Inequality

Activists Counter Feds Gathering, Push Against Interest Rate Hikes

September 1, 2015 Daniel Marans, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Federal Reserve, Inequality, Racial Justice

By Daniel Marans in The Huffington Post - Progressive activists and economists who want the Federal Reserve to prioritize jobs and racial justice brought their case to the central bankers' summer meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday for two days of teach-ins and protests. The activists’ immediate goal is to prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates until wages rise more significantly. The two-day event, Whose Recovery: A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve, is organized by the Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy. It serves as a counter-conference to the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium, where Fed officials come together to discuss monetary policy -- and which is currently taking place at the same resort as the Fed Up gathering.

Why The USA’s Inequality Problem Is About A Lot More Than Money

August 11, 2015 David Cay Johnston, www.truth-out.org Educate! Class, Inequality, Wealth

By David Cay Johnston in Truth Out - Inequality is about much more than the growing chasm of income and wealth between those at the very top and everyone else in America. It's also about education, environmental hazards, health and health care, incarceration, law enforcement, wage theft and policies that interfere with family life over multiple generations. In its full dimensions, inequality shapes, distorts and destroys lives in ways that get little attention from politicians and major news organizations. How many of us know that every day 47 American babies die, who would live if only our nation had the much better infant mortality rates of Sweden? "Poverty is not natural," Nelson Mandela once said. "It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings." The man-made disparities between the rich and the poor are a threat to the liberties of the people. Plutarch, the Greco-Roman historian, observed more than 2000 years ago that, "an imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."

100+ Doctors Tell Big Pharma To Not Make Cancer Drugs So Expensive

July 28, 2015 Tara Culp-Ressler, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Cancer, Inequality, Medicine, Public Health

By Tara Culp-Ressler in Think Progress - The pressure is mounting on pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices for lifesaving drugs, as a group of more than 100 prominent oncologists is calling for grassroots solutions to the skyrocketing cost of cancer treatment. In an editorial published on Thursday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 118 doctors from top hospitals around the country argue that up to 20 percent of cancer patients don’t follow their recommended treatment regimen because they’re being priced out of the drugs they need. The oncologists say this financial burden puts sick Americans in an untenable situation as they’re fighting for their lives. “It’s time for patients and their physicians to call for change,” Dr. Ayalew Tefferi, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and the lead author of the paper, concluded.

Activists In Ferguson Broaden Scope, Unveil ‘Power Behind The Police’

July 27, 2015 Sarah Jaffee, www.rollingstone.com Strategize! Economic Justice, Inequality, police brutality, Racial Justice, Wars and Militarism

By Sarah Jaffee in Rolling Stone - Roz Brown, one of the activists who spoke at the protests, tells Rolling Stone that racism is "embedded in the infrastructures" of St. Louis, from business to education to the judicial system. She points to the way police lined up to protect business headquarters when the protesters arrived last week — the same police who, in Ferguson, stared down protesters behind armored vehicles and riot shields. Unequal systems reinforce each other, Brown says. Frankie Edwards says he's troubled that these executives make a lot of money, but don't put enough of it back into the community in ways that help people like him: young black men who are constantly harassed by police. To him, they have a responsibility to build a city that works for everyone.

Sending Citizens Summons To Members of Congress

July 27, 2015 Ralph Nader, www.commondreams.org Strategize! Congress, Democracy, Inequality, Politics, Ralph Nader

By Ralph Nader in Common Dreams - My proposal of a Citizens Summons can begin the process of showing your elected legislators who is truly in charge, as befits the Preamble to the Constitution – “We the People.” I am including below a draft Citizens Summons to your Senators or Representative. It covers the main derelictions of the Congress, under which you can add more examples of necessary reforms. Your task is to start collecting signatures of citizens, members of citizen groups, labor unions, and any other associations that want a more deliberative democracy. The ultimate objective is to reduce inequalities of power. Shifting power from the few to the many prevents the gross distortions of our Constitution and laws, our public budgets, and our commonwealth, that currently favor the burgeoning corporate state. May you give your lawmakers a memorable August recess; they deserve to be shown the workings of what our founding fathers called “the sovereignty of the people.”

Chicago Activists Fight For Survival

July 23, 2015 Maya Dukmasova, www.truth-out.org Resist! Inequality, Poverty, Public Health, University, Violence

By Maya Dukmasova in Truthout - On the first Wednesday in June, nine Chicago activists were arrested for occupying an administration building at the University of Chicago during an annual alumni reunion. They demanded to meet with Rob Zimmer, the president of the university, to discuss the lack of a Level 1 trauma center on the South Side, as hundreds of big donors were poised to arrive on campus. Two and a half hours later, firefighters cut a hole through the wall and the nine were detained by university police. In the previous month, nine other demonstrators for a South Side trauma center had been arrested during a march on Michigan Avenue. Currently, all four of Chicago's adult trauma centers are located on the North and West sides of the city, leaving almost a fifth of city residents and large swaths of the South Side without a trauma center within a 5-mile radius.

How Universal Basic Income Will Save Us From The Robot Uprising

July 19, 2015 George Dvorsky, www.io9.com Create! Guaranteed basic income, Inequality

By George Dvorsky for io9 - Robots are poised to eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades. We have to address the coming epidemic of "technological unemployment" if we're to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse. Here's how a guaranteed basic income will help — and why it's absolutely inevitable. The idea of a guaranteed basic income, also referred to as unconditional or universal basic income, is starting to gain traction in many parts of the world, both in developed and developing nations. It's actually a very simple idea: Everyone in society receives a single basic income to provide for a comfortable living whether they choose to work or not. Importantly, it's only intended to be enough for a person to survive on. The money for this social welfare scheme could come from the government or some other public institution, in addition to funds or income received from other sources. It could be taxable, or non-taxable, and divvyed up on a continual basis, monthly, or annually.

Build July 25th March Against Police Violence In Newark

June 28, 2015 Staff, www.laborfightback.org Resist! Inequality, Injustice, killed by police, police brutality, Police violence, Racism

By Staff, Labor Fightback Network. Police brutality, especially as directed against young Black and Brown men, is one of the most pressing issues in the U.S. today. Organized labor can and must take the right stand on this issue and join with the People's Organization for Progress (POP), #Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays, and hundreds of other organizations committed to racial and economic justice in calling for mass actions against police brutality. The Labor Fightback Network (LFN) voted at our recent conference in Rutgers, New Jersey to make building the Million People’s March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequality in Newark, N.J.called for by POP our first priority campaign. July 25 is barely over a month away. We need to work quickly to maximize labor participation. Why is this a priority for a labor-based network? The better question would be: why would it not be our priority?

We Want Our $25 Trillion Back! Audit & Recoup Extracted Wealth

June 25, 2015 David DeGraw, www.exit.media Petitions and Online Actions Banks, Corporatism, Corruption, Finanace and the Economy, Inequality

By David DeGraw for ExitMedia. We demand a publicly transparent commission to audit and recoup wealth that has been extracted from the US economy through corrupt practices. Preliminary estimates lead us to believe that at least $25 trillion has been extracted. To give some context, $1 trillion is $1000 billion. With $25 trillion, we can dramatically rebuild and evolve society for the benefit of all. “Lawmakers” and "regulators" who have received any compensation from companies they regulated or wrote laws for, before or after holding government office, will be barred from further government activity and be fined in an amount at least equivalent to past compensation for such activities. All offshore wealth will be confiscated and individuals will be fined twice the amount they hid, and they will be prosecuted based on theft laws.

Newsletter – No Justice, No Peace

June 20, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Arctic drilling, Asian Pivot, BXE, Climate Justice, Criminal Justice and Prisons, fast track, Freedom of Speech, Gas, Housing, Inequality, Net Neutrality, New York City (NYC), Pipelines, Police violence, Pope Francis, Privacy, Racial Discrimination, Racism, Rikers, Shell Oil, sHellNo!, South Carolina, Terrorism, TPP, Wars and Militarism

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report writes that “No justice, no peace” is “a vow by the movement to transform the crisis that is inflicted on Black people into a generalized crisis for the larger society, and for those who currently rule.” In reality, given the violence being inflicted upon people, particularly people of color, whether directly or indirectly through rising poverty, unemployment, homelessness, lack of access to health care and more, and the government’s failures to address these crises and listen to the people, disruption is a necessary element of political change. In 1968 the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke outside a prison in California where people were being held for protesting the Vietnam War. In the speech he drew the connections between the Civil Rights movement and the peace movement against the Vietnam War. Today we see the links between racism, inequality, imperialism, militarism and ecocide and his comment on that day continues to ring true: "There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice."

Newsletter: Billionaires Fear Revolt As People Power Grows

June 14, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Arctic drilling, Austerity, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Commons, fast track, HIV/AIDS, indigenous, Inequality, Movement of Movements, Seattle, Solidarity, TISA, TPP

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. Last week there was a populist revolt from across the political spectrum. Congress received tens of thousands of phone calls every day from people who are clear which side they are on: they want people and planet before profits; they want an open, transparent democracy not a secretive oligarchy. The campaign to stop Fast Track for corporate trade agreements like the TPP is a clarifying moment. It is democracy vs. oligarchs making decisions for us. It is transparency vs. secret law. It is the people vs. big business. It is a mobilized people vs. big money. These are the issues that unite people into a movement of movements. These are conflicts that let us know who is on the side of the people.

Civil Rights: The Next Generation

June 14, 2015 Martha Biondi, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Inequality, Police violence, Racism

By Martha Biondi for In These Times. Is there a way to convert the energy of the recent protests into a sustained movement? FRANCES: People ask, “How can we transform movements into long-term, left, progressive organizations?” But the assumption that movements are a flash in the pan is wrong. Movements have considerable transformative power in themselves and can last a long time. The movement in Latin America that transformed South America began as anti-austerity, anti-structural-adjustment protests against the IMF. Several decades later, it had transformed the governments of many South American countries. It’s hard to know exactly when a movement begins and ends, but the civil rights movement certainly began by the mid-1950s and lasted at least 18 years, and in some senses continues to exist. CHARLENE: What’s happening right now is that a number of new folks are just being politicized. They are building their analyses and then figuring out what they want to do. One of the challenges is that you have folks who have been doing this work for decades in a very particular way that is in conflict with the values and the ideals of many folks who are also coming into this work for the first time because of police killings. The new folks are bringing a different analysis around things like queerness, blackness, feminism.

Systemic Problems Require Systemic Solutions

June 7, 2015 Gus Speth, www.theleap.thischangeseverything.org Create! Climate Change, Democracy, Environment, Inequality

By Gus Speth for The Leap. If you’re reading this, chances are you already know that we’re facing a profound crisis. It is a crisis that encompasses almost all aspects of national and international life. We are surrounded by tragic failures—environmental, social, economic, and political. After over forty years of working in the environmental movement, I have come to the conclusion that our largest problems—including climate change—are deeply rooted in our fundamental political-economic system. Working within it to achieve incremental changes, however valuable, will never be enough. Our current system is simply not programmed to secure the well-being of people, place, and planet. Its priorities instead are GDP growth, corporate profits, and the projection of national power—typically military. If we are to escape the crisis now unfolding around us, we must create a new system of political economy capable of taking us to a very different place, where outcomes that are truly sustainable, equitable, and democratic are commonplace.

20,000+ Police Deployed Against G7 Protests In Germany

June 7, 2015 ByJon Queally, www.commondreams.org Resist! Austerity, Climate Change, Democracy, Europe, Free Trade Agreements, G-7, Inequality, Wars and Militarism

By Jon Queally for Common Dreams. Though outnumbered by police by approximately two-to-one, thousands of people took to the streets of the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany on Saturday to express their opposition to the hegemonic and neoliberal policies of the G7 nations as they gathered in a nearby luxury hotel ahead their annual summit which begins Sunday. Speaking out against the destructive policies of the world's leading industrialized nations—which includes the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Japan, Italy, and Germany—organized groups and individuals who participated in the protest carried signs and banners decrying inaction on climate change, the pending TransAtlantic Trade in Partnership (TTIP) agreement, ongoing wars and militarization, and the overarching assault on global democracy that has seen the power of corporations rise alongside nearly unprecedented levels of economic inequality.

College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive in One Generation

May 31, 2015 Katie Rose Quandt, www.motherjones.com Educate! College, Inequality, Student Debt

By Katie Rose Quandt in Mother Jones. In the 2012-13 school year, first-year, on-campus tuition averaged $43,000 at four-year, private schools and $21,700 at in-state public schools. It wasn't always like this: The cost of undergraduate education is 12 times higher than it was 35 years ago, far outpacing inflation. While the indexed price of college tuition and fees skyrocketed by more than 1,122 percent since 1978, the cost of medical care rose less than 600 percent, and the cost of housing and food went up less than 300. Back in 1993, 47 percent of college students graduated with debt, owing an average of $9,450 per grad. As tuition rates have shot up, so has student debt: 71 percent of the class of 2012 graduated with outstanding loans, owing an average of $29,400. That's more than 65 percent of the entire first-year salary of an average recent grad. That debt has lasting consequences. Households headed by a young adult (under 40) with a college education and student debt have a median net worth of just $8,700. Student debt constrains young people's ability to start a business, buy a home, or pursue a public-interest career.

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