Per a Reuters/IPSOS poll taken last week, 60% of Americans don't want to go to war with Syria -- even as we despise what the Syrian government has done to its people -- and only 9% of Americans do. But it looks like a miniscule minority will get all the say about everything again, especially since the "liberal" media have been acting like Mr. Obama "doing something" is a foregone conclusion. It's not -- our Constitution mandates that Congress declares the wars, not the President, and the War Powers Resolution also mandates that the President cannot use military force unless Congress approves. Well, the War Powers Resolution allows the President to retaliate against an imminent threat -- but how many Syrians have been attacking the U.S. lately? So Just Foreign Policy joins with MoveOn to help you tell your President and your Congress not to attack Syria without Congressional approval.
By now you've no doubt heard that Miley Cyrus's antics at the Video Music Awards Sunday were the talk of CNN all day Monday. Well, that's as good a reason as any to demand that we be able to pay for cable channels a la carte! I mean, I suppose we could write CNN and demand they ask themselves whether some celebrity shaking their butt on stage really constitutes news, let alone something a news channel should obsess about all damn day, but why would they care? You may not be watching CNN, but you're still paying for it, as part of your cable package, so they've still got your money. But S. 912, the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013, would (among other things) prevent cable packaging corporations from offering package deals on cable channels if they don't also offer those channels a la carte. The Parents Television Council still helps you tell your Congressfolk to support a la carte cable packaging; you'll likely have to amend their email tool to reflect actual support for an actual bill.
Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Congress to strengthen the Voting Rights Act so that state and local governments can't keep "the wrong people" from voting, the Sierra Club still helps you do that. As you recall, the Supreme Court, in Shelby County v. Holder, invalidated Section 4(b) of the Act, saying that the conditions that prompted its enactment had changed such that singling out certain states for heightened scrutiny now comprised an unconstitutional burden on those states. Perhaps not coincidentally, several of those states have pursued new avenues of discrimination against "those voters" since the Court's decision. Since the Court didn't strike the whole law down, Congress could come up with a new formula to replace the one the Court struck in 4(b). Some Congressfolk have said they don't see that happening. But recall that 2006's Voting Rights Act reauth looked dicey, too -- until public pressure made Congress do the right thing. We can do that again.
Finally, the Local Community Radio Act passed in late 2010, and the Federal Communications Commission will accept license applications for new community radio stations during the last two full weeks of October. If you want to build a community radio station, then Free Press and the Prometheus Radio Project help you learn what you need to know to get started. It won't be easy, and you'll eventually need to raise some cash, but your community radio station could serve folks that the big corporate radio stations (with their repetitive playlists and right-wing blowhards) don't. If your community doesn't get Spanish-language radio, you could do that. If your community doesn't get to hear a whole lot of local music, you could do that. If your community doesn't get reporting on agricultural wage-slavery, you could do that. The possibilities are endless. And it'll be a lot of work, but so's anything worth doing.
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Posted by: stairlifts | 2013.10.02 at 12:17 AM