I spoke about the women's organizations like NOW and Emily's List being led by Clinton neo-liberal national leaders that always come out for women neo-liberals----the opposite of women's rights as neo-liberalism breaks down all labor and justice laws and War on Poverty and New Deal programs and Equal Protection and Rule of Law----all of which send women and children into poverty in the greatest numbers. This is why we do not have women justice organizations educating against neo-liberalism. The same goes with national organizations for people of color----NAACP and NAN for instance. Ben Jealous was paid to take NAACP to Wall Street while all of Equal Protection and attacks on people of color in jobs and personal wealth occurred. Al Sharpton of NAN is the biggest Wall Street cheerleader around. This is why the US has no justice organizations shouting against neo-liberals. This is why Obama was sold as a community organizer---we thought for progressive issues when he organized for Wall Street issues.
Reagan and Clinton neo-liberalism took the US from a thriving first world nation with the highest level of income equity and people of color entering the middle-class to second world status and now Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeks to take the US to third world status and that is what these corporate-captured women and justice organizations support.
ALL OVER THE WORLD NATIONS ARE RIGHTING THESE TRADE PACT OFF BECAUSE LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATE THE PEOPLE AND GET THEM PROTESTING THE THROWING NEO-LIBERALS OUT OF OFFICE. IN THE US----THESE GROUPS ARE SILENT AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
That is what this session of the Maryland Assembly represents. Complicity by groups in Maryland that should be leading the way against this global structure being installed.
Playing on 'the first black President' we got Obama who served to the right of Bush....now we are hearing 'the first women President' who will serve to the right of Bush. Make no mistake--neo-liberals are the face of global corporate tribuals and court that end US sovereignty and our US Constitutional rights---including equal protection for women and social programs as safety nets that protect women and children the most.
NEO-LIBERALS SAY------AMERICANS ARE SO DUMBED DOWN AS TO SIMPLY VOTE ACCORDING TO GENDER AND RACE-----FORGET THAT NEO-LIBERALS ARE KILLING US!
Press Release - Clinton Endorsed by National Organization for Women During Day of Women's Outreach
March 28, 2007
Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the National Organization for Women's political arm and sports legend Billie Jean King during a day of women's outreach that included a live web chat for supporters with the women running Hillary's campaign.
"At this time in our history, this country needs a strong, experienced and principled leadership to restore faith in our government and repair its credibility at home and abroad," said Kim Gandy, chair of NOW PAC. "Senator Clinton has a long history of support for women's empowerment, and her public record is testimony to her leadership on issues important to women in the U.S. and around the globe."
As part of its endorsement, NOW PAC will launch a "Make History with Hillary" campaign to raise money and mobilize its membership to support Hillary's historic candidacy. The largest feminist advocacy group in the country, NOW has more than 500,000 members in all 50 states and has been a leading advocate for women's rights for more than 40 years.
Tennis great and social activist Billie Jean King also endorsed Hillary today, calling her "A winner who has the vision, the drive and the knowledge to lead this country."
"It's an honor to be supported by these accomplished women," Clinton said. "No one has been more committed to equal rights and ending discrimination in our society."
To cap off the day of outreach to women voters, the campaign sent an email from former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro urging supporters to help Hillary finish the first fundraising quarter strong, while the women running Hillary's campaign fielded questions during a live web chat.
Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, Director of Policy Neera Tanden, Senior Adviser Ann Lewis and Senior Policy Adviser Leecia Eve said the women's vote in the 2008 election would be crucial and explained how supporters could get involved in the campaign. Women are expected to be the X-factor in this election, making up 54 percent of all voters.
Clinton run charges up Emily's List ahead of 2016
By Dan Merica, CNN
Updated 5:08 PM ET, Tue February 24, 2015
Story highlights
Senior operatives at the Democratic operation are pledging that 2016 will be Emily's List's most active election to date, one where they hope the group's deep connections to Clinton -- the expected favorite for the Democratic nomination -- will magnify their efforts.
Emily's List was very active in the race in 2008 during Clinton's first bid, but election laws have changed vastly since then -- mostly thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision in 2010 -- making it possible for the group to play a bigger role.
The former secretary of state herself will headline the group's 30th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C next week, a nod to their importance to both the former first lady and to Democratic 2016 scene.
Denise Feriozzi, the political director at Emily's List has been tapped to lead the group's independent expenditure effort in 2016, expected to outpace their most expensive cycle to date -- $14 million last year.
The group, which raised more than $60 million for Democratic women in 2014, expects that with Clinton atop the ticket -- and energy among other women candidates to run -- they will easily break through those fundraising numbers.
"We are going to play a bigger role than we have ever played," Feriozzi said about the group. "There is going to be a level of excitement for our Emily's List community and from women and men around the country to elect the first women president and, more importantly, to elect the right person."
Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily's List, has left the Priorities USA board so that she can work closer with the Clinton campaign and still comply with election coordination rules.
Clinton, then secretary of state-designate, attends an Emily's List luncheon in 2009.Feriozzi will take Schriock's seat on the super PAC board, a body that has long been seen as the center of the pro-Clinton world, where leaders from the different organizations can meet and coordinate efforts to help boost Clinton's campaign efforts.
The group's will not be just about boosting Clinton and female Democrats. As it has been in the past, Emily's List's 2016 plan will also focus on trying to define Republican candidates as bad for women across the country.
Some of these efforts have already started. Earlier this month, Emily's List launched "GOP 2016: Insult & Injury," an interactive graphic that will "chronicle Republicans' out of touch agenda for American women." This kind of messaging is common for Emily's List, but with Clinton atop the ticket, advisers for the group expect the contrasts to be more defined.
The focus is on ensuring that the gender gap for a likely Clinton campaign is as big -- if not bigger -- than the 12-point margin that Obama enjoyed in 2012.
"That is our niche, that is our role, and that is what we are going to do here," Feriozzi said, stressing that the group will be targeted and strategic about their investments.
That will be critical, because spending in the 2016 election is expected to break all previous records. Sources have told CNN that Priorities, the keystone Democratic Super PAC going into the next election cycle, hopes to raise $300-$500 million for 2016, while the Koch brothers, uber-Republican donors and businessman, have said they will spend $898 million during the election.
Emily's List's pockets are considerably smaller, but Feriozzi and others said their money will be more focused than scattershot.
"I am not going to say what we are going to do and what we are not, but we, as a progressive community, have got to be more targeted and smarter," Feriozzi said. "We are going to figure out what that is."
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Does a candidate need to be Socialist to protect the 80% of labor and justice? Of course not. Social Capitalists like FDR and Johnson----Bernie Sanders -----also hold corporations accountable to being good citizens and creating a healthy economy. So, what are National Urban League, NAN, and NAACP doing running against a Socialist in a very global corporate city of Seattle? They are shouting----we are Wall Street and global free markets, which they have been since Clinton started appointing national leadership.
Urban League is of course all about transferring cities from working class and poor to corporations and affluent. There is nothing wrong with gentrification but as everyone in cities around America knows-----it is being done full of fraud, corruption, and injustice and THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN. It is being done as well in ways that seek to impoverish the people working in these cities whether immigrant or domestic worker----AND THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN. It happens because groups like NAACP, NAN, and Urban League are not working for people of color----they are advancing the wealth of a few rich people of color. No justice going on with these groups!
Do you take out a Socialist who would protect the 80% of labor and justice and risk a Clinton neo-liberal to come in that place? YES, SAYS BEN JEALOUS, AL SHARPTON, ET AL who are those Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals!
THIS IS WHY WE HAVE NO JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATING AND SHOUTING AGAINST CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM!
Urban League To Run Against Socialist City Council Member
Educate! Democracy, Elections
By Bruce A. Banks, www.blackagendareport.com
March 20th, 2015
In its 105 years, the National Urban League has done a lot of indisputable good, not just for the reputations of its founders and funders, but also for the actual communities it claims to serve. But lately, like the NAACP, NAN, and the whole lot of corporate funded dinosaur civil rights organizations, the League seems to pay a lot more attention to what its corporate donors need, as opposed to its constituents.
There’s the Urban League’s lucrative embraces of Common Core, high stakes testing, charter schools and privatizing public schools. The League receives generous gifts from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now chairman of the Gates Foundation, whose consultants helped write the president’s privatizing Race To The Top program. The League is solidly behind the drive to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into privatized, heavily policed and often remotely instructed holding tanks. In return for speaking out against teachers, communities, standing up for privatization, and a little aggressive flattery, the Urban League gets handsomely rewarded. The 2012 keynote at the National Urban League’s annual affair was a “dialog” between Skip Gates and Bill Gates, whom the professor called his “brother”.
Bill Gates is a major investor in Monsanto, another generous giver to the Urban League. Monsanto wants to hijack the food supplies of Africa, Latin America and even the US, so when California voters put a 2012 referendum on the ballot that would have required GMO foods to be labeled, the Urban League took Monsanto money to campaign against that as well. The Urban League, NAN, NAACP, Operation PUSH earned their gifts from Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and others by testifying against network neutrality, in favor of corporate mergers and the digital redlining of their own communities, and with them, requested that they not be required to mention it when they testify on matters affecting their funders.
The list of policy positions and actions undertaken by the League in the interest of its funders, often against those of its presumed constituents, is quite a long one, and about to get longer still. The latest League atrocity is in Seattle Washington, where voters in a city council district elected a socialist three years ago. That council member, Kshama Sawant helped lead a multi-year effort to raise the minimum wage in Seattle. The CEO of Seattle’s Urban League, a longtime political insider with great fundraising connections wants to run for local office. Apparently there are no neoliberal pension-cutting Democrats for her to go after in Seattle, and no neolithic Republicans worth dethroning either.
The number one and only target of of Seattle Urban League CEO’s Pam Banks’ campaign for office will be the socialist, because she knows things. Pam Banks knows that while you can never have too many Republicans or Democrats in office, even one socialist is way too many. CEO Banks knows that while you can never have too many corporate funded politicians, even one elected official that doesn’t take the corporate cash makes everybody else feel nervous and look bad. Banks knows that when gentrification is a problem, rent control is probably not a solution her funders would appreciate, even though it makes perfect sense to residents in danger of displacement. Banks knows that any run against a socialist incumbent will be well funded by forces who already call the League, and her, their good friend. They just might not be friends of the people of Seattle.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and serves on the state committee of the GA Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com. Click here to download this audio commentary.
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Lastly we have labor unions and their commitment every election to supporting Clinton neo-liberals. National labor union leaders do this for two reasons----they are trying to protect labor union rights that Clinton neo-liberals are threatening as much as Republicans-----and they have structured these unions internationally so they operate like global corporations profiting off of labor and justice exploitation through Wall Street financial investments/Union Credit Unions.
The International AFL-CIO sat in on TPP negotiations through Bush years and Obama's first term to 'have labor voice at the table'. They knew how bad these trade deals would be for US workers and they knew that TPP seeks to restructure the entire American government and re-write the US Constitution to the detriment of the American people. What national AFL-CIO leaders got from sitting at the table was an agreement that unions would be allowed to organize the immigrants brought to the US under TPP and to organize in more nations in the developing world.
INTERNATIONAL UNIONS NEGOTIATE NOT ON WHAT IS BEST FOR AMERICAN WORKERS---BUT WHAT IS MOST PROFITABLE FOR THESE INTERNATIONAL UNIONS----JUST LIKE A GLOBAL CORPORATION.
That is why the unions are making all kinds of concessions that are corporate-friendly and it is why they support Clinton neo-liberals busting public sector unions as hard as they can---AFL-CIO knows that TPP requires all public subsidy -----Federal Trusts like Medicare and Social Security---all Federal subsidy like Food Stamps and Welfare will be eliminated. TPP does not want revenue going to public subsidy.
European unions and South Korean unions are all successfully fighting off TPP and getting rid of neo-liberals---US unions are partnering with them.
This is what I mean when I say----we must get rid of this global corporate structure for international unions and bring unions back to grassroots and domestic level. To do that we need to get rid of Trumka and Hoffa and these other international union leaders partnering with TPP and global corporations with the idea they may get to organize third world poverty and immigrants.
WE NEED UNIONS AND ORGANIZED LABOR----BUT IT MUST BE HEALTHY AND WORKING FOR THE INTERESTS OF LABOR AND NOT ONLY THE UNION.
Below you see the model Americans need for unions----we know the National Labor Board will be dismantled so we need unions to stop thinking about saving rights and paying union leaders----get back to basics where people were labor activists for no pay and we will win those rights back again---
Meet the new workers' movement that is terrifying the wealthy and the powerful
Jeff Spross (Ikon Images/Corbis) March 23, 2015
On Thursday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) re-introduced legislation to torpedo "micro unions," the latest labor movement to terrify business management, right-wingers, and capitalists in general. They aren't actually anything new, just a variation on long-standing labor-organizing practices that have come back into prominence. "Micro union" is a recently coined term of art for bargaining units that encompass one category of workers at a business — the cosmetics workers at a Macy's, for example — instead of the more traditional model of organizing all the workers for the business into one single bargaining unit.
In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided a group of certified nursing assistants at a nursing home constituted an appropriate bargaining unit in themselves, in a decision called Specialty Healthcare. In 2013, that decision got the stamp of approval from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 2014, the NLRB applied its logic to the aforementioned Macy's cosmetics workers.
Since then, union critics and business interests have been scrambling to respond. Retail industry groups told The Hill that the NLRB’s Macy's decision would "pave the way for micro unions at thousands of retail stores around the country." Isakson has made multiple attempts to pass his bill rolling back NLRB's decisions, with the backing of GOP heavy-hitters like Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
What's particularly interesting is the way the arguments made by micro-union critics run headlong into the arguments made by fans of right-to-work laws, which seek to prevent unions from coopting workers.
"The problem with Specialty Healthcare is not the smallness of the unions, but the way the lines are gerrymandered within a workplace," Jim Plunkett, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s director of labor law policy, told The Hill in 2014. "They're allowed to cherry pick the employees in the workplace that they know will be supportive of the union."
But recall that the argument for right-to-work laws is that, even if they weaken unions, they also prevent unions from negotiating contracts that would force every worker covered by the bargaining agreement to join a union and pay dues. This critique implies that picking the employees in the workplace you know will support the union and organizing just them into a bargaining unit is perfectly fine, yes?
Yet when business groups and other opponents aren't calling it "gerrymandering," they're arguing that lots of small bargaining units will make management a lot more logistically difficult than having one big bargaining unit to deal with!
Unions appear to be damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Jerry Howard, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, said, "We'll do our best to discourage these things from getting into our sector."
"It lets the union get their nose under the tent," said Michael Lotito, a management-side attorney in San Francisco. To put it bluntly, this is not how people would talk if they were concerned about maximizing the common economic good and basic fairness — which is how union critics often paint their efforts. Right-to-work fans insist they're fine with unions as long as the workers themselves want the union, and see it as in their own best interests. If that's your logic, there's no intrinsic reason a non-unionized sector shouldn’t become unionized.
Of course, what this talk does sound like is people who recognize they're in a zero-sum battle over irreconcilable interests.
Under free market capitalism, people are not paid for how productive they are — as the theory of marginal productivity claims — but for how replaceable they are. Say the marginal productivity a worker brings to a firm is $40,000 a year. But let's say that worker is scared because the economy recently went through a big collapse and there are more people looking for work than there are jobs available. (You know, just for the sake of argument.) So they settle for $35,000 a year. The employer isn't going to then say, "Oh wait, that’s not fair! Here, let me pay you the other $5,000 too." They're going to pocket the $5,000 as profit.
If employers can get away with lower pay, with unsafe or degrading working conditions, or by squeezing demeaning emotional labor from their employees, they will do so. It increases the amount of revenue they can take home as profit, as opposed to pumping it back into better wages. And it increases their power to run their workplaces in whatever manner they see fit, regardless of what the workers themselves think.
Bargaining power is everything, and unions increase it for workers.
Employers "feel like the deck is stacked against them," said Amanda Wood, director of employment at the National Association of Manufacturers.
I'm sure they do. But unless we're expected to believe employers and business owners are the underdogs in the grand socioeconomic sweep of American life, and everyday workers are some colossus bestriding the landscape, seeing all their most petty desires met, it's unclear why we should prioritize employers' wounded feelings.
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In the US Congress chose austerity over recovering tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud and our social programs and public Trusts are being gutted of funding as to offer no real protection when needed. They did this with US unions supporting the same Clinton neo-liberals committed to partnering with Republicans to do this. Neo-liberal states were worse than Republicans in all of this corporate fraud and it is behind the wealth inequity---California, New York, Washington State, and Maryland are the worst for the wealth inequity from fraud not yet recovered. Unions in Europe and South Korea have been central from the start in educating against the austerity taking the people's wealth----
Belgium unions protest against austerity cuts Strike being observed against government policies that will extend pension age, limit wages and cut public services.
15 Dec 2014 11:44 GMT | Europe
Angry strikers gathered on Monday to protest against what they called the government's lack of support for the Belgian economy.
An activist stood at one picket line in the capital Brussels for the country’s CSC trade union, saying protesters are here on a common front to denounce government measures.
"Austerity measures imposed by the government will cost the economy $2.5bn, and we are denouncing it because the SNCB will not be able to support this debt, this economy," he said.
Train services like Eurostar and flights standstill, causing inconvenience for travelling passengers who thought they could catch an early escape before protests erupt.
Cancelling flights across the country, Belgian air traffic control, Beglocontrol, also took part on the strike.
Check-in counters remain empty as 600 flights had been cancelled affecting 50 thousand passengers, said a spokesperson for Brussels Airport.
The Belgian government says it is forced to push through firm austerity measures to maintain the budget deficit within the European constraints, and it insists businesses need tax policies they could tolerate to become more competitive in the global market.
Monday’s strike is part of a month-long campaign against a free-market liberal coalition.
Trade unions say government policies only aim to target workers with extended pension age limits, a freeze of the automatic link between wages and inflation, and cuts in public services that will hit the population as a whole.
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The US has seen Ports privatized, transportation being privatized, and now water and waste privatized, along with public education K-university with no union protests of any size. When a union supports a Clinton neo-liberal having public private partnerships as a platform issue and then comes out to protest privatized water----knowing that is exactly what that neo-liberal promised to do----THEY ARE NOT PROTECTING THEIR MEMBERSHIP. The working and middle-class are the unions and these are the groups killed by all this privatization.
Note that Kreolis French global corporation is the same as VEOLA------here in the US
Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe
date: 24 February 2014
embargo: 00.01hrs Tuesday 25 February 2014
Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe
The UK’s rail unions will join colleagues from across Europe in Strasbourg today (Tuesday) to protest against European Commission (EC) plans to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe.
Today and tomorrow (Wednesday) MEPs in Strasbourg will be debating and voting on the Fourth Railway Package. Proposals in the package include making the tendering of rail passenger services obligatory, and imposing the separation of train operation from infrastructure management in every EU member state.
The demonstration against the Fourth Rail Package will take place in front of the European Parliament at 1pm and representatives from the unions’ Action for Rail campaign – including the ASLEF, the RMT, TSSA and Unite – will all attend.
The EC’s proposals could permanently expand the control that overseas rail companies will have over the UK’s rail services, Action for Rail warns, and will impose the UK’s model of privatised and fragmented rail passenger services – that has created huge inefficiency and escalated costs – across Europe.
Action for Rail also believes that the package will make it impossible for any UK government to adopt an alternative to privatisation, ruling out successful publicly-owned and run services such as the East Coast Mainline. Customer satisfaction rates for the line are amongst the highest for train operating companies in the UK, the company provides an income of up to £800m to the Treasury and since 2011 it has received 35 industry awards.
While the UK government has ruled out public ownership of the railways at home, Action for Rail is concerned that foreign state-owned rail companies are using this as an opportunity to make a profit. Of existing UK rail companies, Arriva is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn, Keolis is majority owned by the French national rail operator SNCF, and Abellio is owned by the Dutch state operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
According to a recent study by the Centre for Research on Socio-Economic Change for Arriva Trains Wales, subsidy exceeds private revenue from fares, with the state contributing 60p in every £1 of revenue. The report finds that privatisation is not value for money for UK taxpayers as Virgin West Coast Trains would not make a profit from the West Coast Mainline without state support, and Arriva Trains Wales would not run at all. Since the start of the franchise in 2003, Arriva and Deutsche Bahn (Deutsche Bahn AG acquired Arriva in 2010) have extracted £75 million in dividends.
Government plans to privatise East Coast Mainline could see the company taken over by Keolis and Eurostar through their joint bid. Action for Rail argues it would be far more efficient for rail services to be directly run and operated by the public sector.
Action for Rail argues that the emphasis on privatisation goes against public demand. A YouGov Poll from November 2013 found that two-thirds (66 per cent) of respondents wanted the railways to be run by the public sector, compared to less than a quarter (23 per cent) wanting it to be run privately. Former Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, has spoken in favour of the East Coast Mainline remaining in public hands and Alastair Campbell has recently suggested that the Labour Party should re-nationalising the railways.
Chair of Action for Rail and TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Imposing the rail privatisation system that is so clearly failing in the UK across Europe would be a disaster for passengers and taxpayers alike.
“Today we are urging MEPs to vote against the damaging Fourth Railway Package which will entrench and extend UK rail privatisation and overseas control of the UK’s railways.
“We have real concerns that if these proposals are adopted future UK governments will be unable to create a publicly-owned railway that puts passengers and public first like the successful East Coast Main Line.”
ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘In the UK we are still learning and suffering from the harsh lessons of the flawed model that the European Commission now wants to impose on Europe. In the interests of passenger safety, proper investment, a properly integrated and publicly-accountable railway network, I urge MEPs to reject these proposals.”
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “This rail package demands that the disastrous rail privatisation experiment that started in Britain 20 years ago is now imposed on the rest of the EU through compulsory competitive tendering, fragmentation and open access competition.
“As a result of this EU business model Britain now has the highest rail fares in Europe, a culture of cuts and profiteering and the growing use of contract labour and zero-hour contracts.
“That is no future for public transport here or anywhere else in Europe. We need publicly-owned and accountable transport services that serve people before profit.”
TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Rail passengers in the UK are still paying dearly for the Tories disastrous sell off of our public railway 20 years ago. Fares have more than doubled and are now the highest in Europe.
“Our fragmented private network has turned into a taxpayer funded junkie, needing over £4 billion a year in public funding fixes just to keep going. It would be economic madness if the rest of Europe now adopted this disfunctional system.”
Unite National Officer Julia Long said: “UK commuters spend over three times more of their salary on rail fares than European colleagues. Why on earth is the EC now planning to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe?
“MEPs must vote against these alarming and misguided proposals and tell the Commission it is on the wrong track.
“British commuters are being ripped off by sky high train fares which have been caused by privatisation. These proposals are bad news for commuters across the rest of Europe and could prevent the UK from looking at alternatives to privatisation.”
Reagan and Clinton neo-liberalism took the US from a thriving first world nation with the highest level of income equity and people of color entering the middle-class to second world status and now Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeks to take the US to third world status and that is what these corporate-captured women and justice organizations support.
ALL OVER THE WORLD NATIONS ARE RIGHTING THESE TRADE PACT OFF BECAUSE LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATE THE PEOPLE AND GET THEM PROTESTING THE THROWING NEO-LIBERALS OUT OF OFFICE. IN THE US----THESE GROUPS ARE SILENT AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
That is what this session of the Maryland Assembly represents. Complicity by groups in Maryland that should be leading the way against this global structure being installed.
Playing on 'the first black President' we got Obama who served to the right of Bush....now we are hearing 'the first women President' who will serve to the right of Bush. Make no mistake--neo-liberals are the face of global corporate tribuals and court that end US sovereignty and our US Constitutional rights---including equal protection for women and social programs as safety nets that protect women and children the most.
NEO-LIBERALS SAY------AMERICANS ARE SO DUMBED DOWN AS TO SIMPLY VOTE ACCORDING TO GENDER AND RACE-----FORGET THAT NEO-LIBERALS ARE KILLING US!
Press Release - Clinton Endorsed by National Organization for Women During Day of Women's Outreach
March 28, 2007
Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the National Organization for Women's political arm and sports legend Billie Jean King during a day of women's outreach that included a live web chat for supporters with the women running Hillary's campaign.
"At this time in our history, this country needs a strong, experienced and principled leadership to restore faith in our government and repair its credibility at home and abroad," said Kim Gandy, chair of NOW PAC. "Senator Clinton has a long history of support for women's empowerment, and her public record is testimony to her leadership on issues important to women in the U.S. and around the globe."
As part of its endorsement, NOW PAC will launch a "Make History with Hillary" campaign to raise money and mobilize its membership to support Hillary's historic candidacy. The largest feminist advocacy group in the country, NOW has more than 500,000 members in all 50 states and has been a leading advocate for women's rights for more than 40 years.
Tennis great and social activist Billie Jean King also endorsed Hillary today, calling her "A winner who has the vision, the drive and the knowledge to lead this country."
"It's an honor to be supported by these accomplished women," Clinton said. "No one has been more committed to equal rights and ending discrimination in our society."
To cap off the day of outreach to women voters, the campaign sent an email from former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro urging supporters to help Hillary finish the first fundraising quarter strong, while the women running Hillary's campaign fielded questions during a live web chat.
Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, Director of Policy Neera Tanden, Senior Adviser Ann Lewis and Senior Policy Adviser Leecia Eve said the women's vote in the 2008 election would be crucial and explained how supporters could get involved in the campaign. Women are expected to be the X-factor in this election, making up 54 percent of all voters.
Clinton run charges up Emily's List ahead of 2016
By Dan Merica, CNN
Updated 5:08 PM ET, Tue February 24, 2015
Story highlights
- Emily's List, energized with the prospect of electing the first woman president, is preparing to go big in 2016
- The group plans to make the election cycle their most expensive to date -- spending over $14 million
- "We are going to play a bigger role than we have ever played," said the operative tasked with leading the effort
Senior operatives at the Democratic operation are pledging that 2016 will be Emily's List's most active election to date, one where they hope the group's deep connections to Clinton -- the expected favorite for the Democratic nomination -- will magnify their efforts.
Emily's List was very active in the race in 2008 during Clinton's first bid, but election laws have changed vastly since then -- mostly thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision in 2010 -- making it possible for the group to play a bigger role.
The former secretary of state herself will headline the group's 30th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C next week, a nod to their importance to both the former first lady and to Democratic 2016 scene.
Denise Feriozzi, the political director at Emily's List has been tapped to lead the group's independent expenditure effort in 2016, expected to outpace their most expensive cycle to date -- $14 million last year.
The group, which raised more than $60 million for Democratic women in 2014, expects that with Clinton atop the ticket -- and energy among other women candidates to run -- they will easily break through those fundraising numbers.
"We are going to play a bigger role than we have ever played," Feriozzi said about the group. "There is going to be a level of excitement for our Emily's List community and from women and men around the country to elect the first women president and, more importantly, to elect the right person."
Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily's List, has left the Priorities USA board so that she can work closer with the Clinton campaign and still comply with election coordination rules.
Clinton, then secretary of state-designate, attends an Emily's List luncheon in 2009.Feriozzi will take Schriock's seat on the super PAC board, a body that has long been seen as the center of the pro-Clinton world, where leaders from the different organizations can meet and coordinate efforts to help boost Clinton's campaign efforts.
The group's will not be just about boosting Clinton and female Democrats. As it has been in the past, Emily's List's 2016 plan will also focus on trying to define Republican candidates as bad for women across the country.
Some of these efforts have already started. Earlier this month, Emily's List launched "GOP 2016: Insult & Injury," an interactive graphic that will "chronicle Republicans' out of touch agenda for American women." This kind of messaging is common for Emily's List, but with Clinton atop the ticket, advisers for the group expect the contrasts to be more defined.
The focus is on ensuring that the gender gap for a likely Clinton campaign is as big -- if not bigger -- than the 12-point margin that Obama enjoyed in 2012.
"That is our niche, that is our role, and that is what we are going to do here," Feriozzi said, stressing that the group will be targeted and strategic about their investments.
That will be critical, because spending in the 2016 election is expected to break all previous records. Sources have told CNN that Priorities, the keystone Democratic Super PAC going into the next election cycle, hopes to raise $300-$500 million for 2016, while the Koch brothers, uber-Republican donors and businessman, have said they will spend $898 million during the election.
Emily's List's pockets are considerably smaller, but Feriozzi and others said their money will be more focused than scattershot.
"I am not going to say what we are going to do and what we are not, but we, as a progressive community, have got to be more targeted and smarter," Feriozzi said. "We are going to figure out what that is."
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Does a candidate need to be Socialist to protect the 80% of labor and justice? Of course not. Social Capitalists like FDR and Johnson----Bernie Sanders -----also hold corporations accountable to being good citizens and creating a healthy economy. So, what are National Urban League, NAN, and NAACP doing running against a Socialist in a very global corporate city of Seattle? They are shouting----we are Wall Street and global free markets, which they have been since Clinton started appointing national leadership.
Urban League is of course all about transferring cities from working class and poor to corporations and affluent. There is nothing wrong with gentrification but as everyone in cities around America knows-----it is being done full of fraud, corruption, and injustice and THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN. It is being done as well in ways that seek to impoverish the people working in these cities whether immigrant or domestic worker----AND THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN. It happens because groups like NAACP, NAN, and Urban League are not working for people of color----they are advancing the wealth of a few rich people of color. No justice going on with these groups!
Do you take out a Socialist who would protect the 80% of labor and justice and risk a Clinton neo-liberal to come in that place? YES, SAYS BEN JEALOUS, AL SHARPTON, ET AL who are those Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals!
THIS IS WHY WE HAVE NO JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATING AND SHOUTING AGAINST CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM!
Urban League To Run Against Socialist City Council Member
Educate! Democracy, Elections
By Bruce A. Banks, www.blackagendareport.com
March 20th, 2015
In its 105 years, the National Urban League has done a lot of indisputable good, not just for the reputations of its founders and funders, but also for the actual communities it claims to serve. But lately, like the NAACP, NAN, and the whole lot of corporate funded dinosaur civil rights organizations, the League seems to pay a lot more attention to what its corporate donors need, as opposed to its constituents.
There’s the Urban League’s lucrative embraces of Common Core, high stakes testing, charter schools and privatizing public schools. The League receives generous gifts from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now chairman of the Gates Foundation, whose consultants helped write the president’s privatizing Race To The Top program. The League is solidly behind the drive to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into privatized, heavily policed and often remotely instructed holding tanks. In return for speaking out against teachers, communities, standing up for privatization, and a little aggressive flattery, the Urban League gets handsomely rewarded. The 2012 keynote at the National Urban League’s annual affair was a “dialog” between Skip Gates and Bill Gates, whom the professor called his “brother”.
Bill Gates is a major investor in Monsanto, another generous giver to the Urban League. Monsanto wants to hijack the food supplies of Africa, Latin America and even the US, so when California voters put a 2012 referendum on the ballot that would have required GMO foods to be labeled, the Urban League took Monsanto money to campaign against that as well. The Urban League, NAN, NAACP, Operation PUSH earned their gifts from Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and others by testifying against network neutrality, in favor of corporate mergers and the digital redlining of their own communities, and with them, requested that they not be required to mention it when they testify on matters affecting their funders.
The list of policy positions and actions undertaken by the League in the interest of its funders, often against those of its presumed constituents, is quite a long one, and about to get longer still. The latest League atrocity is in Seattle Washington, where voters in a city council district elected a socialist three years ago. That council member, Kshama Sawant helped lead a multi-year effort to raise the minimum wage in Seattle. The CEO of Seattle’s Urban League, a longtime political insider with great fundraising connections wants to run for local office. Apparently there are no neoliberal pension-cutting Democrats for her to go after in Seattle, and no neolithic Republicans worth dethroning either.
The number one and only target of of Seattle Urban League CEO’s Pam Banks’ campaign for office will be the socialist, because she knows things. Pam Banks knows that while you can never have too many Republicans or Democrats in office, even one socialist is way too many. CEO Banks knows that while you can never have too many corporate funded politicians, even one elected official that doesn’t take the corporate cash makes everybody else feel nervous and look bad. Banks knows that when gentrification is a problem, rent control is probably not a solution her funders would appreciate, even though it makes perfect sense to residents in danger of displacement. Banks knows that any run against a socialist incumbent will be well funded by forces who already call the League, and her, their good friend. They just might not be friends of the people of Seattle.
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and serves on the state committee of the GA Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com. Click here to download this audio commentary.
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Lastly we have labor unions and their commitment every election to supporting Clinton neo-liberals. National labor union leaders do this for two reasons----they are trying to protect labor union rights that Clinton neo-liberals are threatening as much as Republicans-----and they have structured these unions internationally so they operate like global corporations profiting off of labor and justice exploitation through Wall Street financial investments/Union Credit Unions.
The International AFL-CIO sat in on TPP negotiations through Bush years and Obama's first term to 'have labor voice at the table'. They knew how bad these trade deals would be for US workers and they knew that TPP seeks to restructure the entire American government and re-write the US Constitution to the detriment of the American people. What national AFL-CIO leaders got from sitting at the table was an agreement that unions would be allowed to organize the immigrants brought to the US under TPP and to organize in more nations in the developing world.
INTERNATIONAL UNIONS NEGOTIATE NOT ON WHAT IS BEST FOR AMERICAN WORKERS---BUT WHAT IS MOST PROFITABLE FOR THESE INTERNATIONAL UNIONS----JUST LIKE A GLOBAL CORPORATION.
That is why the unions are making all kinds of concessions that are corporate-friendly and it is why they support Clinton neo-liberals busting public sector unions as hard as they can---AFL-CIO knows that TPP requires all public subsidy -----Federal Trusts like Medicare and Social Security---all Federal subsidy like Food Stamps and Welfare will be eliminated. TPP does not want revenue going to public subsidy.
European unions and South Korean unions are all successfully fighting off TPP and getting rid of neo-liberals---US unions are partnering with them.
This is what I mean when I say----we must get rid of this global corporate structure for international unions and bring unions back to grassroots and domestic level. To do that we need to get rid of Trumka and Hoffa and these other international union leaders partnering with TPP and global corporations with the idea they may get to organize third world poverty and immigrants.
WE NEED UNIONS AND ORGANIZED LABOR----BUT IT MUST BE HEALTHY AND WORKING FOR THE INTERESTS OF LABOR AND NOT ONLY THE UNION.
Below you see the model Americans need for unions----we know the National Labor Board will be dismantled so we need unions to stop thinking about saving rights and paying union leaders----get back to basics where people were labor activists for no pay and we will win those rights back again---
Meet the new workers' movement that is terrifying the wealthy and the powerful
Jeff Spross (Ikon Images/Corbis) March 23, 2015
On Thursday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) re-introduced legislation to torpedo "micro unions," the latest labor movement to terrify business management, right-wingers, and capitalists in general. They aren't actually anything new, just a variation on long-standing labor-organizing practices that have come back into prominence. "Micro union" is a recently coined term of art for bargaining units that encompass one category of workers at a business — the cosmetics workers at a Macy's, for example — instead of the more traditional model of organizing all the workers for the business into one single bargaining unit.
In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided a group of certified nursing assistants at a nursing home constituted an appropriate bargaining unit in themselves, in a decision called Specialty Healthcare. In 2013, that decision got the stamp of approval from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 2014, the NLRB applied its logic to the aforementioned Macy's cosmetics workers.
Since then, union critics and business interests have been scrambling to respond. Retail industry groups told The Hill that the NLRB’s Macy's decision would "pave the way for micro unions at thousands of retail stores around the country." Isakson has made multiple attempts to pass his bill rolling back NLRB's decisions, with the backing of GOP heavy-hitters like Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
What's particularly interesting is the way the arguments made by micro-union critics run headlong into the arguments made by fans of right-to-work laws, which seek to prevent unions from coopting workers.
"The problem with Specialty Healthcare is not the smallness of the unions, but the way the lines are gerrymandered within a workplace," Jim Plunkett, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s director of labor law policy, told The Hill in 2014. "They're allowed to cherry pick the employees in the workplace that they know will be supportive of the union."
But recall that the argument for right-to-work laws is that, even if they weaken unions, they also prevent unions from negotiating contracts that would force every worker covered by the bargaining agreement to join a union and pay dues. This critique implies that picking the employees in the workplace you know will support the union and organizing just them into a bargaining unit is perfectly fine, yes?
Yet when business groups and other opponents aren't calling it "gerrymandering," they're arguing that lots of small bargaining units will make management a lot more logistically difficult than having one big bargaining unit to deal with!
Unions appear to be damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
Jerry Howard, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, said, "We'll do our best to discourage these things from getting into our sector."
"It lets the union get their nose under the tent," said Michael Lotito, a management-side attorney in San Francisco. To put it bluntly, this is not how people would talk if they were concerned about maximizing the common economic good and basic fairness — which is how union critics often paint their efforts. Right-to-work fans insist they're fine with unions as long as the workers themselves want the union, and see it as in their own best interests. If that's your logic, there's no intrinsic reason a non-unionized sector shouldn’t become unionized.
Of course, what this talk does sound like is people who recognize they're in a zero-sum battle over irreconcilable interests.
Under free market capitalism, people are not paid for how productive they are — as the theory of marginal productivity claims — but for how replaceable they are. Say the marginal productivity a worker brings to a firm is $40,000 a year. But let's say that worker is scared because the economy recently went through a big collapse and there are more people looking for work than there are jobs available. (You know, just for the sake of argument.) So they settle for $35,000 a year. The employer isn't going to then say, "Oh wait, that’s not fair! Here, let me pay you the other $5,000 too." They're going to pocket the $5,000 as profit.
If employers can get away with lower pay, with unsafe or degrading working conditions, or by squeezing demeaning emotional labor from their employees, they will do so. It increases the amount of revenue they can take home as profit, as opposed to pumping it back into better wages. And it increases their power to run their workplaces in whatever manner they see fit, regardless of what the workers themselves think.
Bargaining power is everything, and unions increase it for workers.
Employers "feel like the deck is stacked against them," said Amanda Wood, director of employment at the National Association of Manufacturers.
I'm sure they do. But unless we're expected to believe employers and business owners are the underdogs in the grand socioeconomic sweep of American life, and everyday workers are some colossus bestriding the landscape, seeing all their most petty desires met, it's unclear why we should prioritize employers' wounded feelings.
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In the US Congress chose austerity over recovering tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud and our social programs and public Trusts are being gutted of funding as to offer no real protection when needed. They did this with US unions supporting the same Clinton neo-liberals committed to partnering with Republicans to do this. Neo-liberal states were worse than Republicans in all of this corporate fraud and it is behind the wealth inequity---California, New York, Washington State, and Maryland are the worst for the wealth inequity from fraud not yet recovered. Unions in Europe and South Korea have been central from the start in educating against the austerity taking the people's wealth----
Belgium unions protest against austerity cuts Strike being observed against government policies that will extend pension age, limit wages and cut public services.
15 Dec 2014 11:44 GMT | Europe
Angry strikers gathered on Monday to protest against what they called the government's lack of support for the Belgian economy.
An activist stood at one picket line in the capital Brussels for the country’s CSC trade union, saying protesters are here on a common front to denounce government measures.
"Austerity measures imposed by the government will cost the economy $2.5bn, and we are denouncing it because the SNCB will not be able to support this debt, this economy," he said.
Train services like Eurostar and flights standstill, causing inconvenience for travelling passengers who thought they could catch an early escape before protests erupt.
Cancelling flights across the country, Belgian air traffic control, Beglocontrol, also took part on the strike.
Check-in counters remain empty as 600 flights had been cancelled affecting 50 thousand passengers, said a spokesperson for Brussels Airport.
The Belgian government says it is forced to push through firm austerity measures to maintain the budget deficit within the European constraints, and it insists businesses need tax policies they could tolerate to become more competitive in the global market.
Monday’s strike is part of a month-long campaign against a free-market liberal coalition.
Trade unions say government policies only aim to target workers with extended pension age limits, a freeze of the automatic link between wages and inflation, and cuts in public services that will hit the population as a whole.
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The US has seen Ports privatized, transportation being privatized, and now water and waste privatized, along with public education K-university with no union protests of any size. When a union supports a Clinton neo-liberal having public private partnerships as a platform issue and then comes out to protest privatized water----knowing that is exactly what that neo-liberal promised to do----THEY ARE NOT PROTECTING THEIR MEMBERSHIP. The working and middle-class are the unions and these are the groups killed by all this privatization.
Note that Kreolis French global corporation is the same as VEOLA------here in the US
Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe
date: 24 February 2014
embargo: 00.01hrs Tuesday 25 February 2014
Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe
The UK’s rail unions will join colleagues from across Europe in Strasbourg today (Tuesday) to protest against European Commission (EC) plans to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe.
Today and tomorrow (Wednesday) MEPs in Strasbourg will be debating and voting on the Fourth Railway Package. Proposals in the package include making the tendering of rail passenger services obligatory, and imposing the separation of train operation from infrastructure management in every EU member state.
The demonstration against the Fourth Rail Package will take place in front of the European Parliament at 1pm and representatives from the unions’ Action for Rail campaign – including the ASLEF, the RMT, TSSA and Unite – will all attend.
The EC’s proposals could permanently expand the control that overseas rail companies will have over the UK’s rail services, Action for Rail warns, and will impose the UK’s model of privatised and fragmented rail passenger services – that has created huge inefficiency and escalated costs – across Europe.
Action for Rail also believes that the package will make it impossible for any UK government to adopt an alternative to privatisation, ruling out successful publicly-owned and run services such as the East Coast Mainline. Customer satisfaction rates for the line are amongst the highest for train operating companies in the UK, the company provides an income of up to £800m to the Treasury and since 2011 it has received 35 industry awards.
While the UK government has ruled out public ownership of the railways at home, Action for Rail is concerned that foreign state-owned rail companies are using this as an opportunity to make a profit. Of existing UK rail companies, Arriva is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn, Keolis is majority owned by the French national rail operator SNCF, and Abellio is owned by the Dutch state operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
According to a recent study by the Centre for Research on Socio-Economic Change for Arriva Trains Wales, subsidy exceeds private revenue from fares, with the state contributing 60p in every £1 of revenue. The report finds that privatisation is not value for money for UK taxpayers as Virgin West Coast Trains would not make a profit from the West Coast Mainline without state support, and Arriva Trains Wales would not run at all. Since the start of the franchise in 2003, Arriva and Deutsche Bahn (Deutsche Bahn AG acquired Arriva in 2010) have extracted £75 million in dividends.
Government plans to privatise East Coast Mainline could see the company taken over by Keolis and Eurostar through their joint bid. Action for Rail argues it would be far more efficient for rail services to be directly run and operated by the public sector.
Action for Rail argues that the emphasis on privatisation goes against public demand. A YouGov Poll from November 2013 found that two-thirds (66 per cent) of respondents wanted the railways to be run by the public sector, compared to less than a quarter (23 per cent) wanting it to be run privately. Former Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, has spoken in favour of the East Coast Mainline remaining in public hands and Alastair Campbell has recently suggested that the Labour Party should re-nationalising the railways.
Chair of Action for Rail and TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Imposing the rail privatisation system that is so clearly failing in the UK across Europe would be a disaster for passengers and taxpayers alike.
“Today we are urging MEPs to vote against the damaging Fourth Railway Package which will entrench and extend UK rail privatisation and overseas control of the UK’s railways.
“We have real concerns that if these proposals are adopted future UK governments will be unable to create a publicly-owned railway that puts passengers and public first like the successful East Coast Main Line.”
ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘In the UK we are still learning and suffering from the harsh lessons of the flawed model that the European Commission now wants to impose on Europe. In the interests of passenger safety, proper investment, a properly integrated and publicly-accountable railway network, I urge MEPs to reject these proposals.”
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “This rail package demands that the disastrous rail privatisation experiment that started in Britain 20 years ago is now imposed on the rest of the EU through compulsory competitive tendering, fragmentation and open access competition.
“As a result of this EU business model Britain now has the highest rail fares in Europe, a culture of cuts and profiteering and the growing use of contract labour and zero-hour contracts.
“That is no future for public transport here or anywhere else in Europe. We need publicly-owned and accountable transport services that serve people before profit.”
TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Rail passengers in the UK are still paying dearly for the Tories disastrous sell off of our public railway 20 years ago. Fares have more than doubled and are now the highest in Europe.
“Our fragmented private network has turned into a taxpayer funded junkie, needing over £4 billion a year in public funding fixes just to keep going. It would be economic madness if the rest of Europe now adopted this disfunctional system.”
Unite National Officer Julia Long said: “UK commuters spend over three times more of their salary on rail fares than European colleagues. Why on earth is the EC now planning to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe?
“MEPs must vote against these alarming and misguided proposals and tell the Commission it is on the wrong track.
“British commuters are being ripped off by sky high train fares which have been caused by privatisation. These proposals are bad news for commuters across the rest of Europe and could prevent the UK from looking at alternatives to privatisation.”
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