Battle for the Net helps you tell our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) to reinstate the net neutrality rules it repealed back in 2017. Why now? Because with more Americans working from home and more schoolkids taking classes at home, we are seeing, in real time, why we need our FCC to force internet service providers to treat all of its network traffic with equal importance. FCC Chair Ajit Pai says he's watching to make sure big telecom corporations don't just kick people off, but thanks to his own ideological predilections, he has absolutely no power to make big telecoms treat us all well! He can only beg! And begging big corporations to do the right thing sure is a great look for our government, which exists, after all, to serve us -- better to make big corporations do the right thing, and then punish them if they don't! Because if history has taught us anything, it's taught us that big corporations won't do the right thing just because it's the right thing to do -- but we get much better results if we make them do the right thing.
Meanwhile, you may not know that our Centers for Disease Control (or CDC) uses private contractors to staff its call centers! And you may not know that one of them -- a corporation called Maximus, operating a CDC call center in Hattiesburg, MS -- trained 70 newly-hired employees without following physical distancing rules, and surprise, surprise! At least one got infected. And then Maximus didn't provide protecting equipment to its employees, or allow enough of them to work from home though "call center operator" seems like an obvious work-from-home job! I'd call all that irony, except for the nagging sense that irony should be subtler than that. Hence Good Jobs Nation helps you tell CDC Director Robert Redfield to ensure that all workers who answer calls for the CDC be able to keep themselves safe during this pandemic. Not for nothing, but Mr. Redfield could do that a whole lot more easily if our government didn't keep outsourcing vital services to private corporations. Our government's supposed to work for us, after all.
Finally, Pennsylvania residents, take note: the Commonwealth's reactionary state legislature continues taking a reaper's scythe to any government program that might actually benefit people, now with HB 1822,which aims to slash the Environmental Stewardship Fund, the Conservation District Fund, and the Keystone Recreation, Park, and Conservation Fund, and if that seems like "too many funds" to you, consider how much money our state gives away in corporate welfare to gas and coal, and consider how often legislators slash funding for good conservation programs over the years just so they can one day argue "hey, let's get rid of it, no one'll miss it." You'll miss the clean air, clean water, and parks to go hiking, fishing, and hunting in, I can guarantee you that! So let's not be like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water who doesn't realize he's cooked until it's too late. HB 1822 has already passed the House but awaits a Senate vote, hence the Sierra Club helps you tell your PA state Senator to protect conservation funding by rejecting HB 1822.
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