In the wake of the massive lead poisoning crisis in Flint, MI, where twice as many kids now have dangerous amounts of lead in their blood, Color of Change helps you tell our government to restore full funding for the Center for Disease Control's Healthy Homes and Lead Poisoning Program. Our Congress has, naturally, cut such funding over the last three years; in 2012, Congress allocated $29 million to the program, but in the most recent omnibus bill allocated only $17 million, which was a $1.5 million increase over the previous fiscal year's number, but still not enough. While I'd hate to think it would take a disaster on the scale of Michigan's mismanagement of the Flint situation to get our Congress to act, I'm certainly not above using guilt and shame when appropriate. And no it is not "politically correct" to note that these crises seem to happen an awful lot in predominantly Black neighborhoods, neighborhoods redlined by active conspiracy among politicians, bankers, and real estate corporations. Just like in a lot of bad action films, Black folks too often get it first.
Meanwhile, the FCC's net neutrality rules may have survived the appropriations process in Congress, but the big telecom corporations are still trying to, ah, be creative in subverting the rules. T-Mobile, for example, now offers a "Binge On" service which lets you stream content from a select few big content providers like Hulu or Netflix without counting it against your data cap. Trouble is, if you want to stream content from, say, Youtube, you'll find not only that it counts against your data cap, but that the Youtube content gets to you a bit slower than the Hulu or Netflix content. And that's paid prioritization, the very thing net neutrality rules outlaw -- a corporation can't make it harder for you to access content if that content doesn't come from one of their "partners." You should get to go where you want to on the internet without worrying if it's going to cost you more or suddenly work more slowly. Hence Demand Progress helps you tell the FCC to stop T-Mobile's pro-corporate, anti-freedom "Binge On" plan.
Comments