THE VIEW FROM HERE-Periodically, I would like to offer you updates on some of the points introduced in my earlier articles. Here goes:
1. Walmart: Under the continuous pressure from the Our Walmart Campaign during which there have been numerous demonstrations across the country (including the big one in Bentonville, Arkansas, for the annual shareholders meeting), Walmart has decided it is worth its while to accede to at least some of the worker and supporter demands: More full-time workers will be hired and be paid at a higher minimum wage. The struggle is not over, however, because we must continue to fight against retaliatory action for workers who have participated in these work actions. We must not let up until this enormous corporation (with its holier-than-thou attitude) provides safer conditions for all its employees, whether in its stores or in its warehouses.
2. Healthcare is now the law of the land. It is so popular that millions are causing computer systems to crash because “customers” are so eager to get the health benefits they have never had or could never afford. It has been reported that applicants have been crying on the phone as they speak with navigators--they are so happy for the opportunity to be covered. Republicans are trying to extort concessions from the White House to rid the country of a law that was voted on fairly in Congress and then reaffirmed by the people when they re-elected President Obama and later upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court.
Bottom line, the people want healthcare. It is here to stay, and some day it will be universal and single-payer (much like Medicare—a program which virtually everyone loves). As some say: Obamacare: Signed. Sealed. Delivering.
3. We are now waiting for the governor to sign AB 1401 which will allow legal non-citizens to serve on juries, deliberating on cases for which they really help to provide a jury of a defendant’s peers.
4. Governor Brown just signed SB 206 which affects juvenile offenders who were tried as adults and given sentences of 25 years to life, depending on the circumstances of the crime. I have a dear friend who was seventeen when he got into a scuffle with the police. His gun was discharged but no one was hurt and no property was damaged. The DA offered him (a 17-year old) a plea bargain: instead of life, he could avoid a trial and accept a 34-year sentence. Everybody (including many lawyers and judges) believed then and now that the sentence was excessive.
Because of the wisdom of our current state legislators and our governor, this bill (soon to go into effect) will allow these juvenile offenders to be eligible for parole after 15 years (as long as all other requirements are met—excellent behavior, growth, maturity, acceptance of responsibility for the crime, and so forth). We have State Senator, Loni Hancock, to thank along with many of her colleagues in both chambers (people who co-sponsored and/or supported the bill), such people as AD 39 Representative Raul Bocanegra and State Senator (SD 20), Alex Padilla—people who represent much of the Northeast San Fernando Valley (the area of the City that too often gets overlooked for its good works and is too frequently denigrated because of bad press).
5. AB 60 is another long-awaited bill. It was also signed into law this month and will take effect in January 2015. It was sponsored by Assemblymember Luis Alejo of Salinas and will allow undocumented residents to receive drivers’ licenses (which will be stamped with a banner heading of some kind that indicates for driving use only). My thinking has been that if the people who go to work or school are going to drive anyway, shouldn’t they be versed in the rules of the road and tested on their driving skills? Such legislation insures their greater safety and ours.
6. In January of 2014, the ban on single-use plastic grocery bags will go into effect in the larger markets and will affect the smaller markets six months later. Customers will be able to purchase paper bags for a while for 10 cents and will find many places which will hand out free re-usable bags. The City plans to distribute about a million free bags to the poor.
What I am pushing for now is a similar ban, but this one will prohibit the utilization of flimsy single-use dry cleaner garment bags. I would like to see a mandate to require eco-friendly re-usable garment bags that satisfy the needs and concerns of customers (gentlemen, in particular, want covers that don’t crush the collars of their shirts and coats). I have already spoken with some of our City Councilmembers who are enthusiastic about the idea. I have also researched companies that are already out there with designs to accommodate this concept.
7. With regards to the current government shutdown, I recently had an epiphany regarding who is really running the right-wing caucus of the Republican Party. In the last century, laborers fought and died to unionize. We can go back to the Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, who supported the struggle against child labor, for safer conditions, fair wages and prices, a shorter workday, and so forth. Books like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) spoke of the plight of the meatpackers and of the immigrants who worked in dangerous factories. The writings of such authors helped enlighten not only those who already knew about the horrible conditions under which these laborers worked but also informed the rest of the public. The term, Muckrakers (originally a word used in John Bunyans’ Pilgrim’s Progress,) applied to reform-minded investigative journalists who wanted the world to know the truth and challenged the movers and shakers to do something about it.
This country, during a good part of the last century, was often voting Democratic, votes largely based upon economic issues. These constituents witnessed bills that had been passed and signed into law that were deficient in fairness and equity but concurrently favored the geometric growth of the wealthy and powerful. These were the kinds of laws the voter wanted to overturn.
In recent years, therefore, the Republicans figured out that if they wanted a larger share of the vote (which could bring them control of the State Houses and Congress as well as the Presidency), they would have to convince people to vote for them (essentially and unwittingly against their own best interests).
How to do this? Find the most pious, Protestant, fundamentalist church-goers and convince them that they could be the new leaders of a new or renewed America, a better America (that was somehow stolen from them—Take America Back!). Promote these “leaders” to prominence, back them for office. As for the rest, distract their attention from the pain of economic injustice (brought about by Right-Wing conservative policy); convince them that the Left (who advance social justice issues) is promoting policy couched in an immoral framework.
Make the congregants forget about their woes. Make them indifferent to right-wing policies which increasingly separate them from their dreams—the American Dream that promises that the harder you work, the more you will receive. Teach them to preach the Gospel of Wealth (for which only the wealthy benefit). Teach them to condemn everything that does not fit neatly into their own design of what is good and righteous. Dwell on abortion, immigration, same-sex marriage—if laws are not passed first to limit the rights of those “others,” the financial quandary we find ourselves in won’t matter anyway.
What has emerged, as a consequence, are the Tea Partyers (perhaps at the start, people who had some valid points about their frustration with high taxes and low incomes), the very people who are now holding us hostage. What perhaps started out as a good thing soon became a force for extortion—give us what we want or you get nothing. These groups were transformed into people who gave themselves permission to hate, to inveigh against those not like them: Black President (actually bi-racial); reversing Don’t Ask--Don’t Tell; overturning DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act); Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (equal pay for equal work); healthcare for all. The list goes on—hundreds of items--accomplishments (in less than 5 years) for which the Obama Administration is responsible. But he was supposed to fail! The country was supposed to go down in ruins, up in ashes. How could he not be responsible? We’ll make him responsible! Destroy the country so that we can blame Obama and his compatriots [regardless of the facts (we can make up our own)].
I guess my rant on the shut-down is more than a mere recap, but so it goes. . . .
There is much more that can be said now on many issues, but I shall stop here. I promise, however, to keep you posted on current issues that have made their way into my columns.
(Rosemary Jenkins is a Democratic activist and chair of the Northeast Valley Green Coalition. She also writes for CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 81
Pub: Oct 8, 2013
