On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.
Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.
Green Change is inviting all candidates, individuals and organizations that support a prosperous, sustainable future for America to endorse the Green New Deal.
Read the call for a Green New Deal and sign on today.
To date, 11 candidates for governor, 11 candidates for US Senate, and 33 candidates for US House of Representatives have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.
All agree on the need to cut military spending, fund green public works, ban corporate personhood, pass single-payer health care, restore progressive taxation, ban usury, enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax, legalize marijuana, institute tuition-free public higher education, change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental and safety standards, and pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.
These candidates represent a clean break with the failed policies of the past that have led America down the road to economic and ecological disaster.
The Green New Deal promises a brighter tomorrow for America – one that combines the New Deal’s promise of freedom from economic hardship with decisive action to protect our planet.
You can help build the movement for real change by endorsing the Green New Deal today and asking candidates for elected office to join you.
Democrats should call the Republicans' bluff and hold hearings to let GOP senators air their reasons for repealing the birthright to citizenship that is part of the 14th Amendment.
It is especially ironic that the leaders of the repeal effort include Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, Republicans from South Carolina, the original laboratory for bad government ideas. You may recall that South Carolina was the principal instigator of the Civil War. The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 largely to prevent the unreconstructed Confederates who controlled Southern states from denying the rights of citizenship to newly freed slaves. Of course, the thugs won anyway and the Supreme Court in 1883 decided - in an aside - that the 14th Amendment gave civil rights to corporations even as the courts declined to uphold the civil rights of black citizens in the South.
The US House of Representatives may soon have the opportunity to vote on whether to move forward with a constitutional amendment to ensure that we the people, not we the corporations, control our elections.
At the 10:22 point in this video, GRIT tv host Laura Flanders takes up the topic of the Supreme Court, corporate power, and the "Citizens United" ruling. Guest John Bonifaz, the director of Free Speech for People discusses the results we're already seeing from that ruling, how it impacts corporations, unions, and real flesh-and-blood people, (including how it has already impacted our thinking) and what needs to be done.
Harry Hanbury has a story that any videographer or blogger would love. He created a video of Congresswoman Donna Edwards taking steps to amend the Constitution to restore our democracy following assault by the Supreme Court. A woman you've never heard of named Jessica Sharp saw the video and decided to take action herself. She had never organized a rally or even attended many, but she put together an event at the state capitol of Maryland that inspired every interested activist group and state legislator to join in. Jessica has sparked a movement in Maryland that is inspiring others around the country. So, Harry made a new video, about Jessica:
Congresswoman Donna Edwards' bill proposing a Constitutional Amendment to deny corporations the free speech rights of persons in the form of unlimited election bribery spending has now been cosponsored by: John Conyers, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Jim McGovern, Keith Ellison, Chellie Pingree, Barbara Lee, Andre Carson, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Betty Sutton, Raul Grijalva and Ed Markey.
With the exception of Carson, these congress members are also all cosponsors of the Fair Elections Act, which seeks to address the fairness of our elections by providing public financing for campaigns.
Approaches to fixing the corporate ownership of our elected officials are proliferating, and many organizations and individuals will be backing more than one of them. Here are some of the courses of action already underway:
Jamin Raskin, professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University, has spoken out powerfully on behalf of a new campaign at FreeSpeechForPeople.org that aims to undo the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to remove limitations on corporations' election spending.
Here's a short video made together with Congresswoman Donna Edwards.
Homo sapiens, that means us, is what's known as an ultrasocial species. That means we're so cooperative that groups of hundreds, even thousands of us, can distribute tasks, share rewards, have common goals and tolerate each other's proximity in abundance. We're the only ultrasocial species whose groups operate more on reciprocity than kin relationships.
If we were the creatures Ayn Rand's disciples think we are, we would live like bears, who have no civilization to speak of, no language in which to speak of it, and never will.
Which is why the current incarnations of plutocracy, patriarchy and all other 'screw you, I've got mine' politics are, in the deepest sense, antisocial. They're anti-civilization. What betrays the reciprocity of the social compact betrays the most useful trait of our species, the one arguably most responsible for our success. The people who hold these views are free riders, parasites, if you will, on the public good of basic human nature.
Our greatest good is the presence and well-being of other humans. Maybe in a spiritual sense, but definitely in a hardwired, biological sense. Consider that a person in jail can literally go mad from a lack of contact in solitary confinement, in ways that prisoners in contact with inmates or guards who are torturing them will not.
Humans just need each other.
Not only isn't there anything wrong with that, it's the only basis for policy that can stand the test of time. Just in case anyone still gives as much of a damn about building civilizations as blowing them up.
