Category: Power to the People

Something’s coming

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

250 million protests worldwide, from 1979-2013, visualized in one time-lapse image

Truly powerful:

Penn State doctoral candidate John Beieler has created a time-lapse visualization of every protest on the planet since 1979. And it is jaw-dropping, and I mean that in a real way, not in a BS blogger-overhyping-this-incredible-amazing-thing way. No, this is truly amazing, because what you’ll see is tiny blips popping off here and there in the 1970s—a time we think of as highly politically charged—and nearly eclipsing the world starting with the late 90s anti-globalization protests and the second Iraq War up till our present moment.

Obama Announces Plan to Forgive All Student Loans

~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

This was an interesting post:

President Obama announced a plan today to forgive 100% of all federal student loans in the country.In a speech at in Scranton, PA the president told an assembled crowd that it was unfair to hold college graduates to promises they made as students and outlined his vision for ending all student loan payments by the end of the year…

“In today’s economy a university education is more important than ever. Where would successful people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt or Mark Zuckerberg be without their college diplomas? These days skipping college just isn’t an option, but neither is continuing to pay for increasingly expensive tuition.

But, seriously…

President Obama announced a set of ambitious proposals on Thursday aimed at making colleges more accountable and affordable by rating them and ultimately linking those ratings to financial aid.

A draft of the proposal, obtained by The New York Times and likely to cause some consternation among colleges, shows a plan to rate colleges before the 2015 school year based on measures like tuition, graduation rates, debt and earnings of graduates, and the percentage of lower-income students who attend. The ratings would compare colleges against their peer institutions. If the plan can win Congressional approval, the idea is to base federal financial aid to students attending the colleges partly on those rankings.

The average borrower now graduates with more than $26,000 of debt. Loan default rates are rising, and only about half of those who start college graduate within six years.

Mr. Obama has focused on these concerns for some time, exhorting colleges and universities, and state legislators, to make higher education more affordable….

With rising tuition and declining state financing, students and families are assuming a growing share of college costs. Tuition revenues now make up about half of public university revenues, up from a quarter 25 years ago. And with colleges facing larger pensions, health care and technology costs, the pressure to keep raising tuition is intense.

The average borrower now graduates with more than $26,000 of debt. Loan default rates are rising, and only about half of those who start college graduate within six years.

I sure would think twice about going to college today. It would scare me to death to take on that kind of debt. I am very grateful I had the opportunity to go while it was affordable.

I hope that this will also address the problem of the phony, for profit institutions.

‘He’s not a leader, he’s a bully’

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Smart move. It drives me bonkers that so many of the New Jersey voters I know have fallen for Christie’s “I yam what I yam” schtick (despite terrible economic policies), and it’s got to help if the SEIU gets on board with the smart and progressive Barbara Buono:

For leaders of the nation’s largest union, Democrat Barbara Buono’s selection of union leader Milly Silva to run for lieutenant governor transformed New Jersey’s governor’s race into a national referendum on working class issues and the labor movement. That belief was reinforced by the Christie campaign’s dismissal of Silva yesterday as “wholly unqualified” and a “special-interest organizer.”

George Gresham, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1199 Healthcare Workers East, to which Silva belongs, pledged that the SEIU would go all out raising money and mobilizing volunteers to support Buono and Silva, the first labor leader to run for statewide office in New Jersey in 70 years.

“We see this not just as a New Jersey race, but as a national election focused directly on the needs of working people, especially now that we have a labor leader on the ticket who is a working mother and a Latina and understands the needs of working families,” Gresham said in an interview after Silva gave a rousing speech to a hotel ballroom packed mainly with union people.
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Good

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

It’s about time:

The Justice Department is preparing to take fresh legal action in a string of voting rights cases across the nation, U.S. officials said, part of a new attempt to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court ruling that the Obama administration has warned will imperil minority representation.

The decision to challenge state officials marks an aggressive effort to continue policing voting rights issues and follows a ruling by the court last month that invalidated a critical part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Justices threw out Section 5 of the landmark act, which protects minority voters by requiring certain states with a history of discrimination to be granted Justice Department or court approval before making voting law changes.

In the coming weeks, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to announce that the Justice Department is using other sections of the Voting Rights Act to bring lawsuits or take other legal action to prevent states from implementing certain laws, including requirements to present certain kinds of identification in order to vote. The department is also expected to try and force certain states to get approval, or “pre-clearance,” before they can change their election laws.

Moral Monday 8

~ susie

Via my friend Tom Sullivan in North Carolina:

Last Monday, Raleigh, North Carolina saw what Think Progress called The Biggest Liberal Protest Of 2013, Moral Monday 8. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, at least 3,000 people attended the state NAACP’s ongoing protests against the rightward shift of the legislature. The theme for the week’s protest was labor issues, women’s rights and economic justice. Specifically, the loss of federal unemployment benefits for 70,000 people set to take effect on July 1.

About 120 protestors were arrested, with over 100 traveling in buses from Asheville, over four hours away. An artsy, LGBT-friendly mountain city dubbed the “Cesspool of Sin” by a Republican state senator, Asheville faces state seizure of its drinking water system in a bill authored by a board member of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Raleigh weekly, The Indy, reacted to Gov. Pat McCrory and the GOP-led legislature cutting off federal unemployment benefits. The move will cost the unemployed (and the state’s struggling economy) hundreds of millions of dollars:

That’s right, this decision will deny the people of North Carolina $600 million in federal aid, and it’s not because McCrory and the Republicans slashed unemployment benefits more deeply than any other state—although they did that too. It’s because they insisted on cutting benefits in mid-2013 rather than waiting until Jan. 1, 2014, when the federal program expires. Costs $600 million. Saves nothing. That’s idiocracy.

Moral Mondays, Week 8

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

http://youtu.be/ZncX0-dTzBA

I was talking to a friend from North Carolina about the Moral Monday protests, and he said, “You know, I think Rev. [William] Barber might be the new Martin Luther King.”

He might be right. Just listen to that speech.

Every week, they arrest people. And the following week, the crowds get even bigger. This, dear readers, is a movement. And if you have money to put gas in the tank and some time to spare, you should get down to Asheville and join the fight. Because this is what democracy looks like:

Lee Creighton’s voice started to crack as he stood on a stage among the throngs gathered outside the Legislative Building for the eighth weekly protest of the legislature’s agenda.

The Triangle resident has degrees in math, statistics and French literature but has been out of work or underemployed for the past four years. His LinkedIn profile describes him as a statistician, data analyst, technical writer, trainer, Ph.D., and mathematician who is “currently available.”

In one week, Creighton will be among the 71,000 North Carolinians who will see their extended unemployment benefits end – the result of a new state law that goes into effect July 1. The law, among the first passed by the legislature this year, reduces the maximum state benefits a laid-off worker can receive by roughly one third.

moralmonday

Creighton was called to the stage on Monday among the largest crowd yet gathered for the weekly “Moral Monday” demonstrations at the Legislative Building. Though organizers estimated that more than 5,000 were in the crowd, police put the count at between 2,500 and 3,000.
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