ORGANIZING NOTES
October 29, 2024
|
Bernie Is Right: Kamala Is Listening
|
Finally, in the home stretch, the Harris campaign recognizes that the way to beat Trump is to put working families first. Strong condemnation of “billionaires”, “big corporations” and the “politicians in Washington who serve them”, test best with blue-collar, service, and clerical workers, and professionals according to the Center for Working Class Politics. In a pivot from the Trump threat messaging’ and identity politics which have left Harris’s poll numbers lagging, her newest ad promises a crack-down on corporate price gouging, and a tax policy that benefits working families. Most voters want to hear how Democratic economic policies will help them as they struggle to find housing, pay for food, and afford healthcare, childcare, and education. Kamala needs to explicitly address these vital concerns to win the trust of the American people.Link to more info
|
Want To Actually Enjoy Organizing On Grim Issues Like Climate?
|
We can do that. We are trying to put the Nature back in Human Nature!
The ORMA Climate Crisis Working group is different. We know that we are not the experts. We connect people to existing groups to take action, and we create new organizations like the Trees as a Public Good Network to address unmet needs.
Join us! We are flexible and looking for new ideas; we are NOT top-down, tell us your climate passion, find validation, and bring it to life! Not sure what to do or how? Help us motivate others to engage in existing groups and actions.
Our core values are simple – The climate crisis is driven by the profit motive and unequal distribution of power in society, AND by a centuries long belief that humanity is meant to dominate the natural world as simply one more resource to use in the striving for wealth, power, and the accumulation of stuff.
We are committed to 1) protecting the natural world that protects us from the ravages of fossil fuels 2) ending the practice “burning s**t to create energy”; and 3) exposing the role that a rigged economy and corrupt politics play in sustaining the crisis.
We meet on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month, contact us at climate@ourrevolutionma.com for the meeting link and more information.
|
Transparency IS A Climate Issue: Vote YES on Ballot Measure 1
|
Codifying the State Auditor’s authority won’t make Beacon Hill transparent over night, but it’s a crucial step in the right direction. That’s why Speaker Mariano and other leadership is fighting so hard against it. Vote YES on ballot measure 1.
|
Solidarity, Not Charity: The Films of Ken Loach
|
The Old Oak, perhaps the last film to be made by 88-year-old Ken Loach, is now streaming on several platforms. The Old Oak is a pub in a town near Durham, England. The town lost its economic base when the U.K. closed all its coal mines. Now, a Syrian refugee family has moved in, which some residents see as a challenge to their social fabric.
Loach, as always, is concerned with the lives of working people caught up in life’s big challenges. He told the story of a British volunteer in the Spanish Civil War in Land and Freedom. Sorry, We Missed You, is about a man working for an Amazon-like company. He explored coping with government social services in I, Daniel Blake, the struggle to build a union in Bread and Roses, and divisions in Ireland in The Wind that Shakes the Barley. He has over 30 films in circulation; each will help you build strength to combat your Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Click here to learn how to view these films.
|
Weekend Of Action! Get Out The Vote!
|
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are crucial to electing Kamala Harris. We have been calling voters in both states to flip the US House and strengthen the slim Democratic majority in the PA House of Representatives. Calling for congressional candidates is also getting out voters for Harris-Walz, Sen. Bob Casey (PA), and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (WI). We are supercharging our efforts with three full days of calls.
These are easy Get Out the Vote calls to identified supporters and Democrats to make sure they vote!
Saturday – Get out the vote for Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke to Congress, get rid of extremist Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden.
Sunday – Get out the vote for Janelle Stelson and oust Maga Republican Scott Perry from his House seat in PA CD-10.
Monday – Afternoon: Help Democrats defend their one-vote majority in the PA House and help flip the US House with calls for Brian Munroe (PA HD-144), Anna Payne (PA HD-142), and get out the vote for Pennsylvania Democrat Ashley Ehasz to Congress. Evening: Get out the vote for Wisconsin Democrat Rebecca Cooke to Congress and get rid of extremist Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden.
|
Petition To Reopen The Hospitals
|
We continue to insist that Governor Healey reopen Carney, Nashoba, and Norwood hospitals! A recent article in the Boston Globe reports 22,000 additional patients are at risk of losing coverage. This is the reality of profit-driven health care, profits built into the system are placed over patient care! Where will we be if this comes to pass? Please sign our petition and help spread the word!
|
Please join Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa’s Medicare for All Briefing on Thursday, October 31st, at 11 AM. All are welcome to State House, Room 222 or virtually through Zoom. The focus will be H.1239/S.744, An Act Establishing Medicare for All in Massachusetts. We ask you to attend and urge your legislators and their staff to attend! To register for the Zoom link, click here.
|
Bikes Not Bombs 40th Anniversary Celebration
Join Bikes Not Bombs on Thursday, November 7 at 6:00 pm at Hibernian Hall (184 Dudley St) as they mark four decades of using the bicycle as a vehicle for social change.
Buy your tickets here!
|
Mothers Out Front Pumpkin Smash
Smash them, don’t trash them! Bring your pumpkins to English High on Saturday, November 2 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm and find ways to smash, throw, or crush them before they’re ultimately composted with the City of Boston Compost.
RSVP here!
|
Many Raise Up, (Again), To Protect Fair Share
|
In September Governor Healey requested $224 million of revenues from the Fair Share Amendment be used to balance the Fiscal Year 2024 budget. Outraged, Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teacher Association, said, “The governor, ….. wants to simply …. solve a deficit in the budget, and unfortunately, that deficit was in part created by a $1 billion tax cut that she and the legislature passed, a big chunk of which goes to the wealthiest individuals, the very people we had taxed with the Fair Share Amendment.” Link to More Info
Passed, as a state ballot question in 2022 “Fair Share” in states a new 4% tax on the Commonwealth’s millionaires to build new public funding reserves for education and transportation. Fortunately Max Page was not alone in defending Fair Share funds. Representatives from Transportation for Massachusetts, WalkMassachusetts, LivableStreets Alliance, TransitMatters, the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition, the Conservation Law Foundation, and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance, all rallied to preserve the funds for their intended use in transformative public educational and public transportation improvements.
And our state legislature listened. Both the House and the Senate have passed their versions of the FY 2024 closeout supplemental budgets and they leave Fair Share funds intact! It is broadly expected that the Governor will agree. Mass Budget Applauds Use of Fair Share as Intended
|
Cape Cod Gun Range Blocked!
|
In a locally acclaimed decision, Governor Healey recently announced a couple of weeks ago that she declined to build a Massachusetts National Guard gun range on Joint Base Cape Cod… Environmentalists had warned of the risk the gun range would contaminate the water of the Upper Cape Water Reserve. Barnstable County’s Board of Regional Commissioners and State Senator Julian Cyr repeatedly opposed the clearing of 150 acres of forest to build a multi-purpose machine gun range. For now, the water purity of the Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee, and Sandwich towns as well as Joint Base Cape Cod has been protected. Link to further information
|
If you would like to work with ORMA Members on
- Climate Change
- Community-Based Alternative Emergency Response Teams
- Ranked-Choice Voting
- Housing For All
|
ORMA depends on your support to continue Bernie’s Political Revolution to create a society, a politics, and an economy that works for everyone, not just billionaires, corporations and the political elite.
If you value Organizing Notes and its twice a month distribution schedule, please make a donation to ensure its continued existence.
Invest in Change Now!
|
Please send requests for action items, articles or upcoming events
for the next Organizing Notes to
beccobrien.orma@gmail.com by Thursday, November 7th.
We’d love to have you send us your favorite pictures of Bernie here in MA!
|
Campaigns End, Movements Endure
|
|
