ccdem.org - Coconino County Democrats

Saving American Democracy Amendment

Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment that would overturn the Supreme Court decision in a case called Citizens United vs. FEC.

The Saving American Democracy Amendment states that:

Corporations are not persons with constitutional rights equal to real people.
Corporations are subject to regulation by the people.
Corporations may not make campaign contributions or any election expenditures.
Congress and states have the power to regulate campaign finances.

You can sign the petition here!

Fred Eder Letter

Dear Senator McCain,

My name is Fred Eder. I just left you a voice mail, but I wanted to take the time to make my case a bit more clearly.

My mother is nearly 81 years old. She spent her life as a public school teacher. She helped raise not only my brother, my sister, and me, but also 52 foster children over the course of her lifetime. She has never been wealthy, but she has lived a life of which anyone would be proud.

While you are protecting the wealthy, who will always, regardless of what new taxes may be imposed on them, be able to make next month’s rent and health insurance payments, your failure to reach a deal that will ensure her social security check keeps coming will destroy my mother.

She lives off of the $1,284 she gets monthly from the Social Security into which she has paid all of her adult life. $531 of that goes to pay Blue Cross, so that she has some sort of health insurance. At her age it's not a question of if, but when, she will get sick and need that, so she can't just drop that bill. The remainder of her money goes to buying groceries and paying the few bills she can afford to pay.

When my father died in October, 2009, she also got some life insurance. She had $22,000 from that, but, since she makes so little money, she is left with only $6,000. When that is gone, she will have no more money.

My mother moved in with me when she could no longer afford to live alone. I'm a public school teacher, and, as Arizona is among the lowest paid states to be a teacher, I make well less than $50,000 a year. I supplement my income by teaching Defensive Driving on weekends.

So far, mom and I have made it. We have not asked the government to help us. We don't want to have to use food stamps or any other form of welfare. We have always paid our own way, and we would like to go on doing that.

If, however, she doesn't get her check next month, we will be unable to pay everything. Perhaps we can start by giving up cable TV, though our contract with them would cost us several hundred dollars to discontinue. We might also consider moving out of the modest home we rent and try to find something cheaper. But, if you've been in Phoenix, you know there are any number of neighborhoods which, while they are less expensive, are, in fact, very dangerous places to live.

I don't think we're being unreasonable to ask you to think of those in need before thinking of those who are wealthy. I understand that in order to keep your office you need the funding provided by the wealthiest Americans. I know that we will never be among those, and, therefore, what we have to say carries little weight. If we can't make it, it really isn't your problem.

Bob Schieffer said it very well on Face The Nation this Sunday:

"It has taken a while but we have finally done it. We have created a Congress incapable of doing what it was supposed to do, and that is improve the lives of its citizens...

"Today, compromise is no longer seen as a virtue but as selling out; and political courage ... well, it's given way to schemes to raise the money needed for the next election.

“So we keep asking, is the system broken? The short answer is yes.

“The larger question: Can it be repaired? Not without a large injection of political courage.

“Right now, I don't see very much of that."

I would like to ask you to show that you really do have political courage. I would like to ask you to do what is morally, if not politically, correct. I would like you to compromise. I would like you to help my mother and me continue our modest lives.

I thank you for your attention.

Respectfully,

Fred Eder

Is it any wonder?

My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters

My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters
Hit bankers where it hurts
By Matt Taibbi
October 12, 2011
Rolling Stone

I've been down to "Occupy Wall Street" twice now, and I love it. The protests building at Liberty Square and spreading over Lower Manhattan are a great thing, the logical answer to the Tea Party and a long-overdue middle finger to the financial elite. The protesters picked the right target and, through their refusal to disband after just one day, the right tactic, showing the public at large that the movement against Wall Street has stamina, resolve and growing popular appeal.

But... there's a but. And for me this is a deeply personal thing, because this issue of how to combat Wall Street corruption has consumed my life for years now, and it's hard for me not to see where Occupy Wall Street could be better and more dangerous. I'm guessing, for instance, that the banks were secretly thrilled in the early going of the protests, sure they'd won round one of the messaging war.

Why? Because after a decade of unparalleled thievery and corruption, with tens of millions entering the ranks of the hungry thanks to artificially inflated commodity prices, and millions more displaced from their homes by corruption in the mortgage markets, the headline from the first week of protests against the financial-services sector was an old cop macing a quartet of college girls.

That, to me, speaks volumes about the primary challenge of opposing the 50-headed hydra of Wall Street corruption, which is that it's extremely difficult to explain the crimes of the modern financial elite in a simple visual. The essence of this particular sort of oligarchic power is its complexity and day-to-day invisibility: Its worst crimes, from bribery and insider trading and market manipulation, to backroom dominance of government and the usurping of the regulatory structure from within, simply can't be seen by the public or put on TV. There just isn't going to be an iconic "Running Girl" photo with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup or Bank of America - just 62 million Americans with zero or negative net worth, scratching their heads and wondering where the hell all their money went and why their votes seem to count less and less each and every year.

No matter what, I'll be supporting Occupy Wall Street. And I think the movement's basic strategy - to build numbers and stay in the fight, rather than tying itself to any particular set of principles - makes a lot of sense early on. But the time is rapidly approaching when the movement is going to have to offer concrete solutions to the problems posed by Wall Street. To do that, it will need a short but powerful list of demands. There are thousands one could make, but I'd suggest focusing on five:

1. Break up the monopolies. The so-called "Too Big to Fail" financial companies - now sometimes called by the more accurate term "Systemically Dangerous Institutions" - are a direct threat to national security. They are above the law and above market consequence, making them more dangerous and unaccountable than a thousand mafias combined. There are about 20 such firms in America, and they need to be dismantled; a good start would be to repeal the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and mandate the separation of insurance companies, investment banks and commercial banks.

2. Pay for your own bailouts. A tax of 0.1 percent on all trades of stocks and bonds and a 0.01 percent tax on all trades of derivatives would generate enough revenue to pay us back for the bailouts, and still have plenty left over to fight the deficits the banks claim to be so worried about. It would also deter the endless chase for instant profits through computerized insider-trading schemes like High Frequency Trading, and force Wall Street to go back to the job it's supposed to be doing, i.e., making sober investments in job-creating businesses and watching them grow.

3. No public money for private lobbying. A company that receives a public bailout should not be allowed to use the taxpayer's own money to lobby against him. You can either suck on the public teat or influence the next presidential race, but you can't do both. Butt out for once and let the people choose the next president and Congress.

4. Tax hedge-fund gamblers. For starters, we need an immediate repeal of the preposterous and indefensible carried-interest tax break, which allows hedge-fund titans like Stevie Cohen and John Paulson to pay taxes of only 15 percent on their billions in gambling income, while ordinary Americans pay twice that for teaching kids and putting out fires. I defy any politician to stand up and defend that loophole during an election year.

5. Change the way bankers get paid. We need new laws preventing Wall Street executives from getting bonuses upfront for deals that might blow up in all of our faces later. It should be: You make a deal today, you get company stock you can redeem two or three years from now. That forces everyone to be invested in his own company's long-term health - no more Joe Cassanos pocketing multimillion-dollar bonuses for destroying the AIGs of the world.

To quote the immortal political philosopher Matt Damon from Rounders, "The key to No Limit poker is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." The only reason the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the world survive is that they're never forced, by the media or anyone else, to put all their cards on the table. If Occupy Wall Street can do that - if it can speak to the millions of people the banks have driven into foreclosure and joblessness - it has a chance to build a massive grassroots movement. All it has to do is light a match in the right place, and the overwhelming public support for real reform - not later, but right now - will be there in an instant.

“Mexican American History: A Patriotic History”

By Salomón Baldenegro, Sr.

Originally published in Latinovations "La Plaza"

In Tea Party Republican Arizona, teaching Mexican American history is illegal because that history is purportedly “un-American” and foments the “overthrow of the government.”

The shamelessness of people who rally under the Confederate flag-a flag of treason, whose adherents renounced their U.S. citizenship, declared war on our country, and actually tried to overthrow our government!-claiming our history is “un-American” is breathtaking.

Let’s look at a few instructive snippets from scholars regarding this “subversive,” “un-American” history:

Carole Christian documents how during WW I Mexican Americans enlisted in great numbers, urged on by Spanish-language newspapers that reported the “courage and sacrifice, sometimes of their lives,” of these soldiers.

Raúl Morín describes the immense contributions and bravery of Mexican Americans during World War II and inKorea. One chapter details how “Company E, the All-Chicano Company,” whose members won many medals for bravery, was instrumental in winning several major battles.

John Culhane writes of the courageous WW II-Korea exploits of 57 Mexican American young men who lived onSecond Street(“Hero Street”) inSilvis,Illinois, many of whom lost their lives and were awarded medals for bravery. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, this constituted “...the largest number of servicemen from the same ethnic group to come from any area of comparable size during these conflicts.”

Ricardo Santillán’s “Rosita the Riveter” describes the contributions of Mexican American women who operated the factories, manufacturing ammunition and other war materiel during WW II.

Christine Marín wrote about the Asociación de Madres y Esposas (Association of Mothers and Wives) who developed a network of “VictoryGardens” so that the country’s harvest could go to feed the troops, sold war bonds, collected and sold scrap metal, and picked cotton, donating the proceeds to the WW II war effort.

Ralph Guzmán memorialized how Mexican Americans from southwestern states were 19.4% of Vietnam War fatalities but comprised only 10% of the population in those states.

Proportionately, Mexican Americans surpass all other ethnic groups with respect to the number of Congressional Medals of Honor earned for valor in combat.

After WW II, these patriotic men and women encountered “No Mexicans Allowed” signs in public places. Robert Oppenheimer describes a typical incident of a Mexican American WW II veteran, in his medal-decorated uniform, who was refused service in a restaurant. “White” cemeteries refused to bury Mexican American veterans.

Compare the decency of these patriots to the racism they faced: In Silvis, the home of Hero Street, Mexican American WW II veterans were not allowed to join the whites-only VFW chapter, but when the “white” VFW building was later razed and the members had no place to meet, the Mexican American chapter welcomed the displaced members to their chapter.

It is a perversion and a libel of monumental proportions to categorize the history detailed above-and similar historical dynamics regarding the immense economic, labor, cultural, political, educational, social, civil-rights, etc., contributions of Mexican Americans to our country-as “illegal” and “un-American.” Especially by people who rally under the treasonous Confederate flag.