Hi there!
I am an 84-year-old social activist – a calling that began in Pittsburgh, where I was recruited in 1942 at the age of 15 (69 years ago — oy) to organize an attempt to buy Jews out of Nazi Europe. That experience gave some focus to a world gone mad and, I believe, saved my adolescence. (And we had fun!) I have never since left “the fold” — who would I be if activism were not an important part of my identity?
Lately, though, I’ve been considering a new persona as I transition into my precious remaining years, asking myself, What? and Who? and How? This is where the Frying Pan comes in – by inviting me to post my thoughts about my plans here. Will these be more of the same? (And I do mean “same.” How many times can I gather up the passion and energy to work for peace,
My name is James and I’m a registered lobbyist. It’s been 24 hours since I last lobbied.
I don’t especially mind being designated a lobbyist, and on occasion I’ll even introduce myself that way. Even still, the moniker feels a bit strange. After all, I don’t meet anyone’s standard definition of a lobbyist — a paid flack for various and sundry rich interests.
For this reason, I’ve long resented having to register, but recently I started wondering why we ask even the real lobbyists (i.e. the paid flacks) to register.
The City of Los Angeles requires that anyone who speaks to city officials advocating for something for 30 hours within any three month period must register. Currently, there are 350 lobbyists registered with the City, just over 23 for each council office. Together, these 350 work for 157 lobbying firms (including my nonprofit, the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy),
I’m a professional green jobs advocate. On my way out the door every day, I tell whoever will listen that I’m going to work to stop global warming and create thousands of jobs. So what are green jobs?
Since it’s a matter that very much concerns the next generation, I asked a young representative that I found sitting on my couch watching pre-season football.
Even with this important distraction, my 11-year-old son managed: “It’s a job that helps the environment.”
Okay. But what are some examples?
“I don’t know,” said the rep. “Planting trees? Maintaining solar panels?”
That’s more information than the Bureau of Labor Statistics has to offer, although it is reportedly working on coming up with a green jobs measurement. In the meantime, the Brookings Institute released a study that undertook the task of counting green economy jobs. They identified 2.7 million workers nationally in sectors they determined to be green: waste management and treatment,
Last May, at a public meeting the National Park Service held in Oxnard to gather stories about the farmworkers movement, a man in his 50s came up to Martha Crusius. He told her about a rally he’d attended with his parents, migrant workers from Mexico, back in the 1960s.
“He was a little kid back then, and he really didn’t understand it,” Crusius says. “But he remembered that there was this small, soft-spoken Mexican guy leading the rally, and he was someone people really looked up to.” While listening to others testify at the meeting, he realized what he’d witnessed. “That man,” he told Crusius, “was Cesar Chavez.”
Crusius is director of the National Park Service’s Cesar Chavez Special Resource Study, an effort to curate and preserve the legacy of the iconic civil rights leader and United Farm Workers co-founder for future generations. It’s an effort that fits neatly,
I used to love Amazon.com. After a book group meeting I’d run home and order a used copy of the next book we were reading, sometimes paying only $1.00 (plus shipping) for a “lightly worn” paperback. I even bought a CD player and cordless phones from the online retailer. Amazon introduced me to online shopping and I thought I’d never have to enter a mall again in my life.
But this summer Amazon threatened to declare war on the great (and economically struggling) state of California, and I’m pissed off. By refusing to collect California sales taxes on purchases from our state, Amazon wanted to be a freeloader of local government services while it rakes in millions of dollars from California residents.
Where would Amazon.com be if the state and local governments didn’t maintain the streets and highways that UPS and U.S. Postal Service trucks drive on to deliver those little Amazon cardboard packages?
I grew up on the western edge of South Central, near Century Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue. My block was full of local government workers—sanitation, probation, school district. I don’t know if the private-sector folks were unionized, but their wages were competitive enough to allow them to buy houses in the area, a scenario made possible by the standards set by unions that, from my perspective, were becoming mainstream. Part of that standard was hiring blacks as a matter of course.
It hardly needs to be said that today’s focused attack by the Right on unions all over the country is an attack on the working and middle classes. Public employee unions are the big target now because the private sector unions have frankly become too puny over the last generation to pose much of a threat any more to the corporate powers that be, which have expanded as rapidly—more rapidly, actually– as unions have dwindled.
The right-wing has never been happy with the National Labor Relations Board’s mission of safeguarding employees’ rights. But in the past year, there has been a full-scale attack on this commitment, in the wake of NLRB decisions to charge Boeing with unfair labor practices and its rulings in other key cases. The Senate has refused to confirm new members to the board, forcing the President to make recess appointments to keep it functioning. Now the attack on the NLRB has reached a fever pitch, as the powerful Club for Growth has made defunding the board a “key vote” test for lawmakers.
» Read more about: Club for Growth Declares War on the NLRB »
