Public Information

The Liberation of Women Will Change the World

“There’s a very strong outperformance of companies that have women in management, particularly in operational roles,” said Stefano Natella, Credit Suisse’s global head of equity research.

My very well-connected friend in Washington, DC, often says he knows the cure for all the ills in the world, from wars and racism and the economy to sexism and the environment, and on and on. My friend says, “Just replace all the men currently in power with women.” I think he is tapping into something very important, and this recent report by Credit Suisse just underscores why women bring a special point of view to every problem and challenge, something most men fail over and over again to fully appreciate.

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka Flickr/creative commons

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Flickr/creative commons

Countries across the world who put women in power are able to reverse negative trends, in government, corporations, religious hierarchies, and local communities. Witnesses to history assert that the United States Congress is being transformed with election of more women. Someday soon we will have the first female president who will be capable of looking at the bigger picture that has largely been ignored by men, especially in such key areas as war and social welfare. Women focus on long-term, substantive, and sustainable changes, and don’t allow short-term discomfort to sway them from their goals.

Men, in general, are logic-driven, and women, in general, are intuition-driven. When logical men adapt to encompass all parts of their humanity, including their intuition, it leads to feminist thinking, the key to changing the world for the better. When intuitive women become more logical about applying their insights to the world around them, they are unstoppable.

A wise person once exclaimed, “The hand that rocks the cradle fraternizes with destiny.” What I get from that statement is that women’s biological destiny as mothers (whether or not they every choose to give birth) brings them closer to the essence of life and therefore the essence of each situation, bringing a mental clarity that sometimes is a complete mystery to men.

The liberation of women worldwide, enabling them to escape the repressive bonds imposed by men through the ages, is inevitable. It will heal humanity and bring about a new and more effective world order.

Thoughts?

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Related: Salutes!, Can A Man Be A Feminist?

Stop, hey, what’s that sound?

(photo by Chris Boland) Stephen Stills / Crosby, Stills and Nash - Glastonbury - 2009 Flickr/creative commons

(photo by Chris Boland)
Stephen Stills / Crosby, Stills and Nash – Glastonbury – 2009
Flickr/creative commons

Stop, hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look. What’s goin’ down?
(“What It’s Worth” chorus, 1966, lyrics or listen)

This song was written in 1966 by Stephen Stills of Crosby, Sills, & Nash fame. They recorded it and performed it thousands of times although it was first performed by Buffalo Springfield that year. The song quickly became an anthem for all those working on numerous fronts of the global struggle for human rights (in the 60s that meant the end of war and environmental protection). This song is still ranked #63 on Rolling Stone’s list of the The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, by the way.

The song’s universal appeal was practically instant even though it was actually inspired by local Los Angeles rock fans protesting the imposition of a 10 PM curfew on the entertainment area on Sunset Boulevard, known as the Sunset Strip — you know, to keep the ruckus down. At the time, Buffalo Springfield and other bands were performing there at places like Whiskey A Go Go and Pandora’s Box. But its origins didn’t matter because it struck a chord, a truth, something that everyone on the planet could recognize.

There’s somethin’ happenin’ here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun, over there
Tellin’ me I got to beware
(“What It’s Worth” first verse, 1966, lyrics or listen)

The young anti-war counter-cuture that emerged following the end of World War II embraced many Crosby, Sills, & Nash’s songs, but “What It’s Worth” was unique in that it so well described the educational challenges inherent in any struggle for any cause, from peace and the environment to immigration/voting/equality/human-rights, etc., even to lift an unjust curfew.

There’s battle lines bein’ drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speakin’ their minds, once again
Gettin’ so much resistance from behind
(“What It’s Worth” second verse, 1966, lyrics or listen)

Take for example our recent and highly successful People’s Climate March, with a follow-up Flood Wall Street sit-in quite publicly demanding corporate environmental responsibility. And, many of us are encouraged by this week’s Climate Summit at the United Nations and the specific commitments outlined by President Obama. Taken together, all three of these events can perhaps lift spirits but their impact in conveying the urgency of this issue will only be measured by how fast and how hard we work, redoubling our efforts to educate our family members, work mates, and community — everyone in our sphere of influence.

H M Cotterill Flickr/creative commons

H M Cotterill
Flickr/creative commons

As we pointed out last week with this photo, time is the only commodity that can’t be recycled, so we have to do everything today to make the world a better place. Once, having envisioned a perfected future, there exists an imperative, an obligation, to materialize that vision.

Protests, rallies, meetings, summits, pamphlets, posters, banners, and speeches will only take us so far. Surely these are useful in recruiting new allies to any cause, but what will really harness the power of all the people, or at least a healthy majority, to not budge until change comes about?

Capturing the planet-at-large will require the most creative explosion of public engagement and education that we have ever seen, an expression of non-violent civil disobedience on a global scale.

Central to this effort must be the fact that climate change is already upon us. Therefore, we must move away from the elemental proof or disapproval of its causes — a never ending battle with the naysayers, a red herring. We are long over that debate.

The destruction of ocean habitats, the rising sea levels, the increasing scarcity and privatization of water, and much more, are factual realities that we are being forced to reckon with, and this can only be done through worldwide harmony. The alternative is death. People arguing against protecting our environment are akin to those in some parts of this country who will not put out your house fire unless your taxes are up to date. They don’t look at the big picture, either on purpose or because they are incapable of normal cogitation.

One of the things everyone in the world does understand, however, is the power of money, what gets spent on what, and what are the expressed priorities at any given point. We have to encourage the growth of financial divestment coalitions already in existence among universities, pension funds, venture capitalists, foundations, and corporate boards of directors. We must draw them away from technologies that have no future such as fossil fuels, the meat industry, and the privatization of water resources, and away from state regimes that hurt their population. While we cringe when we see corporations use their newly assigned personal rights to take away the rights of others (limiting their female employees’s personal birth control choices, for example), we must also recognize that without people, without customers, there are no corporations. We hold a mighty power to shape corporations by using global non-violent civil disobedience to both raise awareness/educate and reap new commitments to the people’s issues by getting powerful entities to champion our cause.

We are beginning to see this happen, and our duty is to hurry along this process. Time is all we have.

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 For more on how progress happens, click here.

Salutes and More Salutes

 

Naysayers who think that big marches don’t bring about real change fail to understand there is a pluralistic revolution already underway that will change the world whether they like it or not, divesting the world away from corporate rape of the world’s natural resources. (9/22/14)

People's Climate March New York City  September 21, 2014

People’s Climate March
New York City
September 21, 2014

People's Climate March New York City September 21, 2014 regram from @_sarahwilson_

People’s Climate March
New York City
September 21, 2014
regram from @_sarahwilson_

We have had time now to fully appreciate the impact of Sunday’s unprecedented People’s Climate March (400,000 souls in New York City, and millions in other American cities and in more than 160 countries), and to witness on Monday the hugely successful follow-up Flood Wall Street sit-in to demand corporate environmental responsibility. More than 3,000 protesters literally flooded Wall Street, without a city permit no less, shutting down a 10-block area despite police interference. All were trained in non-violent civil disobedience, volunteering to be arrested (100 were arrested and then all were released).

We had a big ruckus and showed ourselves to each other as a force ready and able to move forward on this uphill battle. And it is uphill, make no mistake, consider Exhibit A, if you will . . .

“I mean think about it, if your ice cube melts in your glass it doesn’t overflow, it’s displacement.”

This grade-school, startling, ignorant statement comes out of the US Congress, courtesy of Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) who sits, ironically and sadly, on our tax-payer funded House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. (Worth a watch: Jon Stewart skewering Stockman and similarly ignorant Republican brethren also serving on this committee.)

But, now for some good news.

This stupidity on display is a national embarrassment, yes, but it also gives us hope that we are closer, than ever before, to turning the corner of worldwide awareness of environmental issues. The more convincing the science, the more people stand up to share the voices and skills to educate others, and the more desperate the stupid climate-deniers become in putting their stumbling and bad thinking is on display to be widely ridiculed and more quickly repudiated by larger and larger numbers of people.

As we celebrate the sheer numbers of boots on the ground in the last 2 days, we are a witness to progress: the greatest number of people in history are today mobilized to do something to save our planet, whether in their own community or on the world stage.

But that’s not all, folks. Corporations are beginning to agree with us that non-renewable energy is a very, very bad idea. A fast-growing corporate divestment movement has now firmly attached itself to the cause, underscoring environmentalists’s demands with money. This is a very good thing, emblematic of true progress.

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Information: How you can divest from the fuel economy.

More about the mechanics and built-in ecology of progress here.

 

Salutes!

Quick salute to record 400,000 People’s Climate Marchers who turned out, yesterday. More about that, tomorrow, with an Op-Ed on what’s gone down today in Lower Manhattan many of these activists showed up to Flood Wall Street calling for corporate environmental responsibility. Naysayers who think that big marches don’t bring about real change fail to understand there is a pluralistic revolution already underway that will change the world whether they like it or not, divesting the world away from corporate rape of the world’s natural resources.

Future Feminist by Melissa Brewer Flickr/creative commons

Future Feminist by Melissa Brewer
Flickr/creative commons

Today, we are pausing to give kudos to our United Nation Good Will Ambassador, actress and activist Emma Watson, for defining feminism for a new generation.

. . . [F]eminism by definition is: “The belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

… Men—I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too.

We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes but I can see that that they are and that when they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence.

… I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too—reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.

As we’ve opined before, many people (especially young people, especially those of all ages who resist progress) misunderstand or just miss altogether this central truth of feminism which Ms. Watson has just so eloquently stated. Feminism is and always was an all peoples movement, and it’s been on the advance for a long time now.
We are all standing on the shoulders of those far-thinking, any-gendered soldiers who saw the future (our only collective future, peace). True feminists go to work each day to enrich the present by upstepping progress in any way possible, and always across gender gender divides, despite disinformation of radical feminists. Those of us around when feminism first emerged recognize it as a philosophy that builds on all older philosophies that hold the potential to save the world by bringing about universal plurality and peace.

Men had, and have, a lot to gain once they back away from the precipice of hyper-masculinity, something forced on little boys, practically at birth. We have highlighted how this overriding male privilege, machismo and masculine extremism, has led directly to today’s misogynistic rape culture. This hyper-masculinity has no peaceful end. It doesn’t drive good works. Instead it maintains a vicious and constant competition with other men to be the most extremely hyper-masculine among one’s peers beginning with the repression (and conquest) of all women and all (in their opinion) less masculine men, making them trophies, conquests, less than human. To the extent that this overpowering man-centric point-of-view disappears from the halls of power, within corporations, governments, and religious hierarchies, people-centric solutions emerge. Gradually, old coercive, inhumane systems are replaced by entirely voluntary, humane associations in part built upon everything that is good and salvageable we find around us.

Hospice care is an example of an existing human partnership worth maintaining. The idea of hospice care, where dying patients receive palliative care with dignity, was conceived in the 11th century and has remained an welcome and useful association, surpassing what any corporation or government could conceive or control.

Two good examples of the transition of leaving bad systems behind us and creating better ways of doing things are the military and reproductive rights. In the United States, mostly poor young people are not given the choice to go to college or serve in the military. If they want to go to college, the military gladly pays but with an awful codicil: you have to be willing to fill a body bag on behalf of your government’s wrong-headed, greed-motivated, big budget, militaristic pursuit of world domination. Instead, how about a Green Army that is called upon to full diplomatic philanthropy, disaster relief, and environmental clean-up?

Confining a woman’s abortion and birth control decisions in the hands our government’s old white men is driven by their hatred and fear of women’s power. As an issue it has to be removed from public discourse and remain solely with a woman, her family, and her doctor.

Learn more about this formula for progress, here. And salute all people and groups of people who have the means and the courage to speak truth.

 

 

Climate March This Sunday, Be Counted!

Takver Flickr/creative commons

Takver
Flickr/creative commons

. . . [T]he largest rally for an environmental cause in US history is happening this Sunday, September 21, in Manhattan. More than 100,000 people are planning to join a historic march for climate action two days before President Obama and world leaders attend a Climate Summit at the United Nations. (The Nation’s “The People’s Climate Weekend: A Guide)

There may only a few people left who haven’t heard about this weekend’s momentous People’s Climate March, taking place in New York City and other major cities across the world. If you haven’t signed up to participate directly or otherwise support this effort, there are numerous portals to sign in (here, here, and on Facebook, for example).

Organizers say it is impossible to predict how many people could show up. But 1,400 “partner organizations” have signed on, ranging from small groups to international coalitions. In addition, students have mobilized marchers at more than 300 college campuses, and more than 2,700 climate events in 158 countries are planned to coincide with the New York march, including rallies in Delhi, Jakarta, London, Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro. (New York Times)

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week announced he would be marching with us. Companies are joining the marchers as well. Patagonia is closing all four of its NYC locations so that employees can participate.

It happens that Naomi Klein’s much anticipated book, This Changes Everything, is also being launched this weekend. It is a must read for everyone, not just those deeply concerned about the environment but all those who wish to reverse once and for all the power brokers stranglehold that values profit over people.

Klein exposes the myths that are clouding the climate debate.

 We have been told the market will save us, when in fact the addiction to profit and growth is digging us in deeper every day. We have been told it’s impossible to get off fossil fuels when in fact we know exactly how to do it—it just requires breaking every rule in the “free-market” playbook: reining in corporate power, rebuilding local economies, and reclaiming our democracies.

We have also been told that humanity is too greedy and selfish to rise to this challenge. In fact, all around the world, the fight for the next economy and against reckless extraction is already succeeding in ways both surprising and inspiring.

Climate change, Klein argues, is a civilizational wake-up call, a powerful message delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms, and droughts. Confronting it is no longer about changing the light bulbs. It’s about changing the world—before the world changes so drastically that no one is safe. 

Either we leap—or we sink.

You can get live updates of events as they unfold this weekend by signing up here.

Also, there is a fresh call to action for an entire week in Washington, DC, starting on November 1, in part to demand that our country’s Federal Energy Regulation Commission stop letting big industry call the shots at everyone else’s expense. You can get started here.

Since its inception VenusPlusX has joined others for a complete remaking of our world starting with universal plurality so that all voices are heard and respected and finally drown out the greedy who reap profit from the pain of others, the singular obstacle to peace.

Show your support in some way this weekend, and consider this: Solidarity devoted to reclaiming our planet and nursing it back to its prior state of health can be the fulcrum that transforms our global economy and rescues our inherent human rights from those who wish to enslave us.

H M Cotterill Flickr/creative commons

H M Cotterill
Flickr/creative commons

Op-Ed: Culturally Inept Policing Schools Criminals

Photo by Adam Fagen Flickr/creative commons

Photo by Adam Fagen
Flickr/creative commons

In our grassroots work in Washington, DC, 3 years ago, we discovered a sad reality that persists. Police training and code, cultural competency training, with additional Special Orders pertaining to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) people, and the country’s most long-standing and extensive human rights protections for the LGBT community were not enough to rid the police force of homophobes and transphobes. While there are many good policemen, this substantial group cannot not be persuaded to put their personal feelings second to enforcing the law, actually doing their jobs. In fact, some are perpetrators of crimes against the communities they were assigned to protect. Only in the most egregious criminal cases is it possible to overcome police unions to get certain police officers permanently removed from the force.

The worst part of these bad practices is that they allow bigotry to cast a pall across an entire community, creating an atmosphere at odds with serving and protecting the community, the whole community. And, it is in this atmosphere, where LGBT people are not valued, that all the rest of the criminals model their behavior.

In 2011, after a rash of anti-trans violence and murders in just as many months, VenusPlusX helped organize a coalition of a dozen mostly local LGBT organizations under the banner of the DC TLGB Police Watch (T being our priority). We went to work listening to victims of police bias and anti-LGBT violence, especially anti-trans violence, as well as other concerns of the TLGB community and the community-at-large. We turned those concerns into goals and objectives and developed the city’s first-ever Transgender Day of Action with targets, written demands, and built-in accountability.

We were, at least temporarily successful, not only because the murders stopped for a almost 2 years, but because new channels of communication were opened in a way they had not been before among and between the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the Mayor’s Office, the City Council, and, especially the US Attorney for Washington, DC. Within 48 hours, our phones were ringing, cold cases were being re-opened, and the US Attorney championed our position that the city’s feckless Prostitution Free Zones (enacted temporarily wherever there was a pocket of citizen complaints, supposedly) were unconstitutional in that they unfairly targeted people of color, the poor, and sex workers, especially trans sex workers forced to the streets when they had no other choice.

This coalition seeded the trans community with a new activists and allies and went on to bring about positive change such as a birth certificate bill, and better access to health care, employment, and housing. Police anti-trans bias was somewhat quelled a few years ago, but has gradually emerged again putting this latest spate of senseless anti-trans violence and murders in sharp relief.

Walking while trans is a real thing. It can often be a matter of life and death.

A young trans woman of color leaves here downtown office after sunset, heading for her bus stop. She spent years trying to get employment, and she was feeling good about her new job.

Her route takes her near, but not in, a city park. She sees two patrolman heading towards her and she holds steady on her path.

One of these patrolman grew up hating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and, especially, trans people. He still hates them, despite his training, the special orders re LGBT people, and the human rights laws in the city. He suspects the woman walking towards him is trans, believing she is probably a prostitute. The hairs on the back of his head stand up, his sternum stiffens. Why do these freaks think they can just walk around, these dudes in a dress, he asks his partner. By the time they are face to face with the innocent woman, they are primed to give her a hard time. They want to arrest her. They ask for ID, and then permission to dig deep through her belongings. They find 3 packaged condoms and arrest her for prostitution based on no other evidence. She will go to jail and probably stay there, losing her really nice job.

More has to be done to weed out the underlying problem of police bias and misconduct, setting the poorest examples for would-be criminals. Activists and advocates must redouble their efforts to put pressure on public officials, demanding leadership to forge better police recruitment and training standards, and helping good police officers transform their unions to have zero-tolerance for bad actors.

The Department of Justice has at last launched a program “to train local police departments to better respond to transgender individuals.” This is not a reason to go lightly. It’s all hands on deck, including yours, the more local the better.

 

Everyone Needs Examples, Including Bad Examples

When we wrote, where Where Did All This F*cking Evil Sh%t Come From? and recently, Right-wingnuts Bless Progressives, and in other posts, including practically everything we’ve written about the events in Ferguson, Missouri, it was to offer a rational explanation of why we are faced, constantly bombarded, with negativity, and why this provides an array of opportunities for good.

by Pranav Bhatt Flickr/creative commons

by Pranav Bhatt
Flickr/creative commons

I know this sounds rather counter-intuitive, and understand why when bad things happen to good people it can become a source of frustration and helplessness, but these reactions forget the underlying ecology of progress.

There is a time tension of reality that causes budding personalities to seek out sunshine and sustenance to thrive. The alternative is death. So we take stock of all threats to life and health and grow around them, in spite of them. We point out the bad shyte, deconstruct it to its rotten core, reveal its ultimate futility, and challenge ourselves and others to look beyond and work around.

Who can deny that the legacy of Michael Brown is that he and has family are now lightening rods bringing about real change, not just in Ferguson but in every American city?

Who can deny that the misanthropic Westboro Baptist Church exposes the bankruptcy of organized religion?

Who can deny that the actions of today’s theocratic oligarchies throughout the world, including in the United States, are producing a newly energized and organized progressive counterpunch?

No doubt there is pain and sacrifice along the way, we all feel it. But progress cannot be thwarted. Just as the bud is determined to flower, so too will good triumph over evil.

In this instant news world we now live in, I wake up most days feeling besieged from every direction: ISIS, the Supreme Court, congressional venality and its ignorance, climate change, crime, injustice, you name it. But I get up, wash my face, and do what is within my power, as limited as that may be, to bring sunshine and nourishment wherever and whenever I can. I am challenged by all the bad examples of humanity around me but comforted that the chemistry of negativity dictates its eventual obsolescence because it lacks the vital building blocks of progress.

The humane will always triumph over the inhumane if only we are willing to move forward and do something about it.

 

TODAY: Actions You Can Take to Assure Net Neutrality

Courtesy of Free Press

Courtesy of Free Press

We may be experiencing the last few days when we can be sure that the Internet will remain free from the control of mega-corporations at the expense of the little guy. Sites such as Comcast and AT&T could be getting fast lanes, the cost of which would be borne by you the consumer. Other websites, the ones you love, would be relegated to die on the vine in slow lanes.

But there are things you can do over the next few days to make the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reclassifies broadband providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.

Tomorrow there will be a world-wide “slowdown” for websites large and small to urge end-users like you to take action in the next few days by submitting comments up until midnight (EST) this Monday, September 15. If you want the Internet to remain the global free marketplace of ideas it has always been, where those without a voice are guaranteed a chance to be heard, then please do one or more of these things.

Besides tomorrow’s slowdown, you can call for net neutrality by . . .

Don’t sit on your hands.

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FreePress.net and savetheinternet.com, thank you for all your work!

 

 

Take Action On Wednesday for Net Neutrality

battleforthenet

One of the most consequential decisions Washington is set to make in 2014 won’t come out of the White House, Congress, or any of the nation’s boardrooms, but rather from a nondescript federal building along the city’s southwest waterfront. It’s here, in the offices of the Federal Communications Commission, that the fate of the Internet will be decided. (via The Huffingnton Post)

A court ruling earlier this year throwing out earlier rules led the Federal Trade Commission (FCC) to vote 3-2 to debate the issue again, a time to put all the issues on the table but not without risk. If these new rules are approved, media mega-corporations such as Comcast and Verizon will be able to offer fast lanes to certain clients, such as Netflix, all at the consumer’s expense of course. This would leave smaller companies, the non-profit sector, and individuals stuck in slow lanes, withering.

Defenders of net neutrality want the Internet to remain the free international marketplace of ideas it is, where everyone has the same opportunity to be heard. Many of us  flooded the FCC with hundreds of thousands of messages during the public comment period on these draft rules. More background: here, here, and here.

Now, frighteningly, this epic decision is now in the hands of two FCC commissioners, both women, both Democrats, but our fate is still very much in doubt. Chair Tom Wheeler has come out in favor of net neutrality although the fact that he has entertained this draft proposal is somehow at odds with that position. The Republicans, both men, on the commission are going to vote with the mega-corporations, of course.

A day of action for this Wednesday, September 10, is planned and everyone can take part. At battleforthenet.com you can find out how you can participate directly in this Internet Slowdown campaign. The site is the product of several well-respected net neutrality advocacy organizations.

All day on Wednesday, websites big and small will display the notorious symbol of dysfunction, the dreaded spinning wheel of death, to promote users to content the FCC, Congress, and the White House. (This will be a display, only, not actually affecting any website.)

Over 100 tech companies, including Google and Amazon, came together last spring to oppose these proposed new rules . . . warn[ing] of a “grave threat to the Internet.” Most of these companies have pledged to participate on Wednesday, and hopefully they will.

Whether you a small website or a big Internet company, or if you just have a blog, you can get the code. If you have a mobile app, send a push notification. On social media, change your avatar to a spinning wheel of death, or freely share some of battleforthenet.com’s cool images.

All the tools to do this are at battleforthenet.com, including a Citizen’s Petition and software to make a banner. It’s all about prompting as many people as possible to flood political decision-makers to fight off yet another assault by big business.

Even if you only have a Facebook account you can participate. If you have clout, use it! By working together in coalition we can succeed, and help end the domination of corporations over people.

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Support Tomorrow’s WalkOuts To Raise Wages

Photo by  Steve Rhodes Flickr/creative commons

Photo by
Steve Rhodes
Flickr/creative commons

Home healthcare workers are joining fast food workers, tomorrow, for walkouts in over 100 cities across America. You can help by coming out to support these actions against mega corporations such as McDonalds and Walmart who enslave workers with poverty wages and stolen wages.

Fast-food workers often have to rely on food stamps to feed their families. This means that the corporations they work for freely rely on your tax dollars to pick up the slack.

These companies also notoriously steal workers’ wages by such practices as making workers wait around before starting their shifts to maintain efficiency ratios and/or routinely requiring extra unpaid hours by workers to clean at the conclusion of their shift.

Conservatives argue that the market should determine wages based on productivity but fail to understand that if that were so the minimum wage would actually be $22/hour in 2014.

Income inequality hurts both the rich and the poor and it is time for everyone to pay more attention to these issues.

Join a walkout tomorrow. You will be glad you did.