Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Atty. Gen. Rob McKenna's betrayal
Atty. General Rob McKenna has shown his true colors by seeking to overturn the federal health care reform legislation that will literally assist milions of Washingtonians. Whose interests is he representing? Is he contemplating significant contributions from the opponents of health care reform? Is he mobilizing a right wing base for his apparent run to become Governor in 2012? We do not know the answer to these questions. What we do know is that his actions are contrary to the interests of a large number of Washingtonians and puts at risk the benefits that will be enjoyed by millions of seniors in WA as a result of the federal health care reform legislation.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Alan Simpson: Political poison
By Will Parry
President Obama has appointed former Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson, an inveterate foe of Social Security, to co-chair a bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles will be the Democratic co-chair. The President also appointed Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Ann Fudge, former Young & Rubicam Brands CEO; David Cote, Honeywell CEO, and Alice Rivlin, former Federal Reserve vice chairman. Twelve members chosen by Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders will round out the panel.
The commission will be charged with coming up with recommendations for steps to reduce the federal deficit. For the Republican panelists, and especially Simpson, that means cutting Social Security and other basic entitlement programs.
The progressive economist Dean Baker cites an example from Simpson’s record that reflects “his hatred for the (Social Security) program.” During his years in the Senate, Simpson pushed a plan to cut the annual COLA to 1% point less than the Consumer Price Index. The effect, Baker says, would be to cut benefits 5% in five years, 10% in ten years and 20% in 20 years.
Writing in The Progressive, Ruth Conniff says that "on the fundamental ideological issues of tax, spending and deficits, Obama is giving away the store."
"Government deficits are not an immediate threat to American citizens," Conniff says. "The immediate threats are unemployment, foreclosure, and personal bankruptcies -- more than 60% of which are attributable to staggering health care debt."
"The fetish of long-term deficit reduction is politically poisonous -- and economically pointless," says economist James Galbraith. "In reality, we need big budget deficits. We need them now. We need bigger deficits to stabilize state and local governments and to provide jobs and payroll tax relief. And we may need them for a long time, on an increasing scale."
The commission's mandate says nothing about jobs or bankruptcies. Simpson and his Republican colleagues on the commission can be expected to recommend bleeding the checks of Social Security recipients to “solve” the federal deficit. Congress would vote on the recommendations by the end of 2010.
Back to Home
President Obama has appointed former Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson, an inveterate foe of Social Security, to co-chair a bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles will be the Democratic co-chair. The President also appointed Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Ann Fudge, former Young & Rubicam Brands CEO; David Cote, Honeywell CEO, and Alice Rivlin, former Federal Reserve vice chairman. Twelve members chosen by Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders will round out the panel.
The commission will be charged with coming up with recommendations for steps to reduce the federal deficit. For the Republican panelists, and especially Simpson, that means cutting Social Security and other basic entitlement programs.
The progressive economist Dean Baker cites an example from Simpson’s record that reflects “his hatred for the (Social Security) program.” During his years in the Senate, Simpson pushed a plan to cut the annual COLA to 1% point less than the Consumer Price Index. The effect, Baker says, would be to cut benefits 5% in five years, 10% in ten years and 20% in 20 years.
Writing in The Progressive, Ruth Conniff says that "on the fundamental ideological issues of tax, spending and deficits, Obama is giving away the store."
"Government deficits are not an immediate threat to American citizens," Conniff says. "The immediate threats are unemployment, foreclosure, and personal bankruptcies -- more than 60% of which are attributable to staggering health care debt."
"The fetish of long-term deficit reduction is politically poisonous -- and economically pointless," says economist James Galbraith. "In reality, we need big budget deficits. We need them now. We need bigger deficits to stabilize state and local governments and to provide jobs and payroll tax relief. And we may need them for a long time, on an increasing scale."
The commission's mandate says nothing about jobs or bankruptcies. Simpson and his Republican colleagues on the commission can be expected to recommend bleeding the checks of Social Security recipients to “solve” the federal deficit. Congress would vote on the recommendations by the end of 2010.
Back to Home
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Meetings/Events
PSARA Executive Board
1 p.m – 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 16 at Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Ave. S., Seattle. Note: Board meets Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Legislative Debriefing
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 25 at UFCW Local 21, 5030 First Ave. S., Seattle. Members invited to review the Legislature’s work and our lobbying activity.
Will Parry’s 90th Birthday
5 p.m. – 8p.m. Saturday, April 24.
Rally for Jobs
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 17 at Westlake Center in Seattle. Sponsored by Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council.
March and Rally Against War
12 noon Sunday, March 21 at Westlake Center in Seattle. Sponsored by ANSWER, Code Pink, SNOW and others.
National Mobilization for Immigrant Rights
Sunday, March 21 in Washington, DC
Rally for Immigrant Rights
Saturday, April 10, in Seattle, sponsored by a coalition organized by One America. Details to be announced.
Back to Home
1 p.m – 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 16 at Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Ave. S., Seattle. Note: Board meets Tuesday, not Wednesday.
Legislative Debriefing
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 25 at UFCW Local 21, 5030 First Ave. S., Seattle. Members invited to review the Legislature’s work and our lobbying activity.
Will Parry’s 90th Birthday
5 p.m. – 8p.m. Saturday, April 24.
Rally for Jobs
2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, March 17 at Westlake Center in Seattle. Sponsored by Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council.
March and Rally Against War
12 noon Sunday, March 21 at Westlake Center in Seattle. Sponsored by ANSWER, Code Pink, SNOW and others.
National Mobilization for Immigrant Rights
Sunday, March 21 in Washington, DC
Rally for Immigrant Rights
Saturday, April 10, in Seattle, sponsored by a coalition organized by One America. Details to be announced.
Back to Home
Outrage! Anthem’s 39% hike
By Steve Dzielak
Anthem Blue Cross, defying a public outcry, intends to boost rates for its 800,000 California customers by as much as 39%.
Executives from Anthem and from WellPoint Inc., its parent company, have been squirming as witnesses at hearings before angry committees of Congress and the California legislature.
Legislators want to know how a 39% rate hike squares with WellPoint’s $4.75 billion profit in the last three months of 2009. They’ve been branding Anthem and WellPoint as poster children for the future unless comprehensive health care reform is enacted.
“Corporate executives at WellPoint are thriving, but its policyholders are paying the price,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said at a February 24 Congressional hearing. “If we fail to pass health reform, insurance rates will skyrocket and health insurance will become so expensive only the most healthy and the most wealthy will be able to afford coverage.”
Back to Home
Anthem Blue Cross, defying a public outcry, intends to boost rates for its 800,000 California customers by as much as 39%.
Executives from Anthem and from WellPoint Inc., its parent company, have been squirming as witnesses at hearings before angry committees of Congress and the California legislature.
Legislators want to know how a 39% rate hike squares with WellPoint’s $4.75 billion profit in the last three months of 2009. They’ve been branding Anthem and WellPoint as poster children for the future unless comprehensive health care reform is enacted.
“Corporate executives at WellPoint are thriving, but its policyholders are paying the price,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) said at a February 24 Congressional hearing. “If we fail to pass health reform, insurance rates will skyrocket and health insurance will become so expensive only the most healthy and the most wealthy will be able to afford coverage.”
Back to Home
April 10 rally for immigration reform
A rally for comprehensive immigration reform will be held in Seattle Saturday, April 10, part of a nationwide campaign to spur Congressional action on the issue.
Planning for the April 10 event was at an early stage at our deadline. We will post details on our website – www.psara.org -- as they become available and will carry a full report in the April issue of The Retiree Advocate.
The campaign for the enactment of comprehensive reform legislation will be highlighted by a national “March for America” in Washington, DC, on Sunday, March 21. Its twin themes: “Immigration Reform for New American Families” and “Economic Justice for All American Families.”
In Seattle, a broad coalition assembled on the initiative of OneAmerica has begun planning for the April 10 rally. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans will be an active participant, PSARA President Robby Stern said.
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP). The measure creates a path for undocumented immigrants to come forward and regularize their status. It would also create an independent commission to assess and manage the future flow of immigrants based on the legitimate needs of the labor market.
Speaking in strong support of the Gutierrez bill, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the nation “can no longer allow a broken immigration system to strip workers of their rights on the job.”
Trumka said the current system robs workers of earned pay, denies them collective bargaining rights, and often compels them to work in hazardous conditions.
Momentum for Congressional action is growing. Evangelical, Catholic, Jewish and mainline Protestant leaders, joined by supportive members of Congress, announced they will host one hundred events across the country as well as organizing support for the March 21 action at the nation’s capital.
Theme for the new campaign: “Together, Not Torn: Families Can’t Wait for Immigration Reform.”
“During a time when the U.S. faces many challenges, now more than ever, our country needs immigration reform,” said Jen Smyers with Church World Service. “Families that continue to be torn apart can’t wait any longer and the faith-based voice must play an important role.”
Local Law enforcement officers are also calling on President Obama and Congress to enact comprehensive reform.
It’s not the job of local police departments to apprehend people based on their immigration status, said Sheriff Richard Wiles from El Paso County in Texas.
“There is a perception that undocumented immigrants are a bunch of criminals,” Wiles said. “It’s a fallacy, because the vast majority are here for economic reasons and seek a better life for their families.”
Yakima Police Chief Sam Granato said the current system is inhuman and immigrants should not be treated like cattle. “They’re human beings, and dividing families is just wrong,” Granato said.
Back to Home
Planning for the April 10 event was at an early stage at our deadline. We will post details on our website – www.psara.org -- as they become available and will carry a full report in the April issue of The Retiree Advocate.
The campaign for the enactment of comprehensive reform legislation will be highlighted by a national “March for America” in Washington, DC, on Sunday, March 21. Its twin themes: “Immigration Reform for New American Families” and “Economic Justice for All American Families.”
In Seattle, a broad coalition assembled on the initiative of OneAmerica has begun planning for the April 10 rally. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans will be an active participant, PSARA President Robby Stern said.
Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act (CIR ASAP). The measure creates a path for undocumented immigrants to come forward and regularize their status. It would also create an independent commission to assess and manage the future flow of immigrants based on the legitimate needs of the labor market.
Speaking in strong support of the Gutierrez bill, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the nation “can no longer allow a broken immigration system to strip workers of their rights on the job.”
Trumka said the current system robs workers of earned pay, denies them collective bargaining rights, and often compels them to work in hazardous conditions.
Momentum for Congressional action is growing. Evangelical, Catholic, Jewish and mainline Protestant leaders, joined by supportive members of Congress, announced they will host one hundred events across the country as well as organizing support for the March 21 action at the nation’s capital.
Theme for the new campaign: “Together, Not Torn: Families Can’t Wait for Immigration Reform.”
“During a time when the U.S. faces many challenges, now more than ever, our country needs immigration reform,” said Jen Smyers with Church World Service. “Families that continue to be torn apart can’t wait any longer and the faith-based voice must play an important role.”
Local Law enforcement officers are also calling on President Obama and Congress to enact comprehensive reform.
It’s not the job of local police departments to apprehend people based on their immigration status, said Sheriff Richard Wiles from El Paso County in Texas.
“There is a perception that undocumented immigrants are a bunch of criminals,” Wiles said. “It’s a fallacy, because the vast majority are here for economic reasons and seek a better life for their families.”
Yakima Police Chief Sam Granato said the current system is inhuman and immigrants should not be treated like cattle. “They’re human beings, and dividing families is just wrong,” Granato said.
Back to Home
Legislative debriefing March 25
PSARA members are invited to take part in a post-legislative session debriefing from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 25, at UFCW Local 21, 5030 First Avenue South. There’s plenty of parking.
During Senior Lobby Day, we reminded our legislators that in 2009 they had imposed $3.6 billion in program cuts. We stressed the urgency of finding substantial new revenue to avoid even deeper cuts in 2010. We also thanked legislators who voted to suspend I-960 despite minority party obstructive tactics, and we pledged to support those who work to enact the revenue needed to preserve human service programs.
Senator Joe McDermott will be with us on March 25. We have also invited Representative Bob Hasegawa, who spoke at our Legislative Conference. We’ve asked them to give us their appraisal of the session’s work and the challenges ahead.
On Senior Lobby Day, our delegation of 30 members in colorful PSARA tee shirts and our active participation in the morning assembly gave us a positive presence as an organization, both visible and vocal. Our March 25 debriefing will help us build on that worthwhile experience as we confront the state’s continuing budget crisis and fresh anti-tax demagogy from Tim Eyman.
Back to Home
During Senior Lobby Day, we reminded our legislators that in 2009 they had imposed $3.6 billion in program cuts. We stressed the urgency of finding substantial new revenue to avoid even deeper cuts in 2010. We also thanked legislators who voted to suspend I-960 despite minority party obstructive tactics, and we pledged to support those who work to enact the revenue needed to preserve human service programs.
Senator Joe McDermott will be with us on March 25. We have also invited Representative Bob Hasegawa, who spoke at our Legislative Conference. We’ve asked them to give us their appraisal of the session’s work and the challenges ahead.
On Senior Lobby Day, our delegation of 30 members in colorful PSARA tee shirts and our active participation in the morning assembly gave us a positive presence as an organization, both visible and vocal. Our March 25 debriefing will help us build on that worthwhile experience as we confront the state’s continuing budget crisis and fresh anti-tax demagogy from Tim Eyman.
Back to Home
Closing the $2.8 billion budget gap
By Will Parry
With the March 11 session adjournment date looming, advocates continued to press legislators to capture some of the billions in potential revenue escaping through 300 tax loopholes in state law.
Without substantial new revenue to offset the anticipated $2.8 billion budget deficit, vital education, health care and human services programs will inevitably face slash-and-burn reductions in funding.
The legislature laid the basis for revenue increases by suspending the operation of Tim Eyman’s crippling Initiative 960 until July, 2011. The initiative would have required a politically impossible two-thirds vote to enact any revenue measure.
Leading the campaign for more revenue was the “Rebuilding Our Economic Future” coalition of labor, education, faith, social service and senior groups – 130 organizations in all. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans is part of the coalition.
Budgets presented by Governor Christine Gregoire, by the Senate and by the House only partially addressed the revenue shortfall.
The governor’s budget included $605 million in new funding, including only $102 million from closing tax loopholes. Her budget also included $967 million in cuts, mostly to human services. These cuts would come on top of the $3.6 billion cut from programs during the 2009 session.
The Senate followed the governor with a budget that included $838 million in cuts and the House with a budget that included $653 million in cuts.
“The legislature just isn’t proposing sufficient revenue,” said Jerry Reilly of the Eldercare Alliance.
The massive totals of proposed program cuts -- $967 million for the governor, $838 million for the Senate, $653 million for the House – do not reveal the cruel impact that reductions on that scale would have on the many essential services provided by the state.
For example:
The elimination of $11 million in funding for the community health centers that provide care for 70,000 uninsured Washington residents; reductions in food aid and financial aid to low-income families; cuts in dental services for adults and children; cuts in funding for hospitals that serve the greatest number of low-income patients; sharp reductions in funding for education from K-12 through university; further cuts in funding for mental health services for low-income persons; the elimination of programs to assist persons in long-term care facilities with bathing, eating and dressing; cuts in programs that protect air and water quality and that clean up toxic spills; and zero new funding to address the waiting list for the state’s Basic Health Plan, now at 93,000 and growing.
The answer is not to rob one program to fund another. It is to confront the need to plug holes in our Swiss cheese revenue statutes. In this deep and prolonged recession, we need our safety net programs more than ever.
Back to Home
With the March 11 session adjournment date looming, advocates continued to press legislators to capture some of the billions in potential revenue escaping through 300 tax loopholes in state law.
Without substantial new revenue to offset the anticipated $2.8 billion budget deficit, vital education, health care and human services programs will inevitably face slash-and-burn reductions in funding.
The legislature laid the basis for revenue increases by suspending the operation of Tim Eyman’s crippling Initiative 960 until July, 2011. The initiative would have required a politically impossible two-thirds vote to enact any revenue measure.
Leading the campaign for more revenue was the “Rebuilding Our Economic Future” coalition of labor, education, faith, social service and senior groups – 130 organizations in all. The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans is part of the coalition.
Budgets presented by Governor Christine Gregoire, by the Senate and by the House only partially addressed the revenue shortfall.
The governor’s budget included $605 million in new funding, including only $102 million from closing tax loopholes. Her budget also included $967 million in cuts, mostly to human services. These cuts would come on top of the $3.6 billion cut from programs during the 2009 session.
The Senate followed the governor with a budget that included $838 million in cuts and the House with a budget that included $653 million in cuts.
“The legislature just isn’t proposing sufficient revenue,” said Jerry Reilly of the Eldercare Alliance.
The massive totals of proposed program cuts -- $967 million for the governor, $838 million for the Senate, $653 million for the House – do not reveal the cruel impact that reductions on that scale would have on the many essential services provided by the state.
For example:
The elimination of $11 million in funding for the community health centers that provide care for 70,000 uninsured Washington residents; reductions in food aid and financial aid to low-income families; cuts in dental services for adults and children; cuts in funding for hospitals that serve the greatest number of low-income patients; sharp reductions in funding for education from K-12 through university; further cuts in funding for mental health services for low-income persons; the elimination of programs to assist persons in long-term care facilities with bathing, eating and dressing; cuts in programs that protect air and water quality and that clean up toxic spills; and zero new funding to address the waiting list for the state’s Basic Health Plan, now at 93,000 and growing.
The answer is not to rob one program to fund another. It is to confront the need to plug holes in our Swiss cheese revenue statutes. In this deep and prolonged recession, we need our safety net programs more than ever.
Back to Home
Cantwell takes on the big banks
By Steve Dzielak
Can Washington’s junior senator, Maria Cantwell, be both a technocrat and a populist?
Since November, she has (1) wondered why Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “still has a job,” (2) criticized the Senate’s plans to fix the financial industry as “inadequate,” (3) declared the unregulated trading of complex derivatives a central driver behind the economic bubble, (4) introduced bills to curb such speculative derivatives trading, (5) attempted to resurrect a strict separation between commercial banks and investment firms, and (6) stood up as one of only 11 Senate Democrats voting to deny a second term for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who nonetheless was reconfirmed by a 70-30 vote.
Quite a journey from her start in the Senate.
Cantwell defined her role in the Senate as a “policy wonk” just as Enron exploded in the early 2000s, when she fought for corporate accountability through the passage of the Commodities Future Modernization Act, which regulated industry scams such as power derivatives.
Enron was Cantwell’s initiation, but it wasn’t until several years later, she said, that she realized the full significance of the regulatory void. Michael Greenberger, former director of the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission, told a Senate committee that “there is more regulation in hamburgers than in futures” trading. That “got my attention,” Cantwell said.
In December, Cantwell and Senator John McCain introduced legislation that would bar commercial banks from undertaking brokerage activities. Such a ban would in effect reinstate the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, repealed a decade ago. The bill would require financial firms operating commercial banks and investment houses to decide whether to focus on commercial banking or investment banking. Commercial banks would be banned from engaging in insurance. Persuading the Senate to embrace her proposals is especially challenging because Cantwell does not sit on either of the Senate committees with jurisdiction. But she and McCain intend to persevere.
Cantwell has also come out strongly in favor of helping community banks the same way the Federal government helped Wall Street. She supports President Obama’s proposal to use $30 billion in TARP funds to help community banks lend to small businesses. She wants the President to implement the plan immediately, rather than waiting for Congress to act.
“When the big banks were in trouble,” Cantwell said, “we acted almost overnight to help them, without question, with little oversight, and without a general design. Now it’s been more than a year after the crisis and we still don’t have a program designed for small banks.”
Cantwell is still at it. In a recent Seattle Times interview, she accused prominent disciples of free markets of lacking in regulatory zeal. Her targets included former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan, Obama economic advisor Larry Summers and, to a lesser extent, Geithner.
“I believe in good old-fashioned American capitalism where you have true competition and transparent markets,” she said. “Getting capital and competition has made our country great. And if the big banks are too big, and they push the small banks out, and more and more concentration of big banks is the norm, that’s going to hurt the competitiveness and effectiveness of getting capital to small businesses.”
Back to Home
Can Washington’s junior senator, Maria Cantwell, be both a technocrat and a populist?
Since November, she has (1) wondered why Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner “still has a job,” (2) criticized the Senate’s plans to fix the financial industry as “inadequate,” (3) declared the unregulated trading of complex derivatives a central driver behind the economic bubble, (4) introduced bills to curb such speculative derivatives trading, (5) attempted to resurrect a strict separation between commercial banks and investment firms, and (6) stood up as one of only 11 Senate Democrats voting to deny a second term for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who nonetheless was reconfirmed by a 70-30 vote.
Quite a journey from her start in the Senate.
Cantwell defined her role in the Senate as a “policy wonk” just as Enron exploded in the early 2000s, when she fought for corporate accountability through the passage of the Commodities Future Modernization Act, which regulated industry scams such as power derivatives.
Enron was Cantwell’s initiation, but it wasn’t until several years later, she said, that she realized the full significance of the regulatory void. Michael Greenberger, former director of the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission, told a Senate committee that “there is more regulation in hamburgers than in futures” trading. That “got my attention,” Cantwell said.
In December, Cantwell and Senator John McCain introduced legislation that would bar commercial banks from undertaking brokerage activities. Such a ban would in effect reinstate the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, repealed a decade ago. The bill would require financial firms operating commercial banks and investment houses to decide whether to focus on commercial banking or investment banking. Commercial banks would be banned from engaging in insurance. Persuading the Senate to embrace her proposals is especially challenging because Cantwell does not sit on either of the Senate committees with jurisdiction. But she and McCain intend to persevere.
Cantwell has also come out strongly in favor of helping community banks the same way the Federal government helped Wall Street. She supports President Obama’s proposal to use $30 billion in TARP funds to help community banks lend to small businesses. She wants the President to implement the plan immediately, rather than waiting for Congress to act.
“When the big banks were in trouble,” Cantwell said, “we acted almost overnight to help them, without question, with little oversight, and without a general design. Now it’s been more than a year after the crisis and we still don’t have a program designed for small banks.”
Cantwell is still at it. In a recent Seattle Times interview, she accused prominent disciples of free markets of lacking in regulatory zeal. Her targets included former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan, Obama economic advisor Larry Summers and, to a lesser extent, Geithner.
“I believe in good old-fashioned American capitalism where you have true competition and transparent markets,” she said. “Getting capital and competition has made our country great. And if the big banks are too big, and they push the small banks out, and more and more concentration of big banks is the norm, that’s going to hurt the competitiveness and effectiveness of getting capital to small businesses.”
Back to Home
Mexico: The earth is shaking
By Alfredo Peppard
The year 2010 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. The word is that 2010 is going to be a hot year, made so by the resistance. The economy in the U.S. and our treatment of Mexican immigrants have driven tens of thousands of migras back to impoverished Southern Mexico. Neo-liberalism, made law by NAFTA, has forced two million small farmers off the land and has devastated Mexican manufacturing industries. In Oaxaca and Chiapas it is capitalist agriculture destroying an essentially peasant, mostly indigenous rural economy.
In losing their U.S. jobs, these returning workers have lost the income that was crucial to their families here. Now they are coming home and finding no work. The price of tortillas is going up and the Federal Government is talking about a 2% sales tax on all consumer items. Two per cent might not sound like much in the Imperial Center, but here in the colonies, where malnutrition is widespread, the people say it is better to die fighting than to starve to death.
Floating on tourist and expat money, the City of Oaxaca is a relatively prosperous island surrounded by a sea of dire rural poverty. Even here, there are many barrios of improvised shacks with palm leaf roofs and cardboard walls. In the countryside of Southern Mexico, there are thousands of empty villages whose men have gone north in search of work. The lands lie fallow and are being bought up by speculators hoping to turn them into the sort of factory farms that blight Northern Mexico.
My Spanish is still inadequate to learn much from talking to those who don’t speak English, so I am reliant upon those who do. I had the privilege recently of being introduced to an older man. Like me, he was a lifelong socialist; like me he was waiting for the revolution; and like me, he wanted to live long enough to see it.
He told me that he hadn’t pinned any hopes on Obama, but that he had friends who had been stripped of their illusions by the Honduran coup. He had no doubt that the first task of the Mexican revolution was to free the nation from U.S. neo-imperialism. As is common among the people here, especially the more educated, he was conversant with the history of American interventions and invasions. Obama to him was just one more enforcer of an interventionist policy that runs back in a straight line from Obama to G. H. Bush, through Reagan and Eisenhower, to Woodrow Wilson.
The victims of aggression have much longer memories than the aggressors.
Most of the Mexican people are quite forgiving of the individual American. A few days ago, a man in his forties stopped me on the street to tell me that he had just been deported after 15 years in Los Angeles and he was hungry and could I help him. I gave him a few pesos and apologized for the vicious stupidity of my government. He was embarrassed by my apology. He told me it was not necessary; that he knew from his 15 years in the States that the decent people of our country had very little effect on government policy.
One of the more outstanding contrasts between the situation here and that in Seattle is the frequency of protest marches. Paradoxically, in this repressive environment they don’t need a police permit to gather peacefully and petition the government – that is, unless the authorities fear international embarrassment, as when the Orator in Chief was in Mexico City arming the repression under the guise of the War on Drugs. The organizers let the cops know they are going to march, and when and where, and a few traffic cops show up to stop traffic at intersections. No squads in riot gear or bicycle cops pushing people around.
We recently witnessed a march of a couple of hundred people, tiny by Oaxaca standards. The marchers were carrying dozens of red flags and posters calling for the ouster of the governor. As we stood watching them go by, and grinning from ear to ear, my eyes met those of one of the participating taxi drivers. He gave me a big smile and thumbs up. We exchanged clenched fist worker salutes and even bigger smiles.
Not that the forces of repression are not omnipresent. The streets are patrolled by the municipal, state and Federal police in pickup trucks, with policemen in the back wearing helmets and flack vests and armed with assault rifles. The Federal police are the most ominous – they frequently wear masks.
At a festival in the Zocalo before Christmas, thousands of people were present and TV cameras were set up to cover the governor as he addressed the crowds. Heavily armed police were on the rooftops and in the crowds. Riot squads were in nearby side streets. When Pauline and I witness these events, we feel like volcanologists monitoring tremors. We will keep you informed.
Back to Home
The year 2010 marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. The word is that 2010 is going to be a hot year, made so by the resistance. The economy in the U.S. and our treatment of Mexican immigrants have driven tens of thousands of migras back to impoverished Southern Mexico. Neo-liberalism, made law by NAFTA, has forced two million small farmers off the land and has devastated Mexican manufacturing industries. In Oaxaca and Chiapas it is capitalist agriculture destroying an essentially peasant, mostly indigenous rural economy.
In losing their U.S. jobs, these returning workers have lost the income that was crucial to their families here. Now they are coming home and finding no work. The price of tortillas is going up and the Federal Government is talking about a 2% sales tax on all consumer items. Two per cent might not sound like much in the Imperial Center, but here in the colonies, where malnutrition is widespread, the people say it is better to die fighting than to starve to death.
Floating on tourist and expat money, the City of Oaxaca is a relatively prosperous island surrounded by a sea of dire rural poverty. Even here, there are many barrios of improvised shacks with palm leaf roofs and cardboard walls. In the countryside of Southern Mexico, there are thousands of empty villages whose men have gone north in search of work. The lands lie fallow and are being bought up by speculators hoping to turn them into the sort of factory farms that blight Northern Mexico.
My Spanish is still inadequate to learn much from talking to those who don’t speak English, so I am reliant upon those who do. I had the privilege recently of being introduced to an older man. Like me, he was a lifelong socialist; like me he was waiting for the revolution; and like me, he wanted to live long enough to see it.
He told me that he hadn’t pinned any hopes on Obama, but that he had friends who had been stripped of their illusions by the Honduran coup. He had no doubt that the first task of the Mexican revolution was to free the nation from U.S. neo-imperialism. As is common among the people here, especially the more educated, he was conversant with the history of American interventions and invasions. Obama to him was just one more enforcer of an interventionist policy that runs back in a straight line from Obama to G. H. Bush, through Reagan and Eisenhower, to Woodrow Wilson.
The victims of aggression have much longer memories than the aggressors.
Most of the Mexican people are quite forgiving of the individual American. A few days ago, a man in his forties stopped me on the street to tell me that he had just been deported after 15 years in Los Angeles and he was hungry and could I help him. I gave him a few pesos and apologized for the vicious stupidity of my government. He was embarrassed by my apology. He told me it was not necessary; that he knew from his 15 years in the States that the decent people of our country had very little effect on government policy.
One of the more outstanding contrasts between the situation here and that in Seattle is the frequency of protest marches. Paradoxically, in this repressive environment they don’t need a police permit to gather peacefully and petition the government – that is, unless the authorities fear international embarrassment, as when the Orator in Chief was in Mexico City arming the repression under the guise of the War on Drugs. The organizers let the cops know they are going to march, and when and where, and a few traffic cops show up to stop traffic at intersections. No squads in riot gear or bicycle cops pushing people around.
We recently witnessed a march of a couple of hundred people, tiny by Oaxaca standards. The marchers were carrying dozens of red flags and posters calling for the ouster of the governor. As we stood watching them go by, and grinning from ear to ear, my eyes met those of one of the participating taxi drivers. He gave me a big smile and thumbs up. We exchanged clenched fist worker salutes and even bigger smiles.
Not that the forces of repression are not omnipresent. The streets are patrolled by the municipal, state and Federal police in pickup trucks, with policemen in the back wearing helmets and flack vests and armed with assault rifles. The Federal police are the most ominous – they frequently wear masks.
At a festival in the Zocalo before Christmas, thousands of people were present and TV cameras were set up to cover the governor as he addressed the crowds. Heavily armed police were on the rooftops and in the crowds. Riot squads were in nearby side streets. When Pauline and I witness these events, we feel like volcanologists monitoring tremors. We will keep you informed.
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Robby on the issues
Resolutions that touch our lives
By Robby Stern
The PSARA Executive Board has approved and forwarded to the April national Alliance for Retired Americans convention four major policy resolutions. Each deals with a subject that affects our members, their families and the broader community as well.
The resolutions are also being sent to the Washington State Labor Council’s convention in August, with the request that they be endorsed and forwarded to the national AFL-CIO for its consideration.
The ability to present important issues for consideration by progressive national organizations is one of the benefits of membership in the PSARA. Resolutions are a potent democratic instrument. They give our members a meaningful voice in shaping policy at all levels of government.
Here are the four resolutions:
1. “Scrap the Cap.” At present, only the first $106,800 of a person’s annual earnings is subject to the Social Security payroll tax. Our resolution calls for eliminating this arbitrary cap, so that all income, including that of the wealthy, is taxed.
In this connection, I recently had the privilege of expressing PSARA’s solidarity with 350 shop stewards and other union activists of UFCW Local 21 at a meeting to prepare for a challenging round of negotiations with the big grocery chains.
When I asked how many believed there is a funding crisis in Social Security that might jeopardize their future benefits, almost every hand went up. When I asked how many were aware that earnings above $106,800 were exempt from Social Security taxation, there were gasps of disbelief. Clearly, the disinformation campaign to undermine Social Security has been devilishly effective.
I assured these workers that the $2.7 trillion currently in the Trust Fund would provide full benefits through 2037. I further explained that simply extending the payroll tax to earnings above $106,800 would ensure the solvency of the Trust Fund for a full 75 years.
Their response was dramatic and immediate: ELIMINATE THE CAP! And that’s what our resolution calls for.
2. Watch the “Budget Deficit Task Force.”
Appointed by President Obama, the task force, in the name of reducing the federal budget deficit, can be expected to recommend cuts in lifeline entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Our resolution warns of such recommendations and calls on Congress to reject them.
Such an entitlement task force has long been the goal of billionaire Peter G. Peterson and his foundation, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Instead of tackling the budget deficit with cuts in entitlements, our resolution calls on Congress to go after the fat cats who enjoyed huge tax cuts during the Bush years. Another target might be the billions lavished on the military-industrial complex.
3. Enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
Our resolution declares that there should be no discrimination against workers based on their sexual orientation. Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender workers still suffer discrimination in hiring and advancement. They suffer harassment in the workplace and exclusion of their partners from health and other benefits. On average, they earn lower wages than their straight counterparts.
Federal employees and workers in 38 states have no statutory protections against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and sexual identity. The PSARA Executive Board voted to endorse the speedy passage of ENDA, to communicate our support to our Congressional delegation, and to forward the resolution to the ARA convention and the State Labor Council convention.
4. Eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote rule.
The first three resolutions were adopted unanimously. The fourth resolution was passed, after a robust discussion, with a significant majority vote, but with three nays and two abstentions. The resolution calls for the elimination of the 60-vote filibuster rule and urges Senators Murray and Cantwell to work with their Senate colleagues to eliminate the rule as expeditiously as possible. The resolution was also referred to the April ARA convention and to the August WSLC convention.
For arguments in favor of the resolution you can read my column in the January, 2010 issue of the Retiree Advocate (available on line at www.psara.org). Board members opposed to the resolution expressed understandable fear that the 60-vote rule might be used against our interests should the Republicans gain majority control of Congress and the Presidency. The majority of our Executive Board ultimately decided that the potential benefits of majority rule outweighed the potential risks.
Your delegates will advocate for these resolutions at the ARA convention. We hope that delegates from other states will support our efforts. We invite PSARA members to comment on these resolutions at the PSARA website blog.
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By Robby Stern
The PSARA Executive Board has approved and forwarded to the April national Alliance for Retired Americans convention four major policy resolutions. Each deals with a subject that affects our members, their families and the broader community as well.
The resolutions are also being sent to the Washington State Labor Council’s convention in August, with the request that they be endorsed and forwarded to the national AFL-CIO for its consideration.
The ability to present important issues for consideration by progressive national organizations is one of the benefits of membership in the PSARA. Resolutions are a potent democratic instrument. They give our members a meaningful voice in shaping policy at all levels of government.
Here are the four resolutions:
1. “Scrap the Cap.” At present, only the first $106,800 of a person’s annual earnings is subject to the Social Security payroll tax. Our resolution calls for eliminating this arbitrary cap, so that all income, including that of the wealthy, is taxed.
In this connection, I recently had the privilege of expressing PSARA’s solidarity with 350 shop stewards and other union activists of UFCW Local 21 at a meeting to prepare for a challenging round of negotiations with the big grocery chains.
When I asked how many believed there is a funding crisis in Social Security that might jeopardize their future benefits, almost every hand went up. When I asked how many were aware that earnings above $106,800 were exempt from Social Security taxation, there were gasps of disbelief. Clearly, the disinformation campaign to undermine Social Security has been devilishly effective.
I assured these workers that the $2.7 trillion currently in the Trust Fund would provide full benefits through 2037. I further explained that simply extending the payroll tax to earnings above $106,800 would ensure the solvency of the Trust Fund for a full 75 years.
Their response was dramatic and immediate: ELIMINATE THE CAP! And that’s what our resolution calls for.
2. Watch the “Budget Deficit Task Force.”
Appointed by President Obama, the task force, in the name of reducing the federal budget deficit, can be expected to recommend cuts in lifeline entitlements, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Our resolution warns of such recommendations and calls on Congress to reject them.
Such an entitlement task force has long been the goal of billionaire Peter G. Peterson and his foundation, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Instead of tackling the budget deficit with cuts in entitlements, our resolution calls on Congress to go after the fat cats who enjoyed huge tax cuts during the Bush years. Another target might be the billions lavished on the military-industrial complex.
3. Enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
Our resolution declares that there should be no discrimination against workers based on their sexual orientation. Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender workers still suffer discrimination in hiring and advancement. They suffer harassment in the workplace and exclusion of their partners from health and other benefits. On average, they earn lower wages than their straight counterparts.
Federal employees and workers in 38 states have no statutory protections against workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and sexual identity. The PSARA Executive Board voted to endorse the speedy passage of ENDA, to communicate our support to our Congressional delegation, and to forward the resolution to the ARA convention and the State Labor Council convention.
4. Eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote rule.
The first three resolutions were adopted unanimously. The fourth resolution was passed, after a robust discussion, with a significant majority vote, but with three nays and two abstentions. The resolution calls for the elimination of the 60-vote filibuster rule and urges Senators Murray and Cantwell to work with their Senate colleagues to eliminate the rule as expeditiously as possible. The resolution was also referred to the April ARA convention and to the August WSLC convention.
For arguments in favor of the resolution you can read my column in the January, 2010 issue of the Retiree Advocate (available on line at www.psara.org). Board members opposed to the resolution expressed understandable fear that the 60-vote rule might be used against our interests should the Republicans gain majority control of Congress and the Presidency. The majority of our Executive Board ultimately decided that the potential benefits of majority rule outweighed the potential risks.
Your delegates will advocate for these resolutions at the ARA convention. We hope that delegates from other states will support our efforts. We invite PSARA members to comment on these resolutions at the PSARA website blog.
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Melanie’s marchers
A group of “health insurance company abuse survivors” has marched from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, to honor Melanie Shouse, a health care activist who died because she didn’t have the affordable health care she needed to detect and treat her breast cancer. Five hundred people greeted the arrival of “Melanie’s Marchers” and walked the last leg together to Capitol Hill.
Melanie’s Marchers walked for eight days and 135 miles. Will you call Senators Murray and Cantwell and your U.S. Representative and appeal to them to vote for health care reform – in honor of Melanie?
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Melanie’s Marchers walked for eight days and 135 miles. Will you call Senators Murray and Cantwell and your U.S. Representative and appeal to them to vote for health care reform – in honor of Melanie?
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
International Women’s Day: The Story of Two Claras
By Will Parry
This is the story of two Claras: Clara Lemlich, the fiery young Yiddish-speaking heroine of the 1909-1910 strike of the New York shirtwaist makers, and Clara Zetkin of Germany, for 65 unbroken years one of the ablest theoreticians and most principled fighters of the international labor and socialist movement.
First, Clara Lemlich.
On March 8, 1908, hundreds of women garment workers massed in Rutgers Square in New York’s Lower East Side to demand women’s suffrage and to call for the building of a strong needle trades union. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Yet it was only the initial seething of a boiling cauldron of garment worker unrest, born of 60-hour weeks at $9 wages, with sums deducted by the sweatshop bosses for needles and threads, for electric power, for the very use of the chairs at the women’s machines.
Rutgers Square was the overture. Twenty-one months of spontaneous shop strikes followed.
Mostly young and mostly Jewish, the picketing shirtwaist makers were assaulted by company thugs and jailed by the police. It soon became clear that nothing less than a general strike of all shops could compel action on their grievances.
On November 22, 1909, an overflow meeting was held in Cooper Union to protest the vindictiveness of the struck employers and to discuss an industry-wide walkout.
For two hours the workers heard speaker after speaker, including AFL President Samuel Gompers, appeal for “caution and moderation.” Then young Clara Lemlich marched down the aisle and demanded the right to speak. Already on strike for 11 weeks, she had scarcely recovered from a savage beating on the picketline.
Philip Foner tells her story in his The AFL in the Progressive Era: “Barely five feet tall and not more than 20 years old, she spoke in impassioned Yiddish – the native tongue of the majority of the shirtwaist workers – and proceeded to berate the cautious speakers who had held the platform.” And Foner quotes Lemlich’s stirring conclusion: “I have listened to all the speakers. I have no patience for further talk. I am one who feels and suffers from the things pictured. I move we go on a general strike!”
Instantly the crowd was on its feet, cheering, stamping and roaring a mass demand for strike. Within the next few days, some 30,000 workers walked out at 500 shops. For three months, incredibly, magnificently, despite hundreds of arrests and beatings, the women held the line.
In the end, the strike achieved limited but important gains, including a cut from 60 to 52 hours in the workweek. But the most enduring gain was the recognition that young working women, inexperienced in organizing strategy, could sustain a united, effective strike against an industry and its retinue of thugs, cops and courts.
Before 1909, one union veteran said, “The waist and dress shops were the vilest and foulest industrial sores.” Out of the shirtwaist makers’ uprising came a strong and permanent International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and with it the first measure of decency in a sweated industry .
All because, at the decisive moment, when Samuel Gompers was afraid to lead a struggle for justice, Clara Lemlich was not.
And now for Clara Zetkin.
It was surely historical justice that Zetkin initiated International Women’s Day. As long ago as 1889, she persuaded the Second Socialist International to proclaim that “Male workers have a duty to take women into their ranks upon a basis of equal rights and demand in principle equal pay for the workers of both sexes and without discrimination of nationality.” It was Zetkin as much as anyone who transformed the crusade for women’s suffrage from a battle in which all men were perceived as the enemy into a working-class struggle in which women and men workers fought side by side as colleagues in a common cause.
Foreshadowing the supreme issue of International Women’s Day observances in our own era, Zetkin was a lifelong passionate champion of the cause of peace, holding that the workers of one nation should refuse to wage war upon the workers of another for the profit and power of the employer.
In 1932, in her final years, as a Communist and the senior deputy in the Reichstag, Clara Zetkin presided over the last freely-elected German parliament before Hitler seized power.
In an introduction to Zetkin’s writings, Foner speaks of the Rutgers Square demonstration of March 8, 1908.
Inspired by this rally, and by the historic strike that followed, Clara Zetkin, at an international conference of socialist women in Copenhagen, moved that March 8 be designated International Women’s Day, and that it be dedicated each year to fighting for equal rights for all women in all countries.
Zetkin’s resolution was approved on August 27, 1910, while the earth was still trembling from the mighty shirtwaist makers’ uprising. Clearly, the heroism displayed by Clara Lemlich and her thousands of union sisters had deeply touched a conference of working-class women half a world away.
And that is why, on March 8, 1911 – 99 years ago – the first International Women’s Day was celebrated.
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This is the story of two Claras: Clara Lemlich, the fiery young Yiddish-speaking heroine of the 1909-1910 strike of the New York shirtwaist makers, and Clara Zetkin of Germany, for 65 unbroken years one of the ablest theoreticians and most principled fighters of the international labor and socialist movement.
First, Clara Lemlich.
On March 8, 1908, hundreds of women garment workers massed in Rutgers Square in New York’s Lower East Side to demand women’s suffrage and to call for the building of a strong needle trades union. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Yet it was only the initial seething of a boiling cauldron of garment worker unrest, born of 60-hour weeks at $9 wages, with sums deducted by the sweatshop bosses for needles and threads, for electric power, for the very use of the chairs at the women’s machines.
Rutgers Square was the overture. Twenty-one months of spontaneous shop strikes followed.
Mostly young and mostly Jewish, the picketing shirtwaist makers were assaulted by company thugs and jailed by the police. It soon became clear that nothing less than a general strike of all shops could compel action on their grievances.
On November 22, 1909, an overflow meeting was held in Cooper Union to protest the vindictiveness of the struck employers and to discuss an industry-wide walkout.
For two hours the workers heard speaker after speaker, including AFL President Samuel Gompers, appeal for “caution and moderation.” Then young Clara Lemlich marched down the aisle and demanded the right to speak. Already on strike for 11 weeks, she had scarcely recovered from a savage beating on the picketline.
Philip Foner tells her story in his The AFL in the Progressive Era: “Barely five feet tall and not more than 20 years old, she spoke in impassioned Yiddish – the native tongue of the majority of the shirtwaist workers – and proceeded to berate the cautious speakers who had held the platform.” And Foner quotes Lemlich’s stirring conclusion: “I have listened to all the speakers. I have no patience for further talk. I am one who feels and suffers from the things pictured. I move we go on a general strike!”
Instantly the crowd was on its feet, cheering, stamping and roaring a mass demand for strike. Within the next few days, some 30,000 workers walked out at 500 shops. For three months, incredibly, magnificently, despite hundreds of arrests and beatings, the women held the line.
In the end, the strike achieved limited but important gains, including a cut from 60 to 52 hours in the workweek. But the most enduring gain was the recognition that young working women, inexperienced in organizing strategy, could sustain a united, effective strike against an industry and its retinue of thugs, cops and courts.
Before 1909, one union veteran said, “The waist and dress shops were the vilest and foulest industrial sores.” Out of the shirtwaist makers’ uprising came a strong and permanent International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and with it the first measure of decency in a sweated industry .
All because, at the decisive moment, when Samuel Gompers was afraid to lead a struggle for justice, Clara Lemlich was not.
And now for Clara Zetkin.
It was surely historical justice that Zetkin initiated International Women’s Day. As long ago as 1889, she persuaded the Second Socialist International to proclaim that “Male workers have a duty to take women into their ranks upon a basis of equal rights and demand in principle equal pay for the workers of both sexes and without discrimination of nationality.” It was Zetkin as much as anyone who transformed the crusade for women’s suffrage from a battle in which all men were perceived as the enemy into a working-class struggle in which women and men workers fought side by side as colleagues in a common cause.
Foreshadowing the supreme issue of International Women’s Day observances in our own era, Zetkin was a lifelong passionate champion of the cause of peace, holding that the workers of one nation should refuse to wage war upon the workers of another for the profit and power of the employer.
In 1932, in her final years, as a Communist and the senior deputy in the Reichstag, Clara Zetkin presided over the last freely-elected German parliament before Hitler seized power.
In an introduction to Zetkin’s writings, Foner speaks of the Rutgers Square demonstration of March 8, 1908.
Inspired by this rally, and by the historic strike that followed, Clara Zetkin, at an international conference of socialist women in Copenhagen, moved that March 8 be designated International Women’s Day, and that it be dedicated each year to fighting for equal rights for all women in all countries.
Zetkin’s resolution was approved on August 27, 1910, while the earth was still trembling from the mighty shirtwaist makers’ uprising. Clearly, the heroism displayed by Clara Lemlich and her thousands of union sisters had deeply touched a conference of working-class women half a world away.
And that is why, on March 8, 1911 – 99 years ago – the first International Women’s Day was celebrated.
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Will’s 90th Birthday
5 p.m. – 8 p.m. Saturday, April 24
Best Western Executive Inn, Seattle
Will’s son Jon on fiddle and John Nelson on guitar will perform, as will Susan Lewis and Janet Stecher of Rebel Voices. Later, Will and Jon will send folks home happy with a rousing version of “Good Night, Irene.”
Individual seats, $50. Scholarships available for whatever you can contribute. Benefit for Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans.
Use the coupon on page 7 of The Advocate to reserve your seat. Call 206-448-9646 for information.
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Best Western Executive Inn, Seattle
Will’s son Jon on fiddle and John Nelson on guitar will perform, as will Susan Lewis and Janet Stecher of Rebel Voices. Later, Will and Jon will send folks home happy with a rousing version of “Good Night, Irene.”
Individual seats, $50. Scholarships available for whatever you can contribute. Benefit for Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans.
Use the coupon on page 7 of The Advocate to reserve your seat. Call 206-448-9646 for information.
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The goal: 250 new members!
Our campaign to expand our membership is dictated by the world we live in. No matter who wins this year’s state and federal elections, we can be sure of an ongoing need for our special leadership role.
• There will be new coalitions. We should be active in shaping their programs and in bringing them to life.
• There will be new campaigns. We should be in the thick of them.
• There will be important public meetings. We should have a presence at each.
• There will be hearings on critical issues. Our hard-hitting testimony should spark them.
• There will be demonstrations. Our proud Alliance banner should be in the front ranks.
Our people, carrying our program, can be the voice for thousands who share our views.
Our members are magnificent, but our numbers are simply not commensurate with the challenges that lie ahead.
So we’re setting a goal of 250 new members. And you have a part to play.
Thousands out there, retirees and Boomers alike, need us. Find them. Talk with them. Get them reading The Retiree Advocate. Sign them up. Help them get into the action.
Use the coupon on page 7 of The Advocate to get the campaign rolling! Together we can do it!
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• There will be new coalitions. We should be active in shaping their programs and in bringing them to life.
• There will be new campaigns. We should be in the thick of them.
• There will be important public meetings. We should have a presence at each.
• There will be hearings on critical issues. Our hard-hitting testimony should spark them.
• There will be demonstrations. Our proud Alliance banner should be in the front ranks.
Our people, carrying our program, can be the voice for thousands who share our views.
Our members are magnificent, but our numbers are simply not commensurate with the challenges that lie ahead.
So we’re setting a goal of 250 new members. And you have a part to play.
Thousands out there, retirees and Boomers alike, need us. Find them. Talk with them. Get them reading The Retiree Advocate. Sign them up. Help them get into the action.
Use the coupon on page 7 of The Advocate to get the campaign rolling! Together we can do it!
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