Oppressors like to use “divide-and-conquer” strategies to disempower the 99%. The Olympian published an op-ed I wrote in May 2019. Here is the article as a Word document: BOC — 2019.05.16 FINAL version — We’re All in This Together Here is the article as it appeared on the editorial page on May 23, 2019: https://www.theolympian.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article230676584.html?
I wrote an insightful article in 2017, and it is still valid, so I updated it only a little and posted it here. I’ll write another proposing remedies for how to get out of this crisis. Look for that within the next few weeks. How We Got into Our Current Crisis
The June 2019 interview on “Glen’s Parallax Per-spectives” explores the many benefits of having the public own our electric utilities instead of letting big business own them. People typically think about “democracy” in terms of government. But why not also have democracy in how we run our economy? Why can’t our economic institutions – such as our electric utility – respond to the will of the voters? Voters can choose to have local governments own and operate our electric utilities. Dozens of cities and counties in Washington State have long, successful track records of using publicly owned utilities to pro-vide […]
Local folks are starting to organize a campaign for the City of Olympia and other local cities to replace Puget Sound Energy here with a successful locally owned electric utility that will provide lower rates, better reliability, and sustainable energy – and will be ac-countable to the public instead of foreign stockholders. They plan to gather enough signatures of Olympia voters during the middle part of 2020 to qualify for Olympia’s ballot for the November 2020 election. Here is one page listing four reasons why this would be a good idea: A City-Owned Electric Utility Would Help Olympia’s People […]
Technically, the Korean War never ended. A ceasefire occurred in the early 1950s, but the war never officially ended. The De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) has been the most heavily militarized border for more than half a century. Unlike many nations, the people of Korea – North and South – are all THE SAME ethnic group. The boundary is a cruel Cold War relic that divided families. Virtually all Koreans want to be together. This article notes the one-year anniversary of an important joint statement for peace and reconciliation. Since the early 1950s the U.S. government has arrogantly played politics instead of […]
In case anyone wants VERY THOROUGH information about the “Iran Nuclear Deal” (the JCPOA), you might click this link and read all or some of the 64-page booklet produced by the Arms Control Association, an expert organization. Or you might want to save it for future reference. We need to educate the public and Congress in order to prevent Trump from actually starting the war against Iran that he is eager to provoke. https://www.armscontrol.org/sites/default/files/files/Reports/ACA_Iran-BB_2015%20Aug6_FINAL.pdf
Previous posts on this blog have explained how the Electoral College frustrates honest democracy by over-weighting low-population states (which tend to produce Republican majorities) and under-weighting high-population states (which tend to produce Democratic majorities). This partisan imbalance has caused several Republican presidents to get elected by Electoral College majorities, even though they lost the popular vote. Trump is the latest example. Fortunately, a number of people and non-profit organizations have been pushing to replace the Electoral College with a National Popular Vote. Changing the U.S. Constitution is a horrendously huge, slow process that is not likely because the Senate (which […]
This article expresses alarm but shies away from impeachment. I say IMPEACH NOW!!! https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-constitutional-system-is-not-built-to-resist-trumps-defiance-of-congress
Trump keeps threatening war against two of the world’s largest oil-producing nations: Venezuela and Iran. In each case, WE MUST DEMAND THAT CONGRESS TAKE STRONG ACTIONS TO PREVENT Trump’s reckless, violent actions, which are illegal under international law. Other blog posts deal with Venezuela. Here is information about Iran. Trump has been LYING about Iran and DELIBERATELY ESCALATING TENSIONS in order to PROVOKE WAR. Sign this petition (starting on May 16, 2019) to the top Democrats in the House (Pelosi) and Senate (Schumer) to tell them to PREVENT Trump’s war against Iran: https://act.winwithoutwar.org/act/pelosi_schumer_stop_war_with_iran?source=em20190516&t=4&akid=3577%2E763336%2Eg_4_Km Sign this petition urging several members of […]
The WA State Senate’s bill to abolish the death penalty passed the State Senate. The article at the link below says 54 House members wanted to pass it, but the House leadership (Democrat Frank Chopp) did not bring it up for a vote. Chopp has been opposing efforts to repeal the death penalty in WA State. House leaders said they wanted to focus on higher priorities than this bill. https://www.thenewstribune.com/latest-news/article229414449.html?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fff8ef07-20b2-4c78-8559-6bca7143c5ca
The Sentencing Project (www.sentencingproject.org) is a long-standing expert non-profit organization that researches our criminal justice system (especially prison sentencing) and provides advocacy to promote fairness. They are highly credible. I have been financially supporting them for many years. The Sentencing Project released this information on April 25, 2019: New Prison and Jail Population Figures Released by U.S. Department of Justice By yearend 2017, the United States prison population had declined by 7.3% since reaching its peak level in 2009, according to new data released by the Department of Justice. The prison population decreases are heavily influenced by a handful of […]
Sometimes each of the big political parties does things intended to serve their own partisan interests instead of the nation as a whole. But in recent decades the Republican Party has become so extremely hyper-partisan that they have been violating the Constitution and constitutional principles in many ways (e.g., suppressing the voting rights of constituencies who favor Democrats and refusing to hold Senate hearings on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland). This article exposes Mitch McConnell’s cynical partisanship and rule-breaking. He thinks winning for partisanship is all that counts. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/06/mitch-mcconnell-senate-republicans-donald-trump-judges
Joe Biden has publicly agreed that the climate crisis is an EXISTENTIAL crisis. It is so extremely serious that it is a life-or-death crisis. However, he thinks timid steps and compromising with Republicans are sufficient. He was Obama’s Vice President, and Obama tried for 8 years to compromise with Republicans, but Republicans absolutely refused to take reasonable steps. Now Republicans are vigorously repealing all of the very moderate steps that Obama took. Republicans are NOT a reasonable group to negotiate with. Biden is utterly unrealistic to think that a policy of yielding to them will produce good results for the […]
The U.S. military is an ENORMOUS waster of oil and an ENORMOUS factor in causing and perpetuating the climate crisis. To reduce carbon emissions, we absolutely must reduce all kinds of military flights, ships, and vehicle traffic. The Military-Industrial Complex hires troops and workers who build weapons. The Green New Deal must move them away from climate-killing jobs into jobs that solve our problems and create a sustainable future. A militaristic foreign policy is NOT SUSTAINABLE!!! Militarism is DESTROYING OUR FUTURE! PEACE must be a strategic part of the Green New Deal!!! See this article, which promotes the Green New […]
Here are several interesting new articles in early May 2019: As Capitalism Fails, We Need a Roadmap to Survive Climate Change. This article says that the climate crisis ALSO challenges us to think about economics in bold, fresh ways. The economics that allowed the climate crisis to occur are NOT sufficient to get us out of that mess. Fossil fuels have fueled our long run of industrial and economic growth. But that is coming to an end. Now we need new economics for a post-fossil fuel future. There are many dimensions to this. The article at this link is […]
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