There is a song from the soundtrack of Rent titled Seasons with the following lyrics: “Five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes. That is how many minutes comprise one year.”
525,600.
$168,600 taxable income is the cap for contributing to Social Security- one of the most effective programs to combat poverty and provide income for elderly- and the part that is usually attacked- disabled citizens. That means that a well-off professional and billionaires contribute the same amount of money to this incredible program! Unless the folks with a lot more zeroes in their wealth can avoid even that. Not only is this unfair, but it’s hamstringing the program. Removing the cap on payments, or making it much higher, would fix the solvency “issue” so many critics play chicken little over.
There are approximately 60,000 children incarcerated in the United States currently. Former fetuses who cannot legally drink, vote or enroll in the military are in prison or juvenile facilities.
As written in an earlier email, one out of six of our children are hungry and one in eight adults face food insecurity.
There are 582,462 unhoused people in our country, And due to deliberate policies that fail to protect renters, many more will soon join that community. The overwhelming legislative concern seems to be for banks over homeowners. The end result is there are a greater number of people unhoused here than there are minutes in a year.
Hum on that.
Slightly more than half of the nation's rivers/streams and lakes are deemed too polluted. 40% of current species face extinction. A half century ago, one third of workers were part of a union/now it is one in ten.
See math is woke.
The purpose here is not to dead scroll though the problems challenging our citizens and created by elected officials. It is to illustrate just a few of the issues that our allies and supporters and activists fight for. There are so many more this email could be ten times as long, but it is time to pivot to hope and action.
To reiterate...Too many in power don't want you to vote. So cast your ballot. For primaries and the general election and any special ones falling here or there.
Punch up and lend a hand down and around. Elected officials theoretically work for us.
Unite and demand change.
Stand up. If it seems scary, start holding hands together. Begin by uniting your block (or church or PTA) and keep expanding out like a pebble creating ripples in a polluted lake.
Do not take the bait of seeing your allies as enemies. The pie is large once the tiny group of monied donors are prevented from taking most of it.
Look past demographics and focus on issues/policies and legislation.
Please keep supporting your neighbors and local/small and unrepresented businesses. Then, together with countless others undertake a growing and effective united economic protest movement.
Don't Shop on Tuesday.
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