Legislation

We are witnessing a systemic recasting of education priorities that gives official structure and permanence to a preexisting underclass comprised largely of criminalized poor black and brown people.

by Adwoa Masozi

States across the US are excising billions of dollars from their education budgets as if 22% of the population isn’t functionally illiterate. [ Brant Ward, SF Chronicle)]

by Wenonah Hauter

Ruby Williams, a 78-year-old Aqua Pennsylvania customer, got stuck with a $40,000 water bill because of a serious leak in the pipes under her home in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania. After her situation garnered national media attention, the private company agreed to reduce her bill to a few hundred dollars.

Likewise, the Price family of Stallings, North Carolina recently had their sewage service cut off by Aqua North Carolina despite having paid an overdue bill. The company demanded $1,000 to restore it — hundreds of dollars more than the actual cost to do the work. Again, thanks to bad publicity and public outrage, Aqua backed down.

It's not just American consumers that feel the pinch as our municipal water systems change from public to private hands — and it's not just that Aqua America is one bad actor, either. Private interests worldwide increasingly control our water. Too often, customers are getting a raw deal.

DENVER, COLORADO – Today, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced that the initiative to make adult use of marijuana legal and regulate it in a manner similarly to alcohol received enough signatures to qualify for the state ballot in November. In a Statement of Sufficiency released this afternoon, Sec. Gessler reported that the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol turned in more than the required number of valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. Voters in Colorado will have the opportunity to vote on this measure on November 6 of this year.

If passed, the initiative would allow adults 21 and older to possess and use limited amounts of marijuana. It would also establish a system of regulations to control and tax marijuana sales, much like the system that exists for alcohol, and direct the state legislature to enact legislation governing the cultivation, processing, and sales of industrial hemp.

Feb. 27, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MASSIVE LEAK REVEALS CRIMINALITY, PARANOIA AMONG CORPORATE TITANS
Dow pays "strategic intelligence" firm to spy on Yes Men and grassroots activists. Takeaway: movement is on the right track!

WikiLeaks begins to publish today (http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html) over five million e-mails obtained by Anonymous from "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The emails, which reveal everything from sinister spy tactics to an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs (see below), also include several discussions (http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-02-27-00-stratford-monitor...) of the Yes Men and Bhopal activists. (Bhopal activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India, that led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.)

A useful and engaging look at the mess we've created -- and the potential to build a just economy, nation, and world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N2Xh5eN2fXY

by Mercedes Olivera

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Ending poverty, not adding tests, is solution to school woes
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Mercedes Olivera

oliveramercedes@ymail.com

Published: 17 February 2012 10:13 PM

Tests, tests and more tests won’t fix the problems with our nation’s schools.

More funding would certainly help in an era of widespread state budget deficits.

But the real problem, says Stephen Krashen, is poverty.

That’s the message the linguistics and education scholar gave to bilingual educators at the annual conference of the National Association for Bilingual Education. About 3,000 educators attended the event in Dallas this week.

Krashen has a point.

It’s become almost axiomatic these days to talk about America’s educational system as “broken.” U.S. students do poorly on tests when compared with those in other countries, especially in math and science.

But recent studies also reveal that U.S. students from middle-class families and well-funded schools outscore students in nearly all other countries.

by Jay Walljasper and Annie Leonard

Annie Leonard is one of the most articulate, effective champions of the commons today. Her webfilm The Story of Stuff has been seen more than 15 million times by viewers. She also adapted it into a book.

Drawing on her experience investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues in more than 40 countries, Leonard says she’s “made it her life’s calling to blow the whistle on important issues plaguing our world.”

She deploys hard facts, common sense, witty animation and an engaging “everywoman” role as narrator to probe complex problems such as the high costs of consumerism, the influence of corporate money in our democracy, and government budget priorities.

In 2008, she founded the Story of Stuff Project, to help people get involved in making the decisions that affect their future and to create new webfilms on critical issues such as The Story of Citizens United and The Story of Bottled Water. Her most recent film The Story of Broke , provides a riveting rebuttal to claims that America can no longer afford health and social protections.

Incorporating corporate globalization into the Occupy analysis and agenda
by Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

Ever since the first tent was pitched in Zuccotti Park in September 2011, the Occupy protests have been giving life to a “99 percent movement.” Expect to hear a lot more from them: plans for a 99 percent spring—starting as early as April—are now in the making.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 22, 2012
9:22 AM

CONTACT: Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)

Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115
Only One Fourth of Low- Wage Workers in America Have Employer-Provided Health Insurance

WASHINGTON - February 22 - Three-fourths of low-wage workers do not have health insurance through their employer and almost 40 percent have no health insurance from any source, according to a new report from the Center from Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and the Georgetown University Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor.

By analyzing changes in coverage rates by wage-level and race over the last 30 years, the report, “Health-Insurance Coverage for Low Wage Workers, 1979-2010 and Beyond,” fills a major gap in the available research and shows how low-wage workers, especially Latinos, have been uniquely affected by declines in employer-provided health insurance.

The documents show how groups play up controversy to undermine confidence in well-established scientific findings
by Bob Ward

After the leak from the Chicago-based thinkthank the Heartland Institute, much attention is now being focused on the alleged deception used by the water scientist Peter Gleick to obtain the sensitive internal documents.

And while acts of deception cannot be condoned, it is also important to note that the documents obtained by Gleick provide an insight into how some of those groups that are fundamentally opposed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases attempt to convey the impression that their arguments are founded on science rather than on ideology.