The Revolution Continues blog is news, views, opinion and other expressions of hope from a leftist point-of-view. (We are not affiliated with any candidate, political party or organization. All are welcome.)
I
have a thing for Christmas trees. I love to decorate them and collect
ornaments from all over the world. Come the twelfth day of Christmas
(Epiphany) on January 6, I’m compelled by the “social norm” to take down
my tree* and store it and the decorations away until next December.
(Who is this “Norm” and why is he always raining on my parade? Not very
“sociable” of him.) The empty space in my living room where the
Christmas tree once stood makes me sad, so I began a new tradition.
I
put away the tall tree and put up a shorter, table-top sized tree* in
its place. I decorate it with ornaments symbolizing love (after all,
Valentine’s Day is in February) and peace. The past couple of years the
little tree has become not a mere Christmas tree substitute but a “Peace
Tree” dedicated to world peace.
I
leave the Peace Tree standing as long as there is conflict anywhere on
the planet. You guessed it—the Peace Tree hasn’t been put away for quite
some time now. In the summer, I move it upstairs where I stand it on
top a short bookcase in our bedroom. We put a window a/c unit in the
downstairs window, and the little tree could get blown over if it stayed
put, but it isn’t taken down. I see it every day, a reminder that
humans are still warring with each other somewhere on the planet. We
need world peace, and we needed it yesterday.
This holiday season I decided to give the Peace Tree a makeover...
To see more photos of the Peace Tree--and to read a poem excerpt by Maya Angelou and the rest of this article--please click on this Substack link: https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com. There
you'll see related article and video links, all the graphics,
and be able to leave comments. You can also subscribe and receive the
weekly blog post in your email box.
Subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack today! Power to the people!
Happy
Holidays—Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice and a good
Kwanzaa and peace to you and yours. May we all plant “Peace Trees” and
together reap a harvest of goodness some day soon.
Maybe we should junk the whole thing and start over?
The System Isn't Broken
(A Tribute to RBG)
By Redd Phlagg
You can become
overloaded with others' bellyaching at times. You have to tune it out to
preserve your sense of sanity. With the recent death of Supreme Court Justice
Ginsberg, a whole new round of neoliberal woe-is-me-ing has begun to get on my
nerves. The fact of the matter is it's all for naught and your tears of
righteous indignation are just going to circle the proverbial drain, unheeded.
For all intents
and purposes, the system is working in the way it is intended. It's efficiently
replacing one cog in the pro-corporate, pro-billionaire machine with another.
Already the "left wing" of the "same bird" is stepping
aside and allowing the "right wing" to replace Justice Ginsberg with
the puppet of their choosing. Nothing unusual there. It's business as usual.
And it is business as in a "America's business is business" sort of
way.
The system
isn't broken as many attest and needs to be fixed. It's fixed in place,
servicing well those it was meant to serve--the oligarchs, the 1%, the rich, whatever
you want to call them. So, stop the crying about how "democracy is at
stake" if a pseudo-left-leaning judge isn't appointed to the Supreme
Court. How would it make any difference who is picked and placed in that spot?
As long as the billionaires are getting their way, Trump could appoint Daffy Duck to the court,
and they'd give Daffy their blessing.
Your needs and
wishes are not all that important, peons. Get over yourselves!
If you want to
use that righteous indignation in a productive way, stop the neolib whinging
and start marching to the beat of a different drummer. Try democratic
eco-socialism. Face it--we don't live in a democracy. We never have. If we did,
all voices would be heard and attended
to instead of only white males with tons of wealth. If this doesn't describe you, then this isn't
the system of government for you.
We don't take
care of our neighbors as we should--we have our militarized police shoot
human beings dead for driving, walking or sleeping while black, or lock them
up in ICE detention if they're brown with a Spanish accent. That ain't democracy--that's
fascism. Trying to perpetuate this totally f***ed up system with its easily
corrupted checks and balances--or "checkbook balances of the rich"--is
societal suicide.
And just stop it
with the "Saint Obama would have never done such awful things!"
bullshit. Who do you think set up the ICE deportation centers in the first
place--Trump? Did Obama shut down Gitmo? (Answer: Nope to both questions.)
These travesties of justice didn't just materialize overnight because "Trump."
Remember, you're living in a fascist failed state. These concepts and
anti-democratic institutions have been developed, perfected and implemented over years, many years.
Now do you
understand why replacing one "rubberstamp the corrupt system" justice
with another doesn't make one speck of difference? Things are going to run the
same way for the benefit of the same folks (the 1%) if we continue to prop up
the dirty system we got now.
Solution? Tear
it all down and start fresh.
As Thomas
Jefferson said:
The system ain't
working for you, but it's not "broken" by a long shot. It's just
totally and utterly corrupt, and it breeds and nurtures corrupt leadership and
creates corrupt practices and then it rewards even more corrupt men with them. That's all it was ever meant to do. Well, that and fool ordinary people into putting up with it.
Don't
expect things to change for the better if you're not willing to stop putting up with corruption and fight it. Save your energy
for the struggles ahead in tearing the whole system down and replacing it with
something that is actually democratic. And while you're at it, can your insipid moping over a dead
one-percenterSupreme Court justice. She's resting in a better, safer place than you are currently, right? I think even Ruth would tell you, "Stop whining and get
to work!"
BIO: Redd Phlagg has had enough of those who can't see the forest for the trees and easily fall for the latest mainstream media drivel. Redd says, "It's time to grow a pair and think for yourself before it's too late! Our founders would not be proud of how we're handling things. They didn't sit on their butts and complain--they took it to the streets and made some noise and kicked out the bums holding them back. What's holding you back? Worried you'll miss your favorite Netflix show or break a nail? Get over yourselves!"
Here's yet another example of the mainstream media propagating propaganda and writing hit pieces to cover up neoliberal lies and campaign mistakes. Jimmy Dore on the Dems: "How is disenfranchising voters encouraging them to vote for Democrats down ticket? Their voter outreach should be called 'bullying into submission'... If the Democrats understood irony they'd change their name."
These converging crises -- public health,
racist police violence, and ecological collapse -- are laying bare
who, and what, matters most in our system.
Should we be surprised? Well, no.
How can we be surprised that profit and
property are consistently prioritized over human beings, when our
founding documents -- that still guide our system to this day -- were
written to do exactly that?
And what would it look like if we
had a People's Constitution? Join us for a People's Movement
Assembly, where people from all walks of life will come together and
envision a country and a world with genuine and vibrant democracy.
This conversation might not be for
everyone. But if you’re ready to come together with other
passionate people and envision together what we would want in a
Peoples Constitution -- and figure out how to build towards that
vision -- you are invited.
This two day event will include art
shares, panel discussions, small group breakouts, planning and
community building. Move to Amend is partnering with other
organizations like the Community
Environmental Legal Defense Fund and A
Radical Guide to put forth a rich and visionary
weekend October 24th and 25th.
In a year full of grave racial injustices, this is some of the worst.
U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement has been forcing women in ICE detention to receive hysterectomies against their will.
The horrifying news comes from heroic whistleblower Nurse Dawn Wooten,
who worked at ICE's Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
Let that sink in: The days of the Tuskegee experiment, when our
government intentionally let Black Americans suffer from syphilis, are
not over. Violent, state-sanctioned medical abuse against women of color is still rampant in the United States.
When Jesus' mother Mary sang of bringing down the powerful from their
thrones, it was surely with abusive governments like this in mind. A
fundamentally racist system must be changed, and the corrupt authorities
who have enabled it -- including Donald Trump and his allies -- must be
swept from power.
The first step is to put our faith into action by supporting the calls of local organizers to permanently shut down Irwin.
This is forced sterilization – and it fits the broader pattern of
racist abuse that has characterized the U.S. immigration system for
decades. Immigration officials have been repeatedly accused of rape
inside detention cells, filming women as they showered, shackling
pregnant women, ignoring miscarriages, and threatening victims with
deportation if they speak out. The problems have only grown worse in recent years, emboldened by Donald Trump's hatred.
It is not surprising to learn of such atrocities from an
administration also guilty of separating families, rejecting refugees,
teargassing those who protest for racial justice, banning Muslims,
desecrating sacred Native lands, and supporting white supremacists.
Yet some have been brave enough to speak out. In Georgia, organizers
and attorneys have been taking complaints of medical neglect for a long
time. In Texas in late February, Cameroonian women at an ICE facility
staged a sit-in to protest their lack of medical care. What's different
this time is the courage shown by whistleblower Dawn Wooten.
Nurse Dawn is a Black woman, and Black women have often been the
bedrock of social change. She will likely be the subject of racist
attacks herself, which makes it all the more important that we believe
her, support her, amplify her complaint, and condemn racism whenever and wherever we see it.
Thank you for everything you do to love your neighbor, welcome
immigrants, and oppose both racism and sexism. After you sign this
petition, we'll send you several next steps you can take in the fight
against injustice.
In peace, Rev. Nathan and the Faithful America team
***
From Color of Change:
Prosecutors have failed to deliver justice for Breonna Taylor.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced the decision we
were all fearing he’d make: No murder charges will be filed against the
police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor in her home. Just one
officer was charged with "wanton endangerment," and it was NOT for
shooting Bre.1
After 194 days.
2.3 million petition signatures.
100,000 phone calls.
And a global uprising demanding justice for our sister, Breonna Taylor.
No justice was served.
By
failing to bring murder charges in the brutal killing of Breonna
Taylor, Attorney General Cameron has failed to deliver justice for Bre.
Instead, after more than six months, all we’ve received is a second
injustice as Bre’s killers — Brett Hankinson, Jonathan Mattingly, and
Myles Cosgrove — walk free with no murder charges.
Elected
officials at every level — from Mayor Greg Fischer and Commonwealth’s
Attorney Tomas Wine to AG Daniel Cameron — all failed Breonna, her
family, and the millions of people like you who demanded justice.
Cindy,
this moment is more than disheartening — it’s infuriating. And while
you may be thinking, “what more must we do to get justice for a Black
woman murdered by police?”, don’t forget what we’ve made possible since
March: After millions demanded
#JusticeforBre, the phony charge against her boyfriend Kenneth Walker
was dropped. Louisville voted to ban no-knock warrants. Audio of the 911
call was released, and one of the police officers involved was removed
from the force. None — and I repeat, none — of this would have happened had we not exercised our voices to stand up for Bre.
Color
Of Change won’t stop fighting. Black Lives Matter Louisville won’t stop
fighting. And you can’t stop fighting either.
Here’s what you can do right now to continue demanding #JusticeforBre:
Millions, if not billions, of people worldwide have joined the movement to say her name and demand justice for Breonna Taylor. Black
kids across the country have recognized their power to effect change.
Our white allies are having the much-needed tough conversations at their
dinner tables. And so many local organizers now have the resources they
need to keep the fight going.
Breonna Taylor changed the world. And this is not the end.
We
can’t be deterred. Because folks like Tamika Palmer, Breonna’s mom, are
still on the ground fighting relentlessly to secure justice for our
people.
We stand with
Breonna’s family, BLM Louisville, and local organizers and activists in
demanding the Louisville City Council take immediate action to divest
from the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department and invest in
communities.
Today is a hard day. But although we may be discouraged by this announcement, we will never stop fighting for Black people.
Until justice is real,
Scott, Rashad, Arisha, Erika, Marybeth, Malachi, Leonard, Ernie, McKayla, Ana, Ariel, and the rest of the Color Of Change team
Our guest blogger asks the obvious question after the fiasco in DC this past week. No, it's not, "What happened?" or even "What now?" but it's a great question. See if you don't agree with Redd's question and answer.
What Did You Expect? By Redd Phlagg
The amount of whining and groaning emanating from social media platforms this past week has been beyond measure. Even when I stick my fingers in my ears and hum loudly I can still hear: “We need witnesses! Why aren’t they allowing witnesses to be called? You can’t have a trial without evidence or witnesses, can you?” And the worse moan of all: “I thought we were going to get rid of Trump. I believed this impeachment stuff was really going to work. Checks and balances, right? Why doesn’t the system work the way it’s supposed to?” Taking my fingers out of my ears, I will now reply to your cries of bewilderment. My dear children, the system is working the way it’s supposed to. It has protected one of its own—a rich, white, cisgender male who owns lots of property. The system was created to protect these individuals and not the community as a whole. The system is working perfectly as it was designed because it’s fooled you into thinking it was “fair” and “balanced” all along. Am I right? If it were a system of fairness and balance, then ten years ago we wouldn’t have had the Citizens United ruling that states in effect, “Money is speech,” because that would mean the poor have no voice whatsoever in the affairs of our governance, and a “fair” system wouldn’t allow that sort of thing to happen. But it did, and it still does. We are a nation of property laws. Property owners have rights. The more property you own, the more rights you have to use and abuse it as you see fit. The more money you have, the more influence you have on those who make and defend the property laws. Thus, you can mold and bend the law to work in the way that’s in your best interests. What does the Trump trial in the Senate have to do with property and wealth? Everything! Those senators didn’t get elected without a lot of money to campaign on, most of which came from Super PACs and billionaire donors. Most of those billionaires inherited their wealth from their family’s property or business and then used that seed money to buy even more property/natural resources and businesses to become even wealthier and more powerful. After all, if “Money is speech” then billionaires have the most powerful speech on earth. These billionaires (and their boot-licking supporters) want to keep things the way they are so they can continue to prosper financially and have things their way. To allow the system to become “fair” overnight in order to punish a wrong-doer such as Trump would mean they could be next. And they can’t have that. We poor folks might actually expect a “fair system” of government to hold billionaires hiding behind corporation logos accountable for not telling us about the climate warming potential of burning fossil fuels or the radioactivity caused by drilling and fracking for oil and gas. We poor folks might tell these “citizens with rights” that it’s their responsibility to clean up their messes and stop polluting our lakes and rivers with animal factory effluence and chemicals because we drink the water and we live here.
But we can’t tell them that—we’re speechless without vast sums of money, remember? And it wouldn’t matter much if we could speak anyway. The current system of laws tells property-owners they don’t have to listen to us whiny poor folks. We can’t threaten their right to use and abuse their “property” such as our lakes, rivers and streams as they wish unless we want to be thrown into jail—which essentially what Ohio House Bill 33 and similar laws in nineteen other states say. It says that by protesting “infrastructure” (as defined by the property-owners and our property laws) we can be deemed “terrorists” and thrown into jail for a very long time. If laws like HB33 don’t shut down the speechless, this will: the federal Environmental Protection Agency loosened its laws recently that protected our waterways in order to help the property owners to use and abuse their property. Face it, everything belongs to the billionaires because they say so. Their puppets in the White House, courts, and statehouses do as they’re told with no questions asked because they’re salivating at the chance to own a piece of that property alongside their billionaire friends. We have the right to sit in silence and take it up the backside if we agree to continue living under this system. We have the right to sit and moan about how “unfair” it is for our elected representatives to not allow a trial to go forward in the Senate against a corrupt president. But there’s one thing we don’t have the right to, and that is, we don't have the right to act ignorant that this was going to be the outcome all along. What did you expect? A democracy? Wake up, America! You’ve never lived in one!
A democracy is where everyone’s rights are equal—the rich, the poor, the black, the white, the male, the female, the gay, the straight, the young, the old… Under our current laws and system of government, billionaire property owners are definitely “more equal” than either you or me.
As long as the corrupt duopolists remain in power, we will have more of the same. It’s why both establishment parties keep protecting the system at all costs and won’t allow any third parties to have a say so in it because—heaven forbid!--these independent-minded people might just want to institute democratic reforms, such as ranked choice voting.
But now is not the time to sit and moan—now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their fellow countrypersons, to save the planet from the impending climate emergency, and to stop wishing for a different or “fair” outcome from the same corrupt system. Doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different outcome… You do realize that’s the definition of insanity, don’t you? Act sane. Act differently. Think outside the box. Create a better world. BIO: Redd Phlagg's crystal ball predicts the future. No one believed Redd's prognostication that Trump would serve out the full length of his term outside of a prison cell, but once again Redd has been proven right. It's tough being right all the time says Redd, especially when it comes to how the corrupt system will reward people like Trump and his cronies, but there you go. When you vote for the lesser of two evils, evil always wins.
It's getting tougher with each passing day to express and share an opinion that doesn't jive with the status quo. Anti-progressive algorithms actively block this site and others like it from being found in online Google searches or posting widely on Facebook. Hence, readers can't find us or share us like they have in the past.
So, please share this blog with others and encourage them to do the same. Thank you. And if you're able, a donation to the cause would be appreciated. You can use the link below to do so swiftly and painlessly.
We'll keep speaking out and sharing progressive news and views until they lock us up, and it's great to know you have our backs. Thanks again for your help in these trying times. Power to the people!
***
We
should be making it easier for workers to claim the Social Security
benefits they’ve earned with every paycheck, not harder. So why has the
Trump administration proposed a new rule that’s designed to rip benefits
away from hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities?
That’s the Republican strategy. Uphold capitalistic greed at the expense of working people.
While Social Security is best known as a retirement program, disability
and survivor’s benefits are equally essential. That’s why we’re
rallying with our allies across the country to fight back against this
proposed rule change and save the lives of thousands of Americans.
We
know what the effects of the Trump proposal would be, because Ronald
Reagan implemented a very similar benefit cut back for over 200,000
Americans in the 1980s.
The New York Times reported that during the Reagan administration
“people with obvious physical and mental disabilities” lost their
benefits “without having been interviewed” by the Social Security
Administration. This led to the loss of 21,176 lives of people who
relied on their Social Security benefits to survive.
And, while Reagan was eventually forced to reverse his attack on Social
Security after massive public outcry, the Trump administration is
bringing back this cruel policy with no regard for history or human
life.
The Trump administration proposal would require millions of Social
Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income
(SSI) beneficiaries to re-prove their eligibility for benefits as often
as every six months—far more frequently than is currently the case.
We
must stop Trump’s plan. The Social Security Administration is
collecting comments on the proposal until January 31, at midnight. Click here to submit your official comment now.
Thank you for fighting back against attempts to undermine and destroy our Social Security system.
In solidarity, Jennifer Epps-Addison Network President & Co-Executive Director, CPDA
***
We’re only a month into 2020 and it’s already been a crazy year. Between
Trump almost taking us into a war with Iran, deploying Easy Fire Nukes,
and circumventing diplomacy with nuclear-armed countries in favor of
antagonistic threats — all while he has his finger on the nuclear red
button — our small but mighty team is just as busy as ever. We can’t
stress enough that activists like you are what keeps us going and why we
will be successful in the fight to prevent nuclear violence. Here are
your monthly actions to help win that fight.
Your action steps on No First Use: Our main priority in 2020 is driving momentum toward No First Use
legislation in Congress. There’s some easy steps you can take to show
your representatives that you support No First Use and want them to as
well.
3) Click to tweet in support of No First Use!
How you can prevent war with Iran: On January 3, the U.S. killed the top Iranian commander, Qasem
Soleimani, in a drone strike, representing a major escalation of a
crisis manufactured by Trump. Then, Iran predictably retaliated against
the U.S. by launching missile strikes at Iraqi bases housing American
forces. While it’s good news that we have avoided a war thus far, our
work is not yet over. Here’s what you can do to prevent an Iraq 2.0:
1) Sign and send the petition to call on Congress to not allow the U.S. to enter into a war with Iran;
2) Share the petition with a friend;
3) Follow
our friends at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), who are
doing incredible frontline work to fight for the rights of
Iranian-Americans and stop a war with Iran;
4) Click to tweet in support of #NoWarWithIran!
Uplifting the voices of impacted communities: New year, same focus on centering the voices of frontline communities.
Rachel Traczyk, Fellowship Associate and former BombSquad fellow, has
been focused on uplifting the forgotten stories of those directly
impacted by nuclear weapons testing. In November, she visited the Trinity test site to bear witness to the damage done to the people and the planet by the first nuclear test to ever occur. Rachel also wrote this piece in Inkstick Media on the story of Cecilia Romero, a New Mexican Downwinder.
We will win through intersectional organizing: We again joined the Women’s March
as partners to raise our voices against war, nuclear weapons, and the
patriarchy. Partnerships Manager Yasmeen Silva represented Beyond the
Bomb at the Poor People’s Campaign
day of action in Washington, D.C. this week to challenge the
interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological
devastation, the war economy and the distorted moral narrative of
religious nationalism. And don’t forget to join us for the Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March on Washington June 20, 2020!
2020 is going to be a big year: A reimagined anti-nuclear movement for the 21st century — led by
young people and giving voice to those most impacted by nuclear violence
— is rising. We need your help more than ever this year to fight for
justice and raise awareness of the dangers of the undemocratic nuclear
system.
This is why we’re starting off 2020 with a Make Love Not War
campaign during the month of February! As we get closer to the 2020
election, we need to make sure every candidate and representative knows
we’re putting our #FutureFirst, and breaking up with nuclear weapons.
Stay tuned next week to see how you can get involved!
Do you remember as a child in school or scouts or some other social situation being taunted? Usually your tormentors chose their word—yes, singular—well. They went to the heart of your deepest, darkest fears and discovered the one thing that haunted you more than anything else in your existence. It could have been “four-eyes” or “fatty” or “freak.” It could have been a combination of those and more, but there was one word that really hit you in the solar plexus of your soul and did the most damage. That was the word your tormentors repeated endlessly until you ran crying from the playground, the meeting hall, or the birthday party. The Left has one such word. “The S Word.” I shall type it out in its entirety here, fully expecting that I will receive unkind comments and possibly a death threat or two.
That word is socialism. There I said it. Let the bullying begin! Oh, no, I’m not going to shame or threaten anyone else with the S Word, but I will explore why members of both the Right and the Left political persuasions tend to have trouble with this word, often using it as a curse or a taunt of last resort. One such sub-group that spans the spectrum of political identification is the rich. How do I define rich? It includes the infamous “one percent” of the world’s billionaires, but it also includes the majority of persons reading this sentence. If you have a place to hang your hat at night, secure in sleeping and waking up to find yourself in one piece with food in your fridge and possibly your own mode of transport to get you to work (or at least decent access to public transportation), then you qualify under my definition of rich. (Note that rich doesn't imply how one votes, be it Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or otherwise. The rich are simply rich.) There are many hundreds of millions in the world who don’t even come anywhere close to this definition of having a safe place to sleep. If you qualify as rich, you, my friend, have been blessed. You're not only blessed with material wealth and security, but also with mental wealth and security. The vast majority of your day doesn’t involve simply surviving—finding a place to sleep tonight or your next meal. You are indeed rich.
Which is why it’s all the more confusing why some of you who practice the religion of Neo-liberalism are terrified of the infamous S Word. You have the “new sport car,” and yet you resent helping your fellow human beings find and maintain a place to live, receive free health care, and have access to food to fill their empty stomachs. The Cookie meme speaks to this dilemma. You are blessed undoubtedly with material wealth, yet your neighbor with much less is more than willing to share his cookie with you. Sharing the cookie is socialism pure and simple. The world is not a “pie” where the minority rich hogs three-quarters of the pie and all the rest have to divvy up the last thin slice. No, the world is a cookie, and your neighbors freely share what they have, when they have it, so that you and yours do not go without and in hopes that they will receive the same kindness in return one day when they need help.
And that’s where the trouble (and usually the taunting) begins. The rich—who have no fear of starvation or privation—seem to not be able to handle the idea that everyone on the planet can be free of the fear of starvation and privation. The rich seem to want—or even demand—that only they can be free of these fears and everyone else must be afraid in order for the rich to feel secure in their material wealth or perhaps just feel good about themselves. So, why is the idea of everyone being taken care of and receiving enough “cookie” so scary for the rich? Do the rich believe that those currently with less material wealth are mean-spirited and won’t share if the time ever came when the rich needed help? Maybe. Why is that? Could it be because the rich are scared of sharing in the first place? That they believe the myth of artificial scarcity and somehow that when everyone is well fed they're going to go hungry? Who could have put such a terror of sharing the cookie with others—that is, socialism—in rich persons' hearts? Why do the rich consider sharing with others to be such an unspeakable horror that they shout things like, “You libtards are all socialists!” whenever providing universal health care or ending student debt is mentioned? After all, they would stand to gain from free access to health care and being out of debt, too. My guess is that this unfounded fear of socialism was taught to many from a young age by those who want to keep humanity at odds with each other for these nefarious individuals’ gain. Only by keeping the world in terror and the materially wealthy and non-wealthy at each others’ throats can these villains prevail.
Who are these villains? I call them Capitalists. Capitalists are those who drive the wedge between factions of humanity by causing war and strife and destroying the planet through exploitation of resources and its resulting pollution. Capitalists engage in these nasty activities simply for material profit—theirs. When the world is in a perpetual chaotic state, when the bombs are dropping and the forests are burning, rich and poor alike, black and white alike, are unable to join forces to stand together and take on their villainy.
If there’s a word we all need to be scared of, we all need to use as a taunt, it’s not socialism. It’s the C Word: capitalism. It’s time to teach ourselves that “sharing cookie” is a good thing, that socialism is a good thing, and that capitalism is a disease that needs to be eradicated as soon as possible in order for humankind to survive. No one should ever be afraid of sharing the basic necessities of life with their fellow human beings.
It's time we heal the wounds capitalism has inflicted upon our world and each other and vow to create a planet where all can thrive at nobody's expense.
Here's a great insight on the terms equality and equity:
Nothing destroys one’s empathy for others more completely than seeing
them as “less than.”... Equality is often understood as everyone getting exactly the same.
But because everyone has a different social, economic, or political
starting point, simply giving everyone the same thing would not
necessarily create the goal of everyone having enough to thrive. Some
would still have more than they need, while others would not. When
everyone is different, fairness and success also differ. ... Equity means making sure each person
has enough to thrive, and that may look different for different people.
Some may cry unfair when others receive more, yet if this “more than”
is based on what they need is more than what others may need to thrive,
then fairness takes on a more holistic, less shallow definition.
In liberation theology, scholars refer to the deference given to
those on the margins as a “preferential option for the oppressed.” It is
a choice to center those who are pushed to the edges and undersides of
our society, and to place these people and their communities on equal
ground with others. The preferential option is required to bring about
equality. ...
Equity doesn’t have to feel like inequality if we choose to see our
differences and how these differences are treated. Equality doesn’t have
to feel like oppression even if you are used to privilege. We are all
in this together. What lessens one, lessens us all. We are connected to
one another. As the adage goes, equality doesn’t mean less for you: it’s
not pie. [Editor's note: Or a cookie.]
It's not the first time, but it is the latest Climate-Racist Trump policy:
Last summer, more than 70,000 of us wrote, called and spoke out to Demand Congress send emergency relief money to Puerto Rico .
More
than 200 days later, Trump and HUD Secretary Ben Carson still hadn't
sent the money when Puerto Rico was rocked by earthquakes. Carson is
finally releasing some funds this week. But it's less than half the
money, and only on the conditions that Puerto Rico pay workers less than
$15 an hour, and do nothing about the island's electric grid.
Last
summer, more than 70,000 of us wrote, called and spoke out to Demand
Congress send emergency relief money to Puerto Rico despite the Trump
Administration’s racist objections. More than 200 days later, and after
Puerto Rico has been rocked by earthquakes left more than 8,000 people
without a safe home to sleep in, Ben Carson is releasing less than half
the money, and only on the conditions that Puerto Rico pay workers less
than $15 an hour, and do nothing about the island’s electric grid.
The crisis is still unfolding, but one thing is clear: Trump
and Ben Carson – his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) –
are using aid money Congress has already appropriated as leverage to
enforce their racist, climate-denying policy agenda. Will you speak out now to stop them? Sign here to demand Trump and Carson stop illegally withholding ALL federal aid to Puerto Rico.
Sadly,
this is only the latest example of how Trump combines climate denial
and racism into a policy that hurts our neighbors and fellow citizens.
Carson was legally required to disburse the money last September, but
has been delaying the release of $18 billion that Congress appropriated
for Puerto Rico. The money is supposed to upgrade infrastructure,
including the islands old and fossil-fuel powered electric grid, and
help mitigate and adapt to climate-fueled super storms like Maria.
Trump’s
ongoing anti-Puerto Rico agenda– to deny 3.2 million Puerto Ricans
funding—is based on racial and ethnic prejudice, petty politics, and a
calculated agenda to beat down the island’s economy and people so
banking and big real estate & development cronies can cash in. A
slew of reports have shown that the island remains at great risk of
natural and man-made disasters. The 2020 Global Climate Risk Index
ranked Puerto Rico, along with Myanmar and Haiti, at the top of places
most vulnerable to extreme weather events.
If
the money had been spent on-time, it’s possible that houses, schools
and the electric grid could also have been more resilient to the huge
earthquakes that rocked the island in recent weeks.
Instead,
HUD is releasing less than half the money – about $8 billion in
emergency disaster aid funding. And that movement is only coming after
intense coverage of the human suffering caused by the earthquakes, and
after Congress threatened to defund all of HUD unless they answered
questions.
From Alliance for Retired Americans & Union Veterans Council: We believe it should be easier for veterans and working people to
claim the Social Security benefits they’ve earned with every paycheck,
not harder. But the Trump administration is trying to rip benefits away
from hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities by putting up
needless hurdles.
Social Security is best known as a retirement program -- but earned
Social Security disability and survivor benefits are just as essential
to millions, including 600,000 of our veterans.
This cruel policy does not work. We know because it’s been done
before. President Reagan implemented a similar benefit cut back in the
1980s -- and nearly 200,000 Americans with disabilities lost benefits
they needed. Massive public outcry eventually caused Reagan to reverse
course -- but people were hurt.
The Administration’s proposal requires millions of Social Security
Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries to re-prove their eligibility for benefits as often as every six months—far more frequently than is currently the case.
There is no justification for this policy. The United States
already has some of the strictest eligibility criteria for disability
benefits in the world. More than half of all disability claims are
denied already!
We have 15 days to try to stop the Trump administration’s plan. The
Social Security Administration is collecting comments on the proposal
until January 31.
The Peace Tree
