Download .pdf leaflet (Bay Area, California)
Download .pdf leaflet (Baltimore, Maryland)
Download .pdf leaflet (The Triangle, North Carolina)
What We’re Thankful For…
At this Thanksgiving time in 2025, in a world filled with attacks on 99 percent of us, it’s easy to overlook the many good things that we actually do have to be thankful for. We can’t possibly list them all, but here are a few examples of how people are organizing themselves collectively to try to make their parts of the world at least a little bit better. For these things, we’re very thankful.
We’re thankful for the millions who have marched in the U.S. in recent protests against Trump’s authoritarian right wing and their attacks on our lives. We’re thankful for the thousands who have organized in their local communities to defend those neighbors targeted by the government’s ICE raids. We’re thankful for the Starbucks workers throughout the U.S. who have begun an open-ended strike against Starbucks to fight their unfair labor practices. We’re thankful for the indigenous peoples who protested the destruction of the Amazon and their lack of representation at the recent COP30 climate conference in Brazil. We’re thankful for the healthcare workers who stand up against public austerity and private profiteers to fight for themselves and their patients in Oakland, Baltimore, and elsewhere around the country. We’re thankful for the activists who risked their lives to carry out two separate flotillas to help the Gazan people. We’re thankful for the millions of youth and others who refuse to let their ruling classes and political elites keep ripping them off, and who hit the streets in protest in Nepal and Madagascar, bringing down those governments. We’re thankful for the millions of working people in France who struggled this fall against the social war their government is carrying out against them to benefit the French ruling class. And we’re thankful for the thousands of dockworkers and millions of workers and others in Italy who are so outraged by the genocide in Gaza that they participated in the “Let’s Block Everything” movement with general strikes and many smaller protests throughout Italy.
We could add more. But this brief list alone should give us hope. Even as bad news continues, there are millions who refuse to accept the unacceptable. At this Thanksgiving time 2025, we give thanks for all those who choose to organize and fight back. Thanks to you, we have real cause to have hope for a better future.
The Triangle, North Carolina: Operation Charlotte’s Web – The Community Fights Back!
Beginning on November 1, a surge of Border Patrol agents flooded North Carolina in so-called Operation Charlotte’s Web, beginning with terrorizing communities throughout the Charlotte region. They then moved to the Triangle region, including Raleigh, Durham and Cary. So far, 370 people have been reported arrested.
But many communities have mobilized into action to fight. Within less than 24 hours, thousands of people began to fight back. People have flooded the streets for mass demonstrations. Some formed safety patrol teams to be on the lookout for immigration raids. High school and college students walked out of classes. While the fight is far from over, workers and young people across the state have shown that it is possible to stand up to the attacks on our communities!
Bay Area, California: Blackstone Has Its Eye on SF
On November 14th, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie gave a speech at a tourism conference celebrating “San Francisco’s rise.” He cited a LinkedIn video posted by Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, the U.S.’s largest corporate landlord. In the video, Gray jogs down Fisherman’s Warf, telling the camera how much Lurie has improved San Francisco’s quality of life by supporting businesses and an “AI revolution.” Gray ends by saying “very simply, buy some real estate here.”
To Lurie, success means his billionaire buddies seeing San Francisco as a good investment opportunity. But SF residents are already struggling to survive in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The last thing we need is huge real estate firms like Blackstone buying in and further hiking up rent!
Newark, New Jersey: Another ICE Raid in Newark
On November 19, forty masked agents descended on the Ocean Seafood Depot in the Ironbound area of Newark. They blocked off a street and two agents wore military helmets, one with a long rifle, the other with a so-called less-than-lethal weapon. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said 13 people were arrested but gave no further details. This wholesale market was also raided in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency.
These arrests do not make anyone safer. Those who were arrested were likely workers who pack and ship icy cold seafood all day. These raids are attacks on workers, pure and simple. They are meant to divide us, and to intimidate those who might resist. We can’t let them succeed. An injury to one is an injury to all!
Baltimore, Maryland: When We Stand Together, We Can Protect Each Other
Recently, Baltimore County Public Library (BCPL) abruptly fired 14 librarians, having them pack up their personal items and escorting them out within an hour. The process was surely frightening, enraging, and humiliating.
The library and county government offices were immediately flooded with emails, texts, and phone calls from the librarians’ coworkers and the public. In response, the workers were rehired, the head of the library’s human resources department resigned, and the county held an emergency public meeting, where many demanded the termination of the library’s CEO. Public library workers in at least five Maryland counties and Baltimore City have formed unions in the last few years, including at BCPL, and many traveled from other counties to voice their support for their fellow workers at the meeting.
The reinstatement of the librarians shows that when working people and our communities organize and fight back together, we can protect each other.
