Category Public Information

Follow The Money To Ferguson

Light Brigading
August 14, 2014
Flickr/creative commons

No doubt I will have more to say about the events still unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri, because the underlying factors are key issues for VenusPlusX.

For now, we’re are pointing you to Mass Incarceration: Follow The Money (Part 1 and Part 2), a 2012 analysis and op-ed we produced following the publication of Michelle Alexander’s scholarly and myth-shattering book, The New Jim Crow, well worth a full read and understanding for anyone committed to systemic change in this country. It answers the question, “Why?”

Institutionalized racism, money, greed, and special interests are what makes brown and black young men primary targets and victims, and it is being financed by your hard-earned tax-dollars.

Alexander points out the undeniably connection between the action-reaction cycle: the end of slavery delivering Jim Crow laws, the voting and civil rights acts of the 60s giving rise to the political Southern Strategy meant to rile southern whites to support radical conservatives, and the election of our first black president leading to the Jim Crow 2.0 and mass incarceration of brown and black young men we have today.

This is not just about another black teenager being gunned down by a white policeman because this is a regular occurrence in America, nor is it the completely bungled response by the police and political leaders who continue to fail this heart-broken and understandably convulsing community, or the deployment of militarized SWAT.

The legacy of Michael Brown, the Ferguson teen shot this week, will be the commencement at last of a serious examination of the underlying issues that created the atmosphere for it to have happened in the first place. It is a significant turning point in our shared history because people all over the country are finally standing up to be heard, embracing their power they too often surrender.

More to come . . .

A Neutral Guide to Net Neutrality

“Freedom of communication with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and now is the basis of the society we’ve built on the Internet.” — Tim Berners-Lee

Thanks to Stephanie Crets and the folks at singlehop.com, we are happy to add the following material to our conversation about the importance of net neutrality, the only thing making sure that all voices, big and small, are heard.

As always, your comments are welcome.

(This poster is not original to the article, however.)

Free Press
Flickr/creative Commons

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A Neutral Guide to Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality has been the topic of intense conversation recently, as the FCC solicits and considers public comments about how to regulate Internet traffic. We’ve put together the overview below to help you understand the issues and players that influence the way we use the Internet daily for business, research, entertainment, and social activities.

Net Neutrality Overview

Net Neutrality refers to the idea that all data on the Internet should be treated equally by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For most of the Internet’s history, ISPs generally did not distinguish between the various types of content that flow through their networks, whether web pages, email, or other forms of information. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the few ISPs that tried to block certain types of data faced strong opposition from consumers, tech companies, and regulators.

With the rise of bandwidth-heavy services such as Netflix, ISPs have increasingly sought to sell more bandwidth, or “fast lanes,” to companies willing to pay for it. Other traffic would move through their networks at a slower pace.

An FCC History of Net Neutrality

The term “Network Neutrality” (later shortened to Net Neutrality) was coined by legal scholar Tim Wu in a 2003 study of potential ways to regulate the Internet. Over the last decade, the FCC has tried multiple times to enforce “guiding principles” in support of Net Neutrality.

In 2007, the FCC ruled that Comcast had illegally throttled its users’ service, but the ruling was struck down by the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.[1] In 2010, the FCC passed a regulatory order intended “to preserve the Internet as an open platform for innovation, investment, job creation, economic growth, competition, and free expression.”[2] Verizon Communications challenged the new rules in court, and in January 2014, the D.C. Circuit again struck down the FCC’s ruling.[3]

In response to the most recent ruling, the FCC proposed another rulemaking and solicited public comments through July 15, 2014, with a reply comment period through September 10, 2014. During that period, members of the public can comment by visiting www.fcc.gov/comment or emailing openinternet@fcc.gov.[4]

Arguments for Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality proponents argue that the Internet should provide a “level playing field” by codifying an open-access model of the Internet in which all data is treated equally. In support of Net Neutrality, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has stated, “Freedom of communication with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and now is the basis of the society we’ve built on the Internet.”[5]

Responding to opposition against government regulation, supporters of Net Neutrality argue that regulation is necessary to preserve the previously voluntary open access. Some have equated such regulation as similar to the First Amendment, and Senator Al Franken has called Net Neutrality “the most important free speech issue of our time.”[6]

Replying to concerns about interference with the free market, Net Neutrality advocates argue that 96% of Americans have access to two or fewer wired broadband providers,[7] which means that there is very little ISP competition now. Network Neutrality rules, they contend, would prevent ISPs from suppressing competitors and inhibiting startup companies such as YouTube, which started as a small company competing with Google Video before Google bought it in 2006.

Arguments Against Net Neutrality

Opponents of Net Neutrality regulation argue that ISPs should be allowed to charge more for bandwidth-intensive services that heavily use the Internet’s infrastructure. Offering tiered service, they add, will allow consumers to receive faster traffic for high-demand services, such as multimedia streaming, video conferencing, and cloud-based IT.

Other opponents of Net Neutrality rules argue from a libertarian perspective, asserting that the government should refrain from interfering with the Internet. Some have likened regulation of an open Internet to the institution of common carrier locomotive transportation laws in the late 19th century, which they claim subsequently raised prices and degraded service.[8] Christopher Yoo, a legal professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has argued that common carrier regulation has historically been poorly implemented, and similar rules should be avoided with respect to the Internet.[9]

In response to claims that tiered service will hinder innovation and discourage competition, Net Neutrality opponents claim that regulations will suppress creative, free-market solutions that might otherwise emerge.

The Future of Net Neutrality

Arguments supporting and in opposition to Net Neutrality proceed in a variety of places — online, through traditional media, in political venues, and elsewhere. People on each side position themselves as champions of freedom and innovation, while companies and organizations lobby rulemakers in Washington, D.C..

Meanwhile, companies continue wrangling over how high-bandwidth services should be delivered over the Internet. In February, Netflix saw a slowdown in its service as it tried to negotiate connection fees with broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast,[10] an event later used by Net Neutrality proponents as an example of ISPs limiting other companies’ service to get what they want — although others have argued that the event had nothing to do with Net Neutrality.[11] Net Neutrality supporters have noted that in 2013, Comcast spent more than $18 million on lobbying efforts, more than any other single company except defense contractor Northrop Grummon.[12]

In April 2014, a set of rules proposed by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist for cable and wireless companies, indicated that the FCC may abandon its previous Net Neutrality position and consider letting ISPs provide tiered service. Wheeler denied that the proposed rules changed the FCC’s position,[13] but more than 100 companies supporting Net Neutrality wrote a letter to the chairman in May criticizing the proposed rules.[14]

Whatever rules the FCC eventually establishes, they will have a great impact on how we continue to use the Internet in our personal, professional, and political lives. Understanding the issues and players involved is important to anticipating the how clients, service providers and even competitors will respond.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.eff.org/files/Comcast%20v%20FCC%20(DC%20Cir%202010).pdf
2. https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A1.pdf
3. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/how-the-fcc-screwed-up-its-chance-to-make-isp-blocking-illegal/
4. http://www.fcc.gov/document/fact-sheet-protecting-and-promoting-open-internet
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jev2Um-4_TQ#t=11
6. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-franken/the-most-important-free-s_b_798984.html
7. http://www.broadband.gov/plan/4-broadband-competition-and-innovation-policy/
8. http://www.cato.org/blog/fccs-net-neutrality-rules
9. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2370068
10. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023048997045793912 23249896550
11. http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-vs-netflix-is-this-really-about-net-neutrality/
12. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2013&indexType=s
13. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rules.html?_r=0
14. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023037013045795483 64154205126
Read more at http://www.singlehop.com/blog/a-neutral-guide-to-net-neutrality/#bVqjugyWdkAZV3cW.99

in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 14 Aug 2014 0 comments

Getting Untied Is A Mistake

Some recent memes have left me wondering: Are certain leaders consciously uncoupling from some of our core beliefs that motivate our activism in the first place?

For example, it seems to me that it would be much better if the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) community fights for all of the objectives of the immigration movement, as we have done in the past. However clear it is that LGBT people suffer disproportionally in all matters of immigration, our advocacy must be inclusive of the suffering of all people, LGBT and straight conjoined, in order to attack directly the underlying causes of immigration problems in the first place, such as racism and radical nationalism. This is not a suggestion that our message regarding LGBT immigration issues disappear or be subsumed by the larger message of human rights but that the latter, larger message is always a preface to to our special plea for our LGBT-specific issues.

“Luminarium” Sculpture by Alan Parkinson, UN Geneva, Switzerland
Flickr/creative commons

Just as LGBT advances have followed gains in women’s rights, we should pause to consider that we are a part of a larger fabric of social and economic justice and global human rights. Segmentation of any issue weakens the voice of all.

There are several reasons to be as inclusive as possible, the least of which is that we uncover our best allies when working in coalition, people who will support us when we need it. We can point out the special circumstances causing LGBT folks more trouble but not so loudly that all people hear is that we care more about our own. We can’t forget that everybody is suffering. We risk our own progress when we sound like we are pitting something like uniting same sex spouses over the needs of motherless children on the southern border.

Those of us who lived through the 60s, 70s, and 80s know that identification with the whole of any issue reliably enhances our credulity. When we rally shoulder-to-shoulder with activists dedicated to their causes across the social and economic spectrum (immigration, environment, economic, education, race, politics, religion, etc.), we are speaking to the broadest constituency. All of these issues, including sexual and gender freedom, are a matter of human rights. We can get our issues heard by more people if we set them in a reliable context, so there needn’t ever be a disconnect in our objectives.

The underlying cause of all injustice is enslavement of the many by the few. Peace, prosperity, everything, is inhibited because civilization has gradually surrendered the power of the group, giving away to someone else the power of the people that resides within us. For centuries, organized religion modeled human behavior through the opportunistic entrepreneurs who declared the necessity of their intercession between you and your direct line to the power of love. Whether you call this power god or something else, we all feel it flowing through our senses, continually recycled among those we love. Priests, ministers, pastors, imams, and rabbis, having recognized this universal power of love, found a way to exploit it for their own gains (getting shelter, food, currency, and other societal benefits) by warning that bad luck is sure to come to you if you didn’t follow their particular doctrine. Organized religions were the first corporations, and they are thriving, especially now that the Surpreme Court has declared the persons who can legally discriminate against others based on a false interpretation of both personhood and religious freedom.

As we have said before, the new age of sexual freedom is synonymous with the end of racism (at its root sexual oppression) and the end of nationalism (at its root racism). Sexual freedom is the bedrock of all freedoms because it fully expresses our bodily guarantee of plurality, global equality, and world peace.

Working arm-and-arm at the intersections of all issues pertaining human rights is the most direct path towards reaching our goals, common and specific.

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Grassroots / Key Issues / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 13 Aug 2014 0 comments

List of Organizations Working on Income Inequality

Flickr/creative commons

We’ve spent the last few days tweeting and writing on this website to draw more people’s attention to the scourge of income inequality. There’s really no time to spare. Rectifying income inequality is the one and only solution to rescuing our failing economy, but it is also a matter of life and death.

We published a list of wealthy and powerful folks who understand the problem and what needs to be done who can be tapped as resources, sponsors, and donors. Today, we are publishing this list of organizations compiled by inequality.org, which you can join and/or work in coalition with, or consult as a guides to your own activism.

ORGANIZING PROJECTS

New Economy Working Group An informal think tank-media-business network alliance working to distribute and root economic power in people and communities, support the cooperative sharing of resources, and give priority to building the community wealth essential to the health and well-being of all.
Other 98 Percent A grassroots network of concerned citizens fed up with the status quo in Washington that’s seeking practical solutions to help Americans stand against the bankers, CEOs, and lobbyists who’ve hijacked our democracy to serve themselves at the expense of everyone else.
US UNCUT. A national grassroots movement drawing attention through direct action to unnecessary state and federal budget cuts in light of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes by corporate tax dodgers.
Common Security Club A network of locally based groups, situated in communities and congregations, that help participants learn more about today’s economic and ecological challenges, undertake mutual aid and shared action, and become part of a larger effort to create a fair and healthy economy that works for everyone.
Mind the Gap. An educational effort, sponsored by NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby, that aims to help build understanding “about the causes and consequences of this huge wealth gap.”

ADVOCACY GROUPS

Wealth for Common Good A network of business leaders and high-income Americans working together to promote shared prosperity and fair taxation, with members who range from entrepreneurs and doctors to elected officials of all backgrounds and political stripes.
Business for Shared Prosperity Business owners, executives, and investors who support public policies and business practices that expand economic opportunity, reduce inequality, promote innovation, and rebuild our nation’s infrastructure for long-term success.
United for a Fair Economy A national group working to raise awareness about how concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart.
On the Commons. A national network working to protect the commons and our commonwealth in ways that promote equity and sustainability.

THINK TANKS

Economic Policy Institute This Washington D.C. center has been broadening the discussion about economic policy to cover the interests of low- and middle-income workers since 1986.
Demos A New York City-based nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy organization working for a more equitable economy with widely shared prosperity and opportunity, among other goals.
Institute for Policy Studies A Washington, D.C. and Boston-based community of public scholars and organizers working with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power.
Center for Economic and Policy Research. A national research organization working to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities A Washington, D.C.-based policy organization working at the federal and state levels on policies and programs that impact low- and moderate-income families and individuals.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. A rigorous research group that explores how poverty and inequality affect women and also examines pay inequality between women and men.

INEQUALITY ANALYSIS

The Equality Trust A London-based effort, founded in 2009, that aims to reduce income inequality through a public and political education designed to widen understanding of the harm that income inequality inflicts on our modern societies.
Citizens for Tax Justice A Washington, D.C.-based public interest research and advocacy organization that seeks to give ordinary people a greater voice in tax policy, against the armies of special interest lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy.
Luxembourg Income Study A cross-national data archive and research institute based in Luxembourg that offers scholars and the general public alike access to comparative inequality indicators and commentary.
The Gini Project An interdisciplinary effort that draws on economics, sociology, political science, and health studies to examine the social impact of growing inequality.
Population Health Forum A Seattle-based initiative designed to raise awareness and initiate dialogue about how political, economic, and social inequalities interact to affect the overall health status of our society.

ACADEMIC CENTERS

Cornell University Center for the Study of Inequality Endeavors to foster basic and applied research on social and economic inequalities, as well as the processes by which such inequalities change and persist.
Columbia University Center for the Study of Wealth and Inequality Takes as its mission the investigation of income and wealth, along with exploring the dimensions of societal inequality in these household resources.
Stanford Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality Works to orient social policy to increasing economic output while restraining the rise of debilitating and counterproductive forms of inequality.
University of California at Berkeley Center for Equitable Growth Focuses on the linkages between inequality and economic growth, the impact of government policies on the distribution of economic well-being, and how public attitudes on equity and fairness affect the policy process. Led by economist Emmanuel Saez.
University of Texas Inequality Project Aims to measure and explain movements of inequality in wages and earnings and patterns of industrial change around the world.
Egalitarian World Initiative/University College Dublin Networks over 100 scholars working on social justice issues.

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in Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 10 Aug 2014 0 comments

The Wealthy and Powerful Aid Social and Economic Justice Activists

10 Business Leaders that Just Say No to Income Equality

by Vince Lamb
Flickr/creative commons

A recent report from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) led us to examine more closely how income inequality dampens growth for rich in poor alike. Conservatives, as well as progressives, are beginning to better understand some of the underlying causes, and what can be done. Safety net programs such as social security and food stamps are not the culprit. Actually at fault are things like tax cuts for the highest earners, the tendency of rich people to accumulate wealth for the sake of accumulation without putting some back into the economy, and growing gaps in educational opportunity which inhibit social mobility.

Capital and Main collaborated with The Huffington Post to spotlight some powerful people who already understand the problem and are available now to be tapped as resources, sponsors, and donors in the struggle for social and economic justice. We have paraphrased it slightly (with credit) and added some hyperlinks to help you on your way to greater advocacy on this important issue.

Here it is. Go get ’em!

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream co-founder Ben Cohen founded TrueMajority to stem the financial bailout of banks, and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities to help transfer taxpayer money from military programs to education and health care.
Multinational investment manager Morris Pearl is a member of Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength which favors the end of tax cuts for the wealthy.
Library software entrepreneur Stephen M. Silberstein endorses corporate tax rates that tie CEO pay to average worker income, and executive-produced Robert Reich’s documentary Inequality for All.
Early Amazon.com investor Nick Hanauer has gone on record saying that the middle class consumer is the driver of job creation, advocating for higher median incomes instead of tax cuts for people with high incomes.
Republican Ron Unz seeks to raise the minimum wage because it is a conservative issue: If low-wage workers have more money, taxpayers will have to pay less for social programs.
Former CEO of AT&T Broadband Leo Hindery, Jr., supports the right of all Americans to join a union.
Board member of major corporations Erskine Bowles favors repealing tax breaks for companies moving jobs overseas, expanding “wage insurance” programs to give support to workers forced to work lower paying jobs, and creating nonprofit community development corporations.
Retired civil rights attorney and major Democratic Party donor Guy T. Saperstein is a leading advocate for public option health care, and cautions against a possible President Hillary Clinton because of her close ties to Wall Street.
Shout! Factory CEO and philanthropist Richard Foos helps numerous community support organizations such as Chrysalis, which helps to train and employ the long-term unemployed.
Investment banker turned Columbia University Professor Eric J. Schoenberg joined the debate about economic inequality by revealing his own tax records in an article for the Huffington Post, pointing out that while the average American family with an income of $55,000 a year pays an effective 5.5 percent tax, Schoenberg pays only one percent.

in Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information by Alison Gardner 09 Aug 2014 0 comments

Barney Frank: Elder Statesman Or Just a Grouch?

Barney Frank Sharply Criticizes Gay Rights Groups’ Flip on ENDA by Amanda Terkel for The Huffington Post

A handful of groups said last month that they no longer back the Senate-passed version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because of its sweeping religious exemption, which would allow religiously affiliated businesses to fire someone for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The provision’s language goes far beyond religious exemptions afforded under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or national origin.

Former Rep. Barney Frank’s latest sound-off criticizing the thinking of several leading gay rights organization’s rejection of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (EDNA) followed his public rebuke just last week of President Obama for having “lied” to the American people when he said people would be able to keep their existing health insurance after implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Calling the President a liar was such overreach, I remember thinking at the time that Frank just wanted to get people talking about him now that he has become a private citizen following his retirement from Congress last year. Obama absolutely misspoke as he tried to gloss over this specific criticism. In fact, this applied to only a small percentage of people who had existing plans plans were below the new standards and safety net set by the ACA meant to the improve health of all Americans, prevention being key to lowering future healthcare costs overall. They didnt lose their insurance, but they were forced to upgrade their coverage. It was a failure of Obama in not figuring this out before he made blanket statements, but Frank made no room for nuance, adding nothing to the debate but fueling the right flank and getting his name in the media stream. It was a disappointing display to many people.

Frank has always seen himself as the best spokesman for gay rights, the grand poobah expressing assessments that every lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) person should listen to. He may have had the highest profile platform after he finally came out the closet in 1987, but he has been unforgiving of others with positions that differ from his own.

2011 National Equality March, Washington, DC
Flickr/creative commons

In 2010, when Dan and I were involved in planning the October 2011 Equality March in Washington, DC, Frank was a vocal critic, saying we were wasting a lot of time and energy that will have no real results, just “ruining the grass.” But our hearts swelled as we witnessed hundreds of thousands crest Capitol Hill that day and knew everything was about to change, radically. History proved him wrong very quickly as the march yielded the greatest expansion and upstep in national organizing for equality rights to date.

Now Frank is thoughtlessly disparaging our movement once again by calling LGBT groups “ridiculous” for rejecting this session’s version of the bill just because of its broad religious exemptions, now super-charged in the era of Supreme Court-approved corporate personhood and religious right to discriminate. Again, he argues for the incremental approach, the hoped-for future fix. The rest of us understand there will be no future fix whatsoever, and in fact the successful passage of this bill would formally institutionalize broader discrimination in the work place.

“Having weaker protections for LGBT people sends the message that anti-LGBT discrimination is more acceptable than other forms of workplace discrimination,” said Ilona Turner, legal director of the Transgender Law Center. “

Remember 2007 when you clung to your faith in an incremental approach a few short years ago when pushing for an ENDA that excluded rights for trans people? You thought that version was good enough, too, but at the urging of trans leaders at the time, one in particular, Dr. Dana Beyer, you began your re-education by expanding your congressional staff with the very capable Diego Sanchez (now the national political director for PFLAG, Parents, Families, and Allies United with LGBT People). Only then were you able to see the infinite wisdom of including trans people in any version of ENDA.

Frankly, Mr. Frank, it is your grouchiness that you are revealing when you criticize our current leaders who reject ENDA altogether as “not being for anything that could pass” so we can consider ourselves “cutting edge.” Rather it is your total rejection of more evolved thinking, again, being reactionary instead of trying to educate yourself on all the antecedents, that can be considered “ridiculous.” While you have had a remarkable and admirable public career, these recent comments to the press make you look foolish and thoughtless.

More far-seeing is the work of activists on an all-inclusive American Equality Bill, legislation fashioned after or through current civil rights legislation. Just add SO+GI (sexual orientation and gender identification) has been the rallying cry to add these designations to existing civil rights legislation (right along side 50-year-old protections from discrimination based on gender, religion, national origin, or race) or through a new bill. The organizations rejecting ENDA because of senseless religious exemptions also have in mind the urgency to protect LGBT people everywhere (and every when), not just in employment but housing and healthcare and all other areas of human endeavor.

ENDA, with or without religious exemptions, is too inadequate in its exclusive focus on employment. Support for a singular, inclusive equality bill would also protect LGBT people’s religious freedom by not forcing them to abide by the religion of another person or corporation.

So, Mr. Frank, we ask you to step off. The purpose of all privilege can only be to give it away to the voiceless, not to try and silence those around you. It’s time to expand your horizon again, Mr. Frank, and recognize that the drive for full equality need not, and should not, compromise.

by Jorge Elias
Flickr/creative commons

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in Campaigns / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 06 Aug 2014 0 comments

Real Democracy Demands Economic Democracy

The Garment Worker
Scott Beale/laughingsquid.com
Flickr/creative commons

“Only 1 out of 8 American households is able to have the American Dream.”

– Richard D. Wolff, author of Democracy At Work: A Cure for Capitalism, and leader of the Democracy At Work movement, appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Real Time

We were told as children that capitalism was good because it supported the middle class. We were sold on the idea as “the American way,” but we all must admit at this point that capitalism has led us to some very bad consequences, burying this country in turmoil by making everyone poor so a few can become rich . . . very, very rich.

Wolff is a heterodox economist and Professor at The New School in New York City, looking more broadly at systems that work for all people, not just the “winners,” the few at the top. Wolff shows us how our capitalist crisis heaps “huge burdens on us for years,” taking issue with Americans total rejection of marxist criticism and other critics who actually had a few good alternatives for how to better approach commerce.

Wolff has become the chief spokesman bringing people to understand why democracy is absent from our economic system.

For example, Wolff explains in the video below how new associations can make substantive change by replacing capitalism with worker self-directed enterprises (WSDEs) wherein workers decide how to use profits.

Upon our relaunch this past spring, our Manifesto for A New Age of Sexual Freedom offered up the formula for real progress: the elimination of old, inhumane, and coercive systems; the preservation of what is old but also humane; and the creation of new, humane, and voluntary systems. We like to catalog progress, taking note when we we see it. Democracy At Work is one of the best examples of this new movement and is worthy of our attention and support. Together, we can make a difference.

Also see: The Silenced Majority by Amy Goodman

in Campaigns / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 05 Aug 2014 0 comments

Adam Lambert’s Post-Gay World

Adam Lambert Is a ‘Killer’ Queen by Daniel Reynolds for The Advocate

Dan Massey and I had a somewhat secret passion for Adam Lambert ever since he sang Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen for his audition on American Idol in 2009. (Can you even remember who came in first to his second place finish?) We once spent a weekend in Baltimore and Washington, DC, attending two of Lambert’s early concerts coinciding with his first album. They were medium-sized venues, and at the last one I got lost finding the restroom only to run in to Lambert, face to face, as he was going out on stage.

Yes, he glowed.

Adam Lambert
Flickr/creative commons

For several years, Dan not-so-secretly finished each of his emails by attaching some of Lambert’s lyrics we were especially fond of, ones like these that captured VenusPlusX’s campaign for a better world.

Welcome to the Master Plan
Don’t care if you understand
Don’t care if you understand
Welcome to the Master Plan.
(“Master Plan”)

And . . .

I was born with glitter on my face
My baby clothes made of leather and lace
And all the girls in the club wanna know
Where did all their pretty boys go?
(“Sure Fire Winners”)

Lambert set out to answer that question, Where did all their pretty boys go? Something we are explaining to each other in our joint search for equality rights.

Lambert has become the personalization of gay is good, slowly emerging as one our most articulate gay icons in the entertainment industry.

[Like last year, Lambert is continuing] “as spokesperson for AT&T’s “Live Proud” campaign. The initiative encourages all people – regardless of sexual orientation – to share memes illustrating their pride through social media channels. Five lucky participants in the campaign, which ends August 10, will have the chance to attend a private event with Lambert in New York. The goal, he says, is ’empowerment,’ and to give others ‘a voice to be what and who they are.'”

Through the AT&T campaign and in practically all of his public statements, Lambert is showing youth what it’s like to just be yourself, no matter who that is, and to not only be proud but to be exceedingly happy that you are you. After all, there is no one in the greater universe that can be that person.

Right now Lambert is finishing up a well-reviewed tour with the band Queen. He inhabits the lead spot formerly held by Freddie Mercury, who happened to have been an openly bisexual artist who died of AIDs in 1991. Mercury lived through some bitter years when being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans (LGBT), especially in the public eye, was a grim affair with mostly everyone else in the closet. The AIDs epidemic changed all of that because it has become a matter of life and death to acknowledge LGBT people.

“I feel like it’s one of the things that I respect about him a lot. He never really made any apologies for anything,” Lambert says of Freddie Mercury. “He just was who he was. And if there’s something I can take from that, it’s that sometimes, especially in today’s world, where we’re at, there’s such a strong statement in just boldly being what and who you are.”

Lambert’s builds on our shared history by heralding the coming ordinariness of being openly gay, a world where we all can live in a post-gay and post-gender, a new age of sexual freedom unimaginable just a couple of decades ago.

Even as the industry continues to close doors on many out musicians, Lambert attests to a noticeable shift to what he terms a “post-gay place.” He maintains that younger generations do not share the stigmas that were more prevalent in Mercury’s day and they refuse to be pigeonholed with labels on their identities.

“This next generation coming up is like, ‘Hey, it doesn’t fucking matter… My sexuality, doesn’t [determine that] this is the type of music I listen to, or this is the type of activities I’m into, or these are the type of people I hang out with. It’s getting to the point now where we’re more mainstream, and we’re allowed to do anything we want, and we’re allowed to be with anybody we want,’” Lambert says. “So there’s not as much segregation… and I think that’s really exciting, because I don’t think it should matter.”

Daniel Reynold’s article today is well worth a full reading.

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in Campaigns / Dan Massey / Key Issues / News of Note / Public Information by Alison Gardner 04 Aug 2014 0 comments

Park your formulaic sex at the door

Like a lot of people, I took note a couple of weeks ago when Cosmo, Cosmopolitan Magazine, the fun girl’s bible, ran a story with pictures laying out 28 Mind-blowing Lesbian Sex Positions.

Flicker/creative commons

The modern Cosmo was the brainchild of its brilliant editor and author Helen Gurly Brown in 1965, who started dialogs on topics unheard of in print at the time, skillfully merging sexuality with a commercially available mainstream magazine. Long considered a sexual freedom advocate, she told women they could “have it all.”

With this article on lesbian sex, and few others on gay, bisexual, and transgender subjects during the last year or so, Cosmo can be commended for branching out and acknowledging lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, appearing to be more inclusive while trying to tap into that lucrative market they’ve ignored for decades. They are trying even while acknowledging that many or most feminists and lesbians have shunned Cosmo, put off by so much editorial about how the average woman, once objectified, can make herself sassy and attractive to their male partner/s.

While wondering if any lesbians were consulted in the making of that article I came across some criticism by real lesbians who posit that this entire concept seemed to have been the product of frat boys based on their porn fantasies (pretty much the style of most of the magazine’s stories). That may well be true but I think it was overreach — when making fun of the positions, these critics called them “stupid” saying they were either undoable or useless, dismissing them entirely.

It was impossible to hold up one’s own body weight, let alone the body weight of the other person in half of them. We had to balance on our tip toes and contort our bodies in the most insane ways. And, most importantly, there was nothing arousing about any of it.

What I think is being missed here by all parties is that touching bodies in unusual or unexpected ways can be rewarding, bringing you to heights you might at first have overlooked. It seems that, once liberated from the constraints of men, feminists and lesbians have gradually become more like men in how they approach satisfying their own desires.

We have sex. We fuck. We use our fingers and our bodies and our mouths and our toys and we get ourselves and each other off. Just like straight people do. There’s stimulation and penetration and vibration. There’s licking and sucking and smacking and grabbing.

Instead of exploring erotic encounters that expose oneself to unexpected delights found all over the body, not rushing so much and staying curious to couple all parts of the body in surprising ways, men, and now it seems many straight women and lesbians, tend to recreate a slalom with specific goals to be met at every turn, usually in a certain order to get to their orgasm in as straight a line as possible.

But that is so, so boring.

Even the critics include a paragraph with two contradicting statements, aptly portraying the push and pull between anxiety about reaching the goal of orgasm and the desire for sex to be more than just that.

But there is not, I repeat, there is not anyone rubbing foreheads on each others’ belly buttons or rubbing bottoms against anyone’s sternum, not in the name of having an orgasm any way. By making sex all about an orgasm we miss the erotic excitation of our minds as well as our bodies.

Sex is an erotic encounter that stimulates physical, psychological, and, some agree, spiritual growth. If you focus less on scoring the goal you will play a more artful and nuanced game that is rewarded of surprises and new stimulation.

Slow down, set aside your usual formula for a week and see what happens.

in News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Sex Education / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 01 Aug 2014 0 comments

McDonald’s Corporation on the hook

McDonald’s NLRB joint employer ruling

Yesterday’s ruling gives litigants and activists alike a bigger target, and a big boost for fast-food workers’ rights everywhere.

We like to catalog progress when we see it.

Flickr/creative commons

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finally came to its senses by ruling that McDonald’s Corporation could no longer avoid complaints from its workers by asserting that they were not responsible for what goes on in their franchised stores, the vast majority of its 14,000 restaurants. This single ruling gives renewed hope and power to dozens of court cases to end unfair labor practices, and to fast-food workers everywhere demanding higher hourly wages.

[C]ompanies have sought to distance themselves from the pay protests by saying they don’t determine wages at its franchised locations.

Besides low wages, McDonald’s employees are imposed on in so many inhumane ways, such as showing up on time only to be asked to wait around on site before clocking in (and being paid) so the restaurant can maintain the company’s closely monitored ratio of labor costs as a percentage of sales.

Activists and labor organizers have always believed that these companies must be accountable because it controls every aspect of how the restaurants are run and how their employees are trained. Now the NLRB agrees with the workers. From now on McDonald’s and other fast-food companies with franchises, such as KFC, Burger King, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, will be fully liable for all of its management practices.

Heather Smedstad, senior vice president of human resources for McDonald’s USA, said in a phone interview that the company has never been determined to be a joint employer in the past and that it would fight the decision by the labor board.

“This is such a radical departure that it should be a concern to business men and women across the country,” she said.

The International Franchise Association also opposes the NLRB ruling, focusing on municipalities that go ahead and enact higher minimum wages (for example, Seattle’s $15.15/hour) and how this hurts these “small businesses.”

Conservative lawmakers, who haven’t allowed a rise in the minimum wage for 5 years, still contend that the market should decide wages and link them to productivity. They have a right to this opinion but not the facts: if wages had been linked to productivity for the last 20 years, the minimum wage would be not $8, not $10, not $15, but $22/hour. Productivity has steadily risen, as have corporate profits, but workers haven’t benefited.

Taxpayers have been bearing the burden of these sub-standard wages because those at the bottom of the pay scale use more government resources, like food stamps, to make ends meet. That means that taxpayers like you and me are subsidizing big companies and complicit in keeping these wages so low.

Not so ironically, minimum wage hikes actually raise the number of jobs created throughout the community because higher wages are spent immediately on necessities and stimulate the entire local economy.

Minimum wage workers rights throughout the country deserve this ruling from the NLRB which protects them from draconian labor practices and assures every worker is getting a living wage.

in News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information / Uncategorized by Alison Gardner 30 Jul 2014 0 comments

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