A Sleeping Giant

What will it take until average Americans say, "We've had enough!"? Billionaire Betsy DeVos' recent antics have once again riled up many, but are they enough to wake "the sleeping giant" of the 99%? Coast Watcher provides us with a few insights this week. (Below you'll find a link to where you can sign a petition to have Betsy fired from her job as Secretary of Education. Let them know in D.C. that we've had enough of her!)

A Sleeping Giant

by Coast Watcher 

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. ~ Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto regarding the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

That infamous attack on peacetime America woke the country to war with Japan. Senator Bernie Sander’s call to arms during the 2016 presidential election woke the people of the United States to another type of war—the class war waged by the 1% against the rest of us.While it may lack the outright violence of total warfare, the conflict is still real and often deadly. 

Sheer greed is causing death through insurance companies withholding medical treatment from those in need. It’s causing death through the pharmaceutical industry’s indiscriminate promotion of opioids. It’s causing death through the usage of cancer-causing pesticides and herbicides such as Monsanto's Roundup. It’s causing death through dumping of toxic waste and floods of disease-ridden effluent from CAFOs into our water supplies. The 1% even post their mercenary police forces to guard useless and dangerous oil and gas pipelines from protesters, but those same police are nowhere to be seen when the pipelines burst and destroy the countryside.

The 1% have made strenuous efforts to suppress any and all information about their activities from reaching the general public. With 96% of all media in the hands of a few plutocrats it’s not difficult. When you compare independent news shows such as  Redacted Tonight, The Jimmy Dore Show and programs produced by Abby Martin with the output from mainstream media it’s not hard see the pattern emerging. PBS, the supposedly-neutral broadcast network has been so starved of funding by government over the years that it’s had to go cap in hand to oligarchs like the Koch brothers and the Walton family. It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that these people will dictate content, guiding programming away from areas of their corrupt businesses they don’t want the public to know about.

Unfortunately--for the 1%--the suppression of net neutrality isn’t 100% successful. Lee Camp, Jimmy Dore and Abby Martin are still out there, uncovering stories that the oligarchy doesn’t want you to know of. This humble blog is another outlet, correlating stories and information from across the globe in an effort to keep the public informed. The more the public learns about how the 1% is trying to make them go back to sleep so the oligarchs won’t be exposed for the world-wrecking gang they are, the more the public is angered by the duplicity.

A sleeping giant, once woken, has immense strength. In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver’s Travels the Lilliputians attempted to tie down the sleeping "giant" Lemuel Gulliver, but they found all their bonds failed when he sat up. So it must be that the 1%’s attempt to tie down the 99% will fail once we sit up and take notice. The Lilliputians are attempting to tie us down again, to make us go back to sleep. We must not allow that to happen. The Earth--and all that’s on it--is at stake. Stay woke. Stay alert. Fight the 1%.

BIO: Coast Watcher is determined to stay alert and ready by pouring lots of strong coffee to keep the rest of the 99% awake until the political revolution is firmly underway. He asks, "Would you like some cream and sugar with your revolution?" 

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From Network For Public Education Action:

For the sake of America's school children, Betsy DeVos must go. It was clear during this week's budget hearing that Ms. DeVos is not a responsible advocate for America’s children and taxpayers, but rather an ideologue who sees no place for public dollars and public institutions in the promotion of the public good. 

Tell Donald Trump it is time for Betsy DeVos to be fired. Sign the petition by clicking below.

FIRE BETSY DEVOS

Ms. DeVos’s request to cut funding for the Special Olympics Program horrified our nation.

At the same hearing, when confronted by Congress with the enormous waste that is generated from the Charter Schools Program, as documented in our NPE report, Ms. DeVos expressed no desire to investigate their concerns. Instead she replied, “We need more charter schools, not fewer.”

Ironically, her proposed $60 million dollar increase to create more charter schools, which would bring the program’s funding to a half billion dollars next year, would pay for Special Olympics funding more than three times over.

It is time to put ideology aside and put American children first. Let's speak with one voice--and demand that she be replaced.

After you sign, please post this link to your social media account.
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/fire-betsy-devos/
 
Thanks for all you do.

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Congress has the opportunity to protect women from gun violence. Sign the petition now >>

Next week, the House of Representatives will be voting to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) — a critical, multi-faceted piece of federal legislation that provides survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking with access to justice and social services. And this year, the VAWA bill includes provisions to reduce gun violence against women by: (1) expanding federal law to keep guns away from abusive dating partners and stalkers and (2) alerting local law enforcement when domestic abusers attempt to buy guns.

The extreme NRA leadership is opposing these common-sense bipartisan policies. But we need our representatives to place a higher value on the lives of women than on an abusive boyfriend's access to guns. And we're letting Congress know just how much support there is for these gun safety provisions. Add your name to our letter urging Congress to pass the Violence Against Women Act.

ADD MY NAME

When a gun is present in a domestic violence situation, it's five times more likely that the woman will be killed by her abusive partner. Now's the time to address the deadly loopholes in federal law that let violent dating partners and stalkers keep their guns. Why would the extreme NRA leadership want guns in the hands of abusive boyfriends when we have the chance to save lives?

While the NRA tries to pressure lawmakers to vote against gun safety, we need you to take action and get this message to Congress: Protect women and save lives. With one click, automatically sign our petition urging Congress to protect women from abusive dating partners and stalkers.

Thank you for adding your name,
Sarah Trumble
Director of Federal Legislative Campaigns
Everytown for Gun Safety

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From Progress America:
Seema Verma, Trump’s choice to run Medicare, spent millions in taxpayer money to try to improve her own public image - and wants to massively cut your Medicare benefits because she falsely claims they are unaffordable.

The hypocrisy couldn't be clearer. Verma is another Trump Administration hire who, like former HHS Secretary Tom Price, sees our government as a private piggybank. Like Price, Verma should resign in disgrace immediately.

SIGN NOW: Seema Verma should resign immediately!

Here’s a free tip for Seema Verma: If you want a good public image, don’t try to cut people’s Medicare and Medicaid. Don’t try to throw 20 million people off their health insurance. And don’t be a part of the most corrupt Presidential administration this country has ever seen.

It’s hard to stay shocked in the face of the shameless hypocrisy and public looting that goes on every day in Trump’s government. But it’s important that we not become numb to the corruption.

This isn’t normal. And the only way we can stop it is one piece at a time, until Trump and his Republican enablers are driven out of Washington.

Let’s start with Seema Verma.

ADD YOUR NAME: Medicare Administrator Seema Verma has got to go.

Thanks,

Mike Phelan
Progress America