Category: Power to the People

Short version

~ susie

Scrooge-mcduck

The money isn’t the most significant factor. If we don’t turn out to vote, we get screwed:

The research on democracy and policy suggests three broad lessons. First, those who vote have more representation than those who do not.43 Second, those who do not vote tend to have views that are more economically progressive than those who do vote.  And third, voting plays a significant role in the distribution of government resources as well as the size of government and who benefits from public policies.

Increasing and equalizing voter turnout is not a panacea for reducing inequality and achieving racial equity in public policy; it is one important factor among others, including the role of money in politics. But, as Robert Franzese argues, where turnout is low and unequal, politicians who already cater to big donors have an even stronger incentive to do so.44 He concludes that whether or not democracies respond to rising inequality is conditioned by the political participation of poorer people in the electorate.45 After the wealth of a country, voter participation and income inequality are the most important determinants of tax and transfer progressivity.46 As President Obama has argued, “It would be transformative if everybody voted. That would counteract money more than anything.”47 He is correct.

John Fetterman is running for the Senate

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

He’s the mayor of Braddock, PA. Also has a master’s in public policy from Harvard, IIRC. I might have even interviewed him, many years ago.

Bob & Barbara’s Lounge
1509 South St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19146

Hang out with Braddock Mayor and United States Senate candidate John Fetterman fresh off his announcement this week. Grab a beer with the Mayor and his wife Gisele before he addresses the crowd.

This event is free and open to the public. Donations to the campaign always accepted. Please make checks payable to Fetterman for Senate.

Union!

~ susie

1979 - Norma Rae - tt0079638-88295 - USA

Even without “Norma Rae,” it looks like the next generation is wising up! Good news:

Six out of every 10 Americans now supports labor unions – a phenomenal five-point jump over the previous year. That’s the latest from a Gallup poll released this week showing that during the past year, Americans’ approval of unions skyrocketed to its highest point in seven years.

Americans are seeing the connection between unions and balancing the economy, allowing workers to come together to build a better life for their families. Overall, Gallup found that support for labor unions is now at an impressive 58 percent, a rise of 5 percentage points since 2008. A Business Insider headline Tuesday put it simply: ‘Americans want unions.’

That swelling support is spurred by unions like ours doubling down on their organizing efforts, having one-on-one conversations with working people across the country about the value of a union. Our union’s AFSCME Strong campaign thus far has organized more than 185,000 new members in the past year.

Even employees at non-traditional workplaces are getting in on the action, seeing how unions bring a voice on the job, improve incomes, and help achieve real work-life balance, making it possible to say, take a day off if a child falls ill. In recent months, the staffs at digital media sites like Gawker and Slate voted to unionize.

That the staffs at those two unions tend to be younger and supportive of unions follows suit with Gallup’s findings. According to the poll, those ages 18-34 are most supportive of labor unions. A whopping 66 percent of this group views labor unions favorably.

Good for them

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

John McCain was the man behind the arrangement that screwed the tribes out of most of a huge amount owed them for the federal government’s rental of their lands to the oil companies — and that’s just off the top of my head. He is no friend to Indians:

In a stunning action that was long overdue, a group of native Navajo Americans chased Senator John McCain out of the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock — making it perfectly clear he was unwelcome in the first place.

McCain was visiting the Nation in commemoration of Navajo Code Talker’s day, and perhaps for a moment thought he would get by listening to polite pleas from Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye and Vice-President Jonathan Nez to back a Congressional appropriation to fund the construction of a Navajo Code Talkers Museum. According to a report from Native News Online.Net, however, the Nation’s leaders chose the moment to focus on the EPA tragedy unfolding via the Gold King Mine spill into the Animas and San Juan Rivers.

[…] The Navajo mistrust of “Government,” especially McCain, is appropriate. Despite coming out recently in support of preventing a July “disposal” round-up of wild mustangs from the Tonto National Forest, (perhaps due to the loud chorus of outrage which emanated from horse-lovers), McCain demonstrated his truly greedy and inconsiderate nature when it came to native concerns by introducing an 11th hour amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act ceding sacred Apache land, Oak Flat, to a foreign mining corporation.

McCain got his first taste of active Navajo displeasure during a photo-op following the official Code Talker Day event with Adriano Tsinigine. Observe this priceless pic, as posted to protect Oak Flat activist organization Apache Stronghold:

oak flat

When the senator saw the protest sign, he ordered Mr. Tsinigine to “Get out of here, now!” The irony is blissful when viewed in retrospect, for McCain was met at the museum by a vocal crowd of outraged Navajos who weren’t about to let him quietly convene another closed-door meeting to bargain with the rights of their people. Protesters gained access to the museum and, though they were immediately subdued by police, by all appearances prevented McCain’s meeting from happening. Watch him run from the truth in this terrific video captured at the scene:

Elizabeth Warren lets the GOPers have it over Planned Parenthood

~ susie

Elizabeth Warren has been awesome ever since she headed up the CFPB, the agency she created to protect us from the Wall Street grifters, so when you have pro-life yahoos (which is basically all the Republicans in Congress) going to town over heavily-doctored undercover videos attacking Planned Parenthood, trying to fulfill their lifelong desire to destroy… Continue reading “Elizabeth Warren lets the GOPers have it over Planned Parenthood” →

The boy who asked for junk mail

~ susie

Awww. I can’t even imagine my childhood without my local library. When kids can’t even afford to go to the library, how are they going to learn to read?

Twelve-year-old Mathew Flores is a bit different from the rest of us. He loves junk mail.

Until recently, advertisements were the only reading materials available to the boy. Flores loves reading so much that he approached his mailman in a Salt Lake City suburb on Friday to ask if he could have any junk mail.

The strange question prompted the mailman, Ron Lynch, to ask why. Lynch detailed Flores’ response in a heartbreaking Facebook post afterward.

“Today while delivering mail to his apartment complex, I saw him reading ads, and then he asked me if I had any extra mail he could read,” Lynch wrote. “He told me his wish is to have books to read. I told him the library had many, but he said they don’t have a car, and couldn’t afford the bus.”

Lynch then asked his Facebook friends if they could spare some books for Flores:

“Most kids his age want electronics! It’s great to see his desire, and you should have seen him beam when I said I could help!”

“He’s counting on me,” he concluded, “so I’m counting on you!”

Lynch thought the Facebook post might bring in 50 to 6o books, he told local news outlet KSL. But his request went viral.

People from around the world, including the U.K., Australia and India, have sent books, Lynch said. He told The Huffington Post hundreds of books have been delivered to the boy’s door so far, with hundreds more likely on their way, and he’s amazed at the generosity.

[…] When books first started arriving, Flores was in disbelief.

“They said, ‘These books are for you,'” Flores told Salt Lake City’s Deseret News on Sunday. “I thought they were mistaken, but they were for me.”

He said he can’t wait to share the books with other kids, and has promised to read every last one.

Those interested in sending books may ship them to:

Mathew Flores
c/o Sandy Post Office
8850 S 700 E
Sandy, UT 84070

Pope Frank to the young: ‘Make a mess’

~ susie

10-07-2015 Llegada del Papa Francisco a Paraguay/Pope Francis arrives in Paraguay

He might be the only leader in the world who’s consistently telling the truth:

Pope Francis left for Rome on Sunday at the end of a trip to South America during which he censured capitalism, championed the rights of the poor, warned of irreversible damage to the planet and urged youths to “make a mess”.

In passionate speeches, the Argentine pontiff urged the destitute to change the world economic order and branded the unfettered pursuit of money as the “dung of the devil”. He also sought forgiveness for the sins committed by the Catholic Church against native Americans during the colonial era.

At a final rally in Paraguay, Francis urged tens of thousands of youths to look after their less fortunate peers and fight for a dignified life filled with hope and strength.

“They wrote a speech for me to give you. But speeches are boring,” the Argentine pontiff said to loud cheers, casting aside his script. “Make a mess, but then also help to tidy it up. A mess which gives us a free heart, a mess which gives us solidarity, a mess which gives us hope.”

It was not the first time Francis has called on young people to shake things up, repeating a mantra he voiced in Brazil in 2013 when he urged youngsters to demand a more outward-looking Catholic Church.