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April 30, 2005
In Praise of Prosperity
Excellent article from alternet!
Here's a brief sample.
The language of economic competitiveness is not ideologically neutral,
but instead designed to promote policies that serve the interests of
big corporations and their investors. If progressives want to reframe
the debate over America's future, they will have to reframe its very
terms. A first step: start talking about prosperity.
Posted by Melissa at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2005
Social Security Forum
Democracy for Howard County will coordinate a forum featuring Cindy Hounsell, Executive Director of the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement, and Bob Rosenblatt of the National Academy for Insurance Security. There will be an opportunity for participants to dialogue with the presenters and community members.
June 23rd 7:00- 9:30pm
Owen Brown Interfaith Center
Posted by Melissa at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)
Al Gore's Speech to Move-ON
Read the speech and watch the video here.
Posted by Melissa at 07:22 AM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2005
Power Corrupts, Absolute Power Corrupts, Absolutely
I remember when I first read those words in 8th grade. I never dreamed that they would be coming into my head again as an adult in response to current events in the United States. Today Al Gore repeated them and reminded us all of what is at stake if the radical right manages to further erode the separation of the branches of our government by abolishing the filibuster. Most importantly, he reminded us of the consequences of living with a government that is not legitimately created with the consent of the people. The future of our democracy is in danger and its position as a safe haven for those of differing beliefs is now threatened. (strange, I've been thinking about the Salem witch trials a lot lately too).
The following is from AP. Click for the entire article
"What makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for one-party domination of all three branches of government," Gore said of the GOP in a speech. "They seek nothing less than absolute power."
The Senate is bracing for a showdown over Republicans' threat to use their majority to change the parliamentary rules to ban judicial filibusters — a tactic in which opponents can prevent a vote on a nomination with just 41 votes in the 100-member Senate.
Minority Democrats have used the filibuster to block confirmation votes on 10 of President Bush's appeals court choices, arguing that the nominees are too conservative for lifetime appointments.
Gore bemoaned the "outright threats and intimidations" of judges by some Republicans after recent court rulings, warning that independent judges would cower for fear of retribution.
He also cited recent comments from leaders of two conservative organizations — the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family — about disenfranchising certain courts or denying them funds.
"This aggressive new strain of right-wing religious zealotry is actually a throwback to the intolerance that led to the creation of America in the first place,"
I have a copy of the speech and will add more quotes--or the whole thing tomorrow.
Posted by Melissa at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2005
Groups say bills push gay agenda
This article was sent to me by Ken along with the following information "The bills they're petitioning are SB796 (establishing a life partnership registry for medical decision-making purposes), HB692 (including sexual orientation within the scope of the state Hate Crimes law, HB1298 (extending a property tax exemption now limited only to married people to those who live together while unmarried), and HB407 (requiring that local school boards report incidents of harassment or intimidation to the state department of Education). They're also urging Ehrlich to veto all of these bills. Of them, two (SB796 and HB1298) failed to pass one body or the other by veto-proof margins.
Today is one bill-signing (or vetoing) day on the governor's schedule and May 10 and 26 are the others. What he doesn't sign or veto by May 31 goes into effect without his signature." Thanks Ken.
By Sumathi Reddy
Sun Staff
April 25, 2005
The legislative session may have ended, but a battle over several bills critics say further gay rights is reaching an elevated pitch.
Conservative and Christian groups are mounting a widespread effort - using e-mails and Web sites with often-fiery rhetoric - against four bills they charge promote the gay agenda.
"Pray that God's will be done and that all the churches rise up against these bills," says an e-mail distributed to members of the Christian Coalition of Maryland.
The bills passed the Senate and House of Delegates this session and are awaiting action - or inaction - from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. before becoming law.
Tres Kerns, executive director of VoteMarriage.org and Take Back Maryland, filed petition requests with the Maryland State Board of Elections last week to repeal three bills through voter referendums.
The legislation would add gays to the categories of people protected under the state's hate- crime laws, allow unmarried couples to make property transfers without paying state or local taxes and require schools to report bullying incidents.
"We don't feel that the citizens of Maryland have really had a chance to vote on whether homosexuality should be considered a special class of citizens or not," said Kerns, of Anne Arundel.
Kerns' groups, along with other organizations, such as the Christian Coalition of Maryland, Defend Maryland Marriage and the Family Protection Lobby, also are supporting Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr.'s petition efforts to repeal a bill to give unmarried couples medical decision-making rights, among other benefits.
That effort is a large and coordinated one, and includes help from lawmakers of both parties, according to Defend Maryland Marriage organizers who would not identify the participating lawmakers.
The loosely knit network of groups also is urging members to lobby Ehrlich to veto all four bills.
"I almost feel like I'm living in the '50s with the Red Scare," said Del. Richard S. Madaleno Jr., a Montgomery County Democrat. "But now we're living in the Pink Scare. It's gay people and gay marriage instead of communists."
To get referendums onto the 2006 ballot, opponents have to collect 51,195 signatures for each bill by June 30 of this year.
No more than half of the signatures can come from one county or Baltimore City, and one-third must be filed by May 31.
Once the signatures are filed, State Board of Elections employees would have 20 days to certify them and approve or reject the petitions.
A successful petition drive would suspend the laws until after the 2006 general election, when voters would decide whether to repeal it.
Success in this type of petition effort has proven to be a difficult task. Collecting the signatures is tedious, and those leading the efforts expect the petitions to be challenged in court.
In the past 14 years, petition efforts have been successful only once. In 1991, opponents of a bill to prohibit state interference in abortion succeeded in getting it on the ballot. But voters ultimately did not support repealing the bill.
In 2001, Kerns launched a petition effort to repeal a bill that added gays to the state's anti-discrimination laws. The petition was successfully challenged in court and did not make it onto the ballot.
Dan Furmansky, executive director of Equality Maryland, a statewide gay advocacy group, said his group has already met with the attorney who successfully challenged the 2001 petition attempt and the American Civil Liberties Union.
"They can expect a legal challenge around every corner," said Furmansky. "We'll work to do everything we can to prevent these from making it onto the ballot."
Madaleno questioned the labeling of the anti-bullying bill, the Safe Schools Reporting Act of 2005, as an encouragement to minors to become gay.
"I guess the whole idea is a 14-year-old should be beaten senseless in order to be a straight person," said Madaleno.
Kerns and other opponents of the bill say they fear it would be used to discuss homosexuality in the classroom.
On the VoteMarriage.org Web site, the gay-rights agenda is described as working to "program future youth to be led as lambs into the dangerous and denigrating homosexual lifestyle."
But the bill was not part of the legislative agenda of Equality Maryland, which pushed for the Medical Decision Making Act of 2005 and hate-crimes legislation as top priorities this year.
"This is the rabid anti-gay movement that we're seeing throughout the country and in our state," said Madaleno. "These are people who obviously believe in violence against homosexuals. They want to make life hell for gay people so they'll be straight."
The Rev. Rick Bowers, chairman of Defend Maryland Marriage, stressed that the group's message is not one of hate or taking anything away from anyone.
"We're simply protecting marriage," said the Columbia resident.
Although his group opposes all four bills, Bowers said they are focusing their efforts on the Medical Decision Making Act, which would require the state to establish a domestic registry of participating "life partners," who could be gay or straight.
"I believe that it's the beginning of tearing the fabric of marriage," he said. "The kicker in this bill is the opening for civil unions."
Furmansky sees merits in the legislation.
"We're talking about allowing people to have autonomy over their health care decisions. We're talking about strengthening the state's hate-crimes laws. We're talking about bullying in schools and property taxes," he said.
"Not one of these bills brings us one step closer to Maryland giving out marriage licenses."
Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun
Posted by Melissa at 06:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2005
Happy Passover!
Posted by Melissa at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2005
Workers (and community activists) of the World - UNITE!
Last night I participated in a conference call with DFA activists from around the country, Jim Dean,Tom Hughes, and SEIU's Andy Stern, Gina Glanz, and Emily Thorson (who welcomes comments about the purple ocean website). The topic was, of course, what can WE do about the "Walmartization" of our economy. Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, called in from India where he is working on forming partnerships with Indian groups thus creating the first global union, other than the wobblies, of course. To influence global corporations, we need global unions. Here in the US, we need to work with other like-minded groups in our quest for justice.
Please go to Purple Ocean and sign up. (You can even enter a contest to write an ad for Al Franken.)
In the Fall, SEIU and Purple Ocean will be sponsoring "Walmart Week". Please start thinking of some fun and effective activities for Walmart week. Think about groups we can contact, people who will join us, etc... As the SEIU slogan states, we are "stronger together."
Posted by Melissa at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
Wake Up Walmart!
Wake Up Walmart is a new site devoted to organizing the grassroots so that WE can change Walmart. Please visit the site and sign up!
More villain than victim
By Joe Hansen, UFCW International Union President - USA Today
April 17, 2005
As America's largest company, with more than $285 billion in sales and more than $10 billion in profits, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to set the standard for customers, workers, families and communities. America's largest employer — with nearly 1.3 million workers — must reflect America's values.
Wal-Mart is not the victim of globalization, lower wages and lack of health insurance. More accurately, Wal-Mart's business practices created many of these problems in America today. Look at the record.
A company that reflects America's values doesn't pay below poverty-level wages to its workers. At 34 hours per week (full-time at Wal-Mart), the average Wal-Mart associate makes $17,114 per year, well below the poverty level for a family of four.
A company that reflects America's values doesn't have 660,000 of its employees without company-provided health insurance, forcing workers to seek taxpayer-funded public assistance. In fact, in 11 of the 12 states that have disclosed employers who have employees on Medicaid, Wal-Mart tops the list. In Georgia, for example, a state survey found more than 10,000 Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid — 14 times the next highest employer.
A company that reflects America's values doesn't ask taxpayers to subsidize its $10 billion in profits. A U.S. congressional study found that Wal-Mart costs you, the American taxpayer, up to $2.5 billion in public assistance. One newspaper editorial titled it, "Wal-Mart Welfare."
A company that reflects America's values doesn't put profits before its people, morality and the law. In the past few months, Wal-Mart agreed to pay a record fine for exploiting illegal immigrants and settled extensive child labor violations. It still faces the largest gender discrimination lawsuit, 1.6 million women, in U.S. history for unfair pay and unequal promotion.
Wal-Mart is not creating jobs in our communities. Wal-Mart's business practices simply exchange decent jobs with health benefits for lower-paying jobs and taxpayer-subsidized health care. The truth is Wal-Mart is forcing good-paying American jobs overseas. Wal-Mart is creating an America of lower wages, no health care and lack of retirement security.
We think it's time for Wal-Mart to wake up.
Posted by Melissa at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
A Radical in the White House
April 18, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Radical in the White House
By BOB HERBERT
Last week - April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the announcement of his death that spring afternoon, reacted as though they had lost a close relative.
That more wasn't made of this anniversary is not just a matter of time; it's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.
To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.
After talking about the war, which was still being fought on two fronts, the president offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed."
Among these rights, he said, are:
"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.
"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.
"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.
"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.
"The right of every family to a decent home.
"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
"The right to a good education."
I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that."
Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.
It wouldn't be long before Ronald Reagan was, as the historian Robert Dallek put it, attacking Medicare as "the advance wave of socialism" and Dick Cheney, from a seat in Congress, was giving the thumbs down to Head Start. Mr. Cheney says he has since seen the light on Head Start. But his real idea of a head start is to throw government money at people who already have more cash than they know what to do with. He's one of the leaders of the G.O.P. gang (the members should all wear masks) that has executed a wholesale transfer of wealth via tax cuts from working people to the very rich.
Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear.
The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.
"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top
Posted by Melissa at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2005
Social Security Community Forum
Featuring
Congressmen Ben Cardin and Elijah Cummings with an expert on this important issue, Dr Priscilla Chapman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
Monday, April 18th from 8:00-9:30 PM
Jeffers Hill Community Center
6030 Tamar Drive Columbia, MD 21045
Contact
melissa@melissaberger.com for more information
Posted by Melissa at 08:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Tell Governor Ehrlich to sign the Fair Share Health Care Bill
(From Maryland for Health Care)
You made it happen! Maryland for Health was successful in passing Fair Share Health Care in Annapolis this year. Thousands of Health Care Voters sent countless letters and calls to elected officials. Your hard work paid off with the bill’s passage on Saturday, April 9th.
However, the work is not done as Governor Ehrlich has promised to veto it. Maryland for Health Care is circulating a petition to urge the governor to sign the bill.
Please sign the petition and urge your friends and family to sign it as well. We plan to share your signatures with the governor to let him know that Marylanders support Fair Share.
[sign the petition]
Posted by Melissa at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2005
More on Walmart
Opponents of Wal-Mart to Coordinate Efforts
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: April 3, 2005
Led by Wal-Mart's longtime opponents in organized labor, a new coalition of about 50 groups - including environmentalists, community organizations, state lawmakers and academics - is planning the first coordinated assault intended to press the company to change the way it does business.
In the next few months, those critics will speak with one voice in print advertising, videos and books attacking the company, they say. They also plan to put forward an association of disenchanted Wal-Mart employees, current and former, to complain about what they call poverty-level wages and stingy benefits.
The critics have already begun lobbying in 26 states for legislation intended to embarrass Wal-Mart by disclosing how many thousands of its employees do not receive company health insurance and turn to taxpayer-financed Medicaid.
(click the title to read the article)
GOOD News for Maryland!
Fair Share Health Care passed its third reading today in the Senate and now the amended version will go back to the House for a final vote.
This bill mandates that companies with over 10,000 employees spend at least 8% of their payroll on health care coverage for workers.
Posted by Melissa at 09:08 PM | Comments (0)