Skip to main content

Local is Where the Power Is

City councils are where the power truly is found. The city councils and mayors are who will solve the problems that we face. These people cannot afford to be ideologues. Their job is to pick up garbage, keep hospitals open, to ensure fire and safety services are available, and that law enforcement and teachers do their jobs. How many times have you or even heard a person say, “If I just was in charge things would be better.” Well, local governments, such as school boards, water districts, fire boards, city councils and county board of supervisors are as close as the average proletarians can get to being in charge or at least at the decision-making table when decisions are made that affect your life, your family’s life and that of the community you live in. Also the higher up one goes in government the slower things happen and the more money it takes to get elected. This is where ideologues take over and the nation stalls and nothing gets done that is worthwhile. A city can raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour, which can solve 90 percent of the problems in a city or county, and even help businesses by slowing turnover, which will make workers more productive. The extra money will be spent in your community, which will boost the local taxes and provide for more jobs. The key would be local—to get the cities in a county to agrees on a minimum wage so everyone would pay it and not put a business at a disadvantage and then tie it to a cost of living or Consumer Price Index. The other thing that worked in New York City was organizations, like the Working Families Party, with its grassroots powerbase, helped elect Mayor Bill deBlasio as New York’s mayor; and Seattle City, WA; Richmond, CA; and Newark, NJ, all now have progressive mayors. This is where people can still get things done, but will have to watch that the state or federal governments do not enact laws, which would stifle local laws or our power. A good book to read is, “If Mayors Ruled the World” by Benjamin Barber.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

May Day 2028 or Sooner

Unions’ long game is to get all union contracts to expire on the same day nationwide. The United Auto Workers combines contracts ends on April 28, 2028. This could then result in a mass national strike starting on May Day beeginning that year. This could then put enormous pressure on employers, but also on lawmakers. It’s the muscle and sweat of the workers that keeps this country great, not the individual company or corporations. This May Day strike would be the time to change the workers’ world for the better by negotiating for a 32-hour week with the same pay, and the U.S. adopts a healthcare for all with no out of pocket costs. This would also help the employers as they would no longer have to provide healthcare. By striking, the UAW won same pay for new workers, all UAW contracts will end on the same date, a 25-percent pay increase, a cost of living adjustments, a guaranteed right to strike over potential plant closures, and also the right to vote to unionize through the card che...
Post a Comment
Read more

Standing At The Precipice

Unions do not do well in a dictatorship because unions are the first thing dictators destroy, and rest assured the workers won’t be allowed to hit the streets in protest. If Trump is elected he will invoke the Insurrection Act and send troops into the cities to crush them and send a message that he will terminate and dissent. They will eliminate unions and unionized workers. We are standing at the precipice and it's up to us to fight the fall into a dictatorship. By voting for the GOP, maga people and anyone else will be able to keep their guns until Trump says, “No.” By then, he will have already amassed an Army of foot soldiers in place to take over the government jobs. They will be Trump’s people and they will do whatever he tells them to do. The only way this can be stopped is for all unions and their members to put aside their political and social differences and stand strong for democracy, unions, workers rights and workers safety. This is not a drill. It will happen just loo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Prepare for the onslaught

We must support whoever will protect workers, their pensions and health care, which are usually Democrats. If California loses the Democratic majority in its elected politicians, we will be the next Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio or Florida. If we lose more Democrats at the federal government level it will be even worse for the working people. The workers must put their feet on the ground and not be intimidated or embarrassed to fight for thier rights. This is now class warfare. The corporations want a low-wage, uneducated class of workers - the ones we used to call the 'middle class.'  And don't think our government will protect us. There is ample proof in our labor history to show that the government used force against its own people. What happened in Tunsia and Egypt would never have been allowed here. The government and corporations have in the past used our National Guard (remember Kent State), U.S. troops (the 1932 Bonus March) and private mercenaries, such as the Baldwi...
2 comments
Read more