CNY PROGRESSIVE ACTION NEWSLETTER
OCTOBER 24, 2014
Vol. 1, No. 15
NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL NEW YORK CITIZENS IN ACTION, INC. (ESTABLISHED IN 1997)
HEADLINES
SEEKING MUSICIANS, ARTISTS, DANCERS, AND ACTORS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE THEATRE GROUP
SEEKING UNEMPLOYED, UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS AND OUT OF WORK COLLEGE GRADUATES FOR ACTIONS TO PROTECT WORKERS AND RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE
TIME NOW TO BUILD LOCAL POLICIES FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY WEALTH
FIGHT PREDATORY LENDING
GENESEE TED TO PERFORM AT SHERRILL COMMUNITY COFFEE HOUSE ON OCTOBER 25
RISEN’S NEW BOOK EXPOSES THE “WAR ON TERROR”
SEEKING MUSICIANS, ARTISTS, DANCERS, AND ACTORS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE THEATRE GROUP
We are asking local musicians, artists, and actors to join the Central New York Citizens in Action to form a street theatre group to put on performances at our rallies, demonstrations, and public events to raise awareness of social justice issues. Our goal is to create a local model ofguerrilla theatre of San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Living Theatre, the carnivalesque parades of Bread and Puppet Theatre, and the work of Ashesh Malla and the Sarwanam Theatre Group of Nepal. Please contact us at 315-725-0974 or send an email tocnycitizenaction@gmail.com.
SEEKING UNEMPLOYED, UNDEREMPLOYED WORKERS FOR ACTIONS TO PROTECT WORKERS AND RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE
Central NY Citizens in Action demands Governor Cuomo and the NYS Legislature do more for working people in NY. We are a member of the Coalition for a Real Minimum Wage Increase and will be having a community speak out event within the two weeks. The State Department of Labor now has a backlog of 17,000 cases with many workers waiting for years to get their complaints resolved. Last year, Cuomo and the Legislature raised the minimum wage by a measly $ .75, set to go up to $9 by 2016 and at the same time, is giving millions of our tax dollars to subsidize corporations like Walmart if they hire teen workers.
Many workers have been speaking out and standing up to say enough is enough! Are you tired of trying to survive on low wages? Does your boss play tricks to not pay you for all the work you have done- by not paying the correct minimum wage, or overtime pay, or asking you to come in early or stay late without paying? Is your boss dipping into your tips? Do you have a case pending with the NYS Department of Labor? Have you tried to speak out for better wages and conditions and been frustrated at every turn?
Speak out about your experience. We need to let Governor Cuomo and the Legislature know that we won’t stand for this anymore!
Please contact the Central New York Citizens in Action if you would like to share your story. We can also provide you assistance in getting action on your concerns. You can call us at 315-725-0974 or send an email tocnycitizenaction@gmail.com.
TIME NOW TO BUILD LOCAL POLICIES FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY WEALTH
In Central New York, we must find ways to build community wealth – anchoring capital, democratizing ownership, and stabilizing local economies to really make a difference in the lives of working class communities that find themselves marginalized by the current paradigm of economic development.
We must focus on measures that aim to leverage local resources — especially those that can keep capital anchored locally — and which aim to benefit those — like poor communities of color — who have been historically excluded from or marginalized and exploited in the traditional economic process. Above all, however, we focus on what works, grounding both our immediately pragmatic and more aspirational recommendations in community wealth building tools which have been field-tested and proven effective.
Use available resources
We realize that, at the local level, budget constraints are real and impossible to ignore. What’s therefore exceptionally exciting about reorienting local policy towards community wealth building is that it makes maximal use of existing resources.
For example, in the US, non-profit ‘anchor institutions’ like universities and hospitals spend over $1tn a year, but very little of that sizeable amount is spent in their local communities. A savvy policymaker can spend a relatively small amount of money to create the necessary local capacity and connections to channel these anchor purchases to businesses rooted in their communities, resulting in potentially game-changing amounts of money remaining in local circulation. It’s a way to create local jobs without requiring large amounts of new public money, something local governments are hard pressed to find in the age of austerity.
Support worker co-operatives
Worker ownership is another good example; while many people are rightly inspired by worker co-operatives as a potential basis for a more democratic economy (including the New York city council, which recently launched a $1.2m fund to support the development of new co-ops), it’s important to recognize that more mundane forms of employee ownership, like Employee Stock Ownership Plans, already have a significant economic effect at a scale that provides demonstrable benefits to society as a whole.
Just in the US, 10.3 million workers own a piece of their business through mechanisms like these — with economic assets under employee ownership worth $942bn. These employee-owned firms are vastly less likely to abandon the communities in which their workers reside, providing key economic stability in an age where speculative global financial capital can all too easily tear the economic foundations out from under a city or state.
And with millions of US business owners poised to retire in the coming years, it won’t take much to encourage the conversion of many more businesses to employee ownership: robust models already exist for local government-funded centers that provide the necessary technical assistance and education. Such centers can simultaneously help democratize the economy while also retaining jobs at a cost far lower than that involved with many profligate corporate subsidies. Furthermore, establishing such employee ownership centers can lay the groundwork and build capacity for helping create even more transformative initiatives like worker co-operatives.
Put responsible banking ordinances in place
A similar pattern, where relatively simple measures point the way towards larger interventions, can be seen in local government finance. The collapse of the housing market in 2007-2008 showed the extent to which an unconstrained banking sector could wreak havoc on local communities — for instance, African American communities saw about a third of their wealth evaporate in the economic crisis.
Far from the national regulatory arena, an increasing number of US cities are taking matters into their own hands with so-called ‘responsible banking ordinances’. The idea is simple, elegant, and effective. Cities spend and collect large amounts of money, and that money needs to be deposited somewhere. A responsible banking ordinance basically makes any bank that wants to hold these lucrative city deposits behave themselves; depending on local circumstances, these provisions can prevent predatory lending, increase the availability of banking services in lower-income communities, or drive investment in community projects.
Such relatively simple measures at the city level (again, requiring very little new public money to be spent) can set important precedents for further innovations in the financial ecosystem aimed at bolstering a community-sustaining economy, like public banking. Here, the long history of the Bank of North Dakota has shown how state government deposits can capitalize a financial institution responsive to the needs of smaller community-based banks and locally-based industry — and which can even help provide much-needed refinancing options in an era of exploding student debt, all while turning a profit that’s returned to the state as revenue.
Put community wealth building at the heart of local economic development
Beyond these individual policy examples, it’s also extremely encouraging to see policymakers’ increasing awareness of community wealth building as a more general guiding principle for local economic development. Community wealth building provides a framework that can tie together innovative strategies around local investment, public and nonprofit procurement, job creation, land management, affordable housing, and more — a framework which can help illuminate the opportunities for these strategies to be woven together into a more comprehensive and mutually-reinforcing whole.
In Richmond, Virginia, for example, Mayor Dwight Jones has created the first city-level Office of Community Wealth Building, explicitly endorsing this kind of holistic approach as part of a major anti-poverty initiative. Decades of disinvestment and a broken model of economic development prioritizing speculative profits over the real needs of communities have created a real long-term crisis in many cities, and our hope is that more and more policymakers realize that community wealth building offers a compelling, effective and essential alternative vision.
Contact your local elected official to support democratic economic development.
We would like to thank the Democracy Collaborative for contributing information to this article.
FIGHT PREDATORY LENDING
The Central New York Citizens in Action, Inc. has joined 466 other organizations from around the country on a letter today urging the Bureau to write regulations that are strong enough to effectively end the debt trap. You can find the letter herehttp://ourfinancialsecurity.org/blogs/wp-content/ourfinancialsecurity.org/uploads/2014/10/Payday-Cordray-Letter-FINAL-10.23.14.pdf
“The CFPB has before it this unique opportunity, and indeed obligation, to bring meaningful reform to the marketplace,” they write. “We urge that any rule addressing payday, installment, car title or any other short term lending product accomplish the following:
- “Require the lender to determine the borrower’s ability to repay the loan, including consideration of income and expenses;
- “Does not sanction any series of repeat loans or provide any safe harbor of poorly underwritten loans;
- “Establishes an outer limit on length of indebtedness that is at least as short as the FDIC’s 2005 guidelines – 90 days in a twelve-month period.
- “Restricts lenders from requiring a post-dated check or electronic access to a borrower’s checking account as a condition of extending credit.”
We urge our members, supporters, and allies to contact their members of Congress to support the CFPB to write regulations to protect borrowers from predatory lenders.
Use the following web site to locate contact information for members of Congress: click here for contacting congress http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
Thank you for joining us in the fight against predatory lending.
GENESEE TED TO PERFORM AT
SHERRILL COMMUNITY COFFEE
HOUSE ON OCTOBER 25
BAND NOTED FOR UNIQUE BLEND OF FOLK,
TRADITIONAL, MOUNTAIN, BLUES, BLUEGRASS MUSIC
Genesee Ted, a regional band noted for its unique blend of folk, traditional, mountain, blues, and bluegrass music, will be performing at the Christ Church Community Coffee House in Sherrill at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 25.
The band consists of Dana Cooke, Shirley Stevens, Eileen Rose, and Tom Burr. They have recently entertained at the Nelson Odeon, the Steeple Coffee House, Sparky Town, Cafe @407, the Tully Train Depot, Creekside in Skaneateles, the Oneida Public Library, the North Syracuse Public Library, Soule Library, and the Hillview Community Church Coffeehouse.
Dana Cooke is a well-known local singer/songwriter who is also the President of the Folkus Project in CNY. He has several CDs for which he has five SAMMY award nominations. (Seewww.danacooke.com for more information.) Dana plays mandolin, guitar and strumstick.
Shirley Stevens is the lead singer/guitarist with Diamond Someday, a popular local bluegrass band recently voted the Syracuse New Times best Bluegrass Band (www.diamondsomeday.com). The title cut from their CD, Lady in Red, is a song she wrote about her grandmother in Oswego County. She also leads congregations in music for worship services on a regular basis.
Eileen Rose has also written several songs and plays the mountain dulcimer and percussion. She’s often seen with a washboard in her arms. She performs with Larry Hoyt and the Good Acoustics, Mark Zane and Friends, as well as other local groups.
Tom Burr, who has joined the group recently, is the bassist, and sometimes picks up his banjo to add even more zest to our performances. He has played folk and bluegrass music with several groups (including the popular Diamond Someday Bluegrass Band) for many years.
Examples of their repertoire include Cave in the Rock, a song about pirates on the Ohio River; Is the Blue Moon Still Shining, a bluegrass tune written by Melissa Monroe, the daughter of Bill Monroe; and My Dixie Darlin’, a real oldie, often performed by the Carter family.
Christ Church United Methodist is located at 417 Park St., Sherrill. Refreshments will be served. The coffee house is open to the community. A free will offering will be accepted. Children as well as adults are welcome. For more information, please call 315-725-0974 or 315-363-1061
RISEN’S NEW BOOK EXPOSES THE “WAR ON TERROR”
By Norman Solomon
No single review or interview can do justice to “Pay Any Price” — the new book by James Risen that is the antithesis of what routinely passes for journalism about the “war on terror.” Instead of evasive tunnel vision, the book offers big-picture acuity: focusing on realities that are pervasive and vastly destructive.
Published this week, “Pay Any Price” throws down an urgent gauntlet. We should pick it up. After 13 years of militarized zealotry and fear-mongering in the name of fighting terrorism, the book — subtitled “Greed, Power, and Endless War” — zeros in on immense horrors being perpetrated in the name of national security.
As an investigative reporter for the New York Times, Risen has been battling dominant power structures for a long time. His new book is an instant landmark in the best of post-9/11 journalism. It’s also a wise response to repressive moves against him by the Bush and Obama administrations.
For more than six years — under threat of jail — Risen has refused to comply with subpoenas demanding that he identify sources for his reporting on a stupid and dangerous CIA operation. (For details, see “The Government War Against Reporter James Risen,” which I co-wrote with Marcy Wheeler for The Nation.)
A brief afterword in his new book summarizes Risen’s struggles with the Bush and Obama Justice Departments. He also provides a blunt account of his long-running conflicts with the Times hierarchy, which delayed some of his reporting for years — or spiked it outright — under intense White House pressure.
Self-censorship and internalization of official worldviews continue to plague the Washington press corps. In sharp contrast, Risen’s stubborn independence enables “Pay Any Price” to combine rigorous reporting with rare candor.
Here are a few quotes from the book:
* “Obama performed a neat political trick: he took the national security state that had grown to such enormous size under Bush and made it his own. In the process, Obama normalized the post-9/11 measures that Bush had implemented on a haphazard, emergency basis. Obama’s great achievement — or great sin — was to make the national security state permanent.”
* “In fact, as trillions of dollars have poured into the nation’s new homeland security-industrial complex, the corporate leaders at its vanguard can rightly be considered the true winners of the war on terror.”
* “There is an entire class of wealthy company owners, corporate executives, and investors who have gotten rich by enabling the American government to turn to the dark side. But they have done so quietly. . . . The new quiet oligarchs just keep making money. . . . They are the beneficiaries of one of the largest transfers of wealth from public to private hands in American history.”
* “The United States is now relearning an ancient lesson, dating back to the Roman Empire. Brutalizing an enemy only serves to brutalize the army ordered to do it. Torture corrodes the mind of the torturer.”
* “Of all the abuses America has suffered at the hands of the government in its endless war on terror, possibly the worst has been the war on truth. On the one hand, the executive branch has vastly expanded what it wants to know: something of a vast gathering of previously private truths. On the other hand, it has ruined lives to stop the public from gaining any insight into its dark arts, waging a war on truth. It all began at the NSA.”
Fittingly, the book closes with a powerful chapter about the government’s extreme actions against whistleblowers. After all, whistleblowing and independent journalism are dire threats to the secrecy and deception that fuel the “war on terror.”
Now, James Risen is in the national spotlight at a time when the U.S. government is launching yet another spiral of carnage for perpetual war. As a profound book, “Pay Any Price” has arrived with enormous potential to serve as a catalyst for deeper understanding and stronger opposition to abhorrent policies.
________________________________________
Norman Solomon, a journalist with ExposeFacts.org, is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and co-founder of RootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”
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