I know that this instance is nominally in Finland, but as far as I know this is the most active Ukrainian-news on Lemmy. I’m expecting that a fair number of US Citizens are here.
Now is the time for action
On Friday of this week, Congress will enter recess as currently planned. If Ukrainian aid fails, USA’s aid will not be ready until January at the earliest, and maybe later (February??).
Congress is scheduled in waves of discussion, where Representatives sit in Congress to discuss… as well as fly back home to hold town halls or other such activities. Recess periods are important (its not “just a vactation”, Representatives tend to work hard even during a recess to meet with their constituents), but it does mean that no new funding will be approved during the recess.
Political summary
A bill must pass:
- The House of Representatives (Republicans)
- The Senate (Slim control by the Democrats)
- The President’s signature (Joe Biden, a Democrat)
Before a bill becomes law. We need a new bill that provides new funding for Ukraine, or else we will no longer be legally allowed to give aid to Ukraine. This would be devastating for the Ukrainian cause.
Democrats are unified in their support. Joe Biden is the President and has huge support for Ukraine. The Senate is a 50-50 split, but the Vice President gets the tie-breaker vote.
The issue is the House. Republican Mike Johnson is the Speaker of the House, and Republicans control the House. Mike Johnson has tied Ukrainian aid to Border / Immigration stuff, meaning he will not discuss any Ukrainian-aid bill unless it provides substantial pro-Republican side border/immigration changes.
Find your Representative/Senator and contact them.
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Use these webpages here. Find your Representative, and start emailing them, or maybe contact them through other social media to pressure them into providing Ukrainian support. Tell everyone you know: now is the time. We need to push this through. We cannot afford to have this Ukrainian aid get dropped. Not only this, but Ukrainian aid MUST pass before the recess, otherwise Ukrainian aid shipments will be halted.
Furthermore: they can delay the recess. Give your representatives options. If this can’t be fixed by Thursday, then at least delay the recess, stay in Washington DC until the Ukrainian aid bill is passed.
I’m confident that all of our Representatives care enough to “eventually” support Ukraine. But that’s not good enough. An interruption of aid over the next month would be incredibly harmful to the Ukrainians. We need to immediately call to action everyone politically. Contact your Representatives (and Senator for good measure) TODAY. We absolutely cannot let them go home for recess before Ukrainian aid is authorized.
If you aren’t American, please help by spreading the word. Make sure all Americans you know recognize how important this week is for Ukrainian aid.
EDIT: I think here is a good start. Where else should we send this notice to? I’m not so keen on [email protected] vs [email protected]. I think yall might have a better idea of who our big pro-Ukrainian lemmy-instances / communities are. Please discuss about where else we need to spread the word to.
I’ll write emails right away, but would hand written letters or visits to local offices hold more weight?
Good question. Its not like the Senator/Representative reads all of these. Tomorrow, a bunch of young 20-year-olds will be reading these emails / letters, tallying them up and summarizing them to the politician. The important thing here is mass.
In some respects, spamming would be counter-productive since they might just delete us all or consider us fake. But whatever we can do to demonstrate to the Representative / Senator that we’re a large group who cares about this issue will be beneficial to us.
A hand-written letter would be “harder to fake”, so it might possibly be taken more seriously. Just recognize that these Representatives/Senators are basically seeing us as statistics / summaries from their staff. Write simply, write effectively. Communicate that Ukraine is the #1 issue so that we get filed into the “proUkraine” bucket and increase the odds of being recognized as an important issue.
So yeah, I guess if you’re in a position to deliver a handwritten letter before Thursday, do so.
So #1: Send that letter.
#2: Tell everyone you know to do so as well. The key here is as many real letters as possible.
Their consideration of your correspondence is based on your voter status. If you were registered to vote in the last relevant election (or have registered for an upcoming election, or are newly eligible to start voting depending on your situation) for that representative, regardless of who you voted for, your opinion matters in their eyes.
Yet another reason to vote, whomever it may be for.