INTRODUCING . . . COLLENE LAMONTE

It’s time for our legislators to do the job or get out of the way. Their record is abysmal. 

Emergency Managers (EMs), small-time dictators, are now taking over cities and schools. 

Students are going without libraries, physical education and art classes. 

Students are packed in their classrooms like sardines, and as a result are not getting the attention they need and deserve.

Privatization is rising; wages are falling.

Taxes have increased 1,000% on our poorest residents (by legislators who call themselves pro family).

The 1% is gaining ground at the expense of the 99%.

And the legislators who got us into this mess have millions of dollars with which to convince the electorate this is what’s best for us.

I have a question for you. Should we stand by and watch?  Or should we to stand together to create a brighter future for Michigan? 

My vote is for us to stand and fight.  We can do it; we can put reasonable people back into the legislature.  But it won’t be easy.  It will take the participation of every last person who sees what is happening and doesn’t like it.

There is so much we can do. 

Number one on that list is electing legislators who will truly represent us.

We have a fantastic candidate in the 91^st district. Her name is Collene Lamonte; she is a high school science teacher, bright capable and hard-working.  I support her 1000%.  You can learn more about Collene by going to her Facebook Page, Collene Lamonte for Michigan’s 91^st District.  Please go there and “like.”

Please study up on Collene and then let me know how you can help. 

Remember. We can do this.  But it will take all of us.

Mary Valentine

(If you would like to donate to Collene’s campaign, please go to: 

https://actblue.secure.com/entity/fundraisers/28706

WOW!  What a fantastic turn-out for the Holly Hughes coffee hour today -- about 40 people.

Sadly, though, she was proficient at not answering most of our questions.  The meeting was an hour long, with lots of good discussion and many great questions.  This is a summary of some of those issues.

There was a great deal of discussion about referendum-free laws which have been passed recently.   She answered by talking about her work for Veterans (really!  I couldn't make this stuff up).  When pressed, she came back to the referendum-free laws and denied that was happening.  When further pressed, she attempted to convince us that appropriation and policy bills could not be separated and said she'd look into it .  Many people addressed this issue with considerable passion.

When asked about the Lansing casino, she said the governor was against it but would initially not tell us what she thought about it.  She also gave a lot of irrelevant information. Eventually, she mentioned that personally she isn't crazy about them.

When I asked her about her 0% rating from Clean Water Action, she completely ignored the question and told us about her history as an environmental activist in the 90s. 

(Because of that activism, people assumed she would vote as an environmentalist.  Thus, it is all the more disappointing that she received a 0% rating from Clean Water Action).

She was also asked about the situation in Muskegon Heights.  She mentioned the superintendents she had talked with and agreed it was a problem.  Dave Frederick drew applause for the following question:  why is there money for bail-outs of the world's largest  banks, for General Motors,  and tax breaks and large subsidies  for  businesses, but not a bail-out for Muskegon Heights?

Tracy Dobson informed Rep. Hughes that 80% of the American public believes the Citizen United decision is wrong  and asked her to introduce a resolution in the legislature for a constitutional amendment to repeal the Citizens' United ruling, which allows corporations to be people.  She answered by talking  about the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act and a bunch of irrelevant details. When pressed, she said she would look into the resolution, which was handed to her.

She agreed that Cyber Schools were not good for kids but did not know how she would handle that issue when it came before her for a vote; she said she would have to study the bill, which is now in committee.

When asked about large corporations passing along the costs of their clean-ups to taxpayers, she talked about the Zephyr clean-up and how good it was that taxpayers were paying $6,000,000. for the clean-up and she would try to get additional money as well BECAUSE SHE KNOWS FULL WELL THAT IT WILL COST FAR MORE THAN THAT.  She said it was not possible for the private companies that own it to pay for their own clean up because there were three companies.  Tracy Dobson asked why it could not be split up in thirds.  She did not answer.

Someone asked her about horizontal hydraulic fracking.  She did not seem to know much about it, which is surprising considering how much has been written about it in recent months.  She said she would look into it.

 

Another speaker inquired about why taxpayers are paying for environmental clean ups instead of the polluters themselves.  She then went into the Zephyr money and never responded to the main question (polluters used to be required to pay into a fund that was used for cleanups but Engler got rid of it).

 

So these are the issues we need to follow up on: her vote on cyber schools (she agreed with us that students need hands-on teachers), the resolution for a constitutional amendment related to the citizen's united ruling, referendum-proof laws, and horizontal fracking.

SCHOOL FUNDING: ALL OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY

He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

This is the text of a speech I gave at the Oakridge Rally for Education Funding.
 
I want to remind everyone here and our legislature that our forefathers demanded public education. They knew that to keep our democracy strong and vibrant, we need an educated citizenry. 

And I don't need to tell you that the state of education in Michigan is a mess. Lansing won't let us raise our own funds, yet they refuse to fund us adequately and equitably. They say they want consolidation, but at the same time, they allow for-profit, non-transparent schools to proliferate, squeezing ever increasing funds from our traditional neighborhood schools. 

Our traditional neighborhood schools have been the backbone of our country since its very inception. Now the decisions being made in Lansing are putting them at risk. We now have people who know absolutely nothing about education making all the decisions about it in Lansing. It’s easy, then, to blame Lansing.

The truth is, though, that we in this room must take responsibility for what has happened. We are the people who put those legislators in office. We must be the ones to replace them with legislators who value -- and will vote to support – funding for our traditional neighborhood schools, those who take every student. 

Every single one of us in this room, including me, is responsible for who we send to Lansing to make decisions for us. When we fail to do every single thing we can to send responsible legislators to Lansing, we are part of the problem. 

We cannot change the past, but we can learn from our mistakes and do better in our future. My comments here tonight are a call to arms. Not the arms of bombs and guns, but the arms of political engagement. We are in the battle of our lives. We can be part of the problem by sitting on the sideline and watching. Or we can be part of the solution by engaging in the political process. 

I was a teacher in the public schools for over 30 years, and there is one thing I know for sure. Teachers are hard-working individuals, dedicated to their students. But perhaps that dedication to our students, that single-mindedness of purpose, has contributed to our own downfall. 

For too long, we have abdicated our responsibility to the political decision-making process. It is up to us to each and every one of us in this room to send responsible and responsive legislators to Lansing. We are at a point where simply voting is no longer enough. There is no one single, identifiable group more threatened by Lansing politics than educators and their students. This reminds me of the poignant words of Pastor Martin Niemoller 

First they came for the Communists 
And I did not speak out 
Because I was not a Communist 
Then they came for the Socialists 
And I did not speak out 
Because I was not a Socialist 
Then they came for the trade unionists 
And I did not speak out 
Because I was not a trade unionist 
Then they came for the Jews 
And I did not speak out 
Because I was not a Jew 
Then they came for me 
And there was no one left 
To speak out for me.

Another way to say this:

First they came for the custodians and I did not speak out because I am not a custodian.
Then they came for the bus drivers, but I did not speak out because I am not a bus driver.
Then they came for the substitute teachers, but I did not speak out because I was not a substitute teacher.
Then they came for me.  And there was no one left to speak out.

As a profession, we public school employees and retirees must rally and prepare for battle. The battle is the 2012 elections and we must win. We simply cannot afford to be defeated – far too much is at stake. 

Those of us in this room right now? It is our job to make democracy work and save our public education system. That is why I opened with King's quote tonight. Michigan is in a crisis. Things are bad, but without our help, they could get much worse. And if we sit by the sidelines and watch, we are part of the problem. 

There is so much that needs to be done. Please join the struggle for a better education for Michigan students. There are two tracks that need to be addressed: constant communication with our legislators. And if they don't listen, engage in political campaigns to replace those leaders.

I am asking you to engage in the political process. 

Is this easy? NO. 

Does it make us uncomfortable? YES 

But we all do uncomfortable things. We have had that first day on a new job, faced an irate boss or customer or parent or constituent. We don’t run away from those experiences; we face them. We do uncomfortable things all the time because it’s the right thing to do. Now it is time for each of us to face down our discomfort to become true patriots and join the political realm -- for the sake of Michigan's students. 

Every single person here can do something: donate money, no matter how small the amount, to a political candidate – not to your union, but to the candidate. Keep giving to your union’s Political Action Committee. It is important. But please give to the candidate him or herself. Every single person here can knock on a door or make a phone call, walk in a parade, no matter how uncomfortable that makes us. 

There are nearly four thousand public school employees working in Muskegon County. If just half of us donated $10 to the state candidate who supports education and the people who educate, we could raise $20,000 to help defeat the Lansing politicians who have voted to slash funding for schools and ultimately your wages and benefits. If you can donate $10 every month until November, we could fund the whole darn campaign. The best part?? Ten dollars a month is nothing. We could squeeze that out of our budget and not even know it’s gone. 

The time to jump in is not tomorrow or next week. There is no timefor procrastination. The time to jump in is right now. 

Thank you.

CDC

We ARE The People

This is the text of a speech given by Anne Pawli at the WATP event held on Saturday, Oct. 29.

 We are a diverse coalition of organizations, the old, the young, the retired, the unemployed, students and workers, who understand evil is afoot in Michigan.  We were promised the American Dream but woke up in a nightmare, where elders' pensions are taxed, the poor are left hungry and homeless, teachers and other public employees are scapegoated as parasites on the system and working class women and men are told to downsize their plans for a secure retirement.  We are here because we know if we don't unite and face our foe together, we will be picked off and trampled underfoot one by one by one.  It has already begun.   

We are nonviolent.  We treat each other, and those who do not understand the urgency of our cause, with dignity and respect.  As MLK said, “Don't bring your opponent to their knees, bring them to their senses” and that is exactly what we intend to do.  But let's be clear: nonviolence does not mean we acquiesce to the outrageous policies coming out of Lansing.  We will stand together, arm in arm, back to back in support of each other, and we will stand toe to toe against the 1-percent and politicians who do not believe the shared burden of sacrifice pertains to them.  We will not go quietly into that good night.

We are a voice for those being forced to bear more of the burden of Lansing's misguided policies than they can possibly shoulder.  We are demanding our voices be heard by those elected to represent us.  WATP invited Sen. Goeff Hansen, Rep. Holly Hughes and Rep. Marcia Hovey-Wright to attend today's rally.  We expected our representatives would have the moral courage to face their constituents and defend or justify their votes on legislation which will hurt the most vulnerable among us.  We hoped they had solutions for the terrible problems their new policies will create.  All three legislators said they had prior commitments.  Only Rep. Hovey-Wright felt compelled to change her plans so she could join us today.   

We are angry, but we will not let our anger control us.  We cannot afford to be paralyzed by our rage.  And so we are here today to harness our outrage into action.  The powers in Lansing think we are distracted, asleep, hopeless and helpless.  They couldn't be more mistaken.  The sleeping giant has awakened.  We are going to organize, educate, motivate and irritate if we have to, our neighbors, friends, relatives and coworkers.  We are going to make sure what happened last November doesn't happen in 2012.  We are the people.  We have the power.  We are watching.  We are listening. And we will vote for our best interests Nov 6, 2012.

LETTER TO THE 53%

Below is a letter written to one of the 53%ers.  Norm Kittleson got it from Daily Kos, by Max Udargo  It is not hostile and is exactly the kind of thing we need to be saying to those who disagree with us.

Hello,

I briefly visited the “We are the 53%” website, but I first saw your face on a liberal blog.  Your picture is quite popular on liberal blogs.  I think it’s because of the expression on your face.  I don’t know if you meant to look pugnacious or if we’re just projecting that on you, but I think that’s what gets our attention.

In the picture, you’re holding up a sheet of paper that says:

I am a former Marine.
I work two jobs.
I don’t have health insurance.
I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college.
I haven’t had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.
But I don’t blame Wall Street.
Suck it up you whiners.
I am the 53%.
God bless the USA!

I wanted to respond to you as a liberal.  Because, although I think you’ve made yourself clear and I think I understand you, you don’t seem to understand me at all.  I hope you will read this and understand me better, and maybe understand the Occupy Wall Street movement better.

First, let me say that I think it’s great that you have such a strong work ethic and I agree with you that you have much to be proud of.  You seem like a good, hard-working, strong kid.  I admire your dedication and determination.  I worked my way through college too, mostly working graveyard shifts at hotels as a “night auditor.”  For a time I worked at two hotels at once, but I don’t think I ever worked 60 hours in a week, and certainly not 70.  I think I maxed out at 56.  And that wasn’t something I could sustain for long, not while going to school.  The problem was that I never got much sleep, and sleep deprivation would take its toll.  I can’t imagine putting in 70 hours in a week while going to college at the same time.  That’s impressive.

I have a nephew in the Marine Corps, so I have some idea of how tough that can be.  He almost didn’t make it through basic training, but he stuck it out and insisted on staying even when questions were raised about his medical fitness.  He eventually served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has decided to pursue a career in the Marines.  We’re all very proud of him.  Your picture reminds me of him.

So, if you think being a liberal means that I don’t value hard work or a strong work ethic, you’re wrong.  I think everyone appreciates the industry and dedication a person like you displays.  I’m sure you’re a great employee, and if you have entrepreneurial ambitions, I’m sure these qualities will serve you there too.  I’ll wish you the best of luck, even though a guy like you will probably need luck less than most.

I understand your pride in what you’ve accomplished, but I want to ask you something.

Do you really want the bar set this high?  Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week?  Is that your idea of the American Dream?

 Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week?  Do you think you can?  Because, let me tell you, kid, that’s not going to be as easy when you’re 50 as it was when you were 20.

And what happens if you get sick?  You say you don’t have health insurance, but since you’re a veteran I assume you have some government-provided health care through the VA system.  I know my father, a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air Force, still gets most of his medical needs met through the VA, but I don’t know what your situation is.  But even if you have access to health care, it doesn’t mean disease or injury might not interfere with your ability to put in those 60- to 70-hour work weeks.

Do you plan to get married, have kids?  Do you think your wife is going to be happy with you working those long hours year after year without a vacation?  Is it going to be fair to her?  Is it going to be fair to your kids?  Is it going to be fair to you?

Look, you’re a tough kid.  And you have a right to be proud of that.  But not everybody is as tough as you, or as strong, or as young.  Does pride in what you’ve accomplish mean that you have contempt for anybody who can’t keep up with you?  Does it mean that the single mother who can’t work on her feet longer than 50 hours a week doesn’t deserve a good life?  Does it mean the older man who struggles with modern technology and can’t seem to keep up with the pace set by younger workers should just go throw himself off a cliff?

And, believe it or not, there are people out there even tougher than you.  Why don’t we let them set the bar, instead of you?  Are you ready to work 80 hours a week?  100 hours?  Can you hold down four jobs?  Can you do it when you’re 40?  When you’re 50?  When you’re 60?  Can you do it with arthritis?  Can you do it with one arm?  Can you do it when you’re being treated for prostate cancer?

And is this really your idea of what life should be like in the greatest country on Earth?

Here’s how a liberal looks at it:  a long time ago workers in this country realized that industrialization wasn’t making their lives better, but worse.  The captains of industry were making a ton of money and living a merry life far away from the dirty, dangerous factories they owned, and far away from the even dirtier and more dangerous mines that fed raw materials to those factories.

The workers quickly decided that this arrangement didn’t work for them.  If they were going to work as cogs in machines designed to build wealth for the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Carnegies, they wanted a cut.  They wanted a share of the wealth that they were helping create.  And that didn’t mean just more money; it meant a better quality of life.  It meant reasonable hours and better working conditions.

Eventually, somebody came up with the slogan, “8 hours of work, 8 hours of leisure, 8 hours of sleep” to divide the 24-hour day into what was considered a fair allocation of a human’s time.  It wasn’t a slogan that was immediately accepted.  People had to fight to put this standard in place.  People demonstrated, and fought with police, and were killed.  They were called communists (in fairness, some of them were), and traitors, and many of them got a lot worse than pepper spray at the hands of police and private security.

But by the time we got through the Great Depression and WWII, we’d all learned some valuable lessons about working together and sharing the prosperity, and the 8-hour workday became the norm.

The 8-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek became a standard by which we judged our economic success, and a reality check against which we could verify the American Dream.

If a family could live a good life with one wage-earner working a 40-hour job, then the American Dream was realized.  If the income from that job could pay the bills, buy a car, pay for the kids’ braces, allow the family to save enough money for a down payment on a house and still leave some money for retirement and maybe for a college fund for the kids, then we were living the American Dream.  The workers were sharing in the prosperity they helped create, and they still had time to take their kids to a ball game, take their spouses to a movie, and play a little golf on the weekends.

Ah, the halcyon days of the 1950s!  Yeah, ok, it wasn’t quite that perfect.  The prosperity wasn’t spread as evenly and ubiquitously as we might want to pretend, but if you were a middle-class white man, things were probably pretty good from an economic perspective.  The American middle class was reaching its zenith.

And the top marginal federal income tax rate was more than 90%.  Throughout the whole of the 1950s and into the early 60s.

Just thought I’d throw that in there.

Anyway, do you understand what I’m trying to say?  We can have a reasonable standard for what level of work qualifies you for the American Dream, and work to build a society that realizes that dream, or we can chew each other to the bone in a nightmare of merciless competition and mutual contempt.

I’m a liberal, so I probably dream bigger than you.  For instance, I want everybody to have healthcare.  I want lazy people to have healthcare.  I want stupid people to have healthcare.  I want drug addicts to have healthcare.  I want bums who refuse to work even when given the opportunity to have healthcare.  I’m willing to pay for that with my taxes, because I want to live in a society where it doesn’t matter how much of a loser you are, if you need medical care you can get it.  And not just by crowding up an emergency room that should be dedicated exclusively to helping people in emergencies.

You probably don’t agree with that, and that’s fine.  That’s an expansion of the American Dream, and would involve new commitments we haven’t made before.   But the commitment we’ve made to the working class since the 1940s is something that we should both support and be willing to fight for, whether we are liberal or conservative.  We should both be willing to fight for the American Dream.  And we should agree that anybody trying to steal that dream from us is to be resisted, not defended.

And while we’re defending that dream, you know what else we’ll be defending, kid?  We’ll be defending you and your awesome work ethic.  Because when we defend the American Dream we’re not just defending the idea of modest prosperity for people who put in an honest day’s work, we’re also defending the idea that those who go the extra mile should be rewarded accordingly.

Look kid, I don’t want you to “get by” working two jobs and 60 to 70 hours a week.  If you’re willing to put in that kind of effort, I want you to get rich.  I want you to have a comprehensive healthcare plan.  I want you vacationing in the Bahamas every couple of years, with your beautiful wife and healthy, happy kids.  I want you rewarded for your hard work, and I want your exceptional effort to reap exceptional rewards.  I want you to accumulate wealth and invest it in Wall Street.  And I want you to make more money from those investments.

I understand that a prosperous America needs people with money to invest, and I’ve got no problem with that.  All other things being equal, I want all the rich people to keep being rich.  And clever financiers who find ways to get more money into the hands of promising entrepreneurs should be rewarded for their contributions as well.

I think Wall Street has an important job to do, I just don’t think they’ve been doing it.  And I resent their sense of entitlement – their sense that they are special and deserve to be rewarded extravagantly even when they screw everything up.

Come on, it was only three years ago, kid.  Remember?  Those assholes almost destroyed our economy.  Do you remember the feeling of panic?  John McCain wanted to suspend the presidential campaign so that everybody could focus on the crisis.  Hallowed financial institutions like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch went belly up.  The government started intervening with bailouts, not because anybody thought “private profits and socialized losses” was fair, but because we were afraid not to intervene -  we were afraid our whole economy might come crashing down around us if we didn’t prop up companies that were “too big to fail.”

So, even though you and I had nothing to do with the bad decisions, blind greed and incompetence of those guys on Wall Street, we were sure as hell along for the ride, weren’t we?  And we’ve all paid a price.

All the” 99%” wants is for you to remember the role that Wall Street played in creating this mess, and for you to join us in demanding that Wall Street share the pain.  They don’t want to share the pain, and they’re spending a lot of money and twisting a lot of arms to foist their share of the pain on the rest of us instead.  And they’ve been given unprecedented powers to spend and twist, and they’re not even trying to hide what they’re doing.

All we want is for everybody to remember what happened, and to see what is happening still.  And we want you to see that the only way they can get away without paying their share is to undermine the American Dream for the rest of us.

And I want you and I to understand each other, and to stand together to prevent them from doing that.  You seem like the kind of guy who would be a strong ally, and I’d be proud to stand with you.

By Max Udargo

A SOLUTION TO MEN BEHAVING BADLY; ELECT MORE WOMEN

Published: Sunday, June 19, 2011, 7:26 AM

By The Muskegon Chronicle The Muskegon Chronicle
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Cokie and Steve Roberts

Men who cannot keep their pants up or their ears open are causing two of Washington's larger problems. And the remedy is the same: Elect more women to higher office.
Sex scandals and budget deficits might not seem like similar issues but in an important sense they are. In both cases, male arrogance and ego come into play. And in both cases, that leads to risky behavior -- emailing salacious images to women or jeopardizing the credit rating of the country.
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, got it right when she told the New York Times: "Women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody." Dee Dee Myers, former White House press secretary in the Clinton administration, added: "There are certain men that the more visible they get, the more bulletproof they feel. You just don't see women doing that; they don't get reckless when they're empowered."
Start with sex. After Rep. Anthony Weiner was revealed as a serial sender of phallic photos, folks tried really hard to compile a list of licentious women. The sinners included Helen Chenoweth, the late congresswoman from Idaho who carried on a long affair with a married man, and Katherine Bryson, a state legislator from Utah who got caught with her lover on a surveillance camera. To fill out the meager roster, historians had to dredge up Catherine the Great, who took many young lovers but died in 1796.
There are many reasons for this disparity starting with time. Men apparently have it, and women don't. One of the great unanswered questions is how Weiner squeezed in so many online flirtations. His colleague from New York, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (the mother of two small boys), once said of cheating: "While I'm at home changing diapers, I just couldn't conceive of it."
Then there's the "reckless" factor mentioned by Myers. Men might feel "bulletproof" but women know life doesn't work that way. They know there's always a price to be paid. Rep. Candice Miller, a Michigan Republican, told the Times: "Every time one of these sex scandals goes, we just look at each other, like, 'What is it with these guys? Don't they think they're going to get caught?'"
Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist, said the same self-confidence that enables a man to run for office could also fuel his sense of entitlement: "It's the Icarus phenomenon. You think you have wings and you can fly up to the sun and down to the water. Sometimes you burn and then you sink."
But sex scandals don't ruin the country's credit rating. The current struggle to raise the debt ceiling is far more serious, but males in both parties are exhibiting the same chest-thumping (or chest-baring) behavior that sank Weiner. Let's be clear, women can be highly partisan warriors (see Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi), but as Walsh noted, if their goal is to "do something," rather than "be somebody," women are more likely to submerge their egos, listen to their rivals, and seek pragmatic compromises.
In today's Senate, female members represent one of the few islands of civility. They meet regularly for private dinners, co-sponsor legislation, and have even written a book together. In a recent interview with Christiane Amanpour of ABC News, Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, argued that women "inject less libido, less testosterone" into the decision-making process. "We don't necessarily project our egos into cutting a deal," she explained.
On ABC's "This Week," author Claire Shipman agreed that an overdose of male hormones makes harmony much more difficult. "There's something about a group of men and testosterone, you know, making risky decisions, that's very real," she said.
Torie Clarke, who learned something about male behavior during her years as the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, added: "You can see guys within a company competing with one another all the time, often to see who can get to the top of the food chain, versus women who more often will say, 'I'm going to get in there, and let's get this done.'"
All men are not jerks, and all women are not gems. But females still hold less than 17 percent of all seats in Congress. And if you don't think Washington would be better off with more women in positions of power, answer this question honestly. Can you imagine a female legislator taking a picture of her private parts and sending it to a youthful male admirer? We rest our case.
Steve and Cokie's new book, "Our Haggadah" (HarperCollins), was published this spring. Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.