Knowledge Is Power

Monthly dispatch

Community

Fighting authoritarianism with knowledge and resources

Issue 01 · June 2026 · PODS monthly dispatch

Welcome to the Knowledge is Power newsletter!

Our community is living through a moment where the scaffolding that once upheld decency, order, and democracy is being dismantled. The rise of bigotry-infused authoritarianism is fueled by ignorance. Ignorance of the humanity, and goodness of people who don’t look, love, worship, or speak like you, and ignorance of the reality that fascism has gripped this country. We have created this monthly newsletter to confront that ignorance head-on.

In our community, unconstitutional paramilitaries have abducted our neighbors, including US citizens and legal residents without due process and cause, inflicting generational trauma. Fascist regimes rely on people becoming numb, complacent, or defeated. A powerful tool we have to resist the seductive apathy that tyranny requires is clear, accessible, community-based information. This newsletter combats the American fascist uprising, by rejecting the intellectual emptiness it demands.

On the 4th Thursday of every month we will publish a newsletter that provides resources to protect yourself and our community, stay informed, and ways to get involved. Our distribution list and this newsletter is encrypted and fully confidential as our safety and privacy are foundational to this work. Use the freedoms you still have to stay informed, connected, and vocal. Knowledge is truly power and together, we refuse to surrender ours.

Calendar

80 abductions this month

Source: Unraveled Press

Win of the month

This month, we are highlighting some legislative wins from The People’s Lobby

Illinois passed the Digital Ads Tax. Though the state won’t see this money this fiscal year, this legislation will bring in more than $1 billion per year by taxing the big tech corporations that profit from selling our data and running online ads–a massive revenue stream that, until now, provided pure, tax-free profit for companies like Meta and Amazon.

Illinois House Bill 5090, or the Rideshare Drivers’ Union Bill passed this month. This victory was possible because drivers organized for years with The People’s Lobby at the city level, fighting for living wages and safety before transitioning to a statewide union campaign. With their partners in the Illinois Drivers Alliance, thousands of drivers showed up in force at the Capitol this spring to share stories of low pay, unsafe conditions, unjust deactivations, and the struggle to support their families while Uber and Lyft made billions, resulting in legislation that paves the way for the 100,000+ rideshare drivers in Illinois to form a union.

The Illinois budget for 2026-2027 includes $1.5 million in new funding to extend the Pretrial Success Pilot Program to keep demonstrating that, with a little support, people can make their court dates without having to sit in jail while awaiting trial. The Pretrial Success Pilot Program was created to support the Pretrial Fairness Act that removed the pretrial bail system in Illinois. The Pilot Program provides funding for organizations that provide mental health and substance abuse support, transportation, and child-care services to people that are awaiting trial. The People’s Lobby is continuing to fight for the funding needed to expand this program statewide in future sessions, but this is a big step in the right direction.

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?”
— Sophie Scholl, before her execution by guillotine, February 22, 1943

Media of the month

Placeholder frame for this month's media pick

The Port Huron Statement (1962)

“It is to this latter yearning, at once the spark and engine of change, that we direct our present.”

Tom Hayden / Students for a Democratic Society

From the archive

The White Rose leaflets

"Offer passive resistance – resistance, wherever you may be, prevent the continuation of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last of our cities lie in ruins like Cologne, and before the last of the youth of our people have been bled to death by the hubris of a subhuman. Do not forget that every nation deserves the government that it endures.”

The White Rose Resistance was a group of students that published and dispersed leaflets in Munich denouncing the Nazi regime in 1942. Fascism had already taken hold of Germany by this time. The party controlled all forms of communication, travel, education, and religious institutions. In a time where neighbors were reporting neighbors to the government, White Rose distributed six leaflets anonymously before being arrested, tried, and killed for their actions. Though brief and relatively small, their reach extended beyond Munich to the rest of the German underground and Allied Nations in Europe. They shined a light on the atrocities of the war and the Holocaust.

No system can survive without the implied consent from the public. The members of White Rose were ordinary people that could no longer look away as fascism destroyed their humanity. Tyrants rely on apathy and compliance to thrive. Every act of resistance, no matter how small, works to destroy the illusion of control that fascism attempts to project.

Read it → The White Rose leaflets

Op-ed

Path to Peace

This month's op-ed expresses ideas on the social and political frameworks necessary to achieve sustained peace, by collectively and intentionally curtailing oppressive governments who inevitably destroy it.

Read it → Path to Peace

About this dispatch

Knowledge Is Power is the monthly dispatch of PODS — a newsletter for people building political understanding and practical community power. Each issue brings one main story, a win worth celebrating, a piece of history worth knowing, and concrete ways to show up where you live.

Community resources

How to get involved

  • Come to a meeting — PODS meets the first Tuesday of every month. New faces always welcome — no experience needed.
  • Check out the People's Lobby — Fifteen minutes a month. You call three people when something urgent comes up.
  • Join PASO — A grass roots west suburban action project

Activist toolkit