First things first. You've heard that good Americans are protesting police brutality against black folks in general and the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in particular -- and you've also heard some Americans are using the protests as cover to loot and destroy property. You may even have heard -- and from our "liberal" media, no less! -- that quite a few white folks are looting and destroying property, and at least some of these folks may be agents provocateur. But if you're not protesting, you can still fight police brutality. H.R. 4359, the PEACE Act, would require that federal law enforcement officers can only use force against Americans only when "necessary" -- not merely when "reasonable," which is the current (and obviously quite inadequate) standard -- and would also require training for officers when they deal with more vulnerable populations. And the bill would prevent officers from justifying killing someone if their own "gross negligence" made the death "necessary." So Peace Action helps you tell your House Reps to help protect vulnerable folks from police brutality by passing the PEACE Act.
While we're on the subject, Sen. Schatz (D-HI) has announced that he'll introduce an amendment to the upcoming defense authorization bill that would end the sale of military equipment to local police departments, and so now would be a good time to call your Reps and Senators and tell then you would support such an effort. Perhaps depriving police departments of weaponry as looting is going on sounds counter-intuitive, but I would respond that military weapons don't help police departments fight crime -- you don't need a grenade launcher to break up a meth ring, you need boots on the ground in communities making connections and asking questions -- and that when you do give police military weapons, well, they tend to use them, and not against criminals! They tend to use them against protestors, and, ironically enough, often against protestors who speak out against police brutality. Maybe "ironically" is too good a word there; the word better describes things we can't or don't anticipate. Too much of this world makes too much sense; I wish that prompted our leaders to help us create a better one.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to reject any Administration effort to weaken or destroy Social Security -- including their so-called "Eagle" plan to let folks collect money now in exchange for a later retirement -- then Social Security Works still helps you do that. In the above link, you will also tell your Congressfolk to reject our President's proposed payroll tax cuts and/or holidays -- which are, of course, efforts to destroy the very mechanism by which we fund Social Security! -- and you will also tell your Congressfolk that, if anything, we should expand Social Security. How can we expand Social Security? Easy: simply start taxing income over $132,700 into the system. Currently the payroll tax that funds Social Security only applies to income under $132,700, and, well, as you know, a lot of folks make a lot more than that in a year -- hell, a few folks have made billions just during this pandemic! -- and if we get that money into the system, then we might be able to silence all this pablum about SOSHUL SECURITIEZ IZ RUNNINGZ OUTZ OF TEH MONEYZ!!!!! Hope springs eternal, after all.
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