MoveOn helps you demand that the New York Times report on what federal budget items cost in the context of the larger budget. In other words, the Times shouldn't tell us that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting soaks up about $400 million annually without also mentioning that the federal government spent about $3.3 trillion in 2012. If the Times told you that, then you'd know that NPR takes up a little more than one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget -- that's right, not one percent, but one percent of one percent -- and you might then think that fiscal "hawks" who whine about spending money on NPR might be full of soup. You'd be right to ask "why just the Times?" After all, the entire "liberal" media does a lousy job of reporting on budgetary items in context. Hell, they do a lousy job reporting on anything involving numbers! But if the Times starts doing it right, other papers will have no excuse to keep doing wrong.
Meanwhile, Oxfam has reported that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo benefit rather immensely from relationships with suppliers who steal land from indigenous peoples to grow sugar. If you're inclined to think (as I am) that your sugar habit is a lot more trouble than it's worth, consider this another impetus to ditch the habit -- and if you're at all familiar with the story of how the sugar trade absolutely ruined Central America over the last few hundred years, you'll find sad, sad echoes here also. We're not talking about lands seized via eminent domain -- we're talking about big sugar suppliers forcing people off their land, without their consent, without payment, occasionally violently. Coke responds by telling us very carefully exactly whom they don't buy "directly" from, which isn't the tiniest bit suspicious, and Pepsi tells us their suppliers have assured them they're following all "applicable" laws, which must be a tremendous comfort to the subsistence farmer whose house just got burned down. Thus Sum of Us helps you tell Coke and Pepsi to ensure their supply chain is uncorrupted by suppliers who steal land.
Finally, hot on the heels of the government shutdown/debt limit deal that got nothing for Republicans other than deep knowledge about the taste of dung but sets up another shutdown/debt limit crisis at the beginning of 2014, the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to end these artificial hostage crises and start governing like responsible adults. OK, the Sierra Club didn't actually say "start governing like responsible adults," but nothing in the world prevents you from telling them that. No, really: they need to hear it. They need to hear, from their constituents, that we're on to their games and that we hate their games, especially when their little shutdown drama allowed over 800,000 gallons of fracked natural gas to spill in North Dakota with nobody to clean it up. The Sierra Club makes a number of good suggestions -- public campaign financing, restoring the Voting Rights Act, changing rules that allow minorities to hijack our government -- and you can, of course, add to them. But don't be afraid to tell them you're angry. They need to know you're angry.
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