Op-Ed

Everyone Needs Examples, Including Bad Examples

by Pranav Bhatt Flickr/creative commons

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. 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 ...

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

TODAY: Actions You Can Take to Assure Net Neutrality

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 ...

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in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

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 ...

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in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Support Tomorrow’s WalkOuts To Raise Wages

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 ...

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in Campaigns / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Billion$ Wasted by Right-Wingnuts

Image by Patrick Hoesly Flickr/creative commons

"Republicans have squandered money on hubristic, base-rousing engagements and re-investigations, and forfeited money available for a wholly legitimate and beneficial expansion of health coverage for low-income families. Sadly, it’s not them who are left counting the costs." (via The Daily Kos) VenusPlusX has already defined in several posts what we mean by right-wingnuts: sexually-repressed, fear-motivated, white, theocratic oligarchs, as dangerous to the future of civilization as any gun-wielding terrorist. The phrase, right-wingnuts, has popped up elsewhere, to rightly label these knuckleheads for what they really are --  radical conservatives strangling us towards extinction, one way or another. They need stop or ...

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

For Labor Day: Income Inequality Dampens Economic Growth for Rich and Poor Alike

reway2007 Flickr/creative commons

In tribute to American workers, over half of whom earn less than $15 per hour but deserve so much more, we are reprinting our coverage on income equality. Where the minimum wage is $15 the local economy is boosted, reason alone to join the movement to rectify income equality. See also: The Wealthy and Powerful Aid Social and Powerful Social and Economic Justice Activists and List of Organizations Working on Income Equality   The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office showed that after-tax average income ballooned 15.1% fro the top 1% of earners, but grew by less than 1% for the ...

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in News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Stay Informed. Stay Active.

Light Brigading Flickr/creative commons

We speculate that unlike the consciousness raising on gun control following the Newtown Massacre, which petered out along partisan lines since the National Rifle Association owns most of the U.S. Congress, this singular event in Ferguson will succeed in merging the message with the messenger at just the right moment. It has brought about a laser-focus on the rotten mass of shameful, bankrupt, coercive, and inhumane systems, forcing elected officials, conservative and liberal alike, to say, wait a damn minute.  "The eyes of the nation and the world are watching Ferguson right now. The world is watching because the issues ...

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in Campaigns / End Police Bias / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Love Pierces Hate

by Rafee Jewell Flickr/cretaive commons

  After a week of writing about the senseless murder of Michael Brown, a young, unarmed African-Americn in Ferguson, Missouri, by a white policeman, I've spent the last few days reading posts we have written over the past few years, and those from other authors, condemning racism. It's become a meditation on the racism upon which this country was founded. Fear of other did not begin with America. Fear of something different than yourself springs from caveman DNA, and it is only the gradual grasp of Love, in your intellect and in actuality of the Love you express, that raises anyone above ...

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in Campaigns / End Police Bias / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Jamelle Bouie Gives the Larger Picture

Photo by Steve Rhodes Flickr/creative commons

Why the Fires in Ferguson Won't End Soon But while calm is hard to predict, one thing is clear: The events in Ferguson—from the shooting to the police response and everything since—are a product of familiar forces and stem from a familiar history. Put another way, the area’s long-bottled racial tension has burst, and it’s difficult to know if it can be resolved, much less contained. -- Slate's Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie)  In a mere 3000 words, Jamelle Bouie schools us in reality versus perception. The article is well worth a full read and understanding because it applies ...

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in Campaigns / End Police Bias / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments

Old Ferguson Makes New Commitments

Flickr/creative commons

VenusPlusX's unique mix, what we mean by The New Age of Sexual Freedom, is aimed at solutions to change the state of our country, our world, through the removal of all obstacles such as racism, sexism, the worst of nationalism, and all the other "isms," that stand in the way of Peace, universal pluralism based on love. (Our Mission, our Manifesto.) In this context, we have written all week about the shooting of young Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, his legacy and his family's continuing legacy, a lightening strike heard around the world that has forever changed ...

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in Campaigns / End Police Bias / Events / Grassroots / Key Issues / News of Note / Op-Ed / Public Information  by Alison Gardner 0 comments