Organization Olympics, this one wins gold.

Peter: This is Assigned Media, AssignedMedia.org, a news outlet that covers trans rights issues. And it is run by trans people. And I think this is just incredibly vital at a time of gross media failure on this subject, and capitulation from people in both politics and media on this subject. And what I like about this one is even if you can't donate, even if you listen to this episode all the way through and you're like, "But I have no money," you can just use them as a news source.

Rhiannon: Right. Yeah. Go to that website.

Peter: You know, you are getting news coverage on an issue that basically is not being covered well anywhere by any mainstream source. And this is being done by, you know, genuinely qualified journalists who are good at this, and give a perspective that is being boxed out of mainstream discussions. That is AssignedMedia.org. Go there and also bookmark it. Or whatever people do now. Do people bookmark things?

Rhiannon: [laughs]

Peter: I said that, and I was like, I haven't done that in a decade. I don't know why I said that.

Michael: I still use bookmarks, so yeah. All right, so for my final one, before I start talking about organizations, I want to talk about my Tío Kent, my uncle by marriage. Not my biological uncle, but he always treated me warmly, like I was family by blood. He was very kind and loving. And he passed away this September after battling cancer for a very long time. And I find him very inspiring. He came from a very poor background. He always had modest means, but he cared about the land, he cared about the environment, and he dedicated his life to it. 20-year career as the head of the Albuquerque Environmental Health Department, and then in retirement, president of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, board member for the Conservation Voters of New Mexico. Barack Obama appointed him to chair the Valles Caldera Trust. He was elected unanimously as board for the National Wildlife Federation.

Rhiannon: Hell, yeah.

Michael: He's a guy who just—all he wanted to do was conserve as much land and save it for future generations and protect it as possible. And he spent his life doing it, and I think it's nice to be reminded that, you know, you can just—you can care about something and you can just do it, you know?

Rhiannon: Yeah.

Michael: You can just do it. So in that light, I want to honor him by recommending two different things. If you want to give money, I want you to give money to an organization he founded called HECHO, which is Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting in the Outdoors, which is a very targeted organization around organizing political power for conservation among Hispanic populations. It's a cool group, it does good work, and it's a worthwhile endeavor. If you don't want to give money and you want to do something this year, instead of giving you an organization where you can volunteer, I want to encourage you to go to run for something and run for some local office.

Rhiannon: Yeah. And that's a website. RunForSomething.net.

Michael: Yeah. If you are Gen Z or Millennial, they will help you run for local office. If you're listening to this, you almost certainly have better values than whoever will be your opponent in any election at any level in this country, anywhere.

Peter: And if you only have a couple hours, go get in a fist fight at your local PTA.

Rhiannon: [laughs]

Michael: There you go. So those two organizations, HECHOonline.org, that's H-E-C-H-O online.org. Or if you're gonna go run for something, that is RunForSomething.net.

Rhiannon: Yeah. I think, like, the really beautiful thing about—we didn't share our lists with one another before this, but a really beautiful thing of everything that we've just run down is like, yeah, these are issue areas and yeah, you can give to charity or just donate your money. And yes, that makes real material impact, but also these are areas that are worthy—and we know obviously our listeners agree with us—worthy of time and, like, really, actually earnestly engaging with. There are local organizations wherever you are that are trying to build up power for people who don't have money, people who are just getting out of prison, for trans folks who are seeking healthcare, for immigrants who just got here. And, you know, the list goes on and on and on. Or building power to even confront American imperialism. And hopefully all of these places that we've talked about are just a starting place for people. Go to a website, look at what an organization is up to, learn about things that you can support and you can get involved in. And it's not only going to make the next four years more bearable for all of us, it actually will be the thing that makes the next four years survivable for more of us.

Michael: That's right. Oh, and by the way, if you are not Gen Z or a Millennial, but still want to run for something and you can't get help for RunForSomething, just shoot us an email. I'll help you.

Rhiannon: I was just about to say, "Talk to Michael first." Michael will vet you, will vet your politics. [laughs] And then we'll give you the green light or the red light.

Peter: Michael will make sure you're centrist enough.

Rhiannon: [laughs] Gen Xer. Ah, you're not gonna make it with that radical shit, bro.

Peter: I was gonna say that if you're not Gen Z or a millennial, then our data pretty clearly shows that you do not exist. You're not listening to this podcast.

Rhiannon: Right? Right.

Michael: No, that's not true. That's not true. We got some older listeners.

Peter: All right, and if you have any money left after all that, you can subscribe to our Patreon. Patreon.com/FiveFourPod. We will continue in the new year to bring you coverage of the Supreme Court. And frankly, I think—I think we can say it—better than anyone else is doing it. Much better. Actually, not close. It's crazy.

Rhiannon: Yeah.

Peter: Happy holidays to everyone. I hope you get some time with friends or family, or just some time to relax. And we will see you in the new year.

Rhiannon: Yeah, we're taking a few weeks off. We should be back mid January-ish. So happy holidays, everybody. We are so grateful for all of you. We're gonna keep crushing it. Listeners are gonna keep crushing it. See you on the flip side.

Michael: We love you. Bye bye.

Peter: 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh and Andrew Parsons provide editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at CHIPS.NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. If you're not a Patreon member, you're not hearing every episode. To get exclusive Patreon-only episodes, discounts on merch, access to our Slack community and more, join at Patreon.com/FiveFourPod.