Avaaz helps you tell the CEOs of half a dozen well-heeled banks and funds to divest from Israel. No one believes Palestinians should choose violence in fighting their occupiers, but no one ought to believe Israel is blameless, either -- they're fighting Palestine because they're occupying Palestine. But Israel's government will respond to international economic pressure, and will respond asymmetrically, in the sense that a little economic pressure will provoke a more sizable response than we'd be inclined to think. Desperate governments don't just overreact by sending missiles after single terrorists in nations they control almost absolutely -- they also overreact by dreading how much worse the bad PR could get if they don't choose another path. I support Israel's right not merely to exist but to set a good example for other civilizations -- and they do in many other respects -- so I certainly hope Israel's government sees the light, as so many of its citizens (who are, after all, their government's bosses) already have.
Meanwhile, S. 2615, the Hide No Harm Act, would hold corporate officials accountable when they "forget" to inform the public of the harm their products or practices cause. Such a bill should be close to the heart of anyone who's lost a family member to a heart attack caused by Vioxx -- about which danger Vioxx's manufacturer, Merck, kept an unwise silence for over five years. Anyone who lost a family member to a General Motors car with a bad ignition switch might feel the same way, as would anyone who lost a baby in a Simplicity crib. Product safety is not something only squares care about -- product safety is something that affects us all, and (as Mr. Surowiecki suggested in his New Yorker article about bankster settlements) we'll get better safety info if corporate officials know that they will suffer for their negligence. Hence the Center for Effective Government helps you tell your Senators to embrace some real law-and-order thinking in this great land of ours, and support the Hide No Harm Act.
Finally, the Department of Labor has finalized its rule extending minimum wage and overtime protections to home health care workers, but is actually mulling giving home health care corporations another year to make more money off its workers ahem adjust to the new rules. I'm sorry, I actually have very little sympathy for bosses who get all diaper-loaded over having to pay their workers like they're human beings or something. America has well over two million home health care workers, folks who feed and dress and bathe and clean up after folks too ill to take care of themselves anymore, and news flash! That sector of the economy is only going to get bigger as the years and decades go on. Hence the National Women's Law Center helps you tell the Department of Labor to extend protections for home health-care workers right away. People who need justice generally need it right now, after all -- not when "the Senate works its will," not when "bosses buy in," not when scaredy-cats stop whining, but now.
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