Showing posts with label #standingrock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #standingrock. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Why Impeachment Doesn't Matter


Why Impeachment Doesn't Matter
by C.A. Matthews

 There are no surprises coming from the lips of the mainstream media pundits. As soon as the vacuum left after their endless bleating of "Russia! Russia!" became an uncomfortable silence (even noticeable by their fans), these corporate mouthpieces started grasping at the brass ring of Trump's impeachment. It's all a game of smoke and mirrors, a distraction from the true crime being committed against the American people--namely the crime that it doesn't matter who is ultimately in charge in a corrupt system. For in a corrupt system the leader will be corrupt (or quickly corrupted) and their replacement(s) will be equally corruptible.

In other words, replacing a sociopathic president like Trump within the current capitalist system--a system that rewards sociopathy with more money and power--with a substitute of equal stature isn't going to bring about a utopia where peace, justice and harmony among all peoples prevail. It simply brings more of the same. How could it do otherwise?


I hear you saying, "Hey, but what if we replace Trump with an actual 'good person' and not another narcissist? Won't things improve then?" To paraphrase from the Bible: You can't pour new wine into old wineskins and not expect them to burst.

 What does this mean? It means that the whole corrupt system that caters to the corporations and the mega-super-uber-wealthy will collapse if a truly honest and noble leader takes control. It means Revolution. The new wine or leadership will explode the old container--or corrupt system--and it will make quite a mess and things will get rather ugly before things settle down and look better.

 A moral individual who takes office cannot survive and cannot lead for long unless our current immoral system of government is done away with once and for all. They just can't. Think about it: Even a world-renown Indy car racer can't win a race in a clapped-out junker, can they? Both the driver and the vehicle need to be capable of winning. It can't be just one or the other.
Any attempt to replace our current driver--or president--with another who isn't at the beck and call of the corporate elites (who essentially run our country) will be met with force in the guise of our own local and state policing agencies and the military. Take for example Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The "crime" of the people was their "unreasonable demand" for a safe, clean water supply. The Big Oil Corporations and the Pipeline Builders had our corrupt federal, state and local governments respond with brute force courtesy of local policing agencies (sheriffs, state cops, highway patrol) along with other states' policing agencies brought in for the occasion, as well as the National Guard. Tear gas and rubber bullets are excellent examples of the "democratic process" that our corrupt system uses. 

 Were you thinking of the "ballot box"? Sorry to wake you, but that device hasn't worked in years.

 The corrupt system of American governance only allows those who are corrupt to use it in the manner in which it was designed. A different outcome isn't possible. Think hard: Obama's administration bombed civilians and used drone warfare in the Middle East, allowed the oil pipelines and fracking to destroy our environment, and actually had the cages that currently cage immigrant children taken from their families at the border built in the first place. The profit motive trumps the people's welfare every time. Capitalism simply changes its leader's name every four to eight years.

In the end, impeachment is simply political street theater created to distract us from the true evil of the Trump administration--or of any US administration. Impeachment is tossed out there from time to time to cover up the fact that our corrupt system exists in the first place, and we've done nothing to destroy and replace it with something that is actually democratic, just and compassionate. 

For more on Trump's possible impeachment and the real reasoning behind it, watch this video from Lee Camp.
https://youtu.be/4CHX3Mjj0TA

***

From UltraViolet:
BREAKING: This is it, the end of safe and legal abortion--unless we act now.1


The Supreme Court will consider a clinic shutdown law that would wipe out abortion access in Louisiana--and allow other states to do the same.2 


Roe v. Wade is hanging by a thread, and we need all hands on deck.




The Supreme Court has decided to consider June Medical Services, LLC v. Gee, a case concerning TRAP laws (targeted restrictions on abortion providers)--regulations written solely to shut down clinics.3 Despite the fact that the court ruled against TRAP laws in 2016, they're taking up the issue again--now with Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch on the bench.


If the court reverses its previous decision and allows this Louisiana law to go into effect, it will give anti-abortion politicians a roadmap for shutting down virtually all safe abortion providers in many states.




TRAP laws are just backdoor ways to stop women from getting the abortion care they need. These laws include everything from determining how wide hallways need to be to forcing clinics to have medically unnecessary surgical suites.


One of the most common and onerous TRAP laws--and the one under review again at the Supreme Court--requires abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges. But abortion is such a safe procedure that doctors can go their entire careers without admitting a patient--which prevents them from obtaining admitting privileges.4


So what has changed since 2016? Not clinics, nor the safety of abortion care--just the makeup of the Supreme Court. Anti-choicers have their man in Brett Kavanaugh to achieve their biggest dream: denying people the respect, dignity, and autonomy to decide when or if they will become parents.


And the Supreme Court is now giving Kavanaugh the chance to overturn its previous decision and allow states to establish TRAP laws that will, essentially, shut down abortion services entirely. 


Once that happens, we won't be able to depend on Roe any longer. That's why we need to ramp up our campaign to stop abortion bans and TRAP laws at the state level right now.



Thank you for joining in.

--Shaunna, Kat, Kathy, Anathea, Melody, Lindsay, Pam, Sonja, and Kimberly, the UltraViolet Action team


Sources:



3. What are TRAP Laws? Planned Parenthood Action Fund, accessed October 7, 2019


 ***

From Fight for the Future:

State net neutrality bills have been introduced in at least 34 states by both Democrats and Republicans.2
 

In fact, California's net neutrality bill is one of the strongest net neutrality laws we've ever seen—even stronger than the rules repealed by Pai.3 But Pai's repeal of net neutrality said that states weren't allowed to institute rules on their own—so all these bills were thrown out or blocked. 


But now that the courts have overruled the FCC's ban on state action, strong net neutrality laws like California's gold-standard net neutrality bill are back on the table. 
 

If we can get 10 or more states to adopt laws similar to California's, the ISPs will eventually have to treat all of us like they treat those states. Just imagine them trying to apply one set of rules to half the country and another set of rules for the rest of us. 


With the courts upholding the repeal of nationwide net neutrality rules, we must take the fight to the states. But running a state-by-state campaign is a huge undertaking. We'll need funds to hire local organizers, run billboards and newspaper ads, send mass text messages, organize protests and petition deliveries, and more. 


And Big Cable will be fighting us every step of the way. They spent millions trying to stop net neutrality in California—but we fought them and we won. If we can raise the funds we need, we can beat them again in more states. 


 

For the Internet,

Evan at Fight for the Future


Footnotes:





***
From Friends of the Earth:
Soon our wild places and communities could be overrun with millions of experimental GMO mosquitoes. 
GMO mosquitoes pose risks to human health and could disrupt fragile ecosystems in unpredictable ways. 
Trump’s EPA is considering allowing the release of millions of GMO mosquitoes in Florida and Texas. The EPA could stop this dangerous experiment, but it’s ignoring scientists’ warnings about likely impacts on our health and environment, and is keeping the public in the dark about the details. We need your help to stop this reckless experiment, C.A.! 
The genetic engineering corporation that created GMO mosquitoes -- Oxitec -- is a subsidiary of Intrexon, the same company that owns GMO apples and is a major investor in GMO salmon. The company wants us to believe these mosquitoes will help reduce the spread of diseases like zika and dengue by reducing mosquito populations, but the data shows that they don’t reduce population sizes. In fact, new research shows that in some places where GMO mosquitoes were released, the mosquito populations actually increased. 
The Center for Disease Control even noted that Oxitec’s trials are not set up to test for disease reduction -- making them totally pointless!
Moreover, scientists have found that GMO mosquitoes can breed with wild mosquitoes, creating hybrid mosquitoes that may spread more viruses and be more resistant to insecticides. In other words, GMO mosquitoes could make public health problems even worse. 
Trump’s EPA wants the American public to take Oxitec’s word that their GMO insects are safe, without any independent assessment. The EPA must protect us from the potentially devastating threats GMO mosquitoes pose -- especially when there hasn’t even been adequate research. 
Once millions of these mosquitoes are released into the environment, they cannot be “recalled.” And despite Oxitec’s claims that its GMO mosquitoes could help end devastating diseases, there is not a clear case to demonstrate this outcome. 
Oxitec doesn’t want you to know that there are promising and less costly alternatives to addressing mosquito-borne diseases with far fewer risks. It just wants to secure public dollars for its potentially disastrous experiment .
Our environment and our communities should not be a testing ground for risky new GMOs. We shouldn’t wait until after GMO mosquitoes are released to figure out the risks. With your help, C.A., we can stop these experimental mosquitoes before they are released from labs into our environment. 
Standing with you,
Dana Perls
Senior food and technology campaigner
Friends of the Earth, U.S.

***
From Restore the Fourth:

This is a critical moment to shut down one of the worst parts of the Patriot Act and stop Trump, or his successors, from conducting unlawful, intrusive, and racist government surveillance.


Section 215 is a provision of the Patriot Act that allows the government to collect an astonishing amount of our personal information - we still don't even know exactly how much -  without ever needing a warrant or suspicion of a crime. Passed after 9/11, Section 215 has never prevent a single terrorist attack. Snowden showed that this provision was being used to spy on essentially all Americans by collecting records of whom you call and who calls you (also known as "metadata").


Millions of people have been spied on under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but we're not all being surveilled equally. The government wrongfully spies on communities of color and immigrants more than others. For example, the FBI's recent designation of "Black Identity Extremists" as domestic terrorists has allowed the Trump administration to justify spying on Black Lives Matter activists. People who communicate with family and friends overseas are particularly exposed, which feeds the oppression immigrants and Muslim communities experience in this country. Despite all this surveillance, NSA itself now says they have suspended the program and that it's not effective at thwarting terrorism - so what does the President still want it for?

We cannot let Trump, or anybody else, have the legal authority to conduct this surveillance.


Sponsored by: Demand Progress, Watchdog.net, Win Without War, Daily Kos, RootsAction.org, Restore The Fourth, Free Press Action Fund, Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD), MPower Change, Fight for the Future, New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Progress America, The Other 98%, MediaJustice, Color of Change, Just Foreign Policy, Media Mobilizing Project, and Common Dreams.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

American Hubris


“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

A Letter to the Folks at Energy Transfer Partners

Dear Sirs:

This is probably one of thousands of emails regarding The Dakota Access Pipeline you have received and will receive, so I will keep it short and to the point.

Shut the pipeline down. Now. Forever.

You are infinitely wealthier than most ordinary human beings on the planet, so you have no worries about where your next meal is coming from. You can afford to be generous and shut the Dakota Access Pipeline down once and for all.

Your children's and grandchildren's future are at stake. Whether or not you believe in climate change or that fossil fuels are a finite resource, leaking oil from your pipelines can and does pollute our water supplies. Just ask the folks along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and recently in Alabama and Pennsylvania, among many others in this country and around the globe.

Yes, I know you personally will never worry about having enough clean water to drink or food to eat, but the vast majority of human beings do worry about these basic needs. Can you not find it in your heart to be compassionate and considerate of their needs?

The Standing Rock Sioux have suffered long enough due to our government's racist and genocidal policies. Why do you wish your name to be listed in the history books alongside these horrendous deeds? What satisfaction will you gain from having your reputation sullied by association with the violence perpetrated against peaceful water protectors praying over their sacred lands and water?

It makes me cry knowing that a 21 year old young woman, Sophia Wilansky, could lose her arm because of your lust for more profit. 

Vanessa suffered a detached retina because your militarized "oil police" shot rubber bullets into water protectors' faces. 

It's some trade-off--the lives and health of Sophia, Vanessa and millions of others for you to make millions of dollars in profits to buy yet another mansion, yacht, golf course, etc. (How many luxury items do you really need?)

You have forever transformed the public's perception of our police officers from being defenders of the weak to one of acting as paid bullies for the oil barons. Covering for your cupidity, your bought-and-paid-for politicians, especially in the statehouse of North Dakota as well as the presidency, have destroyed our sense of fairness and justice.

Try to look at it from the ordinary human being's point of view for a change. Try to think what God (or your Higher Power) would want you to do--to show mercy, to practice compassion, to act justly and to care for those who have little and will have even less because of your greed.

Shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline today. The human race might not have a tomorrow if you don't.

Sincerely,
C.A. Matthews


Click on our Standing Rock (#NoDAPL) Helps page link on the sidebar for contact info and ways you can help the water protectors.

*** 


Hubris 
by Adrian J. Matthews

We’re witnessing the aftermath of one of the most contentious presidential elections in United States history. Donald Trump's election led to an immediate outcry from all across the nation and a sense of deep mistrust and even stunned disbelief from the governments of other countries. Protesters took to the streets in most major cities in America to denounce Trump’s stance on a host of issues, including LGBTQ rights, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the infamous "Wall." These protests are still ongoing. 

It’s a matter of fact that Trump would not be president-elect without the spectacular example of hubris enacted by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

To the Greeks, hubris referred to extreme pride, especially pride and ambition so great that they offend the gods and lead to one’s downfall. Hubris was a character flaw often seen in the heroes of classical Greek tragedy, including Oedipus and Achilles. The familiar old saying, “Pride goeth before a fall,” is basically talking about hubris. From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary:

Definition of HUBRIS: a great or foolish amount of pride or confidence 
 
Early last year a mid-ranking official in the Democratic Party of New York recounted how he and other officials were gathered together for a special announcement. They were told the party was going to nominate Hillary Clinton for the 2016 election to the exclusion of any other candidate – and this weeks before she even announced her candidacy. His revelation is all of a piece with what has since been learned about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long-term efforts to take over the Democratic Party and make it their own. People were in place, the mainstream media bought off in her favor, the game-plan written for the election. The stream of data from Wikileaks recounts the whole sorry story.

When Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders announced he intended to run as a Democrat, he was treated as no threat. The fix was in for Clinton, courtesy
of her wholly-owned party. The other contenders, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chaffee, Professor Larry Lessig and Jim Webb were held to be no threat, either. They were there merely to make it look like the primaries were contested. Mainstream media paid scant attention to Sander’s campaign, a lack of attention at serious odds with their previous willingness to invite him on the air to present the left-wing position on many issues. The number of televised debates was kept at a ridiculously low level compared to previous elections thanks to the sterling efforts of  Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Chair of the DNC, another example of the Clinton machine running interference for their principal. Clinton’s health may have been a key factor in this decision. Apparently she has a number of serious medical issues arising from the stroke she suffered in 2012, and perhaps her people didn’t want to risk an event on live TV.

Then it became obvious Senator Sanders had tapped the anger felt by ordinary people against The Establishment. He called it as he saw it, and people listened in their millions. Suddenly Clinton found herself facing a challenger who had yuge popular support and was raising money hand-over-fist, mostly from small donations – the now-famous $27. Suddenly Clinton was faced with the need to make the primary process look like the real contest it’s supposed to be. 

Instead of being wafted into the nomination on rose petals and clouds of scent to her supporters’ cries of adulation, Clinton found herself needing to work hard. Suddenly her war chest looked inadequate for the purpose, so she sought further donations from her Wall Street sponsors. She also took all but a pittance of  funds intended for down-ticket Democratic candidates’ campaigns, leaving them high and dry. What did she do with the money? She released a host of attack ads against Sanders who’d pledged to run a clean campaign and who’d kept to his word. Clinton’s super PACs also weighed in against him, running a smear campaign and fouling Sander’s followers’ Facebook and Twitter pages with child pornography. There is evidence of co-ordination between Clinton’s campaign HQ and her Super PAC, which is illegal.

Social media broke out into open warfare between the supporters of Senator
Sanders and Clinton. Time and again Sanders supporters were bombarded with demands to "pledge to support Hillary when he loses." Friendships and relationships were broken by the millions.

The primaries see-sawed back and forth. In those states where Diebold machines were used, the results looked seriously skewed. For instance, one county in West Virginia showed Senator Sanders winning 6,000 votes. An hour later his tally had been cut to 3,000. Hundreds of thousands of voters, including an entire city block in Sanders’ birthplace of Brooklyn, New York, vanished from the electoral roll. Could it be the Clinton machine wanted to ensure Bernie lost his hometown?

The majority of states that still relied upon conventional balloting methods went to Sanders. By the time the primaries were finished, the results were close, with Senator Sanders holding 45% of the delegates. All of a sudden it looked like Clinton would not gain the nomination.

But of course, the fix was in.

Although I was in Philadelphia, I will gloss over the convention debacle. What I found interesting was the utter failure of Clinton to gain the usual post-convention "bounce" in the polls the following week. Normally this bounce indicates a rise in interest in the nominee from the electorate who doesn’t bother following the primaries. In Clinton’s case its failure to materialize spoke of serious trouble to come.

And so the election rumbled on with a rising crescendo of acrimonious debate raging across social media. The nominees themselves went through the motions on the three televised debates, spitting criticisms at each other and generally behaving like bad actors. They resisted the temptation to address any serious issues. 

Bernie Sanders was co-opted to act as a Clinton surrogate in an attempt to win over his millions of supporters – many of them new voters – to her cause. It failed. They expected us all to fall into line behind her. We didn’t. What I found particularly nasty was the time soon after the convention when Clinton dragged Sanders to speak in New Hampshire, a place where he did particularly well and she badly. It was a modern take of a barbarian chief holding up the severed head of his enemy to show the enemy’s followers who was now boss.

Poll after poll taken prior to the Democratic Convention showed Senator Sanders beating Trump by double digits, enough to translate to an election landslide of epic proportions. Clinton on the other hand fared poorly against Trump, her figures being within the margin of error on more than one occasion and often below. Yet to her followers she was the Anointed One, there to lead them to glory.

Come election night, things did not look at all rosy for Clinton. As the evening wore on in her campaign HQ, the televisions showing election coverage were turned off. A fearful silence fell. Trump was winning. The celebratory firework show in NYC was canceled. The champagne remained unopened. At 2:30 A.M. Wednesday morning Clinton phoned Trump to concede the election. In their sure confidence of winning, nobody on her staff had written a "just in case" concession speech.

For the first time since 1928 Republicans will hold the House, Senate, the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and most state legislatures and governorships. Is it coincidence that the Wall Street Crash occurred in 1929, barely a year later?

One cannot help but mourn the golden opportunity we had to elect the one man who would have worked for all Americans – Bernie Sanders. All this because
Clinton, in her pride, rejected the one person who could have beaten Trump in a landslide. She failed to engage with ordinary American voters or to discover and speak for what they really wanted. In fact, she insulted and marginalized them, calling them “a basket of deplorables” and “basement dwellers.” For the sake of her pride and burning ambition to become president, she forfeited the chance to enact genuine social change in the United States.

Hubris has claimed her.


BIO: Adrian J. Matthews is an author, artist, armchair historian and concerned citizen of the world.
***
Another example of American hubris--a Congress that can't even be bothered to consider a Supreme Court nominee.


Appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court Now
by Hugh J. Campbell

President Obama is petitioned in We the People Appoint Garland Now (Senate Has Waived Its Rights) to act now and make his Supreme Court appointment as a recess appointment, since the Senate’s inaction is a waiver of it right to consent. The legal basis for this petition is outlined in the Washington Post op-ed Obama can appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothing.

Right-wing obstructionists are desperately trying to dissuade Americans from signing this petition by questioning the legal grounds of the waiver of rights argument, but their bias on this issue is indisputable.

Even though the We the People Appoint Garland Now (Senate Has Waived Its Rights) petition has the minimum 100,000 signatures to get an official update from the White House within 60 days, please sign the petition anyway, to communicate to the White House the urgency of this matter to the American People.

A 2016 SCOTUS recess appointment by President Obama should be effective through the end of the 115th Congress ending January 3, 2019 and will, in all likelihood, result in a case brought before our current eight member Supreme Court. The waiver of rights and other legal arguments including prior Supreme Court rulings on the substance over form doctrine can be put forth when and if this case is heard.
 
BIO: Hugh Campbell is a seasoned financial professional, currently providing subject matter expertise on a variety of regulatory topics, including the Dodd-Frank Act, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and overall compliance monitoring. Hugh has previously held positions as Chief Risk Officer (CRO), Chief Audit Executive (CAE) and Director of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Compliance.

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016

"Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"


 Now is the Time
words & photos by Cindy A. Matthews

"Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"

These are the last words of labor organizer Joe Hill. They've been quoted by the Green Party's Jill Stein and many others this past week. Now more than ever, they're words worth heeding.

What do they mean? They mean there's no time to lose, people! Get back out there and work hard for the political revolution. It's not going to be handed to us on a silver platter. We're going to have to sweat for it.

On this week's blog we'll gain insight on how progressives should deal with the aftermath of a Trump victory, but the photographic images will come from the latest Dakota Access Pipeline protest I attended in downtown Toledo, Ohio, at 1 Government Center. It was an extremely windy evening, but that didn't prevent 40+ activists from participating. We held up signs, chanted "Water is life!" and talked with passers-by--including a couple of very nice police officers. 
  
The officers really wanted to know what all was going on at Standing Rock. They thought President Obama had stopped the pipeline a while back, since that's all they heard on the mainstream news channels. They said they didn't realize the pipeline is to go under the Missouri River and threaten the water supply of millions if and when it should leak.

Now is the time to take Joe Hill's remarks to heart. The  conversation we had with the two police officers demonstrates how the majority of our fellow citizens need more information about what is happening in North Dakota and elsewhere that threatens their health and the health of the planet.  They need to know who in power is fighting for them and who is exploiting them. They need uncensored information to make wiser electoral decisions next time at the polls. Where will they receive this unbiased information? You are their source for that much needed information.

So, grab some friends, pick a cause, make some plans and some signs and get out there and inform the public. Forget about the presidential election--it's over! To quote Joe Hill:

"Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!" 

*** 

              "It's Time"
Green Party US Senate Candidate
 Joseph DeMares's Statement on the 2016 Election

This has been a hard election for all of us. I know in my household the personal, financial and health costs of mounting a statewide election for a year and a half on a tiny budget have been severe, and I thank my family for helping me make this effort. 

Perhaps the deepest loss in this election is the loss of civility, the loss of friends and family who disagree politically. Our country is more divided than it has been since I was a child in the 1960's, at a time when we desperately need to come together to tackle society-threatening problems like global warming and income inequality. One of the main causes of this division is our corporate dominated media. By carefully censoring what information we see, it gives us a distorted picture of ourselves and our neighbors. 

According to the (Ohio) Secretary of State, I received 1.6% of the vote for a total of 85,000 votes. This doesn't sound like much until you realize that 9 out of 10 Ohioans went into the polls not even knowing that there was a Green Party candidate for US Senate. I was locked out of the three hour-long televised debates, and the public television stations refused to play even my two minute candidate statement. The television, radio, and newspapers assiduously ignored the Green Party for a year and a half. That makes the 1.6% I received nothing short of miraculous, and I thank my volunteers from all over the state who were out knocking on doors, hanging banners and passing out fliers for that 1.6%. 

I was honored to be included in candidates' nights all over the state, and pleased to be included in some voters' guides put out by groups like the League of Women Voters. To the extent that true democracy exists in Ohio, we were present and we did well. To the extent that money and the corporate media control who governs the country, we were excluded. In the last days before the election, I received literally thousands of Facebook messages, phone calls, and tweets from people who had just found out about my candidacy and were overjoyed that they could vote for someone outside of the two party system. It is an indictment of our system that most Ohioans never knew they had that opportunity.

So, we find ourselves after the election a deeply divided country with the bonds between friends, family and neighbor torn or strained, and we are faced with a decision. Do we deepen those divisions or do we work to strengthen our connections with each other? The threats to our nation are still there. Threats like global warming will not go away simply because we elected a president who denies them. In the coming years, as crops fail, cities sink, and the climate runs away we will need each other. We can't afford to put off ending the fossil fuel economy simply because Jill Stein lost. We cannot give up. Things look desperate right now, but we can't let that drive us to desperation.

The Green Party made some gains in this election. Jill Stein got almost three times the votes that she received in 2012. The Ohio Green Party has almost doubled in size, and we now have Greens in every county in the state. There are new county committees forming where we have never had an organization before. So, there is hope for the future. We need to take that hope and turn it into a Green reality. Thank you to all who have helped us get this far. Let's keep going. It's time.
***

Mariana offers us a different perspective on the recent election. We should all stop complaining and start looking for the "silver lining" in a Trump presidency, all the while not forgetting to Act. Wake up. Organize.

photo by Zaire Daniels
The Silver Lining
by Mariana Alvarez
  
I know what people think about Trump. But I have also been carefully listening to his speeches instead of just following the media hype on the stupid things he says (racist, sexist, etc.). Yes, he's a crazy bigot, we all know this, but we have to look for the silver lining. Is he really the worst that could have happened to this country? Is there no reason to celebrate a Hillary loss? What will Trump’s presidency mean for the progressive movement?

To begin, Trump's foreign policy is revolutionary. He wants to bring America back to the manufacturing age, mining and small business age. He wants to stop outsourcing jobs (i.e., stop American corporations from invading other countries for cheap slave labor). He wants to bring back small businesses and skilled trades and small farmers. He wants to cancel all international trade agreements that force the cheap flow of natural resources from third world countries into the US. (He wants the US to exploit its own resources instead of colonizing other countries. Finally!)  He wants third world countries to lose dependency on the US. This is all a good thing. It’s a good thing for the world, and its a good thing for the USA. 

Do you really want to continue to live on your knees to big corporations and bankers? Do you really want your career to depend on big monopolies and their profit? What if the American people take back their economy?

Yes, Trump's against immigration, but, if he keeps his promises, moving away from violent neo-liberalism will reduce the amount of people that need to move to the US in search of jobs in the first place. Why? Because the US will stop causing poverty in other countries. If Monsanto, Walmart, Nike, Verizon, the steel industry, etc., stop invading other countries for land, resources and cheap labor this will change up the global game. If American corporations stop invading small farmers’ lands in other countries, this will be a great thing for the world. This type of colonialism is the cause of the high level of immigration into the US in the first place. 

The US has always been sticking its nose into foreign politics and economies. The US wants the third world to become its source of labor and resources so that America can keep on getting richer. This is not what the USA was meant to be by our founding fathers. Yes, diversity and immigration is a wonderful thing, but not when it is fueled by a violent, colonizing, neo-liberal force of power held by the 1% of this country.

Others: "Oh, but Trump is going to cause WWIII!"

My response: You think Hillary wasn't going to do that? She's a warmonger. She's super neo-liberal and supports US intervention in every country. She wants war with Russia. She doesn’t care about minorities unless it means keeping them here to provide labor for big corporations. Look at how many countries she bombed as Secretary of State. She kills innocent women, children and men every day. That is not coming from a place of love and morality. It’s coming from a place of greed. 


photo by Zaire Daniels
Hillary is all rhetoric. She makes you think Trump represents racism and everything we need to be against, when in reality she cares just as little about minorities’ lives. She just wants to protect big business’ interests. That’s all. Trump is against a lot of neo-liberal policies. He's against NAFTA and a whole bunch of other international trade agreements. This is good news for the rest of the world. Maybe the US will finally begin to focus in on itself and get its dirty paws out of the natural resources of other countries and stop messing up with their politics.

And hey, maybe those that can should just move out of the USA. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. There are thousands upon thousands of immigrants in the US living horrible, difficult lives away from their family members across the globe, working long hours for ridiculous wages, living here just because its the only choice they have to survive. The US is no longer a melting pot. Only a place for immigrants to be pushed out of their countries to become slaves to big business. Trump isn't against immigrants with education and money. "Educated" immigrants will get to keep their good jobs and money. Don’t worry about that. He wants business. What he doesn’t want is Latino/Asian/Black farmers and construction workers and bathroom cleaners and slaves of big corporations. He wants to stop that type of immigration. But funny enough, the US has been causing that type of immigration in the first place.
 
photo by Anthony Curi
Yes, poor families will feel the burn. It'll be hard. I know because I am part of a poor Latinx family. I know because my mom cleans houses for a living. I know because I don’t have health insurance and have to pay a fee for Obamacare for not having any. I know because we live paycheck to paycheck. It’s not good news for us directly, but what if we the poor immigrants (many of whom haven't seen our families in years) can return to our countries, finally find jobs there and are no longer be forced to immigrate for the so-called "American (neo-liberal) Dream" (a.k.a. slave labor machine)?

In short, of course both parties are scared of Trump! He is against a lot of policies that protect money interests. What will the 1% in the US do if they can no longer exploit the planet for profit at the rate they have been doing?

My only concern is Trump’s domestic racism. This is bad news for the Black Lives Matters movement and for immigrants. But keep in mind that Trump hasn’t brought in new racism into our country. He has just uncovered the racism that has always been there. The war against us will be more explicit now. This just means we have a clearer target now. We have to stick together, more than ever. Instead of losing hope, let’s look at the opportunities this has opened up for us.

For example, I think these results show that people are tired of the status quo (and I was seriously more fearful of the status quo under Clinton more than anything). A Trump win may actually be good for third parties. It is our chance to start a bigger movement. Wall Street could possibly be crumbling! (Unless this is all just a sick game and Trump is actually on their side, but let's ignore that possibility for now.) Trump is all about getting big money interests out of politics. (At least that’s what he says.) He has taken the power out of the Clinton’s hands. 

Let’s use this chaotic time to grow even bigger. Let’s mobilize. Let’s stick together, make the Green Party grow. Make a movement based on love and peace. Support our indigenous people fighting against the DAPL. Support the Black Lives Matter movement. Support the people getting organized in your localities.  

Act. Wake up. Organize. Stop sitting on your ass. 

It's funny how the people lecturing me about Trump have never even volunteered for a political movement and are those who just believe everything the news feeds them. Stop the ignorance and start getting connected to local groups trying to make a change. Research the Green Party. Fight for the country you want!

This is an opportunity. If you just take this as a loss and give up, what's that going to do? You gotta look at the silver lining. The better question is: What are you going to do?

Bio: Mariana Alvarez is a 27-year old immigrant from Colombia to the United States and currently resides in Florida with her mom. As part of her activism, she has traveled and lived in various poor communities around the world in an attempt to better understand today’s global geopolitics and social movements.

 

***

From Brand New Congress, ways to help the 2018 election outcome turn out a whole lot better for our country:
 
Dear Friends,

We weren’t hoping for this, but we’re ready. For the past several months, Brand New Congress’s full time staff and volunteers have been recruiting a new generation of leaders to run for Congress in 2018. The candidates are amazing women, men and people from every American community -- uniquely equipped to defeat Trumpism by healing our divided nation and rebuilding our economy. They are the gems out of thousands of nominations we’ve received from you, and your small donations have made our work possible. Thank you!

When we started reaching out to these potential candidates, they thought we were crazy. They are not politicians; they are working people who keep America going every day. But both yesterday and today, we have woken up to emails and phone calls. Trump’s victory has convinced many of them the time is now.

But some of these folks are asking us very specific questions -- questions about you. “Haven’t people lost faith in this entire country now? Haven’t they given up?”

This is very real. We need you to show our candidates that you will never give up. Add your name to our pledge to elect a Brand New Congress in 2018.

When we get to 100,000 names, we will announce our first batch of draftees: http://BrandNewCongress.org

Please share this with everyone you know who is heartsick about where our country is right now and wondering what they can do to fix it.

A lot of people are asking why did Trump win? In the end it was because people’s incomes and access to jobs have been disappearing for 40 years and a lot of people -- including many who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 -- either cast a protest vote against the establishment that let it happen or deserted the two party system. Eight million people who voted for a major party in 2012 did not in 2016.

Trump’s power will be short lived -- but only if we organize to put a way forward in front of Americans. If history is any guide, when Trump fails to turn around the economy, he will seek to rally his supporters to the campaign promises he was most passionate about: targeting undocumented workers, targeting Muslims and “bombing the s*** out of” various countries. We have to take this country back for the people -- all the people!

When the labor organizer Joe Hill was sentenced to death in 1915, his immortal words to the movement were, “Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!”

Let’s organize!

Yours for the revolution,

The Brand New Congress Working Group
Alex, Corbin, Haley, Issy, Mary, Nasim, Saikat, Zack 



Got the message? ORGANIZE! 
And let us know what you are doing in your community.
Please send us your photos, event news, blogs, poems, etc. to thebernieblog2016@gmail.com
Thank you and Power to the People!
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