In addition to Kavanaugh, last week we provided a good post covering our economic and climate future. Today, we also share an opportunity to get in the game and support a tremendous Roundhouse candidate, Abbas Ahkil who will be in Santa Fe on Thursday.
Journey Santa Fe was packed, Standing Room Only. The presentation was our first real effort to synthesize what we’ve learned from our Road Trip. We think now we need to begin having lots of 1-1 conversations with people in the trenches working on worker justice issues, affordable housing, and addressing food deserts. Identify ways to implement any of the effective models we observed will not come from a Town Hall, a Forum or a Panel Discussion. It will come from many small meetings, connecting dots, resources, leaders, and capacities. But if all we did was learn some cool things from this trip, it will be a failure. Roxanne and I are committed to digging in, identifying stakeholders and then supporting THEIR plans. Keep track on the blog and over the next few weeks, the radio show will be focusing on affordable housing (8:30am Saturday’s KSFR 101.1 FM. And last Saturday’s show was with St. Elizabeth’s Homeless Shelter program Director Ed Archuleta. A good show. If you missed it, you can go to KSFR.org and go to the programs menu, go to podcasts and then scroll to Retake Our Democracy. All the shows are there. cheers.
Kavanaugh and What You Can Do. Let’s be clear, sexual assault and harassment do not happen in arenas full of witnesses. Assaults are not only performed by power addicted serial rapists like Bill Cosby. Assaults are not always performed by men whose behavior is otherwise viewed as entirely respectable. Put simply, we don’t know what the guy you think the world of does when alone with a woman.
All too often it is he said, she said with at best a few friends who will corroborate that the victim had described the event some time before it became a public issue. At some point we need to recognize that women rarely speak up when harassed or assaulted, but when they do they are rarely lying. As a society we need to begin to respect the courage of women speaking out, welcome their voices, and believe them.
I was ashamed of the white males on that Judicial Committee, totally focused on how the entitled, rich, white guy finally had to be called on what is obviously despicable behavior. To allow him to go unchallenged as he describe buffing as farting and Devil’s Triangle as a drinking game when they represent having sex and being involved in a sexual act of two men with one woman, is insane. In his own yearbook he described the behavior of which he is accused. Shameless.
I don’t want to belabor the point. Anyone who isn’t drunk on Fox News Kool Aid knows who is lying and what needs to be done. I’d strongly encourage all of you to do four things right now. 1) If you aren’t up on the Kavanaugh affair, take a look at the linked article describing 10 forms of corroboration of Blasey Ford’s charges …Click here ten examples of corroboration.. 2) Finish reading the blog; 3) Have a laugh and watch Matt Damon do Kavanaugh in the video at the end of the blog; and most importantly 4) Rack your brain for friends you know in the states of any of these four Senators, as they are said to be on the fence: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine; Sen. Bob Corker R-Tennessee; Sen Jeff Flake R-Arizona; and Sen. Lisa Murkowski R-Alaska. Beg the friends you know from Maine, Tennessee, Arizona or Alaska. Beg them to organize their friends to call and write their Senator and tell them they will have a very long memory on this one and that they need to vote no on Kavanaugh.
Roundhouse Action in Santa Fe: A Chance to Meet and Contribute to a Great Candidate
The Santa Fe Meet & Greet and Fundraiser: Thursday, October 4, 5:30pm-7pm at the home of Marg VeneKlasen, 205 Williams St. Santa Fe, from 5:30pm–7pm for a Fundraiser to support Abbas candidacy. Hosted by Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, Speaker Egolf, CVNM Action Fund, Mariel Nanasi and others. Hosts, $500; Co-Hosts, $250; Supporters, $100; Suggested contribution, $100. We are looking for additional hosts and co-hosts. Retake Our Democracy strongly supports Abbas Ahkil. We met him over a year ago at a Southwest Organizing Project meeting in ABQ. We look forward to seeing him again and canvassing for him in October. Please join us. If you can’t make it but can canvass or call on his behalf. Dive into Retake Our Democracy’s 2018 Mid-Term Voters Guide. It has information on over a dozen state and legislative races with contact info for each. This is not the time to let others knock on doors. You are the “others.”
A Week in Review
Misogyny Gone Mad. More Victims Surface. Four Witnesses Corroborate Blasey Ford. Yet the GOP Circles the Wagons
Tuesday, September 25. Anita Hill commented recently that she felt we had learned much from #metoo and that charges of sexual assault would be taken more seriously. Maybe among most of America, but the GOP and its despicable President are doubling down on Kavanaugh. We must make them pay. The article describes the mounting evidence of corroboration supporting Blasey Ford and the irresponsible approach to a “hearing” being conducted by the GOP. If somehow you haven’t been tracking this hearing, this post and the Saturday one below will bring you up to date. Otherwise, I’d skip this and read the next two below.
What If Green Growth Isn’t Sustainable?
Thursday, September 27. This was an important blog that got lost in the Kavanaugh insanity. As explained in a recent Resilience blog written by Jason Hickel, green growth advocates argue that if we invest in more efficient technology and introduce the right incentives and restrictions, we’ll be able to continue growing while also reducing our impact on the planet. Numerous studies describe how we are already consuming our resources at an unsustainable level. According to green growth advocates, the goal is to achieve “absolute decoupling” of GDP from the total use of natural resources. Put another way, the theory is that if you are very efficient in sustainable resource use, you can produce an increase in GDP without increasing our use of resources. This would be a very good thing if the math worked. Two recent studies suggest that it does not. This blog summarizes the two studies briefly, provides links to the studies and answers the question, what if green growth isn’t sustainable? Click here to read the short blog post on the topic.
More Victims Step Forward. Kavanaugh Reveals Temperament During Tirade of a Testimony & Retake Takes on Milan Simonich
Saturday, September 29. Milan Simonich, like all of the GOP Senators on the Judicial Committee, entirely miss the point. Blasey Ford’s charges have been corroborated and they reinforce a national, deeply engrained culture: white men are entitled, women are not to speak up, and when they do they will be seen as trying to destroy the lives of the women whose lives they actually have destroyed. Kavanaugh and his family have not been destroyed. Just his reputation and deservedly so. The blog uses Simonich’s own writing to undermine his (and the GOP’s) unthinking attitudes. Worth a read.
Click the image below and enjoy 13 minutes of Matt Damon doing a hilarious rendition of Brett Kavanaugh.
Categories: National Politics
Your presentation on Sunday made me think of the one proven socioeconomic model. Cooperativism is as old as humankind. Here, and in Europe, we know its modern iteration which began in the British islands about 200 years ago. I believe it was developed by people whose lives were then being ravaged by “industrial” capitalism, as the lives of the people you met in your trip are being ravaged today by neoliberal capitalism.
Coops follow 7 principles but today, in the 21st century, we need to add just one more principle to make them almost perfect. Number 8th: Care of Life.
The system in need of change is the one we carry unconsciously in our minds and hearts. It is the “neoliberal” capitalistic model into which many of us have been born or grown into. It permeates our culture and dictates the works of our moral and ethical compasses. It is and will be very difficult to give up.
We wouldn’t have to address poverty and housing for the needy if we all accepted the fact that the minimum wage should be $25.-, and up. Per person, not per household. The city, in order to be truly diferente would have to give-up its present ‘business model’ which is a neoliberal capitalistic model and which prevents everybody to question our acceptance of poverty and of the present slave wage paid to workers across the city.
thanks
eduardo