I have a pair of Dakota Access Pipeline-related action alerts to pass along: one from Sum of Us, which helps you tell big banks all over the world to divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline and related projects, and another from Demand Progress, which helps you tell the FCC to investigate allegations of illegal cell phone-jamming at the protests. Do not give in to the notion that Donald Trump's election will grease the skids for pipelines that threaten our clean water! Donald Trump ain't the boss of the big banks -- one might more easily say they're the boss of him, which seems particularly true of the Deutsche Bank -- and big banks hate the Big Stick of Bad PR more than they'd like you to think. And yes, Donald Trump will get to appoint at least one big telecom shill to the FCC once he takes office, but you may recall a time when a majority-Republican FCC would not oppose the public on matters such as net neutrality and media consolidation. The challenge of a Donald Trump Presidency will be to remember that your will still matters, even if he'd prefer his will to cast a great shadow over ours. But he ain't the boss of us. We're the boss of us.
Meanwhile, Roots Action helps you tell certain state prison administrations to stop preventing prisoners from receiving the SF Bay View National Black Newspaper. The Bay View has, for decades now, published articles written by prisoners about their experiences -- and has been one of the few lifelines prisoners have to find out how they're being mistreated, in their own prison and in others. I'm sure the tough-on-crime crowd (which I dare say is champing at the bit for January 20 to arrive, amirite?) will tell us they're prisoners and deserve any additional punishment we can heap upon them regardless of what their sentences actually say, but civilized people know better -- the way we treat those who have broken our laws marks us before God and before each other. Besides, what do prisons have to fear from exposure of prisoner treatment? That they'll have to do a better job? That they may even have to hire more prison workers and train them more effectively, two things that prison executives hate doing because they "interfere with profits"? Might it be true that treating prisoners as they deserve to be treated, and helping to rehabilitate them, are not only the right things to do, but actually create jobs?
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