Join us for a rally for Justice for Michael Brown at Occupy Elgin on Saturday, August 23rd at 1:00 PM at the corner of Kimball Street at Grove Avenue in Elgin.
Justice for Michael Brown – Michael Brown was ‘walking while Black’ and paid for this ‘offense’ with his life. A murderous Ferguson, Mo. cop, Darren Wilson, shot an unarmed, unresisting Brown six times. Brown’s body lay in the street unattended, unexamined and uncovered for four hours. Medical personnel were not allowed to help the victim. The officer who killed Brown did not even check for a pulse. . read more
Should the 1% Run America?
Economic inequality has been growing since 1980,and continues to grow. Inequality in wealth creates inequality in power.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffett in 2006.
What have been the power consequences of this inequality?
Question 1) Who Owns the Media?
Six massive corporations dominate the U.S. TV media landscape: Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, they dominate news and entertainment. Then there’s Clear Channel which now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft increasingly dominate the Internet. These companies have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read. Unless we are skeptical, they shape our thinking. New dangers loom: the proposed merger of Time-Warner and Comcast, and powerful threats to Internet neutrality.
During national election campaigns, these companies can easily dismiss, laugh off, or ignore any candidate who genuinely challenges their power or the power of their advertisers. By the time you and I enter the voting booth, we are choosing between two candidates who are acceptable to the multinational corporations. read more
The ECC Board of Trustees has dropped plan to outsource the custodians. Instead, they passed a new plan to seek an outside company which will provide SUPERVISION for the custodians. They assured the audience that they will keep the present custodians as direct employees of the college, and that the custodians will keep their present benefits. But they plan to pay for the new supervisory management contract out of savings which will come from new efficiencies.
They expected this announcement to be greeted with gratitude, and to some degree it was. But to many of us it appears that they new arrangement will mean that the custodians will have to work faster and harder and that their hours will be cut.
I will be meeting with the head of the teachers union, some staff members and students and others to discuss how we can keep on top of this situation.
Clearly the board and the president felt the heat of the anger that they had stirred up over the past several weeks, and clearly they dropped the outsourcing plan as a result of that heat.
Mary
The Trans Pacific Partnership is a proposed new trade treaty which opponents call NAFTA on Steroids. NIJwJ believes that it will eliminate many thousands of jobs for US workers, create new obstacles to environmental protection, climate protection, food safety , and workers’ rights. It will also increase the cost of prescription drugs, and impose new, extremely restrictive rules on the exchange of information and “content” on the internet.
The Trans Pacific Partnership is a threat to democracy because it gives multinational corporations the right to sue nation states, including the US, which pass laws which interfere with a corporation’s “expected future profits.” So, if the US passes the Employee Free Choice Act, or a Carbon Tax, or even a “Buy American” law, the United States could be sued for doing that. The case would be tried before a three person panel, made up of corporate lawyers, who could impose substantial fines (to be paid out of taxpayer money) or possibly the law could be overturned. These tribunals would be held in secret and there would be no appeal. read more
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/19/walmart-looking-supporting-minimum-wage-increase
http://teamster.org/news/2014/01/even-companies-need-know-more-about-fast-track-tpp
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/1987/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=1272188
Promoting peace, a stronger democracy, and social and economic justice through education, dialog, and action