Politics

Politicians Admit The Corruption Of Government By Money

July 31, 2015 Jon Schwarz, www.facebook.com Resist! Campaign Finance, Capitalism, Corruption, Money, Politics

By Jon Schwarz in The Intercept - One of the most embarrassing aspects of U.S. politics is politicians who deny that money has any impact on what they do. For instance, Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s notoriously fracking-friendly former governor, got $1.7 million from oil and gas companies but assured voters that “The contributions don’t affect my decisions.” If you’re trying to get people to vote for you, you can’t tell them that what they want doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, 85 percent of Americans say we need to either “completely rebuild” or make “fundamental changes” to the campaign finance system. Just 13 percent think “only minor changes are necessary,” less than the 18 percent of Americans who believe they’ve been in the presence of a ghost.

Seattle City Councilmember Blows Whistle On ALEC (&ACCE)

July 31, 2015 Nick Licata, www.prwatch.org Resist! ALEC, City, Politics, Urban

By Nick Licata in PR Watch - There was one problem in finding out—ALEC is open only to state legislators or private-interest parties, i.e. corporations or business associations. Being neither, I wouldn’t be able to get into their conference. A break came last year when ALEC formed ACCE (the American City County Exchange) for city and county public officials. It was to take ALEC’s organizational approach of helping these elected representatives pass laws that could cut taxes, limit government and promote free markets (i.e. turn over government services and functions to businesses). I had assumed that this was a closed association, and that I would be required to take an oath or be screened and approved for admission. There have been Democratic state legislators who experienced difficulty in getting admitted into ALEC meetings. But in the end, they were admitted. Why?

3x More Donations For Anti-GMO Legislators From Agribusiness

July 28, 2015 Alex Lazar, www.opensecrets.org Educate! Congress, Corruption, GMOs, Law, Monsanto, Politics

By Alex Lazar in Open Secrets - Thursday’s House passage of a bill that would keep states from requiring genetically modified foods to be labeled was a big — and not at all close — win for agribusiness and food and beverage interests. The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, known to its critics as the DARK (Deny Americans the Right to Know) Act, sailed through by a vote of 275 to 150. While the bulk of its support came from the GOP and most of its opponents hailed from Democratic districts, the vote didn’t break cleanly along party lines. Among its 107 sponsors were 92 Republicans and 15 Democrats. But a more telling predictor of where lawmakers came down was the amount of support they’d received from interests with a stake in the legislation.

Thousands Of Japanese Say ‘No’ To Abe Administration

July 28, 2015 Rui Saraiva, www.uk.blastingnews Resist! Government, Japan, Politics

By Rui Saraiva in Blasting News - Thousands of protesters gathered in Tokyo last Friday night, 24th, in a campaign to say "No" to Shinzo Abe and its government. The keywords of this demonstration were "No to Abe," "No to War," and "Protect the Constitution." This was not an isolated event, as over the past week demonstrations have taken place every night in Tokyo. The demonstrators are protesting against the new security bill that attempts to reinterpret the constitution and allow the Japanese Self-Defence Forces (SDF) to participate in collective self-defence with the U.S. and other Japanese allies, scraping 70 years of pacifism. Japan is, probably, the only country in the world in which its military never shed blood over seven decades. The demonstrators deeply wish that pacifism remains as one of the main pillars of the contemporary Japanese political system.

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.”

Europe’s Vindictive Privatization Plan For Greece

July 23, 2015 Yanis Varoufakis, www.socialeurope.eu Create! Austerity, Europe, Germany, Greece, Imperialism, Politics

By Yanis Varoufakis in Social Europe - On July 12, the summit of eurozone leaders dictated its terms of surrender to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who, terrified by the alternatives, accepted all of them. One of those terms concerned the disposition of Greece’s remaining public assets. Eurozone leaders demanded that Greek public assets be transferred to a Treuhand-like fund – a fire-sale vehicle similar to the one used after the fall of the Berlin Wall to privatize quickly, at great financial loss, and with devastating effects on employment all of the vanishing East German state’s public property. This Greek Treuhand would be based in – wait for it – Luxembourg, and would be run by an outfit overseen by Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the author of the scheme. It would complete the fire sales within three years. But, whereas the work of the original Treuhand was accompanied by massive West German investment in infrastructure and large-scale social transfers to the East German population, the people of Greece would receive no corresponding benefit of any sort.

Why I Interrupted The Netroots Presidential Town Hall

July 22, 2015 Tia Oso, www.mic.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Women, Elections, Leadership, Politics, Social Change

By Tia Oso in Mic - I am Tia Oso, the black woman who took to the stage and demanded a microphone on July 18 at the Netroots Nation Presidential Town Hall in Phoenix, Arizona. I did this to focus the attention of the nation's largest gathering of progressive leaders and presidential hopefuls on the death of Sandra Bland and other black women killed while in police custody, because the most important and urgent issue of our day is structural violence and systemic racism that is oppressing and killing black women, men and children. This is an emergency. Sandra Bland and I had a lot in common. We were both black women, active in our communities and the Movement for Black Lives. We both pledged sororities: I'm a Delta, Bland was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho. I have also been harshly confronted by police during "routine" traffic stops and feared for my safety and my life.

Spain: Welcome To The Post-Party Political Era

July 18, 2015 Bernardo Gutiérrez, www.occupy.com Resist! Local, Podemos, Politics, Spain

By Bernardo Gutiérrez in Occupy - Madrid, Barcelona and other major Spanish cities are now governed by independent citizen fronts called “confluences.” Ahora Madrid, Barcelona en Comú, Zaragoza en Común and La Marea Atlántica (A Coruña) are confluences weaved together by the M15-Indignados social ecosystem. Other political parties, like Podemos and Equo, have joined these confluences while leaving political party logic at the door. The results from Spain’s latest local elections, which saw the decline of the conservative Partido Popular, have the potential of modifying the course of European politics. The municipalist effort was well underway before the Podemos tsunami – a new political party cobbled together for the European elections of May 25, 2014 – surprisingly gained five seats in European Parliament. Here's why.

Grexit Or Jubilee? How Greek Debt Can Be Annulled

July 16, 2015 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Educate! Austerity, Banking, Greece, Politics

By Ellen Brown - Greece’s creditors have finally brought the country to its knees, forcing President Alexis Tsipras to agree to austerity and privatization measures more severe than those overwhelmingly rejected by popular vote a week earlier. No write-down of Greece’s debt was included in the deal, although the IMF has warned that the current debt is unsustainable. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls the deal “a new Versailles Treaty” and “the politics of humiliation.” Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos calls it a “coup d’état” done by “blackmailing the Greek prime minister with collapse of the banks and a complete haircut on deposits.” “Blackmail” is not too strong a word. The European Central Bank has turned off its liquidity tap for Greece’s banks, something all banks need, as explained earlier here. All banks are technically insolvent, lending money they don’t have. They don’t lend their deposits but create deposits when they make loans, as the Bank of England recently confirmed.

Local Ohio Officials Reclaim Right To Protect Citizens From Fracking

July 11, 2015 Candice Bernd, www.truth-out.org Resist! Environment, Fracking, Local, Ohio, Politics

By Candice Bernd in Truth Out - More than 100 local Ohio officials, including mayors, county commissioners and city councilors, have issued a letter to Governor John Kasich petitioning him for the right to ban hydraulic fracturing (fracking) - or simply regulate drilling activities - within their own borders. The letter, organized by Environment America, states: "Fracking … imposes particular burdens on local communities, from strained services to ruined roads. As with other extractive booms, the arrival and expansion of fracking operations has been correlated with a wide range of social problems, including increases in domestic violence, drug use, traffic accidents and civil disturbances."

The Power Of Persistence In NYC’s Fight For Affordable Housing

July 11, 2015 Rebecca Nathanson, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Affordable, Government, Housing, New York City (NYC), Politics

By Rebecca Nathanson in Waging Nonviolence - Thanks to the 1971 Urstadt Law, New York State, rather than New York City, controls the city’s rent laws, which expired on June 15. These laws include vacancy decontrol, which allows rent-stabilized apartments to be destabilized once they are vacant and the rent reaches a certain threshold. However, the city does have one means of managing its rent-stabilized apartments: the RGB, which votes on yearly rent increases for stabilized apartments. This year’s vote was scheduled for late-June. The combination of the rent laws expiring and the RGB vote resulted in a period of heightened mobilization for tenant organizations and provided an opportunity for them to come together to pressure both the city and the state in two separate but related struggles.

USTR Clears Advisers To Read TPP Draft

July 9, 2015 Victoria Guida, www.politico.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Free Trade, Politics, TPP

By Victoria Guida in POLITICO - Advisers of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will receive access to the full negotiating text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership starting Thursday, a spokesman for the agency confirmed today. "This week, a diverse group of trade advisers — including labor unions, industry experts, environmental groups and public advocates — will begin viewing draft TPP negotiating text as part of the congressionally established trade advisory process," the spokesman told POLITICO. "These advisers will receive full and equal access to the draft negotiation text in an effort to ensure that they can adequately prepare congressionally mandated reports on TPP.

Socialists And The U.S. Political System

July 4, 2015 Joseph Schwartz, www.dsausa.org Educate! History, Politics, Socialism

By Joseph Schwartz in Democratic Socialists of America - Yet the barriers to social change posed by our constitutional structure should not overwhelm us with pessimism. The history of the United States is punctuated by radical reform periods: Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the civil rights era. Militant social movements can make major gains when ruling elites prove incapable of solving major social crises. During these periods a moderate reform party temporarily controls all three branches of government, in part because it incorporates into its electoral coalition some of the protesting constituencies and part of their political agenda. Periods of conservative reaction often follow these periods of radical reform, with the left having to play defense.

Zeese And Flowers: TPP Fight Is NOT Over!

June 29, 2015 Interview with Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers Joan Brunwasser, www.opednews.com Resist! Elections, Free Trade, Politics, TPP

Interview with Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers by Joan Brunwasser in OpEdNews - The Congress will receive it for 60 days before the Fast Track clock starts counting, then there will be additional time for the House to debate and vote followed by the Senate. So we will have several months to educate, organize and mobilize people. This is likely to occur in the Fall, some estimate the likely time will be November. We will know more about the exact dates as we see when the negotiations are finalized. The key thing about that timing is the election season. Anytime after Labor Day is considered the re-election season for members of Congress. This puts them more on edge, more concerned about the voters. As we saw in the Fast Track vote, only the minimum number would take the risk of voting for Fast Track. Elected officials concern with public opinion, and fear of a populist revolt, will be an even greater concern in the fall.

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