On the occasion of yet more wildfires in California, MoveOn helps you tell California Gov. Newsom to stop approving new drilling and fracking leases in the Golden State. A lot of folks say there ain't a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans, and while that's not exactly true, it doesn't exactly help that California's Democratic Governor, nominally an environmentalist, lets all this oil and gas drilling happen, when making climate change worse is an obvious side effect. Having no clean water is another obvious side effect, since hydrofracturing uses a lot of water -- in a state that frequently experiences drought, no less! In a state already appropriating a lot of water for agricultural uses, no less! So, to sum: the solution to burning lungs, brown sky, ashes falling like rain, and so little water they tell you not to flush the toilet is what? More oil and gas drilling? How about more solar and wind, eh? Last I looked, California got plenty of sun, and you might as well use the resources at hand, rather than dig for more just so a few fossil fuel executives can gild the plumbing in their 19th vacation homes.
Meanwhile, as good Americans continue to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha, WI police -- and as said police seemed strangely uninterested in the militia member who shot several protestors in the middle of the week -- M Power Change helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect protestors from FBI surveillance, intimidation, and criminalization. We've told our FBI not to do these things many times, but obviously they think admitting that right-wingers commit terrorist acts is a good enough reason to let them continue to harass black protestors, like they've been doing since time immemorial. But admitting that right-wingers commit terrorism -- you know, like the thing I described in the first sentence of this paragraph! -- is not some great gift to us (it's rather like saying water is wet), and I'm old enough to remember when right-wingers threw a hissy fit over our DHS saying the same thing during the first Obama term. And if you'll refer to the first sentence of this paragraph again, you'll wonder why law enforcement spies on black protestors but seems so helpless when some kid kills a few of them. People have rights even if you don't like them, after all.
And while we're on this subject: if you've missed previous opportunities to tell big corporations to stop funding police foundations, then Police Piggy Bank still helps you do that. It's well past time that police foundations came under some scrutiny -- and it's also well past time the corporations that fund them came under some scrutiny, since these corporations are now falling all over themselves to say how much they love black folks. We-the-people have little-to-no oversight over police foundations, since they're private; certainly we don't have the oversight we have over public police budgets! And police foundations don't typically use this money to have barbecues with the good folks in their neighborhoods -- they more typically use it to buy military weapons they then use on the good folks protesting their atrocities. At least big corporations can be swayed by the Big Stick of Bad PR. Yes, even if they've said "black lives matter" out loud! Anyone can say black lives matter, but it takes hard work to make black lives matter -- or, for a start, to make corporations stop funding police who act like black lives don't matter.
And finally: Free Press helps you tell the Fox News Channel to fire Tucker Carlson. His presentation of Kyle Rittenhouse as a victim after he shot three Kenosha protestors (killing two) may be the last straw, but really, he's been leaving a trail of slime for a long time, most vividly in his almost pornographic reuse of looting and rioting footage over the last few months. He employed this tactic again in his Wednesday night "report," one late night TV show writer Brian Parise describes at length in a public post on his Facebook page. Go find it; it's quite illuminating. Mr. Carlson didn't mention Jacob Blake (i.e., the black man whose shooting by police stoked the protests!) in his report, though you'd think that would provide much-needed context -- but he did show the same clip of a man kicking a fence three times, as well as a black woman hitting a white woman in a church 800 miles away, whenever that happened. Sadly, what he does isn't uncommon -- watch a lengthy news report about anything and you'll see the same clips being used over and over. The difference? Generally they don't push a pro-murder perspective.
Well, this has been a busy week. I remain optimistic, however, that our efforts will, one day, deliver a lot less drama and a lot more peace and quiet.
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