On Getting Our Shit Together: A Letter to the Left

Everything we don’t do hurts our causes. Our consciences are out accountability checkers.

Transformative Spaces

Attendees shake hands and share ideas at a health care vigil in Chicago on June 27, 2017. (Photo: Jim Pearson)

Dear fellow lefties,

Like many of you, I spent most of Saturday shaking and grieving. For those involved with movement work, who have watched motorists menace and even strike protesters in the past, these events were not wholly surprising, but one doesn’t need to be surprised by a blow to be injured by it. The violence of white supremacy is always with us, but this weekend, those who would kill us if they could sought to show us that they can. They created a spectacle of hatred and violence to make themselves known and felt. And I know the next time a march veers off a sidewalk in my city, the image of those brave people, being thrown through the air, after being struck by a murderer’s vehicle, will be…

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The Russian Obfuscation

Hillary did it; Bernie did it; the GOP did it, the Russians did it; Satan did it; Crowdstrike confirmed that the Russians did it, yet, “The DNC servers at the center of this controversy were never turned over to the FBI for forensic investigation.”  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/time_to_reassess_roles_of_guccifer_20_and_russia_in_dnc_hack_20170727

If you believe any of this Putinesque sleight of hand, eventually you will be disappointed! Not because the Russians did or didn’t do it, but because we cannot our legislators not to sell us to the highest bidder to stockpile personal wealth.

What is indisputable is that we cannot and do not trust our officials with the power and responsibilities to which we consigned them. Legislators do not make sure people have affordable housing  (that means what a person can afford to pay without being financially burdened), do not ensure health, food, humans services, public education, for the general welfare AND a decent quality of the life for all persons in this country.

The mistrust of the people is duly earned by the smoke, mirrors, rhetoric, and dog-and-pony shows to keep us quiet. The status quo has overrun its course, and if our leaders do not ease our suffering, pay their fair share of taxes, and re-earn the trust lost from the horrendous acts inflicted upon us, the revolution in the United States will make the Bastille look like a birthday party!

If an elected official tells you the school funding problem in Illinois is a formula, they are telling a lie. The school funding problem in Illinois is inadequate revenue.

Fund education, don’t BS it, Rauner!

Fred Klonsky

By Bev Johns

Is ANY politician telling the truth about Senate Bill 1?

All sides say some schools will NOT OPEN next month (although no one has yet identified even one school that will not open in August). What is true is that many

schools could not remain open all school year without State funding.

State Sen. Andy Manar, who sponsored Senate Bill 1 to change the method of funding for schools, told The Associated Press a veto by Rauner would effectively KILL SB 1.

Manar needs to stop saying we have the “worst school funding formula in the country”.

No, we do not. The lack of funding of our current formula, the failure to increase the Foundation level for 9 years, since 2008, means we rely far too much on the property tax, which results in disparate and inequitable funding.

No matter how many times Manar (and others) say…

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I have questions for Senator Daniel Biss.

I need to hear more about these pension plans and the effect upon our workers and economy! Biss, do your homework.

Fred Klonsky

Senator Daniel Biss with IEA Retired’s Jack Tucker.

Skokie Senator Daniel Biss is running for the Democratic nomination for Illinois Governor. He wants to run against Bruce Rauner.

Like just about all the candidates, Senator Biss is running as a progressive alternative to the Trumpian current occupant of the Springfield mansion.

Senator Biss has two big problems.

He doesn’t have nearly the cash of the front runners, Chris Kennedy and JB Pritzker.

And he was the most outspoken legislator in promoting the pension reform bill that the Illinois Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional.

State Representative Elaine Nekritz, who recently announced her retirement, was the pension theft leader on the House side of the Capitol. Someone wrote to tell me that Elaine was on TV this weekend saying the pension problem would be solved by attrition. I didn’t hear her say that on TV this weekend and couldn’t find it on…

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Because they can!

http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/charter-schools-do-bad-stuff-because-they-can/?platform=hootsuite

The New Commissioner for the Administration on Disabilities: Misunderstanding and Ableism Within the Disabled Community

One needs what one needs, regardless of stigma!

Running with Crutches

It is disheartening to hear that Melissa Ortiz was appointed to the position of Commissioner of the Administration on Disabilities. She is a disabled “disability advocate” who founded the grassroots organization Able Americans and a Republican supporter. Her alignment with the Republican Party per se does not bother me, but many of her beliefs perpetuate misconceptions about the disabled community–a community for which she claims she supports.

While I respect and admire Ortiz’s push for accessibility, her beliefs that all disabled people can be self-sufficient is ignorant and excludes severe physical, mental, and behavioral disabilities. While she may be able to function without many of the additional expenses that come with having a disability (i.e. a wheelchair, crutches, communication devices, personal care attendants, home renovations, personal tutors, interpreters, frequent doctor’s appointments, therapy sessions, and emergency room visits, ramps, elevators, feeding devices, modified vehicle and driving lessons etc.), many disabled Americans…

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Disrespect Definition by Math

Idea stolen from Dodge comment on Racism Definition by Math.