The Outsiders of North Carolina

Like many of you, I have been paying close attention to the weekly actions in Raleigh, North Carolina, known as Moral Mondays. (The link is to their Facebook page. Please go give them a "Like" to express your support.)

Moral Mondays participants in Raleigh are protesting the same ALEC agenda that is plaguing us here in Wisconsin: voter suppression, refusal of federal funds to expand Medicaid in the state, and an onslaught of anti-family, anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-education, anti-democracy legislation, along with a proclivity for plunder and corruption. North Carolina governor Pat McCrory proclaimed this weekend that he wouldn't back down on the ALEC agenda. Just like his pal Walker, McCrory claims that "outsiders are coming in and they're going to try to do to us what they did to Scott Walker in Wisconsin."

So what does it take to be an insider in Wisconsin and North Carolina? Well, naturally, you have to be a $upporter of the governor, regardless of where you're from. So the cash that poured in for the campaigns of both governors from all over the country? That wasn't outside cash, because by definition $upporters are insiders. Whereas you rabble who have the nerve to voice your objections to the ALEC agenda, you are the essence of outsiders, even those of you who were born in the state and have lived there all your lives.

As a Wisconsin outsider, I'd like to take this opportunity to express solidarity with the outsiders of North Carolina for raising their voices, for putting themselves on the line for the sake of justice and democracy, for being willing to be arrested.

Melissa Harris-Perry has this to say to Governor McCrory:

If you thought you had your hands full with "Moral Mondays"—get ready for "Witness Wednesdays." You may want the protesters to go away governor, but they are just getting started. And so are we.

Here is the Madison Song Circle singing "Forward Together," which was written in honor of the Moral Mondays protesters in North Carolina and is sung regularly by the Solidarity Sing Along in the Wisconsin State Capitol.



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Many thanks to Lisa Wells for the photo used for the meme.

Only Money Has Free Speech

As it is now, advertisers make the decisions about the media, not the people, because the media exist for the purpose of making money. . . .

The fact that people with money can hire lobbyists to represent them in Washington limits equity in the political system. Poor people don’t have the money for this—if they spent everything they had, they couldn’t get enough money together to equal the lobbying power of the rich. After an election, people don’t have access to government, because lack of money prevents them from having equal access to the people in power. That’s an inequity that’s built into the system. That’s where money is more powerful than people.

People do have a right to vote. But whom do they have a right to vote for? They have a right to vote for whoever is chosen. That’s our dilemma right now. It starts with how much it costs to run for office—it now costs $3 million to run for governor in Tennessee. That rules out a lot of people. So the choice is between two people who are willing to spend $3 million, which is not a democratic choice. You can say that the people have a right to vote, but they only have the right to choose between two millionaires or people whom other people with money are willing to back.

—Myles Horton, The Long Haul, © 1990, pp. 169-170

ALEC Corporations: Boycott Them

Corporate members of the American Legislative Exchange Council write model legislation and pressure state legislatures to adopt it. These laws break unions, take away worker protections and environmental regulations, capture control of government for use of corporate interests at the expense of the public good. They include: AT&T, Kraft Foods, UPS, Walmart, Amazon.com, FedEx, Frito-Lay, HP, JC Penney, McDonalds, Microsoft, Miller Brewing Company, Outback Steakhouse, Sprint Nextel, Sony, Time Warner, United Airlines, Verizon, Visa, American Express, KFC/Taco Bell, Walgreens, and hundreds of others. Money you spend there will be used as weapons against democracy, against the middle class, against the environment, against civil liberties. Check the list before you buy. Shop at the smallest, most local places.

Dear Amazon

Dear Amazon,

I'm writing to let you know that, in spite of the fact that I own a Kindle, I'm not going to spend another cent at Amazon until I hear that you are (1) treating your employees better and (2) no longer a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). All of the people you employ are worthy of human respect and dignity, and our democracy must no longer be subverted by corporations who think their money entitles them to legislative work-arounds. Not only am I not going to spend another cent on Amazon, but I'm encouraging my friends who support workers and love democracy to do the same.

Most sincerely,

Mary Ray Worley

P.S. And I'm deleting my wish list.

I e-mailed the above letter to Amazon this afternoon. I received the following response:

Hello,
Thank you for your feedback. Please see our message at:
www.amazon.com/message
We hope to see you again soon.
Best regards,
Sai Rongali
Amazon.com

The link goes to a page with this message:

A Message from Amazon - September 22, 2011

There's been recent news coverage regarding temperatures and working conditions in our Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, fulfillment center.

Certain parts of the country experienced unusually high temperatures this summer. We spent more than $2.4 million urgently installing industrial air conditioning units in four of our fulfillment centers, including our Breinigsville facility. These industrial air conditioning units were online and operational by late July and early August. This was not mandated by any governmental agency, and in fact air conditioning remains an unusual practice in warehouses. We'll continue to operate these air conditioning units or equivalent ones in future summers.

We have temporary employees working in our facilities for two reasons - to manage variation in customer demand throughout the year and as a way of finding high-quality full-time employees. There are 1,381 full-time employees in Breinigsville, all of whom receive full-time benefits including healthcare. Since January of this year, 850 temporary employees in Breinigsville have been converted to full-time employment.

We welcome and embrace questions about our preparedness and planning, and indeed we routinely ask those internally, but those who know us well don't doubt our intent or our focus on employee safety.

Thank you. [emphasis added]

I like how hard they work to make sure the reader knows how protecting their temporary employees from being cooked alive is not "mandated by any government agency." Never mind that it's mandated by human decency.

I really hope it's true that Amazon is going to some considerable effort to do right by their temporary employees, and that they'll insist that their private contractors do the same. But I couldn't help but notice that nothing was said about Amazon's membership in ALEC. So they won't be seeing me again soon.