Support Your Community's Occupation

To All Communities That Take Action, We Offer Support…

From The Chronicle of Higher Education

September 30, 2011, 2:09 pm

By Marc Bousquet

The day’s breaking occupation news is the New York City General Assembly’s statement, together with mass events developing in 66 cities over the next few days.  How cool is it that the statement is bigger news than rumors of Radiohead joining them for an impromptu concert? Heck, it’s pushed the Amazon tablet and the Prez’s policy failures out of the headlines. Which reminds me to send the day’s Obama-gram:

Hello, Mr. President? Meet me at camera 2. History just sent you a Hail Mary pass. Hint: FDR was a failure too, until he grabbed the chance history gave him. This would be the chance to fire Arne Duncan, stop wanking around with LinkedIn, and spend a few trillion on the people, like you promised.

Want to help? First and best—show up at an event near you. Ninety-five percent of the population is within an hour of an occupation event in the next seven days. Bring the kids. Second best, all of the occupations need money, food, and warm clothes. A campaign to raise $12,000 to start a digital occupation media outlet (the Occupy Wall Street Journal) oversubscribed overnight—with 8 days to go, they already have 150 percent of their target, or $18,000—but they need money everywhere else.

previous coverage:
mass arrests on wall street
protests spread to both coasts
police violence escalates: day five
wall street occupation day three
what are you doing for the next two months?
occupy and escalate
big brother on campus
california is burning
will occupation become a movement?
grad students spearhead Wisconsin capitol occupation
the occupation will be televised
the occupation cookbook

This entry was posted in Economics, Egypt, Politics, Protest and tagged manifesto,movements, occupy wall street, protest, students. Bookmark the permalink.

Your Health or Your Job?

For too many American workers, the choice between their health and their job is one they are forced to face every time they or a family member gets sick. That's because nearly half of all private-sector workers in this country -- millions of Americans -- don't have the right to earn paid sick days. Fortunately, we can help change that, just asthe city council of Seattle did for Seattle residents this month.

Urge your representative to keep America's working families healthy and economically secure by cosponsoring the Healthy Families Act (S.984/H.R. 1876).

The Healthy Families Act would provide full-time employees the right to earn seven paid sick days a year to be used for their own medical needs or to tend to the medical needs of a family member. It would also allow workers to use paid sick time to recover from or seek assistance related to an incidence of domestic violence, stalking, or sexual assault. Part-time employees would earn a pro-rated share of paid sick days.

A 2009 study found that 163 countries worldwide -- including 14 of the world's 15 most economically competitive countries -- guarantee workers' right to earn paid sick days. In these tough economic times, the decision to stay home sick without pay is a very difficult one. And if your job and your economic security are on the line, it's a risk many workers can’t afford to take.

Take Action!

Urge your representative to cosponsor the Healthy Families Act (S.984/H.R. 1876).Simply click on the "Take Action" link in the upper right corner or visit AAUW's Two-Minute Activist page. Then follow the instructions to compose and send your message.

Want to do more to support earned sick days? Download AAUW’s resource kit now.

Remember: You can always help strengthen AAUW's efforts to support earned sick days by making a tax-deductible donation to AAUW’s Public Policy Fund!

Double your impact! Tweet, Facebook, and forward this action alert to friends and family.

Follow AAUW on Twitter, and read our award-winning AAUW Dialog Blog for discussion, information, and advocacy for women and girls! 

General AAUW questions? Please contact connect@aauw.org or call 800/326-2289 between 10 am and 5 pm Eastern, Monday through Friday.

Defend Planned Parenthood (Again)

A message from CREDO Action: The extreme anti-choice members of Congress have launched yet another all-out attack on Planned Parenthood.


This time, Congressman Cliff Stearns, as Chairman of a House oversight committee, has initiated a massive investigation into the activities of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates based on the blatantly incorrect assertion by rightwing activists that Planned Parenthood misuses federal funds to pay for abortion services.¹

Reps. Henry Waxman and Dianna DeGette have written a letter to Rep. Stearns, asking him to stop the investigation of Planned Parenthood and accusing him of using this investigation to further his vendetta against Planned Parenthood. This investigation is nothing more than a backdoor tactic to shut clinics down by harassing the organization and creating a significant drain on its management and resources.

Tell Rep. Stearns to stop abusing his position of authority to launch a backdoor attack to shut down Planned Parenthood. Join Reps. Waxman and DeGette in calling for an end to this politically motivated and completely baseless investigation. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Recent attacks on Planned Parenthood by rightwing extremists in Congress have failed — the Senate blocked both attempts by the House of Representatives to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding. They didn't have the votes to defund Planned Parenthood. So now the anti-choice members of the House think they have found another way to wage war against women and Planned Parenthood.

In their letter to Rep. Stearns, Reps. Waxman and DeGette assert that this investigation appears to be "designed to harass and shut down an organization simply because Republicans disagree with the work that it does" and that Rep. Stearns's "fervent ideological opposition to Planned Parenthood does not justify launching this intrusive investigation."²

It's clear that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates have not broken the law. The Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General along with state Medicaid programs already audit Planned Parenthood. These audits have not revealed any pattern of behavior that would warrant Congressional investigation, let alone one of the scope that Rep. Stearns has called for, which is particularly onerous. As the Huffington Post notes, "Stearns gave Planned Parenthood and its 83 affiliates two weeks to provide a full 12 years of audit reports and other documentation."³

Anti-choice members of Congress are using this investigation as another tool in their crusade against Planned Parenthood. If they can't defund the organization, they want to tie up its staff and resources in a politically motivated investigation. We can't let them win.

Tell Rep. Stearns to stop abusing his position of authority to launch a backdoor attack to shut down Planned Parenthood. Join Reps. Waxman and DeGette in calling for an end to this politically motivated and completely baseless investigation. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Planned Parenthood provides an invaluable service by providing family planning and other vital health care services to women. One in five women in the U.S. have visited a Planned Parenthood clinic at some point in her lifetime. We must stand up against this politically motivated attack on Planned Parenthood to ensure that, once again, the anti-woman forces in Congress fail in their attempt to shut down Planned Parenthood.

Thank you for speaking out.

Becky Bond, Political Director
Ali Rozell, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. "Planned Parenthood Investigation Is An Abuse Of Government Resources, Democrats Charge ," Laura Bassett, Huffington Post, 09-27-2011.
2. "Ranking Members Waxman and DeGette Urge Chairman Stearns to Reconsider Planned Parenthood Investigation," Reps. Henry Waxman and Diana DeGette, 09-27-2011.
3. "Planned Parenthood Investigation Is An Abuse Of Government Resources, Democrats Charge ," Laura Bassett, Huffington Post, 09-27-2011. 

Ohio's Job-Killing Bill

A message from Democracy for America:

The only thing TV pundits can talk about is who's up and who's down coming out of the latest Republican presidential debate. But there's an important election happening this year in Ohio and it's only a little over one month away.


Here's the deal: Ohio Governor John Kasich -- just like Scott Walker in Wisconsin -- pushed through a law to severely cut the rights of workers to negotiate their own contracts. It's a job killing bill that will cost public employees like firefighters, teachers and cops their healthcare benefits and pay raises so Republicans can give more tax breaks to the super rich and corporations.


While nationally we were focused on Wisconsin, the people of Ohio -- including many DFA members -- fought back. Over one million voters signed a petition to repeal the law, putting it up for a statewide referendum this November. Now they need our national movement to back them up.


We've put together an aggressive campaign to mobilize over 75,000 DFA volunteers in Ohio. We'll educate voters, identify supporters, and get out the vote this November to defeat the Job Killing Issue 2. We're ready to hit the ground running on October 5 -- going non-stop until Election Day -- but we can't make the plan happen without the resources we need to win.


Please contribute $10 right now to deliver the resources to win.


Our people-powered campaign will be modeled after the massive campaign you helped us build in Wisconsin this summer -- putting staff on the ground to organize volunteers, canvass door-to-door and make phone calls.


Big corporate interests are going to pour money into this referendum, just like they did in Wisconsin. Mother Jones reported that the Koch brothers are holding secret million-dollar donor clubs for their super rich right-wing friends to finance "the mother of all wars" against progressives.


Right-wingers are going all-in in Ohio and we're ready to do the same -- go head to head -- and beat them.


Contribute $10 now to fuel our campaign to win in Ohio.
This fight is this year. It's happening right now. We will win in Ohio and beat back another out-of-control Republican Governor, because you stood up today and helped fuel the campaign.


Thank you for everything you're doing to win.


Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.

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