Monday, October 24, 2016
SRSrocco Report Interview with Louis Arnoux (October 20, 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gJcfjyFpA
Malcolm X Perfectly Explains Why Hillary Voters Are Repeating History's Mistakes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eofJagcbyUI
Prospect of US Arm Shipments to Ukraine After Elections Prompts Restarting of Peace Negotiations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xthDqDkggeQ&list=TLGCcICFpQhxdtQyMzEwMjAxNg
Free Thinking
Slavoj Zizek is in conversation with Philip Dodd. The title of the latest book from the Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic and Marxist scholar is 'Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours'.
Producer: Laura Thomas
Sunday, October 23, 2016
American Indians Shot by Police
The Police Killings No One Is
Talking About
By Stephanie Woodard
SUQUAMISH TRIBE DESCENDANT JEANETTA RILEY, A
34-YEAR-OLD MOTHER OF FOUR, LAY FACEDOWN ON A SANDPOINT, IDAHO, STREET. One
minute earlier, three police officers had arrived, summoned by staff at a
nearby hospital. Her husband had sought help there because Riley—homeless,
pregnant and with a history of mental illness—was threatening suicide. Riley
had a knife in her right hand and was sitting in the couple’s parked van.
Wearing body armor and armed
with an assault rifle and Glock pistols, the officers quickly closed in on
Riley—one moving down the sidewalk toward the van, the other two crossing the
roadway. They shouted instructions at her—to walk toward them, show them her
hands. Cursing them, she refused.
“Drop the knife!” they yelled,
advancing, then opened fire.
They pumped two shots into her
chest and another into her back as she fell to the pavement. Fifteen seconds
had elapsed from the time they exited their vehicles.
That July evening in 2014,
Riley became another Native American killed by police. Patchy government data
collection makes it hard to know the complete tally. The Washington Post and
the Guardian (U.K.) have both developed databases to fill in the gaps, but even
these sometimes misidentify or omit Native victims.
To get a clearer picture, Mike
Males, senior researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, looked
at data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected from
medical examiners in 47 states between 1999 and 2011. When compared to their
percentage of the U.S. population, Natives were more likely to be killed by
police than any other group, including African Americans. By age, Natives
20-24, 25-34 and 35–44 were three of the five groups most likely to be killed
by police. (The other two groups were African Americans 20-24 and 25-34.)
Males’ analysis of CDC data from 1999 to 2014 shows that Native Americans are
3.1 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans.
Yet these killings of Native
people go almost entirely unreported by mainstream U.S. media. In a paper
presented in April at a Western Social Science Association meeting, Claremont
Graduate University researchers Roger Chin, Jean Schroedel and Lily Rowen
reviewed articles about deaths-by-cop published between May 1, 2014, and
October 31, 2015, in the top 10 U.S. newspapers by circulation: the Wall
Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily
News, New York Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Denver Post, Washington Post and Chicago
Tribune.
Of the 29 Native Americans
killed by police during that time, only one received sustained coverage—Paul
Castaway, a Rosebud Sioux man shot dead in Denver while threatening suicide.
The Denver Post ran six articles, totaling 2,577 words. The killing of
Suquamish tribal member Daniel Covarrubias, shot when he reached for his cell
phone, received a total of 515 words in the Washington Post and the New
York Times (which misidentified him as Latino). The other 27 deaths
received no coverage.
Compare this media blackout
with the coverage of the next-most-likely group to be killed by police. The
researchers found that the 10 papers devoted hundreds of articles to the 413
African Americans killed by police in that period, as well as to Black Lives
Matter (BLM) protests and police violence more broadly. That’s largely a
testament to the power of the BLM movement, which exploded after the Aug. 9,
2014 killing of Michael Brown. When Minneapolis police killed both White Earth
Ojibwe tribal member Philip Quinn, 30, and African-American Jamar Clark, 24,
during the fall of 2015, Clark’s story was well-reported, while Quinn’s
passing, like those of almost all other Native victims, was barely noted.
Nor did major media report on
a spate of Native jailhouse deaths in 2015. The statistics on “death by legal
intervention”—a term used by the CDC to describe fatalities at the hands of
police—include those that occur in custody prior to sentencing. Whether the
deaths are due to police action or neglect, the department is considered
accountable. “When people are in custody, law enforcement has control of them
and a responsibility for their welfare,” Males explains.
A report commissioned by
Alaska’s Gov. Bill Walker found that Joseph Murphy, an Alaska Native veteran of
the Iraq War, died of a heart attack in a holding cell in Juneau in August
2015, as jail staff yelled “fuck you” and “I don’t care” in response to his
pleas. According to the report, Larry Kobuk, identified in news articles as a
33-year-old Alaska Native, who had a heart condition known to his jailers, died
in January 2015 while being held face down by four officers. Sarah Lee Circle
Bear, a 24-year-old Sioux mother of two jailed in South Dakota, died after
reportedly complaining of pain and being refused medical care. (At the
Democratic National Convention, Sandra Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, who
has become a vocal activist in the movement for black lives, pointed out that
Circle Bear’s death occurred during the same month her daughter died in police
custody—July 2015.)
Washington’s New Lock-Step March of Folly
October 22, 2016
Exclusive: Confident in a
Hillary Clinton victory, Washington’s foreign policy elite is readying plans
for more warfare in Syria and more confrontations with nuclear-armed Russia, an
across-the-spectrum “group think” that risks life on the planet, says Robert
Parry.
By Robert Parry
As polls show Hillary Clinton
closing in on victory, Official Washington’s neoconservative (and liberal-hawk)
foreign policy establishment is rubbing its hands in anticipation of more war
and more strife, including a U.S. military escalation in Syria, a take-down
of Iran, and a showdown with nuclear-armed Russia.
What is perhaps most alarming
about this new “group think” is that there doesn’t appear to be any significant
resistance to the expectation that President Hillary Clinton will unleash these
neocon/liberal-hawk forces of intervention that President Barack Obama has
somewhat restrained.
Assuming Donald Trump’s defeat
– increasingly seen as a foregone conclusion – the Republican leadership would
mostly be in sync with Clinton if she adopts a hawkish foreign policy similar
to what was pursued by President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, most Democrats
would be hesitant to challenge their party’s new president.
The only potential option to
constrain the hawkish Clinton would be the emergence of a “peace” wing of the
Democratic Party, possibly aligned with Republican anti-interventionists. But
that possibility remains problematic especially since those two political
elements have major policy disagreements on a wide variety of other topics.
There also isn’t an obvious
individual for the peace factions to organize around. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who
mildly criticized Clinton’s advocacy of “regime change” operations during the
primary campaign, is 75 years old and isn’t particularly known for his
stands on foreign policy issues.
If Trump loses, the bombastic
real-estate mogul would likely be a spent political force, possibly retreating
into the paranoid “alt-right” world of conspiracy theories. Even now, his
dovish objection to confronting Russia has been undermined by his tendency to
speak carelessly about other national security topics, such as torture,
terrorism and nuclear weapons.
One potential leader of a
peace movement would be Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, a 35-year-old military
veteran who is one of the few members of Congress to offer an insightful and
courageous critique of the dangers from an interventionist foreign policy. But
Gabbard would be putting her promising political career at risk if she
challenged a sitting Democratic president, especially early in Clinton’s White
House term.
Yet, without a modern-day
Eugene McCarthy (the anti-Vietnam War Democrat who took on President Lyndon
Johnson in 1968) to rally an anti-war movement from inside the Democratic
Party, it is hard to imagine how significant political pressure could be put on
a President Hillary Clinton. Virtually the entire mainstream U.S. media (and
much of the progressive media) are onboard for a U.S. “regime change” operation
in Syria and for getting tough with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Not Thought Through
These “group thinks” on Syria
and Russia, like previous ones on Iraq and Libya, have not been thought
through, but are driven instead by emotional appeals – photos of wounded
children in Syria and animosity toward Putin for not wearing a shirt and not
bowing to U.S. global supremacy. As with Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, there
is little consideration about what might follow a successful “regime change”
scenario in Syria or Russia.
In Syria, a “no-fly zone”
destroying Syria’s air force and air defenses could pave the way for a victory
by Al Qaeda’s recently renamed Nusra Front and/or Al Qaeda’s spinoff, the
Islamic State. How letting major terrorist groups control Damascus would be
good for either the Syrian people or the United States gets barely mentioned.
The dreamy thinking is that
somehow the hard-to-find “moderate” rebels – sometimes called the “unicorns” –
would prevail, even though they have existed mostly as cut-outs and conduits so
Al Qaeda and its allies can secure advanced U.S. weapons to use for killing
Syrian soldiers.
Yet, even more dangerous is
the already-launched destabilization campaign against nuclear-armed
Russia, a policy that may feel-good because we’re taught to despise Vladimir
Putin. But this latest neocon/liberal-hawk “regime change” scheme — even if it
somehow were “successful” — is not likely to install in the Kremlin one of the
U.S.-favored “liberals” who would allow the resumption of the 1990s-era
plundering of Russia’s wealth.
Far more likely, an angry
Russian population would go for a much-harder-line nationalist than Putin,
someone who might see nuclear weapons as the only way to protect Mother Russia
from another raping by the West. It’s not the cold-blooded Putin who should
scare Americans, but the hot-headed guy next in line.
But none of these downsides –
not even the existential downside of nuclear annihilation – is allowed to be
discussed among Official Washington’s foreign policy elites. It’s all about
giving Bashar al-Assad the “Gaddafi treatment” in Syria, punishing Iran even if
that might cause its leaders to renounce the nuclear-arms agreement, and
muscling NATO forces up to Russia’s borders and making the Russian economy
scream.
And, behind these policies are
some of the most skilled propagandists in the world. They are playing much of
the U.S. population – and surely the U.S. media – like a fiddle.
Lock-Step Consensus
The propaganda campaign is
driven by a consensus among the major think tanks of Official Washington,
where there is near universal support for Hillary Clinton, not because they all
particularly like her, but because she has signaled a return to
neocon/liberal-hawk strategies.
As Greg Jaffe wrote for
the neocon-dominated Washington Post on Friday, “In the rarefied world of the
Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama’s departure from the
White House — and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish
Hillary Clinton — is being met with quiet relief.
“The Republicans and Democrats
who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more
assertive American foreign policy, via a flurry of reports shaped by officials
who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
“It is not unusual for
Washington’s establishment to launch major studies in the final months of an
administration to correct the perceived mistakes of a president or influence
his successor. But the bipartisan nature of the recent recommendations, coming
at a time when the country has never been more polarized, reflects a remarkable
consensus among the foreign policy elite.
“This consensus is driven by a
broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the
dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East.
… Taken together, the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American
action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia
in Europe.”
One of the lead organizations
revving up these military adventures and also counting on a big boost in
military spending under President Clinton-45 is the Atlantic Council, a think
tank associated with NATO that has been pushing for a major confrontation with
nuclear-armed Russia.
Jaffe quotes former Secretary
of State Madeleine Albright, who is leading the Atlantic Council’s bipartisan
Mideast team as saying about Syria: “The immediate thing is to do something to
alleviate the horrors that are being visited on the population. … We do think
there needs to be more American action — not ground forces but some additional
help in terms of the military aspect.” (This is same “humanitarian” Albright
who – in responding to a United Nations report that U.S. economic sanctions on
Iraq in the 1990s had killed a half million Iraqi children – coldly said, “we
think the price is worth it.”)
One of Albright’s partners on
the Atlantic Council’s report, Bush’s last National Security Advisor Stephen
Hadley, added that if Assad continues to bomb civilians, the United States
should strongly consider “using standoff weapons, like cruise missiles, to
neutralize his air force so that he cannot fly.”
The plans call for “safe
zones” where Syrian rebels can base themselves behind U.S. military protection,
allowing them to strike Syrian government forces but preventing the Syrian
government from striking back. Little attention is paid to the fact that the
so-called “moderate” rebels have refused to separate themselves from Al Qaeda’s
forces who are in command of the rebel movement in east Aleppo and other urban
areas.
As journalist/historian Gareth
Porter has written:
“Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United
States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed
anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces [of Idlib and Aleppo] is
engaged in a military structure controlled by [Al Qaeda’s] Nusra militants. All
of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their
military activities with it. …
“At least since 2014 the Obama
administration has armed a number of Syrian rebel groups even though it knew
the groups were coordinating closely with the Nusra Front, which was
simultaneously getting arms from Turkey and Qatar.”
Ignoring the Masses
It also doesn’t seem to matter
to these elites that many American commoners are fed up with these costly and bloody
“regime change” schemes. As Hadley told the Post’s Jaffe, “Everyone has kind of
given up on the Middle East. We have been at it for 15 years, and a lot of
Americans think it is hopeless. … We think it is not.”
But it is not just the
Republican neocons and old Democratic hawks who are determined to whip the
American people into line behind more war. As Jaffe wrote, “A similar sentiment
animates the left-leaning Center for American Progress’s report, which calls
for more military action to counter Iranian aggression, more dialogue with the
United States’ Arab allies and more support for economic and human rights
reform in the region.”
These “liberal hawks” are
enthused that now almost the entire foreign policy elite of Official Washington
is singing from the same sheet of martial music. There is none of the discord
that surrounded Bush’s war in Iraq last decade.
As Brian Katulis, a senior
Middle East analyst at the Center for American Progress, said, “The dynamic is
totally different from what I saw a decade ago.” He added that the current
focus from all sides is on rebuilding a more muscular and more “centrist
internationalism.”
In other words, the Iraq War
“group think” that enveloped Official Washington before that catastrophe wasn’t
total enough. Now, there is almost a totalitarian feel about the way the
foreign policy elites, coordinating with the major U.S. news media, are marching
the American people toward possibly even worse disasters.
No serious dissent is allowed;
no contrarian thoughts expressed; no thinking through where the schemes might
end up – unless you want to be marginalized as an Assad “apologist” or a Putin
“puppet.” And right now, there doesn’t seem to be any practical way to stop
this new march of folly.
Investigative reporter Robert
Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and
Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen
Narrative, either in print
here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
As Election Day Nears, Military Hawks Circle to Promote New Wave of War
A slew of bipartisan reports
are hoping to push the former secretary of state to increased military action
in the Middle East, particularly Syria
"D.C. foreign policy
elite are giddy that hawkish Barack Obama will be replaced by much more hawkish
Hillary Clinton."
—Zaid Jilani, The Intercept
—Zaid Jilani, The Intercept
Though the hawkish stance of
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has been too often ignored this
election season, new
reporting on Thursday highlights how her presumed win in November will
likely usher in a more aggressive, bipartisan foreign policy in the Middle East
and beyond.
"The Republicans and
Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a
more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by
officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White
House," the Washington Post's White House correspondent Greg Jaffe
reports.
One such study, published Wednesday
by the Center for American Progress (CAP)—which is run by president Neera
Tanden, policy director for Clinton's presidential campaign—recommends the next
administration step up its "military engagement" amid a more
"proactive and long-term approach to the Middle East."
This includes, among other
things: building "on the Obama administration's campaign to defeat the
Islamic State and Al Qaeda militarily by deepening multilateral cooperation
with regional partners and taking steps to help create a regional security framework;"
as well as being "prepared to use airpower to protect U.S. partners and
civilians in certain parts of Syria."
The latter recommendation is
seemingly a direct regurgitation of Clinton's repeated
call for a "no-fly zone" in that region—one she reiterated during
Wednesday's presidential debate.
Jaffe also highlights an
upcoming report by the Brookings Institution, due out in December, which has
been produced by a "team of top former Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administration officials," as well as one authored by a bipartisan
group led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on behalf of
the Atlantic Council.
"Taken together,"
Jaffe reports, "the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American
action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia
in Europe. The studies, which reflect Clinton's stated views and the direction
she is likely to take if she is elected, break most forcefully with Obama on
Syria."
"Virtually all these
efforts," he continues, "call for stepped up military action to deter
President Bashar al-Assad's regime and Russian forces in Syria."
Jaffe further notes that
"in the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment,
President Obama's departure from the White House—and the possible return of a
more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton—is being met with quiet
relief."
Or, as The Intercept journalist
Zaid Jilani put it,
"D.C. foreign policy elite are giddy that hawkish Barack Obama will be
replaced by much more hawkish Hillary Clinton."
Indeed, Jaffe's attempt to
paint Obama as "doveish" was ridiculed by journalist Glenn Greenwald
and others who have worked to highlight the president's ongoing secret drone
war and military operations across the Middle East and Africa.
Jaffe writes that "[t]he
disagreement over Syria policy reflects a broader rift between the Obama White
House and the foreign policy establishment," of which Clinton is a
member.
The reporting comes in the
final weeks of the presidential campaign, during which Obama has campaigned
aggressively on behalf Clinton, turning his back on any of these tensions. But
Jaffe quotes a "senior administration official who is involved in Middle
East policy" who said of the call for a no-fly zone: "You can't
pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the
Russians."
To which Greenwald and Jilani
quipped:
Obamas administration is cautioning
Hillary Clinton is risking war with Russia, behind anonymous quotes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/washington-foreign-policy-elites-not-sorry-to-see-obama-go/2016/10/20/bd2334a2-9228-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html?postshare=771476985034353&tid=ss_tw …pic.twitter.com/mADdicyKNy
You're ruining all the nice
feelings by bringing up stuff like this. https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/789178926660583425 …
Bernie Sanders Raises $2 Million in Two Days for Downticket Democrats
Showing Strength of 'Political
Revolution,' Sanders Raises $2M in Two Days for Downticket Dems
House Speaker Paul Ryan
unintentionally galvanized the left with threat of "a guy named Bernie
Sanders" taking over the Senate Budget Committee
Though he may not have won the
presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders has again demonstrated the power
of his influence, raising nearly
$2 million in just two days for down-ticket
Democrats hoping to carry the mantle of his "political
revolution" into Congress come November.
As of late Thursday, emails to
Sanders' donor list brought in a whopping $1.88 million for 13 progressive
candidates for the House and Senate.
An aide told reporters the one
of the biggest beneficiaries of Sanders' fundraising efforts was Deborah Ross,
the Democratic nominee challenging Republican Sen. Richard Burr in North
Carolina. Her campaign took in an estimated $300,000 after Sanders sent an
email declaring that contest "one of the most important Senate
races," and describing Ross as an enemy of the Koch brothers—who have
poured millions into that fight—and a champion for working families.
Further galvanizing the left
were comments made by GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan, who told young conservatives
last week: "If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the
Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of
him?"
And while the warning was
meant to stir Republicans to action, instead, it ignited a flurry of excitement
among Sanders supporters, thrilled at the possibility that the progressive
darling may gain control over the budget.
"The prospect of Bernie
Sanders writing budgets and setting national priorities is, well,
'awesome,'" wrote The
Nation's John Nichols.
Predictably, Sanders and his
team had a field day with Ryan's remarks.
[IMAGE]
In an email to supporters late
Wednesday, Sanders laid out his plan for changing the political landscape and
advancing "the most progressive agenda of any party in American
history."
"Consider for a moment
the power that exists in the U.S. Senate," he explained. "Right now,
the Republican majority is using their power to block any meaningful action on
addressing income inequality or climate change."
"With a Democratic
majority, we can change all of that," Sanders continued. "What Paul
Ryan is specifically afraid of is the power of the budget committee. That
committee defines the spending priorities of the entire government. The work of
that committee says how much revenue the government should have, and where its
money should go. I have some thoughts on how the government should allocate its
spending. I'm sure you do, too."
Contributions made
directly to the Sanders campaign offshoot Our Revolution are evenly
divided between: Ross, New York's Zephyr Teachout,Russ
Feingold in Wisconsin, Catherine
Cortez-Masto in Nevada, New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, Katie McGinty in
Pennsylvania, Michigan'sPaul Clements,
Standing Rock Sioux tribal member and North Dakota Congressional candidate Chase Iron Eyes, Minnesota
incumbent Rep. Rick Nolan, Nanette Barragán in California,
Washington state's Pramila
Jayapal,Morgan Carroll in
Colorado, and Wisconsin's Tom
Nelson.
While the national media
spotlight has remained on the presidential contest, Ryan's threats have
unintentionally given renewed vigor to the movement to #FlipTheSenate and #TurnCongressBlue.
Naomi Klein and Glenn Greenwald Discss Ethics of WikiLeaks' Podesta Emails
'There's debate, even among
people who believe in radical transparency, over the proper way to handle
information like this'
A discussion between The
Intercept's Glenn Greenwald and author and activist Naomi Klein tackled thorny
privacy issues surrounding WikiLeaks' indiscriminate release of
John Podesta's hacked emails in
a 30-minute
discussion published by The Intercept late Wednesday.
The Intercept has covered
the release of thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in
depth, from exploring Clinton's
speeches to Wall Street to examining the
Clinton campaign's inner workings, and Greenwald had previously described the
decision to cover the emails as "an easy call."
But Klein wondered whether The
Intercept might be betraying some of its core principals—most prominently, its
privacy advocacy—by not taking note of the moral issues raised by such
indiscriminate email dumps.
"Personal emails—and
there's all kinds of personal stuff in these emails—this sort of indiscriminate
dump is precisely what Snowden was trying to protect us from," Klein said.
"That's why I wanted to talk with you about it, because I think we need to
continuously reassert that principle."
"Certainly Podesta is a
very powerful person, and he will be more powerful after Hillary Clinton is
elected, if she's elected, and it looks like she will be," Klein added.
"But I'm concerned about
the subjectivity of who gets defined as sufficiently powerful to lose their
privacy because I am absolutely sure there are plenty of people in the world
who believe that you and I are sufficiently powerful to lose our privacy,"
Klein said, "and I come to this as a journalist and author who has used
leaked and declassified documents to do my work."
"But I'm also part of the
climate justice movement, and this is a movement that has come under incredible
amounts of surveillance by oil industry-funded front groups of various kinds.
There are people in the movement now who are being tracked as if they were
political candidates, everywhere they go," Klein continued, referring to
right-wing groups' harassment of
prominent climate activists.
Greenwald noted that WikiLeaks
has radically changed its stance on privacy since its start, moving from
curating leaked material to simply releasing all of it to the public.
"So there's debate, even
among people who believe in radical transparency, over the proper way to handle
information like this," Greenwald said. "I think WikiLeaks more or
less at this point stands alone in believing that these kinds of dumps are
ethically—never mind journalistically—just ethically, as a human being,
justifiable."
Listen to the whole discussion here:
Friday, October 21, 2016
Vivienne Westwood Says She Wouldn’t Vote for Warmonger Hillary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj1vT8IPaKs
TiSA Agreement Leaks Show Corporations Pushing Privatization of Public Services
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVDJ0i33L0Y
Meet the “People’s Action 22”: Candidates Fighting For All Of Us
In the final weeks of a
dispiriting presidential election, hope is on the horizon – and it’s
down-ballot. That’s where you will find more and more everyday people deciding
to challenge neoliberal politics and build a bottom-up movement that fights for
fairness in our economy and democracy for all people.
We are proud to announce the
first slate of progressive candidates endorsed by People’s Action, a national
organization of more than a million people in affiliated groups across 29
states.
The candidates who make up our
“People’s Action 22” will help build on the progressive political revolution
ignited by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
The candidates who make up our
“People’s Action 22” will help build on the progressive political revolution
ignited by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. They are grassroots leaders
committed to fighting for people instead of corporate profits. They have proven
their commitment to racial justice, gender justice, climate justice and
economic justice.
We know this because the
“People’s Action 22” candidates come from out of the justice movement in
America; many of them as leaders within our own organizations. They live in the
real America, not in the corporate boardrooms.
They know what it’s like to
not be able to make ends meet. They understand what it’s like to have to choose
between meals or medicine for your children. They understand what it’s like to
be targeted for police violence because you are black, or to have your family
threatened by deportation.
Each of these candidates
represents the world we believe is possible, one where everyone has what they
need to reach their full potential. With these down-ballot candidates, we have
a start on creating the world as it should be.
The “People’s Action 22” list
includes leaders like:
● Gina Melaragno in Maine, who
was inspired to run for state representative by her own experience with lack of
health care access.
● Pramila Jayapal, a
Washington state senator running for Congress, who founded Hate Free Zone (now
the People’s Action member organization OneAmerica) in response to hate and
discrimination after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
● LaTonya Johnson, running for
state senate in Wisconsin, who owned and operated a child care center for 10
years, caring for Milwaukee’s poorest children and their parents struggling to
cover their basic needs.
Zephyr Teachout of New York, a
candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, was the first executive
director of the Sunlight Foundation, working for transparent government. She
has fought big banks and led the movement against fracking in New York.
They will work to make sure
our democracy is power for those who don’t have it – to hold accountable those
who use their power only to maximize their profits.
Every day, new leaders with
values we share are stepping up and standing out in our communities. People’s
Action is committed to supporting the next generation of progressive leadership
as part of our mission to build a country that works for everyone.
The full slate of the
“People’s Action 22” is below:
Russ Feingold, Wisconsin, U.S.
Senate
Christina Hartman,
Pennsylvania, U.S. House of Representatives District 16
Pramila Jayapal, Washington,
U.S. House of Representatives, District 7
Zephyr Teachout, New York,
U.S. House of Representatives, District 19
Heidi Brooks, Maine, State
House of Representatives District 61
Mari Cordes, Vermont, House of
Representatives, Addison, District 4
Arturo Fierro, New Mexico,
State House of Representatives District 7
Lauren Freedman, Michigan,
Kalamazoo School Board
Kim Foxx, Illinois, Cook
County, State’s Attorney
LaTonya Johnson, Wisconsin,
State Senate District 6
Denise Lopez, Nevada, Sparks
City Council Ward 1
Theresa Mah, Illinois, State
House of Representatives, District 2
Gina Melaragno, Maine, State
House of Representatives District 62
Sara Niccoli, New York, State
Senate, District 46
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota, State
House of Representatives District 60B
Chris Rabb, Pennsylvania,
State House of Representatives District 200
Jamie Raskin, Maryland,
Congressional District 8
Gustavo Rivera, New York,
State Senate District 33
J. Alejandro Urrutia, New
Hampshire, State House of Representatives District Hillsborough 37
Andru Volinsky, New Hampshire,
Executive Council Dist. 2
Mandy Wright, Wisconsin, State
Assembly, District 85
David Zuckerman, Vermont,
Lieutenant Governor
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)