SACRAMENTO PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE

Who REALLY Pays Taxes | Truthout

2012-01-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

Who REALLY Pays Taxes | Truthout

"Pity the Billionaire": Thomas Frank on the "Unlikely Comeback of the Right" Ahead of Iowa Caucus

2012-01-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

"Pity the Billionaire": Thomas Frank on the "Unlikely Comeback of the Right" Ahead of Iowa Caucus

A couple of weeks old, but great interview on Democracy Now.

Elizabeth Warren on the Daily Show

2012-01-28T20:38:00.001-08:00

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Just Keeps Spinning Along | Common Dreams

2012-01-28T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Just Keeps Spinning Along | Common Dreams

Bill Moyers

Demonstrators Protest Rhee and Corporate Agenda for Schools

2012-01-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

“Silent” protestors with their mouths tapedshut confronted Sacramento MayorKevin Johnson and corporate education proponent Michelle Rhee as they entereda carefully promoted andcontrolled discussion abouteducation issues at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, 828 I St, in Sacramentoon Wednesday, January 25.

Demonstrators held a news briefing with local mediaoutlets. The Sacramento Bee didnot cover the demonstration. Thisprotests occurs as Wall Street corporations and foundations are funding not onlythe privatization of education. The protestors set up a ‘gauntlet” of protestors with their mouths tapedshut –something Rhee admitted to doing to her noisy students when she was ateacher. She later said some of the students were hurt when they removed thetape.

The “Town Hall” organized by Rhee and Johnsongained positive press coverage on local news channels. They covered Rhee’s views and theadvocacy group without describing her connections to right wing groups.

Why do manyreporters not report on the realities of the corporate sponsorship of one group of “school reformers”? They too often rely uponthe wisdom of selected “spokespersons” such as Michelle Rhee. The media has been sold aframework of a corporate view ofaccountability. Corporate sponsored networks and think tanks such as the theThomas B. Fordham Institute, the Broad Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute, and the Olin Foundation provide“experts” prepared to give an opinion on short notice to meet a reportersdeadline. Most reporters assumethat these notables are telling the truth when in fact they are promoting aparticular viewpoint. Who do theynot talk with? They fail tointerview experienced teachers and professionals who have worked for decades toimprove the quality of inner city schools.

There were teachers in the protest that couldhave been interviewed. “Rhee,disgraced former-chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools and wife ofJohnson, is the standard-bearer of corporate privateers, raising millions ofdollars through her organization, StudentsFirst, from the likes of the KochBros and Rupert Murdoch to advance an agenda of union-busting, school vouchersand public school give-aways to private interests,” according to Kate Lenox, anorganizer for the protest.

“The national headquarters of StudentsFirst happensto be located right here in Sacramento and will soon formally open its officesdowntown on K Street above the Rite Aid store,” Lenox explained.

The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education,along with Occupy and Sacramento teachers participated in the protest. Teacher Lori Jablonski explained, “Diane Ravitch’s important visit to Sacramento on Friday, Jan.20, left the 3000 people in attendance with a clear message of what thoseof us who care deeply about public education must do to stand up to and rejectthe privatization of our schools and the treatment of our children ascommodities whose value is measured by “bubble tests.” Michelle Rhee, is the standard-bearer of theprivateers. “

Seethe post below on Selling Out our Schools on corporate funding of the procharter anti teacher efforts of leading legislative advocates includingALEC. “Selling Schools Out” , by Lee Fang. http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/corporateaccountability/1580/

For more information, contact Kate Lenox,916-201-0225, or Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170. Report assembled with contributions from writer Dan Bacher.

Occupy, teachers target Mayor Johnson, Michelle Rhee Wednesday

2012-01-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Alternet.org, January 24, 2012

by Dan Bacher

“Silent” protestors with their mouths taped shut – including those from Occupy Sacramento – will target Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and corporate education proponent Michelle Rhee as they hold a roundtable discussion about education issues at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, 828 I St, in Sacramento on Wednesday, January 25.

Demonstrators will begin to gather at 5:15 p.m. and hold a news briefing. The demonstration occurs as Wall Street corporations and foundations are funding not only the privatization of education, but the privatization of the oceans through the Obama administration’s “catch shares” program and California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative and the privatization of the state’s water resources through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral canal.

The protestors are expected to set up a ‘gauntlet” of protestors with their mouths taped shut –

something Rhee admitted to doing to her noisy students when she was a teacher. She later said some of the students were hurt when they removed the tape.

“Rhee, disgraced former-chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools and wife of Johnson, is the standard-bearer of corporate privateers, raising millions of dollars through her organization, StudentsFirst, from the likes of the Koch Bros and Rupert Murdoch to advance an agenda of union-busting, school vouchers and public school give-aways to private interests,” according to Kate Lenox, an organizer for the protest.

“The national headquarters of StudentsFirst happens to be located right here in Sacramento and will soon formally open its offices downtown on K Street above the Rite Aid store,” Lenox explained.

The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education, Occupy and Sacramento teachers will participate in the protest. If you oppose the corporate privatization of education, please show up at this protest.

For more information, contact Kate Lenox, 916-201-0225, or Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170.

School Reform and the Michelle Rhee machine

2012-01-25T08:23:00.000-08:00

“Weneed to say it's wrong, and if that doesn't work, engage in direct action, it'stime to organize, demonstrate, and agitate…” ~ Diane Ravitch, inSacramento 1/20/12

The Sacramento Bee has apromotion of Michelle Rhee this morning. Here are other viewpoints.

Diane Ravitch’s extraordinary visit to Sacramento on Friday,Jan. 20, left the 3000 people in attendance with a clear message of whatthose of us who care deeply about public education must do to stand up to and rejectthe privatization of our schools and the treatment of our children as commoditieswhose value is measured by “bubble tests.” Michelle Rhee, disgracedformer-chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools and wife of Sacramentomayor Kevin Johnson, is the standard-bearer of the privateers, raising millionsof dollars through her organization, StudentsFirst, from the likes of the Koch Brosand Rupert Murdoch to advance an agenda of union-busting, school vouchersand public school give-aways to private interests. The nationalheadquarters of StudentsFirst happens to be located right here in Sacramento. Lori Jablonski. SacramentoTeacher.

See prior posts on Ravitch.

Cosmo Garvin. Sacramento News andReview. Jan.19, 2012,

Bill Gates too is spreading thegospel of more testing and technology in the classroom. Even President BarackObama is getting in on the school-reform act. He followed No Child Left Behindreforms with his own Race to the Top initiative, raising the stakes even higherfor schools who lag on test scores.

The testing-and-accountabilitycraze has swept the nation—but here and there are pockets of resistance, led byeducation historian Diane Ravitch. She was assistant secretary of educationunder Bush I, and was once a believer in testing and charter schools. She nowalso believes that Rhee and Gates and the other would-be reformers are actuallyhurting education, as she lays out in her book The Death and Life of theGreat American School System. See prior posts on Ravitch at www.choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com.

Read the entire piece at SacramentoNews and Review. http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/teachers-superman-the-anti-michelle/content?oid=4910832

Are the Koch brothers teaching you?

2012-01-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

Protest Student Debt

2012-01-23T20:46:00.000-08:00

Student debt has been a crippling force for ageneration of recent graduates and those still in school. Year after year,students have seen the possibility of graduating without debt become lessrealistic as Congress continues to attack higher education by defundingprograms like the Pell Grant by claiming “Debt” as the biggest problem for theFederal Government. For over a decade now, the burden has been passed on tostudents, which worsened the economic recession as young people struggled tofind jobs and make payments on their loans, added to the housing bubble burstas young people were graduating with so much debt they couldn’t afford to takeon mortgage payments and has played an instrumental role in the rise of creditcard debt. While the government turns away from these college students andrecent graduates, private lenders have rigged the student loans into a billiondollar industry – and now we’re demanding they pay their fair share torebuilding the economy to make it one that works for all of us.

The story of student debt is one that manyfuture, current and recent graduates know – but it’s our job to share it withothers that may not know the effect student loans have on young people today. Default: The Student Loan Documentary is adocumentary that was launched at the United StatesStudent Association’s LegCon only 3 years ago, and tells the storyof how student loan debt has grown at such a rapid rate while also showing thestories of young people suffering the consequences of it. Check out the trailerbelow, and contact either the SLAP Coordinator or Default to learn how to showthis documentary on your campus.

http://www.studentlabor.org/action/

Dylan Ratigan-Eliot Spitzer on Wall Street Problems, Jan. 11, 2012.mp4

2012-01-22T20:49:00.000-08:00

The financial crisis. Crisis in Capitalism.

We Must Stop This Corporate Takeover of American Democracy | Common Dreams

2012-01-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

We Must Stop This Corporate Takeover of American Democracy | Common Dreams

Bernie Sanders

Sacramento Progressive Alliance January Organizing Meeting

2012-01-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

Saturday, January 21st

10am-Noon

Home of the Campbells

2827 Catania Way, Sacramento 95826

Please join us for our first Progressive Alliance Organizing Meeting of the 2012 and help us plan our annual Progressive Forum at Sac State and other exciting progressive events in the New Year.

Education historian Diane Ravitch speaks in Sacramento tonight

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

I know you are touring schools in Japan and soaking up lessons for us as you travel. Since you have Internet access, I'd like to share some thoughts about a momentous occasion: the 10th anniversary of No Child Left Behind, which occurred on January 8.
After 10 years of NCLB, we should have seen dramatic progress on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, but we have not. By now, we should be able to point to sharp reductions of the achievement gaps between children of different racial and ethnic groups and children from different income groups, but we cannot. As I said in a recent speech, many children continue to be left behind, and we know who those children are: They are the same children who were left behind 10 years ago.
In my travels over the past two years, I have seen the wreckage caused by NCLB. It has become the Death Star of American education. It is a law that inflicts damage on students, teachers, schools, and communities.
When I spoke at Stanford University, a teacher stood up in the question period and said: "I teach the lettuce-pickers' children in Salinas. They are closing our school because our scores are too low." She couldn't finish her question because she started crying.

When I spoke at UCLA, a group of about 20 young teachers approached me afterwards and told me that their school, Fremont High School, was slated for closure. They asked me to tell Ray Cortines, who was then chancellor of the Los Angeles Unified School District, not to close their school because they were working together as a community to improve it. I took their message to Ray, who is a good friend, but the school was closed anyway. The dispersed teachers of Fremont are still communicating with one another, still mourning the loss of their school.
When I spoke to Citizens for Public Schools in Boston, a young man who works as a chef at a local hotel got up to ask what he could do to stop "them" from closing his children's school. It was the neighborhood school, he said. It was the school he wanted his children to attend. And they were closing it.
In city after city, across the nation, I have heard similar stories from teachers and parents. Why are they closing our school? What can we do about it? How can we stop them? I wish I had better answers. I know that as long as NCLB stays on the books, there is no stopping the destruction of local community institutions. And now with the active support of the Obama administration, the NCLB wrecking ball has become a means of promoting privatization and community fragmentation.
I have often wondered whether there is any other national legislature that has passed a law that had the effect of stigmatizing the nation's public education system. Last year, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that 82 percent of our nation's schools would fail to make "adequate yearly progress." A few weeks ago, the Center for Education Policy reported that the secretary's estimate was overstated, and that it was "only" half the nation's schools that would be considered failing as of this year. Secretary Duncan's judgment may have been off the mark this year, but NCLB guarantees that the number of failing schools will grow every year. If the law remains intact, we can reasonably expect that nearly every public school in the United States will be labeled as a failing school by 2014.
If you take a closer look at the CEP study, you can see how absurd the law is. In Massachusetts, the nation's highest-performing state by far on NAEP, 81 percent of the schools failed to make AYP. But in lower-performing Louisiana, only 22 percent of the schools did not make AYP. Yet, when you compare the same two states on NAEP, 51 percent of 4th graders in Massachusetts are rated proficient, compared with 23 percent in Louisiana. In 8th grade, again, twice as many students in Massachusetts are proficient compared with Louisiana, yet Massachusetts has nearly four times as many allegedly "failing" schools! This is crazy.
More evidence of the invalidity of NCLB. The top-rated high school in the state of Illinois, New Trier High School, failed to make AYP. Its special education students did not make enough progress. When outstanding schools fail, you have to conclude that something is wrong with the measure.
The best round-up to date of the catastrophe that we call NCLB was published by FairTest in its report, "The Lost Decade." I know you have read it, as this is an organization dear to your heart. I recommend this report to our readers. It shows in clear detail that progress on NAEP was far more significant before the passage of NCLB.
Congress, in its wisdom, will eventually reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I hope that in doing so, they recognize the negative consequences of NCLB and abandon the strategies that have borne such bitter fruit for our nation's education system. NCLB cannot be fixed. It has failed. It has imposed a sterile and mean-spirited regime on the schools. It represents the dead hand of conformity and regulation from afar. It is time to abandon the status quo of test-based accountability and seek fresh and innovative thinking to support and strengthen our nation's schools.
Diane
- Diane Ravitch

Sacramento Demonstration March 5

2012-01-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

Sacramento Demonstration: March 5.

Contact the Progressive Alliance.

Gov. Brown continues budget cuts agenda

2012-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Brown- furthercommitment to austerity.

Jerry Brown gavehis required State of the State address today, and committed himself to continuingbudget cuts and austerity as an economic policy. The first problem is-austerity programs do not work !

The Governor continues his poorly informed,misguided austerity program which proposes to reduce the budgets through cut backs in services,reductions in public education, cuts to public employment, and reduction inpublic pensions.

Budget cutting to balance the budget will not getus out of this hole. Look atIreland, Greece, or Spain or Michigan, Wisconsin, and Mississippi (each of these economies issmaller than California)? Budget cuts only start a downward spiral of pain. We can not simply cut our way out of thecrisis, budget cuts and lay offs make the recession worse. We have witnessed this for the last twoyears.

The currentbudget crisis was caused by the real estate crisis, the sub prime loan crisis,and the national economiccrisis. This crisis was created by finance capital and banking, mostly on WallStreet ,ie. Chase Banks, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, CountryWide, AIG, and others.

Brown says, Again, I propose cuts and temporarytaxes. Neither is popular but both must be done. In a world still reeling fromthe near collapse of the financial system, it makes no sense to spend more thanwe have. The financial downgrading of the United States, as well as of severalgovernments in Europe, should be warning enough. It is said that the road tohell is paved with good intentions and digging ourselves into a deep financialhole--to do good--is a bad idea. In this time of uncertainty, prudence andpaying down debt is the best policy.- This is the definition of an austerityprogram.

Brown’s proposals are modest- too modest. The High Speed Rail authority is astimulus plan, but California needs an educational stimulus plan and the fundsto pay for the needed investment.

The Governor’s proposals for a temporary taxincrease are too modest. Thepolitical “professionals’ argue that this is all that can win a majorityvote. Perhaps. But they are looking at Californiathrough a rear view mirror.

Oureconomy needs roads, bridges, telephone lines, communications systems, energyand quality education. Theseservices make freedom and prosperity possible. Conservative opposition to theseservices ignore the economy’s needfor infrastructure. Prosperitydepends upon having a viable educational system and a well functioninginfrastructure. Rather than investin the future, the Republicans and Brown have starved public education.

Pollingconsistently shows that the California voters are willing to pay for a qualitypublic education system. The Brownproposals avoid giving the voters a choice on this.

Weneed to tax the very rich to produce needed revenue to create jobs and to invest in the future. The CA Federation of Teachers andothers propose a Millionaire's Taxon the November ballot. The Millionaire's Tax would raise $6 billion forpublic education, safety, and infrastructure by raising additional taxes onthose making more than $1 million a year. It will be the only purelyprogressive income tax initiative on the ballot in November.

Anotheroption would be significant tax onthe sale of stocks, bonds, and financial instruments. This is the same source as proposed by the AFL-CIO. They argue for a 0.25 % tax on sales. California should propose a 2.5 % tax. This would fund public jobs, infrastructure rebuilding. Such a tax is called a financialtransaction tax. Others call it aRobin Hood tax. Most of Europealready has such a tax. Wepresently pay around 8% sales tax on most goods, but finance traders pay no taxwhen they sell stocks, bonds and derivatives.

TheGovernor’s proposal assumes that voters approve a measure that would be placedon the November 2012 ballot that would raise $6.9 billion in 2011-12 and2012-13. His proposed spending plan also includes $5.4 billion of additionalspending cuts that would be triggered on if voters fail to approve the proposedtax measure.

The Governor’s proposals includedeep cuts to health and human services programs, as well as to student aid andchild care. Health and human services and child care programs would be targetedfor $2.5 billion of the $4.2 billion in proposed spending reductions. TheGovernor also proposes $301.7 million of cuts to the Cal Grant Program, whichprovides financial aid to lower-income students pursuing post-secondaryeducation.

Progress 2050: The Opportunity of Diversity

2012-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

2012 AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. Observance

2012-01-16T09:21:00.000-08:00

Remember Dr. King

2012-01-15T17:14:00.001-08:00

Tumultuous Times for Democracy Compelled Moyers' Return to TV | Common Dreams

2012-01-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

Tumultuous Times for Democracy Compelled Moyers' Return to TV | Common Dreams

good video clips.

Tell Kim Kardashian to Endorse the Millionaires Tax of 2012!

2012-01-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

King of Bain "When Mitt Romney Came To Town" [Trailer]

2012-01-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

Austerity for Dummies: The 3-Minute Guide to a Bad Idea | California Progress Report

2012-01-11T16:50:00.000-08:00

Austerity for Dummies: The 3-Minute Guide to a Bad Idea | California Progress Report

Leisa's Haiti Journal #1 - Janauary 2012 - "The Good Life"

2012-01-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

Leisa and the children at the
Lamp for Haiti clinic in Cite Soleil.

I had always thought a good life should roll smoothly along like a sauntering stream through a meadow. Lately, I noticed that the good life is not always milk-toast (no offense to my mother – who used to make us the best hot sweet milk-toast). Sometimes, the “good life” is chock full of surprising twists. Just this week our first grandson tried to rush his way into the world 2 ½ months early, but was gently persuaded by his anxious parents and a good doctor to wait a titch longer to make his mark on the world.

So last night we raised a bit of Guiness at the Elephant Bar in relief. (“How can an elephant own a bar?” Luke wanted to know.) Then we toasted in the first night of the new school year. Tomorrow, after our second class, we catch a red-eye pointed toward Haiti.

We celebrate the almost $6,000 of support designated for Children’s Hope sponsored feeding programs in Haiti. (Thanks to Empty Bowls and the El Dorado Peace & Justice Community!) We celebrate the “Jam Cruise” shipping us 500 pairs of school shoes to Children’s Hope in Haiti. Thanks to “Positive Legacy” for taking on this project. (These shoes mean so much more than just shoes – school shoes can mean the chance at an education – a chance to change a life.) We celebrate our friend Marcorel who on one day’s notice agreed to drive twelve tortuous hours eating dust to pick up those shoes. We celebrate our Children’s Hope team members who regularly and quietly send the exact supplies and donations we need from as far away as Switzerland, and we dearly celebrate four year old Charlotte’s gathering her toys and asking her parents to send them to Haiti.

At the start of this new year, I raise my pen and pound my yellow pad in honor of those amazing folks who take on the twists and turns with grace and resolve. May they continue to have rich abundance – not of wealth – but of service and surprise.

We celebrate those like little Charlotte, who found ways to serve without money of their own, like the students at Sac State who sold wrist bands and bought new beds for Mabe Orphanage, like the woman who got her friends to commit to a small amount each month and ended up sending us several thousand condoms for distribution.

If you want to join the Children’s Hope team there are many ways to help out. If you'd like to make a monetary donation you can send a check to the address below or click on the "donate" button on our Haiti blog here: http://coalitionfordemocracyinhaiti.blogspot.com/

You can start a children’s vitamin drive at your soccer club or church. You can collect used graphing calculators for the future doctors in Haiti, cell phones for the women’s group leaders, or laptops for schools. You can get your fourth grade class to draw pictures of friendship and solidarity for the Sopudep School children in Port au Prince or for the disabled children up at Wings of Hope orphanage to put on their walls, as our friend Stacey did with her class recently. The need is great, the possibilities are endless, and every little bit helps.

We always find a next need. Right now, for example, we need to find $400 to pay for gas and a rented truck that can make the twelve hour trip on rutted roads for children’s shoes sake.

As Luke lugs in our worn-out duffle bags we wonder what Haiti has to teach us this time. On my last trip to Haiti in August, I stumbled onto folks who needed someone to distribute four cargo containers full of free medical supplies that had arrived in Haiti after their doctors had returned to the states (approximately $20,000 worth). I thought I was there to do work at the U.S. Embassy, instead I had the happy errand of meeting with Haitian women’s groups who facilitated the distribution of all these valuable supplies. What an experience it was for me to see these magnificent women pull together the security and networks necessary to get these supplies fairly spread to clinics and groups throughout the tent city. It was like magic. There were streams of women in place carrying bundles of diapers, cases of soap and bleach, boxes of first aid supplies and sanitary goods and more – mostly on their heads to a make-shift tent with a dirt floor. No bossing, no fighting, no theft. Just by the quiet order of women. Haiti has its lessons. Whatever it turns out to be this time, we’ll take it – ruts and bumps in the road and all.

You are part of the Children’s Hope team, even if you just share these journals with one friend. You never know where that may lead. Thousands of lives have been changed through this work. And after all, Marx once said, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways…The point, however, is to change it.”

Peace, all ways and always, Leisa

Leisa Faulkner, Founder of Children’s Hope and Adjunct Professor of Sociology, University of the Pacific

Checks may be sent to:

Children’s Hope, 3025A Cambridge Road, Cameron Park, CA 95682

‪From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street and Beyond‬

2012-01-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

The Cheery Jobs Report That Isn't: Outlook Still Dismal | Common Dreams

2012-01-07T14:54:00.000-08:00

The Cheery Jobs Report That Isn't: Outlook Still Dismal | Common Dreams

Occupy Economics

2011-12-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

Occupy Economics from Softbox on Vimeo.

Why America’s 99% Have Rebelled | Common Dreams

2011-12-25T14:44:00.000-08:00

Why America’s 99% Have Rebelled | Common Dreams

One Year of Republican Assaults

2011-12-22T09:41:00.001-08:00

Which do you think is the worst? Click here to vote:

Bring Back “Pre-Existing Conditions”: Health care reform is one of President Obama’s signature achievements. No longer can children born with health conditions be denied insurance. No longer can insurance companies deny care for “pre-existing conditions.” About 2.5 million young adults who lacked health insurance now are covered by their families’ plans. So what did Republicans do? Try to repeal “Obamacare” and put control back in the hands of insurance companies.

Kick Grandma Off Medicare & Give Her a Coupon: Republicans all lined up in favor of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s extreme budget plan earlier this year that would kill Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program. Thank goodness the Democratic Senate was there to stop them and keep our promise to seniors.

Hand Over Cash to Corporations and the Wealthy: Another part of Paul Ryan’s plan: Give huge tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy. While the middle class struggles to get ahead, Republicans tried to make things worse by reducing taxes on the wealthiest – and sticking everyone else with the bill.

Rip Away Workers’ Rights: When Republicans won the governorships in Wisconsin and Ohio, among other states, one of the first things they did was go after public workers, including taking away the rights of teachers and prison guards to bargain for better pay and benefits. Bad move. They clearly overstepped their bounds, and voters will remember at the ballot box in 2012.

Prevent You From Voting: Republicans this year decided that when it comes to elections, if you can’t beat, then cheat. From Florida to Wisconsin to Ohio, Republicans passed laws that will have the effect of suppressing Democratic turnout in these crucial swing states. The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that more than 5 million voters will be affected by these laws – a number higher than the margin of victory in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Senate Democrats are holding hearings on the Florida laws in January.

Declare War on Women: It was bad enough that Republicans tried to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and other family planning programs. Then they tried to change federal law to redefine rape and to allow hospitals to deny lifesaving care for pregnant women. So much for the Republican promise to have a “laser focus” on jobs. The Republican War on Women is alive and well.

Shove Gay Soldiers Back Into the Closet: It was a huge victory for civil rights and basic human dignity when President Obama signed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell into law. Finally, all Americans could serve openly in the military. Or not. This year, Republicans tried to bring back the policy, and some Republican presidential candidates have said reinstituting discrimination is one of their top policy priorities.

Launch Assaults on Sesame Street and Lake Wobegon: I don’t know what Republicans have against Big Bird and Garrison Keillor, but they will do almost anything to shut off their microphones. In fact, earlier this year, Republicans vowed to shut down the federal government if NPR and PBS weren’t defunded. Luckily, Senate Democrats were there to stop the nonsense, and “Sesame Street” and “A Prairie Home Companion” were given a reprieve – for now.

Let Consumers Fend For Themselves: One of the most important reforms passed by Democrats in decades was the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to prevent big banks from ripping off their customers with dangerous financial products – some of the same products that contributed to the Great Recession. But Republicans hate anything that puts customers ahead of corporations. So they’ve fought the bureau – and people chosen to lead it – tooth and nail.

Increase Taxes for Middle Class Families. And last but certainly not least, this week House Republicans refused to support tax relief for the middle class, even as they demand it for billionaires and huge corporations. If your taxes go up next year, you’ll have nobody but Republicans to blame.

These policies and positions are simply awful -- so awful, in fact, that I couldn't choose the worst. That's your job. Click here, vote, and tell us what you think is the No. 1 Worst Republican Actions of 2011. The Democratic Senate has been the firewall stopping most of these measures dead in their tracks. With only a four seat majority, it’s never been more important to protect the Senate.

Paul's Birthday Celebration & Free Concert

2011-12-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Island of Black & White

Thursday, December 22, 9pm

Side Bar Nightclub

4364 Town Center Blvd., Ste. 124

El Dorado Hills, California95762

Dear Friends,

Not sure if you all are aware, but Jesus and I are both celebrating birthdays this week. Since you are most likely going to be celebrating Jesus' birthday with your families, we thought you might want to celebrate mine with Leisa, me and our favorite local band, Island of Black and White, at the Side Bar Nightclub in El Dorado Hills. Great music, nice people, no cover charge, what better way to celebrate the Holiday Season... and tease me about getting old? Hope you can join us.

Happy Holidays!

Paul & Leisa

The Ten Greediest Americans of 2011

2011-12-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

The 10 Greediest Americans of 2011

By Sam Pizzigati

You don't have to make millions to rate as an all-star greedster. You do have to be ruthless, self-absorbed, and insensitive to others. Here's my list of the 10 greediest Americans of 2011.
10. Michael T. Duke, Wal-Mart CEO

Duke takes home his millions — $18.7 million in the company's latest fiscal year — by squeezing workers. He ended "premium pay" for the hours Wal-Mart workers have to put in on Sundays, eliminated profit-sharing, sheared health care benefits, and cut staffing levels so low, Retailing Today reports, that customers sometimes can't find shopping carts because the store where they're shopping has no employees available to collect carts from the parking lot.
9. Paul Hoolahan, Sugar Bowl CEO

The Sugar Bowl, one of college football's top four postseason games, enjoys tax-exempt status and regularly touts its contributions to good causes. But Hoolahan's favorite cause may be his own. He took home just under $600,000 in 2009, almost quadruple his $160,500 paycheck for the same job 13 years earlier. Meanwhile, the Sugar Bowl and its three "Bowl Championship Series" partners are contributing to charity only 20 cents from every $10 in revenue, theArizona Republic reports.
8. Robert Iger, Disney CEO

His annual compensation topped $28 million last year, a neat 35-percent increase. In October, Iger picked up a new pay deal that extends his CEO contract into 2015 and then adds on a cushy final year as Disney's "executive chairman" — at $2.5 million — to help him make the transition into retirement.
7. Doug Oberhelman, Caterpillar CEO

In 2009, a year that saw only three U.S. corporations lay off more workers than Caterpillar, its CEO took home just under $3 million. His 2010 paycheck soared to $10.4 million. Caterpillar workers, meanwhile, have a new six-year contract that excludes wage increases and raises health care premiums.
6. William Weldon, Johnson & Johnson CEO

Weldon "restructured" this health care giant in 2007, slashing its quality-control program. For the next two years, a hiring freeze made replacing vacant quality positions almost impossible. In 2009, a flood of recalls began for company products from contact lenses to hip implants, but Weldon took home $25.6 million anyway. After those recalls and assorted other scandals, the company did finally trim his annual pay — to $23.2 million.
5. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO

In 2007, on the eve of the meltdown banks like Goldman did so much to hasten, Blankfeincollected a $68-million bonus, the largest in Wall Street history. In 2011, Blankfein had a chance to hit the restart button. He didn't. In April, Goldman Sachs revealed that Blankfein, after going two years without a cash bonus, had gobbled up $5.4 million in bonus cash for the bank's latest fiscal year. And plenty more in stock and salary. His total pay: $19 million, about double his pay the year before.
4. Alan Mulally, Ford Motor CEO

After losing $30 billion over three years, Ford has gained back $9.3 billion. In reward, Ford handed Mulally $56.5 million in stock and then, a month later, announced that he pulled down an additional $26.5 million last year. That amounted to 910 times the pay of entry-level Ford workers.
3. Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO

The top exec at business software giant Oracle collected $77.6 million for the fiscal year that ended this past May 31.That piece of change added less than two-tenths of 1 percent to Ellison's $39.5 billion personal fortune, the world's fifth largest.
2. Don Blankenship, Former Massey Energy CEO

West Virginia investigators found Massey management directly to blame for the 2010 blast that left 29 miners dead at the company's Upper Big Branch coal mine. Massey, the report charged, had nurtured a "culture bent on production at the expense of safety." That culture paid off handsomely for Blankenship. He pocketed $38.2 million from 2007 through 2009, after raking in $34 million in 2005, and retired with a $5.7-million pension and $12 million in severance.
1. Mark Pincus, Zynga CEO

High-tech start-ups like the online social gaming empire Zynga typically attract talent by offering shares of stock. But Pincus had apparently concluded, with a multi-billion-dollar IPO pending, that he had given away too many shares. Pincus demanded that various employees "give back not-yet-vested stock or face termination," The Wall Street Journal reported.
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/10-greediest-americans-2011-1324167294. All rights are reserved.

In California, 305, 400 will Lose their Unemployment Assistance

2011-12-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

Unless Congress acts now, lifeline aid for nearly 2 million workers who have lost jobs will be cut off

Dec. 31 as the extended unemployment insurance benefits expire. In California alone, 305,400 will lose

unemployment benefits. Over the course of 2012, an estimated 6 million U.S. workers struggling to find jobs

will lose these essential benefits if Congress continues to focus on keeping tax cuts for the 1% who crashed

our economy rather than helping the 99% by extending unemployment insurance.

If Congress fails to act, the impact on families, communities and our economy

will be devastating.

The average weekly benefit for an unemployed worker on the federal extension is about $297, which amounts

to only half of the income needed to cover the most basic necessities of food, housing and transportation, as

measured by the annual Consumer Expenditure Survey. In California, the weekly benefit averages $292.64.

While barely enough for a family’s survival, unemployment aid also supports

local economies in critical ways.

Unemployment benefits are pumped back into the economy immediately, flowing to local grocery stores, gas

stations, landlords and utilities. In California, the loss to communities could total $89,372,256 a week.

Nationwide, the economy grows by $2 for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance.

With unemployment rampant, now is not the time for Congress to delay or play

political games with the extension of unemployment aid.

Unemployment in CALIFORNIa

Total* 11.7 percent

African Americans** 19.5 percent

Latinos** 14.7 percent

20- to 24-year-olds, all** 19 percent

*October 2011

**2010 averages

Not only are unemployment rates high, the duration of joblessness is tragic.

Nationally, nearly 45 percent of jobless workers—more than 6 million—have been jobless for six months

or longer. That rate has been at or above 40 percent for almost two years—the longest period of such high

persistent unemployment since 1948. The average length of joblessness is 40.5 weeks—more than nine

months—which is nearly double the average duration of joblessness in June 2009, when the Great Recession

officially ended.

AFL-CIO

Nationally, the unemployment rate has remained

at or near 9 percent for almost two and a half years.

In California, the rate is 11.7 percent; 2010 data (the

most recent available by state) tell an even harsher

story for African Americans: 19.5 percent; Latinos:

14.7 percent; and 20- to 24-year-olds: 19 percent.

Long-Term Unemployment Has Aff ected Lar ger Portions of Unemployed

Tha n Ever Before, and Remai ns Alar mingly HigH

Unemployment is contributing to the national scourge of home foreclosures. In

California, 1 in 243 housing units are facing foreclosure actions.

Nationally, 8 percent of mortgage borrowers were at least a month behind on their mortgage payments in the third

quarter of 2011 and 4.4 percent—more than 2 million loans—were in some stage of foreclosure.

Republican lawmakers have cruelly claimed long-term unemployment is due to

“lazy” workers “taking advantage” of unemployment assistance.

All it takes is a look at the modest level of benefits and the fact there are more than four job seekers for every

one opening to expose those claims as ridiculous and heartless.

Jobless workers should not pay the price for Wall Street’s recklessness.

After 18 months—the longest slump since the Great Depression—our own Great Recession officially ended in

Summer 2009. But for the 14 million Americans who are jobless and the 11.5 million who are underemployed

or have given up looking for work, the recession goes on.

The bursting of the housing bubble and related Wall Street recklessness drove us into this recession, but working

families bearing the cost and the loss of about 6.5 million jobs since the recession started now also face

the cut-off of survival benefits. As a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report concluded,

the Great Recession “was the result of high-risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts

of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies and the market itself to rein in the

excesses of Wall Street.”

Sources:

• Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/

Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf

• Hanging On By a Thread, National Employment Law Project, October 2011, www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2011/NEL P_UI_Extension_Report_2011.pdf?nocdn=1

• U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, UI Program Statistics, Monthly Program and Financial Data, Summary Data for State Programs, by

State, Report Period for 1/2011; run date 11/21/11

• State unemployment rates, October 2011, www.bls.gov/lau/

• Employment status by race and ethnicity, 2010 averages, www.bls.gov/lau/table14full10.pdf

• U.S. mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577044401122300024.

html?mod=googlenews_wsj

•

AFL-CIO

A Jobless Sheetmetal Worker Urges Congress to Extend Unemployment Insurance

2011-12-14T11:31:00.000-08:00

House Republicans tonight voted (234-193) to cut more than in half the number of weeks jobless workers can collect unemployment insurance (UI) benefits next year. The bill ^[1] also cuts pay for public employees, cuts preventive health services, reduces premium assistance for low- and middle-income individuals buying health insurance and raises premiums for many Medicare beneficiaries.
A new report ^[2] from the National Employment Law Project (NELP ^[3]) says the legislation:

abandons millions of U.S. workers and those communities hardest hit by the most severe jobs crisis since the Great Depression.

While the legislation extends the federal UI program that is set to expire Dec. 31, the huge reduction in weeks of benefits and other changes in the UI program are “reckless and irresponsible,” says NELP Executive Director Christine Owens.

To jobseekers and states hit hard by long-term unemployment, this proposal offers a cold cynical shrug. Anyone serious about helping workers and businesses get going again needs to know that is neither a serious nor acceptable way forward.

The bill also extends the payroll tax cut for workers and employers, but rather than financing it with a small surtax on multimillionaires as a Senate version does, it cuts federal workers’ pay and imposes higher health care premium costs for low- and middle-income families and seniors.
The Republican bill, says the Obama administration,

puts the burden of paying for the bill on working families, while giving a free pass to the wealthiest and to big corporations by protecting their loopholes and subsidies….Instead of working together to find a balanced approach that will actually pass both houses of the Congress, H.R. 3630 instead represents a choice to refight old political battles.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says ^[4]:

House Republicans obviously have more sympathy for millionaires than for the jobless.

If the UI program is not renewed, 2 million workers will lose their benefits next month and 6 million in 2012. Last week ^[5], Shonda Sneed, an engineering worker from Yellow Springs, Ohio, who has been unemployed on and off for the past two years, traveled to Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to extend the UI program with no strings attached (see video).

My unemployment benefits have been my lifeline. They are what’s keeping me and my mother off the street.

Laid off and Left out

2011-12-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

Instead of acting to renew the vital lifeline of federal unemployment insurance, now set to expire Dec. 31st, the House majority leadership is fast-tracking a bill that would slash the federal benefits program -- drastically cutting weeks of benefits in every state, and imposing the harshest cuts in states with the highest unemployment rates.
Sound perverse? Actually, it's even worse.
HR 3630, sponsored by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) was introduced just last Friday. Already, House leaders are pushing for a floor vote as early as Tuesday, Dec. 13.
The bill would cut 40 weeks of federal benefits in the highest unemployment states, and between 20 and 33 weeks in most other states. A minimum of 14 weeks of federal unemployment benefits would be cut in every state in America.
Call your Members of Congress now! Call toll-free 1-888-245-3381. Tell your Representative as well as your Senators to oppose HR 3630. Tell them to support a full renewal of the federal unemployment insurance program for 2012 now!
Even if you've called previously, please call again now. Here's why...
In addition to slashing unemployment benefits and hitting high unemployment states with the largest cuts, HR 3630 would also:
* Allow states to impose mandatory drug-testing on all unemployment insurance claimants. (Yes, you read that correctly.)
* Take money out of jobless workers' weekly benefits to "pay for" reemployment services (Yes, you read that correctly.)
* Allow states to divert funds intended to pay unemployed workers' benefits, and use those funds to subsidize private employer's 'workfare'-type programs (Yes, you read that correctly too.)
Call your Members of Congress now! Call toll-free 1-888-245-3381. Tell your Representative as well as your Senators to oppose HR 3630. Tell them to support a full renewal of the federal unemployment insurance program for 2012 now!

Please call 1-888-245-3381 and connect to your Representative first, then call back and connect with your Senatorsas well. We expect the House and Senate will both be voting on this reckless, harmful and offensive legislation this week.
And, for good measure, send email messages to all the Congressional leaders and your Members of Congress with a few quick clicks here. Nearly 80,000 message have been sent. Send another one of yours now!
Many thanks.
The UnemployedWorkers.Org Team
Mitchell, Chris, Maurice, Judy, Christine, Rebecca, Mike, Rick, George, Claire and Norman
www.Unemployedworkers.org

The Saving American Democracy Amendment

2011-12-12T09:19:00.000-08:00

Budget cuts and tuition hikes coming this week

2011-12-12T09:14:00.000-08:00

Additional state budget cuts to higher education, k-12, and other services are predicted for this week.

They are called Trigger Cuts.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/12/4116082/californias-financial-forecast.html

Major corporations pay few taxes

2011-12-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

265 Major, Profitable U.S. Corporations' Tax Avoidance
Costs States $42 Billion Over Three Years; Sixty Eight
Companies Have At Least One Tax-Free Year
Citizens for Tax Justice
December 7, 2011
http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers50states/CorporateTaxDodgers50StatesPR.pdf

Washington, DC -- A comprehensive new study that
profiles 265 consistently profitable Fortune 500
companies finds that 68 of them paid no state corporate
income tax in at least one of the last three years and
20 of them averaged a tax rate of zero or less during
the 2008-2010 period. These are among the findings in
"Corporate Tax Dodging in the Fifty States, 2008-2010"
released today by the Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy (ITEP) and Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ).

"Our report shows these corporations raked in a combined
$1.33 trillion in profits in the last three years, and
far too many have managed to shelter half or more of
their profits from state taxes," said Matthew Gardner,
Executive Director at the Institute on Taxation and
Economic Policy and the report's co-author. "They're so
busy avoiding taxes, it's no wonder they're not creating
any new jobs."

Bobby's Story: Facing Foreclosure

2011-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Film: Which Way Home

2011-12-09T10:23:00.001-08:00

The Friday Night Film Series Presents

"Which Way Home"

Oscar Nominee – Best Documentary

“Tremendous eye-opening filmmaking.” – Esquire 

“A riveting documentary.” – Cinematical

100% Rating on Rotten Tomatoes!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Hinde Auditorium

Sac State University Union

Shorts--6:00pm Feature Film--6:30pm

Info: 916-248-3970 or paulb1221@sbcglobal.net

Sacramento Police break up Occupy protest

2011-12-09T10:14:00.001-08:00

City of Sacramento plays Grinch again as 23 are arrested

by Dan Bacher

The City of Sacramento played the Grinch again on December 8 when they arrested 23 Occupy Sacramento supporters defending their First Amendment rights at Cesar Chavez Park.

However, this Grinch, unlike the Dr. Seuss character, didn't just try to steal Christmas, but to deprive people of their rights under the Constitution.

The activists - including military veterans from the Vietnam and Iraq wars marking the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor - were arrested early Thursday morning about 2:30 a.m. during a "First Amendment Party" at Cesar Chavez Park.

21 of the 23 were booked into Sacramento County Jail and all were released by 2:30 p.m.

The Sacramento Police also cited and released two people without taking them to be booked in the County Jail. The two cited included a man in a wheelchair and a disabled military veteran, according to Cres Vellucci of Occupy Sacramento, one of the 23 people arrested.

Activists claimed they encountered some police brutality during the arrests. "Police did not use pepper spray to break-up the protest, but used very brutal 'pain' holds on some of those arrested," said Vellucci. "Those actions are being investigated. The local ACLU office has been contacted."

One Occupy Sacramento supporter, Joe, occupied a tree in the park, but came down of his own accord, citing concern for his health. He was taken from the scene in an ambulance.

Vellucci said a total of 110 people have arrested at the Park since October 6. There are nine trials on the misdemeanor charge scheduled to start Dec. 13.

District Attorney Jan Scully refused to prosecute, but the City of Sacramento is pursuing the cases, which carry six-month jail sentences for a curfew violation.

"Occupy Sacramento maintains the First Amendment does not end at 11 p.m. (midnight on weekends), and that free speech and freedom of assembly rights continue for 24 hours a day, despite a local ordinance banning First Amendment activities in city parks at night," said Vellucci. "There is a federal civil rights suit pending."

The crackdown on the First Amendment by the cities of Sacramento, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others across the country is apparently part of a nationally coordinated campaign by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies in collaboration with local police departments, as exposed by author Naomi Wolf in her November 25 article in the UK Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/25/shocking-truth-about-crackdown-occupy).

"So, when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence," wrote Wolf. "It is a battle in which members of Congress, with the collusion of the American president, sent violent, organised suppression against the people they are supposed to represent. Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams. Even though they are, as yet, unaware of what the implications of their movement are, those threatened by the stirrings of their dreams of reform are not."

On Saturday, December 10 at noon, Occupy Sacramento will be honoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Day at Cesar Chavez Park, 10 and I streets, Sacramento.

The Declaration, adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948 provides for the civil and human rights of every person, including assuring that everyone has the right to

• freedom of peaceful assembly and association

• work and a standard of living adequate for health and well-being

• food, clothing, housing, medical care and education.

The 12 pm to 4 pm Human Rights Fair will feature teach-ins, speakers, informational tabling, spoken word and music.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, founding member of the Gold Star Families for Peace, will speak at 1 p.m. Her son, Casey, was killed in the U.S. war in Iraq.

Her talk will be followed at 2 p.m. with a march to the County Jail (651 I Street) to demand humane treatment of prisoners.

Music and spoken word poetry will be featured from 3 to 4 p.m., followed by the Occupy Sacramento General Assembly.

Finally, there will be a march to Second Saturday in midtown at 6:30 p.m.

For more information, contact occumama [at] gmail.com, 916-448-8157, http://www.OccupySac.com, Occupy Sacto@facebook, OccupySacto@Twitter

President Obama makes economic sense

2011-12-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Osawatamie, Kansas. Dec. 6,2011.

Comedy Central passes Rick Scott the cup

2011-12-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

Occupy our Homes.

2011-12-05T21:17:00.001-08:00

Occupy Our Homes: Tuesday, Dec. 6 Tomorrow marks a huge day of action to fight back against the housing crisis and launch a new phase in the Occupy movement - occupying foreclosed homes and property. 99%ers will challenge Wall Street banks and demand they negotiate with homeowners instead of fraudulently foreclosing on them. Around the country people will stand up for the idea that everyone deserves to live with dignity in decent, affordable housing. Events are taking place in Brooklyn and Rochester New York; Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Petaluma and Contra Costa California; Lake Worth, Florida; Atlanta, Fayetteville, and DeKalb Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Denver, Colorado; Detroit and Southgate Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington and beyond. Get more info at http://occupyourhomes.org/.

Support unemployed workers

2011-12-05T11:05:00.001-08:00

The clock is ticking. Congress has yet to act to renew federal unemployment insurance for 2012, and the program that has helped more than 17 million long-term jobless Americans is set to expire December 31st.
If Congress fails to act, nearly 2 million unemployed workers will be cut off of federal unemployment benefits in the month of January alone. Millions more would be cut off in ensuing months -- more than 6 million during 2012.
Last week, with your help, we delivered 80,000 Petition to Congress online signatures, gathered with key allies, to a rally with unemployed workersand Members of Congress on Capitol Hill.
Now, we need to make sure that all the Congressional leaders and every Member of Congress receives this message directly from you: Renew Federal Unemployment Insurance Now!
Send a message to your Members of Congress and Congressional leaders: Renew Federal Unemployment Insurance Now!
Tell your Senators, your Representative and the leaders in Congress from both parties to Renew Federal Unemployment Insurance Now!
Many thanks.
The UnemployedWorkers.Org Team

"I'll Occupy" : The 99 is Pissed and We Will Not Be Dism...

2011-12-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

Growing Housing Crisis in Sacramento

2011-12-01T11:03:00.001-08:00

Wall StreetBanks and the Growing Housing Crisis in Sacramento.

California hasbeen one of the hardest hit states by the foreclosure crisis. Wall Street’sreckless lending practices devastated California with high-cost loanshomeowners couldn’t afford, while inflating the housing bubble that reapedrecord profits for the 1 percent. The consequences of Wall Street greed is thatmillions of Californians have lost their homes and thousands more continue tostruggle with finding quality and affordable housing.

While vacantbank-owned properties litter Sacramento neighborhoods, rental vacancies are indecline, rental prices are up in many areas, and there are 2,734 homeless inSacramento County.12 Inparts of Sacramento rent rates increased by more than 3 percent from 2007 to2012.13

The housingmarket strains caused by Wall Street are felt most acutely among low-incomeindividuals and families. Affordable housing shortages for low-incomehouseholds (those 50 percent below the area median) went from 4.3 million unitsin 2003 to 6.4 million units in 2009 nationally.14 The problem is especially clear in the Sacramento metro area where54.2% of renters are currently living in unaffordable housing.15

Contrast thisvery serious housing need with the fact that therehave been 1.2 million foreclosures in California since 2008 and it is expectedto exceed 2 million by the end of 2012.16 In Sacramento, more than 3,900 homeswere left vacant by banks in October 2011, alone.17 These vacant properties blight communities, burdening alreadyvulnerable communities struggling to recover from the continued housing crisis.California has been one of the hardest hit states by theforeclosure crisis. Wall Street’s reckless lending practices devastatedCalifornia with high-cost loans homeowners couldn’t afford, while inflating thehousing bubble that reaped record profits for the 1 percent. The consequencesof Wall Street greed is that millions of Californians have lost their homes andthousands more continue to struggle with finding quality and affordablehousing.

Read the full report by AACE.

http://www.calorganize.org/sites/default/files/Housing%20Need%20Not%20Wall%20Street%20Greed%20(Sacramento)_0.pdf

War Times analyzes Occupy Movement

2011-11-30T17:14:00.001-08:00

(excerpts)

Occupy has changed thecountry. People are fighting back. And the developments arehappening faster than anyone could have guessed even a few months ago. TheOccupy movement has gone from a few dozen in Zuccotti park in New York tothousands of participants in hundreds of cities. Across the countryoccupations have become pitched battles between the people’s movement andmunicipal police forces.

The speed with which this unfolded, the degree of brutality leveledagainst the occupiers, and the resilience of the Occupy movement are allremarkable. In times like this the movement outstrips the bestexpectations of organizers and organizations. And while thesedevelopments defy simple explanation, their impact is undeniable. Peopleare no longer talking about deficits and budget cuts, but about Wall Street andthe one percent.

So it is withOccupy. It has bypassed traditional forms of political mobilization,leaving more established organizations trying to play catch up. And themovement has changed form, from public occupations, to marches and rallies,civil disobedience and city-wide strikes – all faster than anyone would have expected.

But the forces opposed toOccupy are moving fast too. Occupiers have faced serious police repressionaround the country, with pepper spray attacks in Seattle and Davis, California, life-threatening injuries in Oakland, and inSeattle a miscarriage caused by police violence.

Meanwhile, Wall Street’s agenda of austerity for the poor and attacks onthe public sector has not yet been derailed. In Europe, the bankers andbondholders are remaking governments and economies in Greece and Italy. Butgutting the public sector and democratic governments may not satisfy the IMFand German bankers, nor avoid collapse. The euro zone’s whole single-currencyproject is approaching a systemic meltdown that threatens to contaminate U.S.banks and to bring on a rerun of the 2008 crash, perhaps worse this time.

Domestically, Washingtonremains focused on debt reduction, attacking the programs that supportworking-class people, while the economy slides further into disrepair. Thefailure of the Debt Commission to reach an agreement only means that Congresswill now be scrambling to avoid the automatic cuts to the Pentagon budget, cutsthat will supposedly activate in 2013. In the short term it is a victory ofsorts, kicking the can down the road as Congress tries to figure out how tomake the cuts that will be extremely unpopular.

Austerity is also on theagenda in Europe, where the sovereign debt crisis threatens to collapse theentire European banking system, and perhaps spread to Asia and theAmericas. Already banks and investors are trying to limit their exposureand restrict lending in the Euro Zone. Remarkably, mighty Germany hadtrouble selling state bonds at a recent auction. Even more remarkablestill, European countries have turned to the BRICs, the developing countries of thethird world as a potential source of capital to extend to troubled memberstates. This shift, away from the United States and the European first world,toward the rising powers of China, Brazil and India, as a source of capital issignificant.

Excerpts from War Times.

War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

P.O. Box 22748

Oakland, California 94609

Congress is close to destroying the internet (no hyperbole)

2011-11-29T21:50:00.000-08:00

Congress is close to destroying the internet (no hyperbole)

Judge rules taking money from First 5 illegal

2011-11-29T19:10:00.001-08:00

A Fresno judge ruled last week that California's attempt to take $1 billionfrom First 5 commissions was illegal.

Gov. Jerry Brownand state lawmakers initially relied on the money in March to help balance athen-$26 billion shortfall. Two months later, state leaders backed away fromthe budget solution because First 5 commissions filed suit to block it. ButBrown continued to defend the move in court.

Fresno Superior Court judge Debra J. Kazanjian determined in herruling that the First 5 take was illegal because it required voter approvalunder the initial 1998 ballot measure, Proposition 10.

First 5 programs are funded by a voter-approved tobacco tax to provideearly childhood development services. State leaders instead dedicated thatmoney toward ongoing Medi-Cal costs for children 0 to 5 years old.

The governor argued that the move was legal because it was consistentwith Proposition 10's goal of supporting children in their first five years oflife. His defense essentially was that the budget crisis would have otherwise leftthose children without Medi-Cal services.

Kazanjian disputed that interpretation: "But that argument isdisingenuous in that it was the legislature that 'chose' to cut funding toexisting services instead of taking what might be the unpopular step of raisingrevenue."

She also said elsewhere, "To claim that transferringdecision-making from local communities to the state legislature is 'consistentwith' Prop 10 is like asking the court to find that black means white."

Kevin Yamamura. The Sacramento Bee

Comment: The judges argument applies to many of the dubious reductions in the budget. That is, the legislature can't just argue- we don't have the money. Of course they have the money, they decline to raise the money due to political pressure. Duane Campbell

Readmore: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/11/fresno-judge-rules-state-cannot-take-1-billion-from-first-5.html#ixzz1f9urrMIC

UC General Strike

2011-11-24T10:27:00.001-08:00

OCCUPY UC DAVIS CALLS FOR CAMPUS-WIDE STRIKE
Board of Regents Declared Illegitimate by General Assembly

On Monday, November 21, 99.5% of the 1,729 participants attending the Occupy UC Davis General Assembly--the basic organizing unit of the Occupy Movement--voted for a nonviolent campus-wide general strike, to take place on Monday, November 28. The strike is to coincide with a statewide meeting of the Regents, which the Assembly maintained “has repeatedly shown itself unfit to represent the interests of the students, faculty, and workers who constitute the University of California.”

Undergraduate student fees have tripled over the past ten years, resulting in an unprecedented explosion in student debt. At the same time, departmental budgets have shrunk, which has led to diminishing benefits, swelling workloads, and non-existent job security for academic and non-academic workers alike. Following two successive years of sharp tuition increases, accompanied by millions in department and resource cuts, layoffs, and furloughs, the board has now proposed a new 81% fee increase and drastic budget reductions.

The General Assembly held that the Regents’ use of public resources to fund construction projects, private research initiatives, and other “capital ventures,” demonstrates a clear conflict of interests at the expense of the faculty, staff, and the student body. The Assembly stated that the Regents have intensified their pursuit of the project of privatization for financial gain, while de-funding and diminishing the quality of education for those across the UC system and consigning students’ futures to increasing amounts of debt.

The Assembly also stated that the continued destruction of higher education in California, and the repressive forms of police violence that sustain it, cannot be viewed apart from larger economic and political systems that concentrate wealth and political power in the hands of the few. Since the university has long served as one of the few means of social mobility and for the proliferation of knowledge critical to and outside of existing structures of power, the vital role it plays as one of the few truly public resources is beyond question.

Moreover, they asserted that the necessity of reclaiming the UC has never demanded such urgency. It continues to shift towards the corporate model, pursuing partnerships for the sole purpose of profit (such as those with the defense department and international agribusiness), and engages in partnerships with major financial institutions which have greatly profited from student debt.

The strike will entail total campus participation in shutting down the operations of UC Davis, including teaching, working, learning, and transportation. In doing so, the students, faculty and workers involved in Occupy UC Davis aim to peacefully assert the power—and the will—to effectively represent and manage themselves.

Occupy UC Davis is devoted to nonviolently fighting UC tuition hikes and promoting democratization of governing institutions.
###
For more information, please visit occupyucdavis.org or emailmedia@occupyucdavis.org. To schedule interviews, please call (530) 302-5223

Huge Crowd at Occupy UC Davis Rally Today, Nov. 21

2011-11-21T22:40:00.001-08:00

Pepper spraying cop

2011-11-21T20:41:00.001-08:00

Cop from U.C. Davis.
graphic by Peppersprayingcop.tumbir.com

Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public Intellectuals | Truthout

2011-11-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public Intellectuals | Truthout

UC Davis Rally at the Quad - Monday, Nov. 21, Noon

2011-11-21T10:25:00.000-08:00

Rally in solidarity with the students at UC Davis. On Friday afternoon, Chancellor Katehi ordered the UC Davis police to attack students protesting peacefully on the UC Davis quad. Her actions have been met with international shock, outrage, and condemnation. Occupy Sacramento will join them in their rally. RSVP on facebook.

Voters Overwhelmingly Reject GOP Agenda

2011-11-21T10:12:00.001-08:00

Occupy lawyer asks Gov. Brown to arrest police for pepper spray incident

2011-11-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

"Physical attacks on persons violate California Penal Code 242 (Battery) and such violence perpetrated by those in uniform is a criminal violation of Federal civil rights law 18 USC 242,” said Jeff Kravitz, a constitutional rights attorney.

Photo of Occupy lawyers Jeff Kravitz (left), Josh Kaizuka (middle) and Mark Merin (right and speaking) at a press conference in Cesar Chavez Park on October 24. Photo by Dan Bacher.

Occupy lawyer asks Brown to arrest police for pepper spray incident

by Dan Bacher, http://www.alternet.org/

The officers involved in the shocking pepper-spray attacks on UC Davis students Friday should be immediately arrested because they’ve violated federal and state laws, said one of the lawyers from Occupy Sacramento in a letter to Governor Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris and other law enforcement officials.

“Physical attacks on persons violate California Penal Code 242 (Battery) and such violence perpetrated by those in uniform is a criminal violation of Federal civil rights law 18 USC 242,” said Jeff Kravitz, a constitutional rights attorney.

Kravitz suggested the state, through AG Harris, as well as Yolo District Attorney Jeff Reisig and US Attorney Benjamin Wagner should make the arrests of the UC Davis officers immediately. “It is imperative that proper action be taken by County, State and Federal authorities… initiating criminal proceedings including the arrest of those who committed the acts of violence or bringing the issues before a grand jury. Leaving he matter solely in the hands of the University is not a reasonable option,” said Kravitz.

He added that the University of California’s promised investigation is “clearly self-serving and bears resemblance to the investigation conducted by Penn State into the allegations of sex crimes by Jerry Sandusky…an investigation used to protect the university and not the victims.”

For a copy of the letter contact Jeff Kravitz, 916-553-4072 or 916-996-9170. Occupy Sacramento said it will send its occupiers to UC Davis today, November 21, to support the Occupy UC Davis students brutally pepper-sprayed and violently assaulted Friday by UC police. A caravan will leave from Cesar Chavez Park shortly after 11 a.m. for a NOON rally at UC Davis. “We feel it is a necessity to support and assist our friends at UC Davis in their time of need,” said Cres Vellucci, an ACLU board member in Sacramento, and Legal Team coordinator for Occupy Sacramento. “This kind of brutality as seen by the citizen videos circulating the world needs to stop. When someone next asks ‘why’ is there an Occupy, we only need to point to this example of the 1 percent ordering their public servants to punish – without trial – peaceful, non-violent demonstrators.” “The Occupy movement will not stand for it,” said Vellucci.

There have been 84 arrests at Occupy Sacramento since Oct. 6; Last week, 31 cases were dismissed “in the interest of justice” by the City of Sacramento, which is pursuing charges against 25 others. The District Attorney refused to prosecute the nonviolent occupiers, forcing the City to proceed. Occupy Sacramento and members of SEIU and other unions marched on Governor Jerry Brown’s loft home Saturday to call for an end to the epidemic of violence by law enforcement agencies against the Occupy movement, as exemplified in the shocking video of police brutally pepper spraying peaceful UC Davis students at a protest.

(http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/11/20/occupy-sacramento-marches-on-jerry-browns-home/) The video of the November 18 protest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&utm_source=General&utm_campaign=f6cc05a348-Daily_Update_11_20_2011&utm_medium=email) has gone viral throughout the world, highlighting the routine violence that has been used by police agencies in California to suppress any dissent to rule by Wall Street and the 1 percent. For more information, contact: Cres Vellucci, 916-996-9170, civillib@comcast.net, www.occupysac.org

Please Sign Petition Urging UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to Resign!

2011-11-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.change.org/petitions/police-pepper-spray-peaceful-uc-davis-students-ask-chancellor-katehi-to-resign

Petitioning

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Why This Is Important
Join University of California at Davis, Assistant Professor Nathan Brown in calling for the resignation of UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Kathei for her failure to protect UC Davis student's First Amendment right to assemble, or even their physical safety.

Nathan Brown's Open Letter To The Chancellor is below:

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

What happened next?

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis

http://www.change.org/petitions/police-pepper-spray-peaceful-uc-davis-students-ask-chancellor-katehi-to-resign

A Disgraceful Display of Police Brutality at UC Davis

2011-11-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

Published on Saturday, November 19, 2011 by MSNBC

Video Spreads of UC Davis Cops Pepper Spraying Occupy Students

Demonstrators were protesting dismantling of encampment

University of California, Davis, student Mike Fetterman, receives a treatment for pepper spray by UC Davis firefighter Nate Potter, after campus police dismantled an Occupy Wall Street encampment on the campus quad in Davis, Calif., Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. UC Davis officials say eight men and two women were taken into custody. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)DAVIS, California -- A video of police in riot gear pepper spraying demonstrators is spreading after 10 Occupy protesters were arrested on the University of California, Davis campus Friday, Sacramento NBC station KCRA reported.

The demonstrators were protesting the dismantling of the "Occupy UC Davis" encampment that was set up in the school's quad area.

"Police came and brutalized them and tore their tents down and all that stuff. It was really scary. It felt like there was anarchy everywhere," said student Hisham Alihbob.

Police told Sacramento's KTXL TV stationthat the students were given until 3 p.m. Friday to remove their tents from the campus. When students refused, police arrived at the given time. Students sat down cross-legged and locked arms when cops showed up and the pepper spraying began.

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said it would not be safe or sustainable for demonstrators to camp in the quad.

"It's not safe for multiple reasons," Spicuzza said.

At least one woman left by ambulance for treatment of chemical burns.

"We just successfully booted the police off campus in a non-violent way," Chris Wong, a student protester who said he was speaking for himself, not the Occupy group, told the Sacramento Bee.

Wong said he was one of the students sprayed, but he looked down and didn't get a full dose. He said students then circled the police and tried to hold their ground. The police eventually left.

Mario Savio Memorial Lecture: Robert Reich on Class Warfare in America

2011-11-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

The 15th annual Mario Savio Memorial Lecture & Young Activist Award will present Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, speaking on Class Warfare in America

CSU Trustees vote to raise fees 9 %

2011-11-16T13:52:00.001-08:00

CSUTrustees vote for 9 % fee hike amid protests. Student fees will increase by $500. The 9-to-6 vote was taken behind closeddoors and out of public view after police removed chanting, whistle-blowingprotesters from the meeting room. Several protesters were taken into custodyafter a group tried to storm the meeting room.

The vote comes as students, faculty and laborgroups have intensified pressure on University of California and Cal Stateleaders to oppose further fee hikes and education cuts.

Students and members of the group ReFundCalifornia tried to storm the front door and police released tear gas to pushthem back. Several protesters were handcuffed and arrested.

Remarks by Lilian Taiz, CFA President. November 17^th thefaculty of this great university system will take the historic step of strikingon two campuses—Cal State East Bay and Dominguez Hills.

Faculty andstaff have been more than patient as we have watchedthis administration focus obsessively on the wellbeing of Presidentsand top managers and pay millions to consultants who duplicate the workof existing departments.

We have waited for yearsfor this Chancellor and this Board to prioritize the people of Californiaand the people out on the campuses—thestudents, staff and faculty —who built this system.

Instead, like somany other leaders in this nation, you have talked openly about how acrisis is a terrible thing to waste. You have administered “shock therapy”by bombarding our students, faculty and staff with one ill conceived initiativeafter another. These initiatives all try to do higher education on thecheap.

There is a reason thatthose in the trenches see most of you as the 1%-- isolated, remote, cutoff from the consequences of your decisions. Meeting after meeting, we watchyou make decisions that will have disastrous long termconsequences for a whole generation of Californians.

Meeting after meeting, wewatch you turn a deaf ear to the students who suffer from your decisions andfaculty and staff who are horrified by the

Instead oflistening, you act as if you ARE the CSU and the rest of us should, in thewords of your chair, just “shut up and get with the program.”

There is a reason that youcontinually look to us to bail out the university by relentlessly raising feesand refusing to compromise oncontracts. Like Wall Street and the Bank of America—youare using us as ATMs while asking us to accept that THIS is thenew normal.

Well, it is NOT normal—andwe will not accept it. Enough really IS enough.

Weknow our 3-minute speeches at your highly choreographedmeetings in front of this little microphone will never changeyou.

But there’s a seachange gaining momentum outside your tightly closed circle inthe world—and in the CSU.

We think it can changeeven YOU.

The shift in understandingon the part of the 99% puts your leadership—and your legacy--undera bright spotlight. That shift can, we believe, open areal conversation about the need for a board that is truly representative ofthe people of this state and of the people they are supposed to lead.

We think that’s a conversation that is longoverdue.

Prepared Remarks byCalifornia Faculty Association president Lillian Taiz to Cal State U. Trusteesat their meeting today.

Smear Campaigns Fuel Shutdowns of Occupations Across Country | Truthout

2011-11-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

Smear Campaigns Fuel Shutdowns of Occupations Across Country | Truthout

Hartmann: Meet a Real Democratic Socialist

2011-11-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

CSU proposes tuition hike- again

2011-11-14T11:17:00.001-08:00

California State University considers 9% tuition hike

California State University trustees will vote Wednesday on raising fees by $498, or about 9 percent, for fall 2012. That would bring annual tuition for undergrads at CSU's 23 campuses to $5,970, not including books, room or board. Most campuses charge an additional $1,000 in local fees.

The tuition increase is part of the university's larger plan for its 2012-13 budget. Trustees are also voting Wednesday on a proposal to ask the state for $2.4 billion in funding next year, an increase of $330 million over this year. If all of it comes through, CSU will not implement the tuition hike.

"We won't have to increase tuition for the fall if the state provides adequate funding in next year's budget," Chancellor Charles Reed said this morning in a phone call with reporters.

Universities make budget requests to the state every year but it's been many years since they received anything close to what they requested. For the current year, the state cut both CSU and University of California by $650 million. The state will cut the two systems by another $100 million each next month if mid-year budget projections are not met. A $750 million cut would translate to a 27 percent drop in funding for CSU compared with last year, Reed said.

Taibbi: How I stopped worrying and learned to love OWS

2011-11-12T20:00:00.001-08:00

..And here's one morething I was wrong about: I originally was very uncomfortable with the way theprotesters were focusing on the NYPD as symbols of the system. After all, Ithought, these are just working-class guys from the Bronx and Staten Island whohave never seen the inside of a Wall Street investment firm, much less hadanything to do with the corruption of our financial system.

But I was wrong. Thepolice in their own way are symbols of the problem. All over the country,thousands of armed cops have been deployed to stand around and surveil and evenassault the polite crowds of Occupy protesters. This deployment oflaw-enforcement resources already dwarfs the amount of money and manpower thatthe government "committed" to fighting crime and corruption duringthe financial crisis. One OWS protester steps in the wrong place, and sheimmediately has police roping her off like wayward cattle. But in theskyscrapers above the protests, anything goes.

This is a profoundstatement about who law enforcement works for in this country. What happened onWall Street over the past decade was an unparalleled crime wave. Yet at most,maybe 1,500 federal agents were policing that beat – and that little group of financialcops barely made any cases at all.

Yet when thousands of ordinary people hitthe streets with the express purpose of obeying the law and demonstrating theirpatriotism through peaceful protest, the police response is immediate andmassive. There have already been hundreds of arrests, which is hundreds morethan we ever saw during the years when Wall Street bankers were stealingbillions of dollars from retirees and mutual-fund holders and carpenters unionsthrough the mass sales of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities.

It's not that the cops outside the protests aredoing wrong, per se, by patrolling the parks and sidewalks. It's that theyshould be somewhere else. They should be heading up into those skyscrapers andgoing through the file cabinets to figure out who stole what, and from whom.They should be helping people get their money back. Instead, they're out on thestreet, helping the Blankfeins of the world avoid having to answer to thepeople they ripped off.

Read the entire piece.

http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/19309/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=8774e77e79439eb2a20d60d91adc97c5

Democratic Socialists support Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-11T11:43:00.001-08:00

Democratic Socialists HoldConvention in Washington: Respondingto the Economic Crisis: Beyond the Washington Consensus. DSA is a member of the Progressive Alliance.

“Occupy Wall Street andthe Struggle for a Democratic Society-“

A plenarysession at 1:30 PM on Friday will kick off national convention of DSA, theDemocratic Socialists of America to be held from Nov. 11 through Nov. 13 at the SheratonPremiere at Tysons Corner located at 8661 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA.

DSA, the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, isthe largest socialist political organization in the country with over7000 members and active locals in more 40 U.S. cities and college campuses. DSAmembers reside in all 50 states.

A public outreach event “Equality and Jobs for the 99%:Economic Justice for All” featuring speakers labor leader and immigration reformactivist Eliseo Medina, author John Nichols, and local activists occurs at 7 p.m. on Nov. 11 at the St. Stephen andIncarnation Church at 1525 Newton St. NW, Washington, D.C.

Thirty years of deregulation,deunionization, privatization, and tax cuts for the rich, along with twounfunded wars, have robbed the public sector of the revenues needed tofund basic social services. While Republicans and Democrats trumpet the longrange deficit as the major threat, DSA argues that we face not a debtcrisis, but a political crisis and a jobs crisis. Extreme economicinequality, coupled with the capital crisis, has produced a shortfall of demand—similarto the U.S. economic situation of 1930–1936. In response to this demand crisis,we must put ordinary people back to work through a public jobs program.

This fifteenth bi-annual convention is the first major organizational function underthe leadership of DSA’s new national director, Maria Svart.

“Given our rapidly growing membership and the spreadingOccupy protests, we have a lot to talk about,” Svart said. “The nationalconversation about the economic crisis has shifted from one framed around debtand austerity, to one framed around inequality and democracy. This isexciting.”

Elected delegates will determine DSA’s political directionand elect its National Political Committee; attend workshops and plenarysessions about the jobs crisis, higher education, and DSA’s Economic LiteracyProject; and participate in trainings that will empower them to fight theattacks on unions, social insurance, and anti-poverty programs.

DSA Locals in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Wichita,among others, have taken an active role in the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Freedom Plaza, and other Occupyprotests.

DSA’s members know that thecorporate dominated political system will move in a progressive direction onlyif powerful democratic social movements (including Occupy Wall Street,students, and labor) force it to do so. DSA gathers in convention to planits participation in building such a movement.

Convention schedule: www.dsausa.org/convention2011/convention.html

For a full press kit email aslisted above.

Occupy Cal 11/9/11

2011-11-10T13:46:00.000-08:00

Nov. 8, 2011: Ohio Voters Repeal Anti-Worker Law

2011-11-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

Unions win critical battle in Ohio.

I'm in Ohio right now, where working families just won an incredible victory.

Ohioans overwhelmingly voted to repeal Senate Bill 5--Gov. John Kasich's attack on middle-class jobs that was designed to destroy collective bargaining rights in Ohio.

We pieced together a short, powerful video summing up the amazing energy that went into this. I hope you'll take a moment to watch:

[ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=6115 ]

Tonight's victory represents a turning point in our collective work to protect good jobs, working families and workplace rights. But it's more than that. It's a long-overdue return to common sense.

From the very beginning of our jobs crisis, anti-worker politicians like Ohio's Gov. Kasich have used our poor economy to push a cynical political agenda that favors the richest 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. Today, Ohio voters rejected that agenda.

During this campaign, firefighters, nurses, teachers and other public employees were joined by construction workers, bakery workers and all kinds of private-sector workers. They came together to ensure the survival of the middle class. And together, we'll keep doing it. Politicians who side with the richest 1 percent will find their radical efforts stopped by working people who want America to work for everyone.

Watch the energy and dedication that went into this huge victory--and join us: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/salsa/web/common/public/signup?signup_page_KEY=6115 ].

This is "our" moment, and we won with solidarity. We won because the working people of Ohio--public and private sector, union and nonunion--stood together.

Rally to Defend Your Education

2011-11-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

Rallies Call for Tax on Wall Street

2011-11-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

Let’s Talk Democratic Socialism, Already -- In These Times

2011-11-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

Let’s Talk Democratic Socialism, Already -- In These Times

by Maria Svart.

Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio Introduce Financial Transactions Tax Proposal

2011-11-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

Senator Harkin and Representative DeFazio Introduce Financial Transactions Tax Proposal

Greeks' Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance? | Common Dreams

2011-11-05T20:40:00.000-07:00

Greeks' Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance? | Common Dreams

Robert Reich

The Economic Crisis- Presentation on Saturday

2011-11-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Economic Crisis- What is it Costing Your Students? Presentation(with slides) on the continuing economic crisis, the looting of the economy,causes, effects, and alternatives.

Presented as apart of the annual conference ofThe Bilingual Multicultural Education Department (BMED) Sat . Nov. 5, 2011. 11;30 Am. In the University Union, at Sacramento State. The Mountain Room. Free. Open to the Public.

While the Great Recession officially ended in 2009, a CNN/Opinion Research poll,shows that over 74 % of U.S. citizens believe the economycontinues in recession. ( Sept.26, 2011) The unemployed and the underemployed face the toughest job market in decades.

“ It’s now impossible to deny theobvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road torecovery. “ Paul Krugman. NY. Times.

With some 25 million people unemployed or underemployed, the U.S. is on the edge of a new era of social protest where everyday people demandto break Wall Street’s hold on our political leaders and our lives.

DSA, the principalU.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, is the largest socialistpolitical organization in the country with more than 6000 members and active locals in more40 U.S. cities and campuses. DSALocals in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Wichita, among others,have taken an active role in theOccupy Wall Street, Occupy Freedom Plaza, and other Occupy protests in support of jobs and economic justice.

Sacramento DSA: https://sites.google.com/site/sacramentodsa/

Dr.Campbell is a professor emeritus of Bilingual Education at CSU-Sacramento.

For more information on the conference , pleasecontact Dr. Maggie Beddow,Conference Chair at beddow@csus.edu or the College of Education BMEDoffice: (916) 278-5942.

General Strike in Oakland Today

2011-11-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by The Nation

A General Strike in Oakland

by Gabriel Thompson

The details are familiar to many by now.Occupy Wall Street protesters yell towards police in Oakland, California. (AP Photo/Darryl Bush)

On October 10, hundreds of members of Occupy Oakland descended on downtown to take over Frank Ogawa Plaza. Twelve days later, occupiers marched through the city in their first action. Then, in the pre-dawn hours of October 25, Oakland police—aided by officers from seventeen other agencies—raided the camp, employing tear gas and flash-bang grenades. That afternoon a protest rally and march was held, leading to a violent nighttime confrontation with the police in which Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, was hit in the head with a projectile and suffered a skull fracture. The following night an overflow crowd filled the plaza, with nearly 1,500 voting to hold a general strike on November 2. In the words of a widely circulated flyer, “All banks and corporations must close down for the day or we will march on them."

To review: in less than two weeks, Occupy Oakland went from its first public action to calling for a city-wide general strike. That’s one hell of an escalation. In my previous life as a community organizer, our campaigns were launched with the understanding that they would be long, drawn-out affairs—weeks of door-knocking, the initial meeting, our first collective action—with the butcher paper taped to the walls measuring the progression in months.

So what accounts for the breathtaking speed of the events in Oakland? The sketchy record of the Oakland Police certainly deserves some credit, especially with the injured Olsen and the video footage showing an officer tossing a flash-bang grenade into a crowd of people trying to help him. And then there’s Mayor Jean Quan, who has also been a key if unwitting ally. Absent during the raid, she has attempted to explain her shifting positions with remarkable incoherence, and was recently booed when attempting to speak at a general assembly. At meetings of Occupy Oakland, many of the people I spoke with watched the unfolding occupation with sympathy—but just watched. It took the raid, the images of tear gas clouds and a bloodied Scott Olsen to get them into the streets. As Saul Alinsky wrote, all action is in the reaction. A former organizer, Quan will not soon forget that axiom.

Organizers have taken the openings created by the city’s response and doubled down, using the anger over police behavior and growing distrust of Quan and channeled it back into the original targets of the Occupy movement. And let’s admit it: marches and rallies are tired tactics, at least when spent listening to official leaders mouthing approved lines while holding signs in which those approved lines are written. By calling for a general strike, Occupy Oakland has gone into the deep end of the left’s swimming pool, navigating imaginative and uncharted waters.

“Everyone was really receptive,” said one woman after spending the afternoon handing out strike flyers (nearly 20,000 were passed out during the first two days). “Just that the term ‘general strike’ is being discussed in the American public…” her voice trailed off. “We’ll see what happens Wednesday.”

That no one knows what will happen is a key source of motivation and excitement. We’re taught to dream big, but often when I’m shuffling along at a protest I feel those dreams shrinking to the size of the sign I’m holding, like a cog in someone else’s grand machine. In Oakland we are still cogs, but the machine belongs to us, and it’s moving in a direction that’s not entirely clear. They’re something liberating about an uncertain future.

Of course, it’s easy to argue that calling for a general strike is foolish overreach. “It’s not possible to organize a general strike in one week,” said a member of the California Federation of Teachers during opening comments at the first strike-planning meeting. His was a reasonable statement. Even as Occupiers like to remind people that Oakland was the site of a general strike in 1946, it’s hard to imagine something similar happening today.

Still, there have been numerous signs pointing towards November 2 as being a success, even if plenty of people still show up for work. Each day brings news of another union joining the cause. An organizer with Unite-Here, which represents restaurant workers, spoke of union members preparing a giant feast for strikers. The Executive Board of the Oakland Educational Association, whose 2700 members teach in the city’s schools, has endorsed the day of action, with teachers at one elementary school telling parents the school will be closed for the day. Meanwhile, SEIU Local 1021, which represents 1,750 city workers, has encouraged its members to take a leave of absence for the day and come to the protest.

“We’re the one’s losing our homes and having city services cut because of what bankers and Wall Street have done,” said Dwight McElroy, President of 1021’s Oakland chapter. “Occupy Oakland is out there taking baton blows and tear gas to protest what has been happening, so it is incumbent on the labor movement to protect them.”

And for sympathetic workers unable or unwilling to strike, the plan is to assemble at Frank Ogawa Plaza at 5 pm and march to the Oakland Port, the fifth busiest in the country. Union contracts prevent longshoremen from striking, but a large picket line could prevent them from clocking in to their 7 pm shift, effectively shutting down all activity at the port. “This will show that not only are we the 99 percent but that they are not making any money without us,” explained Raymond “Boots” Riley, an organizer with Occupy Oakland and member of political hip-hop band The Coup.

“Strong people don’t need strong leaders.” That statement fits into the ideology of the Occupy movement, but it comes from Ella Baker, a legendary Civil Rights organizer. As an advisor to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, Baker played a key role in encouraging the organization’s non-hierarchical orientation. Made up of young whites and blacks, SNCC would led a direct action movement of countertop sit-ins and then organize Freedom Summer, a voter registration project in Mississippi. Some older Civil Rights organizations disapproved such tactics. “We’re sitting this one out,” was NAACP’s message about Freedom Summer, fearing a backlash.

There are many differences between the Occupy movement and SNCC, especially when it comes to SNCC’s emphasis on developing leaders among the dispossessed through the tireless work of grassroots organizing. But the Occupy movement, like SNCC, is dreaming big and making “impossible” demands, and seems to be lighting a spark under organized labor much as SNCC breathed new life into the civil rights movement. When you’re dying a slow death, after all, not taking risks can be the riskiest course of action. As one union member told the Occupy Oakland’s strike subcommittee, “Thousands of union members are looking for inspiration. And whether you like it or not, you occupiers are now the leaders we are looking to.”

Gabriel Thompson, a Brooklyn-based journalist, is the author of There’s No José Here and Calling All Radicals. His website iswherethesilenceis.org.

Four of Six Generals Tied to the 2009 Honduran Coup Were Trained at the SOA

2011-11-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011
Written by SOA Watch

The Honduran Supreme Court voted 12-3 to reject abuse of authority charges against now-retired Generals Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, Luis Prince Suazo, Venancio Cervantes, Miguel Garcia, Juan Pablo Rodriguez and Carlos Cuellar. The charges stem from the 2009 coup in which the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown and flown to Costa Rica.

As a result of the case, SOA Watch has been able to determine that of these six generals officially linked to the orchestration of the coup, 4 were trained at the notorious School of the Americas. These are Generals Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, Luis Prince Suazo, Miguel Angel García and Carlos Cuellar.

The ruling comes from the same Honduran Supreme Court (considered the "most corrupt institution in Latin America" by Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs) that reinstated General Vásquez Velásquez to his post as Commander of the Honduran Armed Forces shortly before the June 28th coup.

General Vásquez Velásquez is currently the head of Hondutel, the Honduran telephone company. He recently announced that we will seek the presidency of Honduras in the 2013 elections1. (In Guatemala, another SOA graduate implicated in the genocide of that country's indigenous people, Otto Perez Molina, is slated to win in the run-off for the presidency on November 4. His campaign slogan is Mano Dura, "iron fist").

Then commander of the Honduran Army, Gen. Miguel Angel García defended the coup, claiming that the Honduran Armed Forces had prevented the arrival of socialism to "the heart of the United States"2.

According the Honduran Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained (COFADEH), between 2009 and 2011, 463 people have been killed or disappeared3; these include students, farmers, unionists, journalists and LGBTQ activists. A month after the coup, femicides rose 60%4. The armed forces, led by SOA graduate General René Arnoldo Osorio Canales, have been suspected of supporting death squads linked to powerful businessman and cocaine trafficker Miguel Facussé in the Aguán Valley5.

On October 21, gunmen killed university students Rafael Alejandro Vargas Castellanos, 22, and Carlos David Pineda Rodríguez, 23, after they left a party at the house of the sister of Enrique Flores Lanza, Zelaya's lawyer, who has been under house arrest since returning to the country with Zelaya on June 1, 20116. Vargas Castellanos, who had in the past worked for COFADEH was the son of the rector of the national university. Julieta Castellanos, his mother, was also a member of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which presented a report this year about the facts around the 2009 coup.

The Honduran Minister of Security (and SOA graduate), Pompeyo Bonilla, admitted on October 26th that members of the police force were possibly behind the killings of Castellanos and Rodríguez7.

The Obama administration, while at first condemning the coup, reversed its decision, and supported elections in November 2009, paving the way for continued impunity for the top general s and business elite involved in the coup.

Before leaving the country on June 28, 2009, the plane carrying Manuel Zelaya made a stop at the US base in Soto Cano. The United States continued training Honduran soldiers at institutions like the School of the Americas (renamed Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation, WHINSEC, in 2001) following the coup, and has increased military aid to the country. Honduras now spends $172 million on defense, up from $63 million five years ago8. Public and private figures put violent deaths in Honduras at 20 per day9.
The United States has trained thousands of Honduran troops at the SOA/WHINSEC. During the Contra War against Nicaragua in the 1980s, while the US base at Soto Cano housed CIA operatives and planes that transport weapons and paramilitaries across the border, Honduran troops trained at the SOA established the death squad known as Battalion 3-16. Nineteen members and three generals who operated Battalion 3-16 were trained at the SOA.

The SOA/WHINSEC has continued to play a fundamental role in US domination of Latin America, and the continuation of neoliberal policies that target students, unionists, farmers, theologians and political dissenters. Graduates of the institution have directed coups, massacres, disappearances, torture and displacement, from Chile to Bolivia to Colombia to El Salvador and Mexico. The SOA Watch continues to demand the closure of the school and a complete investigation into the atrocities carried out by its graduates. From November 18-20, 2011, the movement will converge to protest at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, where the SOA/WHINSEC is housed. www.SOAW.org

1. http://www.elheraldo.hn/Pa%C3%ADs/Ediciones/2011/10/27/Noticias/Vasquez-se-postulara-por-el-Alianza-Patriotica
2. http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2253-honduran-coup-regime-erects-superficial-reality-around-elections
3. Informe: Situación de derechos humanos en Honduras. COFADEH, 2011
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/29/honduras-blind-eye-femicides
5. http://www.thenation.com/article/164120/wikileaks-honduras-us-linked-brutal-businessman
6. http://www.soaw.org/about-us/partnership-america-latina/212-delegations/3709-reportback-from-zelaya-return
6. http://www.centinelaeconomico.com/2011/10/26/policias-estarian-detras-del-asesinato-de-hijo-de-la-rectora-de-la-unah/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=policias-estarian-detras-del-asesinato-de-hijo-de-la-rectora-de-la-unah
7. http://insightcrime.org/insight-latest-news/item/1745-more-military-spending-in-central-america-giving-rise-to-old-and-new-fears
8. http://www.centinelaeconomico.com/2011/10/26/policias-estarian-detras-del-asesinato-de-hijo-de-la-rectora-de-la-unah/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=policias-estarian-detras-del-asesinato-de-hijo-de-la-rectora-de-la-unah

Interview with School of Americas Watch Founder Father Roy Bourgeois

2011-11-01T21:08:00.000-07:00

In a few weeks thousands of people of conscience will travel to the gates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia to protest the continued existence of this taxpayer supported death squad/terrorist training center. Below is a short interview with the founder of the movement to close the SOA, Father Roy Bourgeois.

Occupy Sacramento lawyers file federal lawsuit against city for park crackdown

2011-11-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

efletcher@sacbee.com

HECTOR AMEZCUA / HAMEZCUA@SACBEE.COM

Lisa Smith closes a tent Monday in Sacramento's Cesar Chavez Plaza as the Occupy Sacramento protest continues. All but one of the 75 protesters arrested have been charged with violating state law and city code for staying in the park after curfew.

PUBLISHED TUESDAY, NOV. 01, 2011

Attorneys working on behalf of Occupy Sacramento protesters have filed a federal lawsuit contending the First Amendment free assembly rights of participants are being violated by the 11 p.m. curfew for Cesar Chavez Park.

To date, 79 arrests have been made of people attempting to occupy the park past the posted time limit. The Occupy Sacramento protest is modeled after the Occupy Wall Street protests that have spread worldwide. Sacramento is one of a handful of city that has never allowed protesters to maintain their occupation overnight.

Attorney Mark Merin argued last week that while the government can limit free speech and free assembly, the city's rational does not meet the "reasonable" test.

The city has maintained that clearing the park in the evening is within its legal rights.

The federal lawsuit will hinge on whether the protesters can prove they're being discriminated against, said two prominent First Amendment scholars.

Jesse H. Choper, a law professor at Berkeley's Boalt Hall cited a similar case in which protesters were not allowed to stay in Washington D.C.'s Lafayette Square

"The critical issue was the reason for putting them out," Choper said. "Was it to suppress the speech or" for other legitimate reasons.

Added Carlton Larson, professor at UC Davis School of Law: "If they could show that lots of other people are violating the curfew and they were being singled out because the people don't like what they have to say then they have a good case."