APRIL 29, 2026
_______________________________________________________________________________
May Day still matters … May 1 arrives, and much of the world recognizes it as International Workers’ Day. In many countries, it remains a public holiday tied to labor history, union struggle, and respect for the people who keep society functioning. In the United States, however, May Day is often ignored, misunderstood, or treated as something foreign. That silence is political.
May Day reminds ordinary people of a truth the ruling class would rather keep buried: wealth is created by labor. Roads are built by workers. Goods are moved by workers. Patients are cared for by workers. Offices run because workers show up. Society functions because labor continues every day.
May 1st is a day, if possible, to stay home from work. — Lynn Sutton
_______________________________________________________________________________
Thursday, April 30
May Day Sign-Making Party
5:30 – 7 p.m.
MFPE building: 1232 E. 6th Ave
(across from the Capitol on 6th Ave)
A great opportunity to meet MFPE partners and let your creativity shine!!!
Join Indivisible Helena and Montana Federation of Public Employees (MFP) this Friday 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. on 11th Ave., starting at Montana Ave. and stretching toward the interstate, with signs, flags, noisemakers, and your voices.
Around the United States, citizens are leaning into larger collective actions by withdrawing their support from the oligarchy (aka corporatocracy) by not working, not shopping, and/or not going to school—they’re withholding their economic power.
Some of us in Helena (and other smaller red/rural communities) are withdrawing our support from the financial overlords (I mean, really, do we need more bank buildings?). We will withdraw enough cash to pay for items through the weekend instead of using a credit or debit card. By doing this, we are joining others across the country in flexing our collective action muscles. Collective action is the way Hungarian citizens successfully and nonviolently rid themselves of an authoritarian regime that benefited only newly-minted oligarchs. We figuratively link arms with hundreds of thousands (millions for the No Kings Rallies) of other people, who, like us, are fed up with losing rights, with rising prices, with increased and sanctioned racism, loss of environmental safety, and more.
Please join us on Friday, and consider withholding your business from banking institutions May 1 – 3. Get ready for the next, more audacious nonviolent action that must be loud enough to show the oligarchy and the authoritarian regime that we won’t stand for this. It is time to look up from our phones and realize that to our north, south, west, and east, there are many kin who are also taking action. We can magnify each other through doing these simple acts of resistance.
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Good Reads / Good Watches / Good Listens
1
Robert Reich
The Worst Neo Robber Baron of Them All
Substack
April 24, 2026
We know that, hands down, Jeff Bezos (amazon, Washington Post, Origin rocket company) is the worst robber baron and CEO of all time. We’ve been urging for a year that IH members boycott amazon, and help starve his price gouging, National Labor Relations Board defying, worker-killing, “slavish sycophancy toward the worst President in American history” and it’s resulting unprecedented level of corruption and raid on the US treasury. Folks, those are our taxes Bezos is stealing.
Reich lays out details, but not so many that you can’t remember them when you need ammunition to talk to your Trump-adjacent friends and family. Read and vow to the boycott the crook.
__________________
2
Shankar Vedantam
How to Change the World
Podcast: Hidden Brain
April 13, 2026
Indivisible Helena member Chip Clawson (a member of the Good Trouble Group) suggested we share this podcast from “Hidden Brain.” He reports this story has helped him re-commit to working to resist this corrupt, poisonous, cruel administration, and to understand how “to cultivate courage.” The episode is an interview with Erica Chenowith, the data-research phenom, writer, political activist who developed the theory of the “3.5% of the population” that posits that that is the number it takes to bring about a revolution. The conversation reviews the outcome data around the debate of the effectiveness of non-violent vs. violent revolution for political change.
This is a long-form narrative, in-depth piece, worthy of your time. Do it in manageable portions. It will energize you for the long haul that change in our country will demand. Also, one of the producers is homegrown Helena journalist, Autumn Barnes.
__________________
This Week’s To-Do List
Make Good Trouble in Helena!
1. SIGNS OF THE TIMES:
SIGN-MAKING PARTY FOR THE MAY DAY PROTEST
Thursday, April 30
5:30 P.M. – 7 p.m.
MFPE Offices, 1232 E 6th Ave
(across from the Capitol on 6th Ave)
An opportunity to meet MFPE partners and let your creative flag fly!
__________________
2. MAY DAY STRONG:
SUPPORT WORKERS, STARVE OLIGARCHS
Friday, May 1
3:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Line 11th Ave from Montana to the Interstate
We’ll have signs; bring flags, noise makers, your voices loud and strong.
__________________
3. CONTINUE CALLING OUR FEDERAL DELEGATION
Senator Steve Daines: (202) 224-2651
Senator Tim Sheehey: (202) 224-2644
Representative Ryan Zinke: (202) 225-5628
Representative Troy Downing: (202) 225-3211
The reason we call our federal reps every day is to have the calls tallied. It is not to change their minds. It is to signal a strong and enduring pushback against the authoritarian takeover. You can use the Five Calls app to do this, or the numbers we provide you above. Simply pick the atrocity de jour, object to it, personalize your objections—have a family member or friend deployed in this illegal, immoral war in Iran? Let the delegation know you’re concerned about their care if they’re wounded now that the Veterans Administration has been subjected to budget cuts and the outsourcing of services to corporations as part of the administrations policies of grift and bribery. Gas prices threatening to impact you or yours in some critical way? Let them know you won’t forget their coziness with big oil when you go to the polls next. And tell them we’re watching them for any and all shenanigans they might pull at the polls.
Once in a while, ask for a follow-up email on your call. Call every day. Call. Be counted and boost the tally counts. It can result in brake-pumping by the regime, and we need that! Note that emails and handwritten letters are not currently included in the tally.
__________________
4. HONK & WAVE
Saturdays, noon to 1 p.m.
11th and Montana Ave.
In true Montana fashion, the Honk & Wave continues weekly.
__________________
5. STOCK THE PUREVIEW PANTRIES
Mondays – Fridays, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Drop-Off at PureView: 1930 9th Ave.
or 630 N. Last Chance Gulch
or Lewis & Clark Library, 120 South Last Chance Gulch
The three pantries are always accepting non-perishable food and personal hygiene products.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Mark Your Calendar
Thursday, April 30, 5:30–7 p.m. — Sign-Making Party for May Day 11th Ave Protest
1232 E. 6th Ave. Join others to create signs and prepare for the May Day protest on 11th Avenue.
Friday, May 1, 3:30–5:30 p.m. — MAY DAY LOUD Protest
11th Ave. from Montana Ave. to Interstate. People with signs will line 11th Avenue in a visible May Day demonstration focused on workers’ rights and opposition to oligarchic power.
Friday, May 8, 5 p.m. — Helena Sewing Circle Art Walk Flash Mob Dance
Join the Sewing Circle for an Art Walk flash mob dance. Email sewingcirclemt@gmail.com for more information.
Thursday, May 21, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. — Democracy Reads Books—IH Reading Group
Lewis & Clark Library, large conference room. The group will discuss The Project by David Graham. Reading length: 138 pages.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Get Your No Kings Yard Signs!
We’ve got ‘em, you want ‘em
Request by email, and we’ll get them to you. The No Kings sign campaign is here until we are sure there will be NO KINGS, EVER!
_______________________________________________________________________________
Support Indivisible Helena
If you’d like to support Indivisible Helena in pushing back against fascism, please consider a donation via this link to the Indivisible Helena ActBlue donation portal or use the QR code below. Your information will remain private — neither IH nor ActBlue shares or sells personal data.
Together, we’ll make sure the U.S. has NO KING.
