Between the LEAP Manifesto outlined in Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough and Progressive Democrats of America’s People’s Platform, a progressive platform around which we can rally is emerging to hold the Democrats accountable and to galvanize our nation. Seattle has passed a city income tax on incomes over $250K generating $175M a year. Details.
Time to Act
Ranked Choice Voting. Please continue calling your City Councilors about Ranked Choice Voting and plan to be at City Hall at 7pm on Wednesday the 26th to testify. SOS Maggie Toulouse Oliver will be attending to reassure the Council, but we need to be there to vocally advocate. Click here for speaking points, Council contact info and details on RCV.
PNM Rate Hike. They are at it again, trying to make the rate-payer (i.e. you) pay for their misguided, profit-guided, planet destroying policies and investments. Hearings in ABQ July 31 and Santa Fe Aug 7. Click here for details.
Opportunities for Action. Retake has three emerging strategies unfolding:
1) Activist Research Team (meeting tonight 6-8pm at 1420 Cerrillos). This team is researching proven local policies that can foster economic and social justice in Santa Fe and prepare us for local advocacy actions. If you don’t think local initiatives can create change, click here to read how the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to create a 2.5% income tax on the wealthy which will generate $175M annually to fund local affordable housing, public transit, human services and education. Join Activist Research Team as we research options and advocate for change in Santa Fe.
2) Roundhouse Advocacy Team which met Tuesday to begin developing a statewide strategy that includes a prioritized legislative agenda and identifying targeted districts where GOP or Democratic representatives have stalled progressive legislation and where stronger progressive leadership could be elected. The team meets again Aug 1, click here for details; and
3) Community Conversations Canvassing Team. An initial group of canvassers was trained in Deep Canvassing, but we are holding off on that form of canvassing to do more of a deep listening approach that was pilot tested this past weekend and is now ready to go. This team will announce a first day of canvassing when Tom Samuels, the Coordinator, returns from vacation today. We are not going to create change without you participating in one of these three initiatives. Reading is not enough and while we have solid core groups active in each of these initiatives, we need 2-3 times as many and you are who we need. Write to volunteer4retake@gmail.com and let us know which initiative you are interested in.
Incremental Change Is Over: It Is Time To Dream & To Act on that Dream
The extremism we face now and the immediacy of climate change is causing many on the left to abandon pragmatism and incremental change and look for the kinds of solutions that can create the only kind of world that can actually survive another 100 years. Increasingly, these organizations and individuals are connecting the dots across issue silos and drilling down to the fundamental core issues and root causes that have landed us where we are today: greed, the pursuit of profit and treating our planet and our people as disposable resources. These leaders are recognizing that we need to make an abrupt departure from this model to one that is a caretaker of our people and our planet. It is really that simple. No one policy or legislation captures it; it is about a quantum shift in how we measure progress, how we analyze options, and how we construct budgets and expenditure plans. No longer can it be about growth, profit, and the needs of corporations. That has to end and end now. And so, it is time to dream big and discard pragmatism. We have no time for small solutions with problems so huge and immediate. The time is now. And these national visions and strategies need your attention and support, here at home Retake is developing both a state and local strategy, described above with links to more details. What are you waiting for? It is time to devote some time to canvassing, researching or planning and advancing state and local strategies. The ground work has been done, write to volunteer4retake@gmail.com if you want to get active.
Naomi Klein, No Is Not Enough and the LEAP Manifesto
Naomi Klein’s No Is Not Enough is an absolute must read. 272 pages of very readable and convincing writing that leads to an inescapable conclusion: “We can try to fight the global rise of right-wing demagoguery in two possible ways: There’s the establishment option embraced by centrist parties the world over. this promises a little more child care, better representation of women and people of color at the top and maybe a few more solar panels. But this option also comes with the same old austerity logic, the same blind faith in markets, the same equation of endless consumption with happiness, the same Band-Aids on gaping wounds.” She goes on to add: “What for decades was unsayable is now being said out loud by candidates who win millions of votes: free college; double the minimum wage; 100% renewable; demilitarize the police; prisons are no place for young people; refugees are welcome here; war makes us all less safe.”
Based upon these premises, Klein convened dozens of Canadian activists and together they created the LEAP Manifesto, click here to review and to sign the petition. This is a visionary leap into a new world, as she puts it ‘a huge middle finger to neoliberalism and centrist moderation.’ As she asserts throughout the book, accommodation is not getting us where we need to be. This kind of visionary thinking could. And Progressive Democrats of America has created a somewhat more moderate and far more specific US version. Read on.
Progressive Democrats of America–Another No Is Not Enough Manifesto
Some of the biggest names in progressive activism — including Our Revolution, Democracy For America, National Nurses United, Food And Water Watch and more — are coming together for a massive push on congress and the Democratic Party to actually start listening to the people, and supporting progressive legislation. PDA will gather the petitions online, hold a press conference in DC, and then march to the Democratic National Committee offices to deliver them. We’re telling the Democratic Party and members of Congress that it’s time to stand strong for legislation that the majority of the country wants.
Saying “no” isn’t enough. It’s time to say “yes” to the People’s Platform.
- Medicare for All: H.R. 676 Medicare For All Act
- Free College Tuition: H.R. 1880 College for All Act of 2017
- Worker Rights: H.R.15 – Raise the Wage Act
- Women’s Rights: H.R.771 – Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH Woman) Act of 2017
- Voting Rights: H.R. 2840 – Automatic Voter Registration Act
- Environmental Justice: Climate Change Bill – Renewable Energy (More details soon!)
- Criminal Justice and Immigrant Rights: H.R.3543 – Justice is Not For Sale Act of 2017
- Taxing Wall Street: H.R. 1144 – Inclusive Prosperity Act
Apparently some folks are awakening. Certainly, there are issues not addressed in the 8 bills above, but it is a start toward a unifying national agenda. Here in Santa Fe, Retake is developing both a city and state strategy that parallels and aligns with the LEAP Manifesto and the People’s Platform. But we need you. So, please review our strategies outlined at the top of this post and get engaged and active. We need many more of you to get out of your homes and into the game.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
Categories: Actions, Economic justice, Justice, National Politics
At last we get to discuss the Leap Manifesto!
I have already signed onto the Peoples’s Platform but I wish it went further in terms of indigenous rights (hello, Dakota XL pipeline) and renewable energy (which actually begins at the local level ). And to bring this down to the City level, what about the Fiesta fiasco which ignores the actual history of the treatment of indigenous Pueblo people? Shouldn’t we try to render a more accurate version of history in a spectacle (celebration?) which annually takes place in public space with public sponsorship?
Yes, Canada is more progressive than the US in many respects but it doesn’t mean we should be cowed by Trump’s attempts to turn out democracy, which he has zero skills to lead, into a corporation he can bully in his usual autocratic fashion.
The People’s Platform is a good start but we should push for more, much more, because given our two party system and dark money we will probably achieve less. Much less.