By Robby Stern
Recently I was invited to speak in Sequim, Washington to a forum sponsored by the Move On Councils in Clallam, Jefferson and Island counties. The event was to be held in the auditorium at Sequim High School. I anticipated an audience of 50 to 60 residents. To my total astonishment, 600 people attended and heard David Korten, publisher and editor of Yes Magazine and Katherine Ottaway, a Port Townsend family practice doctor and a member of “Mad As Hell Doctors”.
The program also included video taping audience comments directed to the Congressional Super Committee whose names and pictures were prominently featured on stage. The message from the audience to the Super Committee was clear: “Don’t you dare cut the safety net programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.” Additionally, they demanded a genuine political democracy rather than control by corporations and wealthy interests. They demanded an economy that works for the majority (the 99%) rather than for the wealthy few and the corporations. When I mentioned the Occupy movement, they literally clapped and cheered…in Sequim, Washington.
Clearly something is happening and it might be big. It is difficult to predict but PSARA will do all we can to encourage activism, insurgency and the demand for a more progressive and humane country, state, county and city. We will support the demand for an economy that serves the needs of the 99% and a decision-making process that is democratic and not controlled by wealthy corporate interests . We have a long way to go but the opportunities to participate abound.
That brings us to the deliberations of the “Super Committee” at the federal level and the upcoming Special Session that begins November 28 in Olympia. While the “Super Committee” contemplates cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the legislature, in special session, will consider cuts to meet the additional $2 billion decline in revenue at the state level. At both the state and federal level, the cuts that are being proposed are devastating and immoral.
There will be significant job losses from these cuts, with a resulting decline in revenue for federal and state governments. There will be deeper cuts by local government. The downward spiral will be unchecked for the foreseeable future.
With other forces in our communities, we are demanding that those responsible for this economic crisis must be made to pay for the tragedy they have brought into the lives of poor people, the vulnerable and working people.
At the federal level, end the tax breaks for the rich and the tax breaks for the corporations. Stop these wars that are literally wasting billions and even trillions of taxpayer dollars.
At the state level, the legislature and Governor must place a halt to the tax breaks they have been handing out like candy over the past decade and a half. While the poor, the vulnerable and the working class suffer mightily, the corporate interests go along their merry way paying huge salaries to their executives while they pretend to cry out for the pain but show a willingness to sacrifice nothing.
Our Congress members and state legislators tell us there is nothing they can do other than make cuts. They argue that in the Congress, the Senate filibuster and the Republican control of the House leaves no alternatives to cuts to our vital safety net programs.
Well, it’s time for some backbone. The Super Committee failing to reach agreement at least assures that 50% of the cuts will be from the defense budget. The defense industry is squealing like stuffed pigs and telling their Congress people why this (sequestration) cannot be allowed to happen. Bull malarkey! They should not have cut the deal in the first place, and now that they cut this “deficit deal” the Democrats had better be accountable. They absolutely must not allow the vital safety net programs to be cut just when they are most needed. They’d better stand their ground or they will pay a huge price (along with the rest of us) in 2012.
At the state level, here’s what they can do:
1. Pass a referendum to the people in the Special Session to raise revenue.
2. It takes a simple majority vote (not two thirds) to issue General Obligation bonds to help fund education and heath care and Revenue Bonds to rebuild our infrastructure and create jobs.
Legislators will protest that the state should not assume additional debt. Our response: If this is not a time to assume increased debt, when is the time? They can create additional revenues to pay off the General Obligation bonds by closing the tax loopholes either in the legislature or by sending a referendum to the people.
Our demands will be clear. They have cut $10 billion dollars over the course of the last three years. It is time to raise revenue to plug this hole. This is not a deficit crisis; it is a revenue crisis created by giving away billions of dollars in tax breaks and Wall Street turning our economy into their private casino. It is time to make a correction.
PSARA will be calling on our members to do everything you can to put pressure on the President, the Congress, state legislators and governor to do the right thing.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Caring across generations
By Hilary Stern
Love is not a word you hear much when talking about politics and policy. But in the Caring Across Generations Campaign, love is a four letter word that comes up often and shamelessly.
The Caring Across Generations Campaign is a bold visionary campaign based on love and caring and led by domestic workers who believes that we are all interdependent. A healthy society, like a healthy family, is one that cares for each other and treats those that need care and those that give care with respect and dignity.
I am part of the baby boomer generation, the generation that shook up society with its youthful energy and rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s. Now I am part of the age wave. Every eight seconds someone in this country turns 65. And in 10 years, every eight seconds someone will be turning 75, and ten years later they will be turning 85 and then …. well, you get the picture.
In fact, as we baby boomers age, the number of people needing long-term care is projected to grow from 13 million in 2000 to 27 million by 2050. But now there are only about 3 million long-term care workers. The gap between what we have and what we will soon need is called the Care Gap.
At the same time, direct care and domestic workers filling these care roles are often immigrant workers making poverty wages and working in strenuous conditions with limited support, rights, and training.
We need to take better care of each other. That’s why PSARA has joined with Casa Latina, Washington Community Action Network, and SEIU 775 NW, and others to bring a visionary national campaign, Caring Across Generations, here to Seattle, Washington.
The Caring Across Generations Campaign seeks to provide dignity to our elderly and their caregivers with the “Five Fingers of the Caring Hand”:
1) The creation of new, quality jobs to meet the growing need,
2) Labor standards and improved job quality for existing and new jobs,
3) Training and career ladders for home care workers,
4) A new visa category and path to citizenship for immigrant care workers,
5) Support for individuals and families in need, including a tax credit for people paying out of pocket for care.
Since the campaign began, the limited safety net we have now is being threatened by budget cuts. The rallying cry of the Campaign has become, “Protect what we have and build what we need.” Protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Build up training and support for care workers, as well as for individuals and families that need care.
On October 5, 2011 the Seattle Care Council, our growing local coalition, had its first planning meeting where student groups and community organizations joined PSARA, Casa Latina, SEIU 775 and Washington CAN in envisioning this new campaign. The Seattle Care Council will continue to meet monthly to plan the Seattle Care Congress, a large, town-hall style event at the Greenwood Senior Center, as well as organizing around a local strategy to engage city elected officials around the values of Care.
If you are interested in getting more involved in the Care Council, please contact Robby Stern, who is organizing an internal committee for PSARA. Please also mark your calendars for our Seattle Care Congress on Saturday, February 11 at the Greenwood Senior Center.
In the spirit of the campaign, we extend to the PSARA membership our love and solidarity.
(Hilary Stern is Executive Director of Casa Latina and a PSARA member.)
Love is not a word you hear much when talking about politics and policy. But in the Caring Across Generations Campaign, love is a four letter word that comes up often and shamelessly.
The Caring Across Generations Campaign is a bold visionary campaign based on love and caring and led by domestic workers who believes that we are all interdependent. A healthy society, like a healthy family, is one that cares for each other and treats those that need care and those that give care with respect and dignity.
I am part of the baby boomer generation, the generation that shook up society with its youthful energy and rebellion in the 60’s and 70’s. Now I am part of the age wave. Every eight seconds someone in this country turns 65. And in 10 years, every eight seconds someone will be turning 75, and ten years later they will be turning 85 and then …. well, you get the picture.
In fact, as we baby boomers age, the number of people needing long-term care is projected to grow from 13 million in 2000 to 27 million by 2050. But now there are only about 3 million long-term care workers. The gap between what we have and what we will soon need is called the Care Gap.
At the same time, direct care and domestic workers filling these care roles are often immigrant workers making poverty wages and working in strenuous conditions with limited support, rights, and training.
We need to take better care of each other. That’s why PSARA has joined with Casa Latina, Washington Community Action Network, and SEIU 775 NW, and others to bring a visionary national campaign, Caring Across Generations, here to Seattle, Washington.
The Caring Across Generations Campaign seeks to provide dignity to our elderly and their caregivers with the “Five Fingers of the Caring Hand”:
1) The creation of new, quality jobs to meet the growing need,
2) Labor standards and improved job quality for existing and new jobs,
3) Training and career ladders for home care workers,
4) A new visa category and path to citizenship for immigrant care workers,
5) Support for individuals and families in need, including a tax credit for people paying out of pocket for care.
Since the campaign began, the limited safety net we have now is being threatened by budget cuts. The rallying cry of the Campaign has become, “Protect what we have and build what we need.” Protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Build up training and support for care workers, as well as for individuals and families that need care.
On October 5, 2011 the Seattle Care Council, our growing local coalition, had its first planning meeting where student groups and community organizations joined PSARA, Casa Latina, SEIU 775 and Washington CAN in envisioning this new campaign. The Seattle Care Council will continue to meet monthly to plan the Seattle Care Congress, a large, town-hall style event at the Greenwood Senior Center, as well as organizing around a local strategy to engage city elected officials around the values of Care.
If you are interested in getting more involved in the Care Council, please contact Robby Stern, who is organizing an internal committee for PSARA. Please also mark your calendars for our Seattle Care Congress on Saturday, February 11 at the Greenwood Senior Center.
In the spirit of the campaign, we extend to the PSARA membership our love and solidarity.
(Hilary Stern is Executive Director of Casa Latina and a PSARA member.)
Nurses blitz 61 Congress offices
By Rap Lewis
Aiming squarely at Wall Street greed, an estimated ten thousand nurses and their labor and community allies organized simultaneous demonstrations at 61 Congressional offices in 21 states on September 1.
At each event, they called on senators and representatives to pledge to “support a Wall Street transaction tax that will raise sufficient revenue to make Wall Street pay fos the devastation it has caused on Main Street.”
On the initiative of the 170,000-member National Nurses United (NNU), the demonstrators organized street theater, community speakouts, soup kitchens and old-fashioned picketlines at Congress members’ offices in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago; Corpus Christi, Texa; Marquette, Michigan; Dayton, Ohio, and many other cities.
“America’s nurses every day see broad declines in health and living standards that are a direct result of patients and families struggling with lack of jobs, un-payable medical bills, hunger and homelessness,“ said NNU Co-President Karen Higgins, RN, at a picketline outside the Richmond, Virginia, office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Wall Street trade in stocks, derivatives, currencies, credit default swaps, and futures/
Because of the great number of Wall Street transactions, even a modest tax on each would generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year to address the social damage for which Wall Street bears the responsibility, the nurses union says.
Aiming squarely at Wall Street greed, an estimated ten thousand nurses and their labor and community allies organized simultaneous demonstrations at 61 Congressional offices in 21 states on September 1.
At each event, they called on senators and representatives to pledge to “support a Wall Street transaction tax that will raise sufficient revenue to make Wall Street pay fos the devastation it has caused on Main Street.”
On the initiative of the 170,000-member National Nurses United (NNU), the demonstrators organized street theater, community speakouts, soup kitchens and old-fashioned picketlines at Congress members’ offices in Boston, San Francisco and Chicago; Corpus Christi, Texa; Marquette, Michigan; Dayton, Ohio, and many other cities.
“America’s nurses every day see broad declines in health and living standards that are a direct result of patients and families struggling with lack of jobs, un-payable medical bills, hunger and homelessness,“ said NNU Co-President Karen Higgins, RN, at a picketline outside the Richmond, Virginia, office of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Wall Street trade in stocks, derivatives, currencies, credit default swaps, and futures/
Because of the great number of Wall Street transactions, even a modest tax on each would generate hundreds of billions of dollars a year to address the social damage for which Wall Street bears the responsibility, the nurses union says.
Terry O’Neil to speak at U.W. forum on Social Security
Terry O’Neil, the highly respected national president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), will address “The Threat to Social Security: An Issue for All Generations” at a forum from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday,. November 21, at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. (See flyer insert.)
Ms. O’Neil will discuss recent Washington D.C. developments concerning Social Security and the steps we can take to protect and improve this vital program.
Ms. O’Neil will headline a trio of speakers at the forum, sponsored by the Social Security Works Washington, a broad coalition of community and labor groups representing people across the state.
Also on the program is Congressman Jim McDermott, co-sponsor of HR 539, a bill to “scrap the cap” on payroll taxes so that high-income earners pay their fair share to keep Social Security fully solvent for the next 75 years. Representative McDermott is knowledgeable, both about how Social Security operates and also about its impact on the lives of everyday people.
A third speaker is Ron Sims, former King County Executive and retired deputy director of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs. He will discuss the critical role Social Security plays in the lives of people in our communities.
A recent similar forum at Everett Community College drew an audience of 200 persons, about one-third of them under the age of 30. The forum was co-sponsored by Social Security Works WA, the Everett Community College Department of Political Science, and the Snohomish County Labor Council.
The Social Security Works WA Coalition has targeted outreach to three populations: young people, women and seniors. Young people are targeted because many of them know very little about Social Security and have been led to believe it will not be there for them when they get older. The coalition seeks to dispel that myth, and to persuade them to join the fight to preserve and strengthen Social Security so it will be there when they need it.
The coalition seeks to reach women because women live longer, and therefore rely longer on Social Security. In addition, women suffer wage disparities, leading to lower Social Security benefits. They also suffer a significant loss of income with the death of a spouse. Additionally, women heads of household more frequently rely on survivor benefits as a result of a spouse dying.
All these disparity problems could be addressed if the “earnings cap” were eliminated.
Note also that because women vote in greater numbers, they can strongly influence the positions taken by elected representatives.
Finally, seniors as a group are fully aware of the critical role of Social Security in their lives. They are a huge and growing voting block. Politicians are playing with fire if they mess around with Social Security benefits of seniors. Our goal is to rally the senior generation to tell the politicians, “Don’t you dare mess around with Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.”
Ms. O’Neil will discuss recent Washington D.C. developments concerning Social Security and the steps we can take to protect and improve this vital program.
Ms. O’Neil will headline a trio of speakers at the forum, sponsored by the Social Security Works Washington, a broad coalition of community and labor groups representing people across the state.
Also on the program is Congressman Jim McDermott, co-sponsor of HR 539, a bill to “scrap the cap” on payroll taxes so that high-income earners pay their fair share to keep Social Security fully solvent for the next 75 years. Representative McDermott is knowledgeable, both about how Social Security operates and also about its impact on the lives of everyday people.
A third speaker is Ron Sims, former King County Executive and retired deputy director of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs. He will discuss the critical role Social Security plays in the lives of people in our communities.
A recent similar forum at Everett Community College drew an audience of 200 persons, about one-third of them under the age of 30. The forum was co-sponsored by Social Security Works WA, the Everett Community College Department of Political Science, and the Snohomish County Labor Council.
The Social Security Works WA Coalition has targeted outreach to three populations: young people, women and seniors. Young people are targeted because many of them know very little about Social Security and have been led to believe it will not be there for them when they get older. The coalition seeks to dispel that myth, and to persuade them to join the fight to preserve and strengthen Social Security so it will be there when they need it.
The coalition seeks to reach women because women live longer, and therefore rely longer on Social Security. In addition, women suffer wage disparities, leading to lower Social Security benefits. They also suffer a significant loss of income with the death of a spouse. Additionally, women heads of household more frequently rely on survivor benefits as a result of a spouse dying.
All these disparity problems could be addressed if the “earnings cap” were eliminated.
Note also that because women vote in greater numbers, they can strongly influence the positions taken by elected representatives.
Finally, seniors as a group are fully aware of the critical role of Social Security in their lives. They are a huge and growing voting block. Politicians are playing with fire if they mess around with Social Security benefits of seniors. Our goal is to rally the senior generation to tell the politicians, “Don’t you dare mess around with Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.”
Hey, look at Argentina!
By Mike Andrew
“You can’t spend your way out of a recession!”
So say Republicans and all economic conservatives.
And yet Argentina did just that, bouncing back not just from mere recession but from national bankruptcy, in less than 10 years.
In 2001 Argentina defaulted on $100 billion of sovereign debt. Its banks were collapsing like a house of cards. Its people were occupying shut down factories.
In the four years between 1998 and 2002, Argentina’s economy shrank by almost 20%.
The problem was easy to see. Argentina was the victim of a series of right-wing military dictatorships trying one supply-side economic experiment after another, all of them failures.
The solution was a brave gamble by the Argentine government.
First, the government intervened in the currency market to keep the value of its own currency low. This in turn boosted local industry by making Argentina’s exports cheap, while keeping foreign imports expensive.
It then taxed imports and exports, and spent the revenue on a series of public works projects. Today, Argentine government spending is 25% of GDP, compared with only 14% in 2003.
As a result of the government-financed construction projects, the country has 400,000 new low-income housing units, and a new 235-mile highway between the northern cities of Rosario and Córdoba.
The Argentine government also strengthened its social safety net.
The Universal Child Allowance gives 1.9 million low-income families a monthly stipend of about $42 per child, which helps increase consumption. The Allowance began in 2009 with bipartisan support from both the ruling party and the opposition,
Because the amount of the stipend depends in part on the child’s school attendance, the allowance is also a measure to promote public education.
The Argentine economy has grown by over 6% a year for seven of the last eight years, unemployment has been cut to under 8% today from a whopping 20% in 2002, and the poverty level has fallen by almost half over the last decade.
Argentines are expected to buy some 800,000 new vehicles this year. Plasma TVs and BlackBerrys have become common among Argentina’s growing middle class.
Obviously, this policy is inflationary, with the inflation rate now well over 20%. It remains to be seen how well Argentina’s working people will be able to cope with that.
Nevertheless, Argentina is another example that runs counter to the all-cuts austerity response to economic crisis.
“You can’t spend your way out of a recession!”
So say Republicans and all economic conservatives.
And yet Argentina did just that, bouncing back not just from mere recession but from national bankruptcy, in less than 10 years.
In 2001 Argentina defaulted on $100 billion of sovereign debt. Its banks were collapsing like a house of cards. Its people were occupying shut down factories.
In the four years between 1998 and 2002, Argentina’s economy shrank by almost 20%.
The problem was easy to see. Argentina was the victim of a series of right-wing military dictatorships trying one supply-side economic experiment after another, all of them failures.
The solution was a brave gamble by the Argentine government.
First, the government intervened in the currency market to keep the value of its own currency low. This in turn boosted local industry by making Argentina’s exports cheap, while keeping foreign imports expensive.
It then taxed imports and exports, and spent the revenue on a series of public works projects. Today, Argentine government spending is 25% of GDP, compared with only 14% in 2003.
As a result of the government-financed construction projects, the country has 400,000 new low-income housing units, and a new 235-mile highway between the northern cities of Rosario and Córdoba.
The Argentine government also strengthened its social safety net.
The Universal Child Allowance gives 1.9 million low-income families a monthly stipend of about $42 per child, which helps increase consumption. The Allowance began in 2009 with bipartisan support from both the ruling party and the opposition,
Because the amount of the stipend depends in part on the child’s school attendance, the allowance is also a measure to promote public education.
The Argentine economy has grown by over 6% a year for seven of the last eight years, unemployment has been cut to under 8% today from a whopping 20% in 2002, and the poverty level has fallen by almost half over the last decade.
Argentines are expected to buy some 800,000 new vehicles this year. Plasma TVs and BlackBerrys have become common among Argentina’s growing middle class.
Obviously, this policy is inflationary, with the inflation rate now well over 20%. It remains to be seen how well Argentina’s working people will be able to cope with that.
Nevertheless, Argentina is another example that runs counter to the all-cuts austerity response to economic crisis.
The Koch brothers hate Social Security
By Mike Andrew
Charles and David Koch, the right-wing billionaires who financed the Tea Party, have poured millions of dollars into destroying Social Security.
They learned to hate Social Security quite literally at their daddy’s knee. Their father, Fred Koch, was one of the founders and the principal financial backer of the John Birch Society, the secretive ultra-right organization of the Fifties and Sixties.
David and Charles have surpassed their father’s efforts by far, however.
According to Brave New Foundation, a social justice research group, the Koch brothers have spent more than $28 million to create what amounts to an entire anti-Social Security industry.
Koch-financed spokespeople, front groups, think tanks, and academics have produced no fewer than 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies, and 6 full-length books full of distortions of Social Security’s record of effective service.
The Brave New Foundation investigation reveals Koch-supported policies – and even specific language – repeated in each document they studied, raising the retirement age or eliminating cost of living adjustments, for example.
All of this adds up to “a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments,” Brave New Foundation says.
This “echo chamber” includes think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Centre at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their existence to Koch backing.
Their distorted message is then reported as fact on TV shows like Fox News’s Hannity, with 3.3 million viewers per episode, or CNBC's Kudlow Report, with 300,000 viewers per episode, night after night after night.
As an article in The Nation magazine points out, when Texas Governor Rick Perry calls Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” that phrase comes directly from the Koch propaganda machine.
The Koch brothers have even been able to influence the messaging for the AARP. which recently opened the door to cutting Social Security benefits.
Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, the year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign.
While their attacks on Social Security were not successful in 2004, they have not retreated.
Just the opposite, in fact. They have used the country’s economic crisis as an excuse to increase their attacks.
In the first two years of the Obama administration, the Koch brothers spent $20 million on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity.
"The Koch brothers fund organizations, and you have economists and political scientists working there, and they are very, very good at getting on television," Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said. "They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media."
The brothers have diversified their donations to Republican leaders, and also to strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY).
Traditional lobbying has now given way to a larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate not only on Social Security, but on the role of government and social spending in general.
"The Koch brothers’ job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Sen. Sanders says. "If you can destroy social security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."
Charles and David Koch, the right-wing billionaires who financed the Tea Party, have poured millions of dollars into destroying Social Security.
They learned to hate Social Security quite literally at their daddy’s knee. Their father, Fred Koch, was one of the founders and the principal financial backer of the John Birch Society, the secretive ultra-right organization of the Fifties and Sixties.
David and Charles have surpassed their father’s efforts by far, however.
According to Brave New Foundation, a social justice research group, the Koch brothers have spent more than $28 million to create what amounts to an entire anti-Social Security industry.
Koch-financed spokespeople, front groups, think tanks, and academics have produced no fewer than 297 commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies, and 6 full-length books full of distortions of Social Security’s record of effective service.
The Brave New Foundation investigation reveals Koch-supported policies – and even specific language – repeated in each document they studied, raising the retirement age or eliminating cost of living adjustments, for example.
All of this adds up to “a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments,” Brave New Foundation says.
This “echo chamber” includes think tanks like the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation and Mercatus Centre at George Mason University and the Reason Foundation, which owe their existence to Koch backing.
Their distorted message is then reported as fact on TV shows like Fox News’s Hannity, with 3.3 million viewers per episode, or CNBC's Kudlow Report, with 300,000 viewers per episode, night after night after night.
As an article in The Nation magazine points out, when Texas Governor Rick Perry calls Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” that phrase comes directly from the Koch propaganda machine.
The Koch brothers have even been able to influence the messaging for the AARP. which recently opened the door to cutting Social Security benefits.
Koch Industries spent $857,000 on lobbyists in 2004, the year before George W Bush tried and failed to privatise social security. They also donated $104,660 to his campaign.
While their attacks on Social Security were not successful in 2004, they have not retreated.
Just the opposite, in fact. They have used the country’s economic crisis as an excuse to increase their attacks.
In the first two years of the Obama administration, the Koch brothers spent $20 million on lobbying, according to the Centre for Public Integrity.
"The Koch brothers fund organizations, and you have economists and political scientists working there, and they are very, very good at getting on television," Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said. "They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media."
The brothers have diversified their donations to Republican leaders, and also to strategic Democrats who oppose revenue increases like Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY).
Traditional lobbying has now given way to a larger, more insidious propaganda campaign aimed at changing the terms of debate not only on Social Security, but on the role of government and social spending in general.
"The Koch brothers’ job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general," Sen. Sanders says. "If you can destroy social security, you will have gone a long way forward in that effort."
All across the country, unions and their members are supporting the Occupy movement in individual cities.
Locally, the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, the Teamsters, and the Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council are teaming up to collect supplies for the Occupy Seattle movement.
If you can donate something, or better yet, if you can get your local, your church, your community organization to help out, here’s what to do…
First check with Max Brown at the Labor Temple (206-963-6195 or 206-441-8510) to see what is needed. Then, bring it to one of the drop-off locations listed here.
DROP-OFF LOCATIONS:
M. L. King County Labor Council, 2800 First Avenue, Suite 206, Seattle, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays only. Contact: Max Brown 206-963-6195 or 206-441-8510.
Seattle/King County Building & Construction Trades Council, 6770 E. Marginal Way S., Building E, Suite 360, Seattle. 9 a/m/ to 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays only. Contact: Keith Weir 206-795-2993.
Teamsters Hall.\, 14675 Interurban Ave. S., Lobby, Tukwila, 9 am. To 5 p.m. weekdays only. Contact Lily Wilson-Codega 206-794-2606.
Locally, the Martin Luther King County Labor Council, the Teamsters, and the Seattle Building & Construction Trades Council are teaming up to collect supplies for the Occupy Seattle movement.
If you can donate something, or better yet, if you can get your local, your church, your community organization to help out, here’s what to do…
First check with Max Brown at the Labor Temple (206-963-6195 or 206-441-8510) to see what is needed. Then, bring it to one of the drop-off locations listed here.
DROP-OFF LOCATIONS:
M. L. King County Labor Council, 2800 First Avenue, Suite 206, Seattle, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays only. Contact: Max Brown 206-963-6195 or 206-441-8510.
Seattle/King County Building & Construction Trades Council, 6770 E. Marginal Way S., Building E, Suite 360, Seattle. 9 a/m/ to 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays only. Contact: Keith Weir 206-795-2993.
Teamsters Hall.\, 14675 Interurban Ave. S., Lobby, Tukwila, 9 am. To 5 p.m. weekdays only. Contact Lily Wilson-Codega 206-794-2606.
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