The Realpolitics of Baker, Montana: Grassroots and Integrity Move the Local Elections

By Sheena Rice, Montana Organizing Project. (posted by David Fleishman)

Depending on whom you ask, Baker Montana is either in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of the everything. Although for the answer to be the latter, you would need to be asking someone from Baker. A community of 1,800, Baker is an small rural community in far eastern Montana; 200 miles away from Billings, Rapid City, South Dakota and Bismarck, North Dakota. And it’s an oil town.
Bordering the booming Bakken oil region, and with some of the oldest oil wells in Montana, Baker is a town very familiar with the boom and busts of oil and gas development. Politically, Baker is unmistakably conservative, due in part to the number of residents employed in oil and gas and its isolation from urban centers. It is a community that has to take care of itself, as it tends to be an afterthought in decisions made at the state capitol in Helena (461 miles away).
With this in mind, it would be easy to assume that the community would elect those that fit into the conservative mold and that coddle the oil and gas industry. That’s the problem with assumptions.

Meet Alderman and Montana Organizing Project Board Member, Brandon Schmidt. Continue reading “The Realpolitics of Baker, Montana: Grassroots and Integrity Move the Local Elections”

The Symposium in Review: #CellBlocks and #Borderstops… #Human Beings

Re-Posted from the Institute for Pragmatic Practice (www.pragmaticpractice.org)

In the last four decades, mass incarceration and immigration control in the United States has skyrocketed. Our nation has become an engine that pulls people from their communities, removing them from the very fabric that gives them their humanity. Over-policing of everyday lives has made the simple act of walking down one’s street a criminal act. The criminalization of communities is evermore presenting itself as a system of violence against them.

The Institute for Pragmatic Practice held an incredible symposium October 17-18, that brought voice to those affected by incarceration. Cell Blocks and Border Stops: Transformation in the age of dehumanization brought faces to those who have been invisible behind walls and in communities that are left behind.Continue reading “The Symposium in Review: #CellBlocks and #Borderstops… #Human Beings”

Alliance Cross Training is Vital to Growing the Grassroots

(Post written by Alain Nahimana, posted online by David Fleishman)

Sharing resources between organizations includes putting people on the ground, side-by-side.

It gave me a sense that whether the work we do is statewide or on a federal level, the challenges we face are the same. My name is Alain Nahimana and I am an organizer with Maine People’s Alliance. A community organizer can work in all environments, not only in his/her community.

I was joined by a MPA member Sonia Irambona and Grady Burns, canvasser. The three of us were set down in some of Virginia’s toughest turf to canvass for immigration reform. Harold Folley of Virginia Organizing even made sure we had the number for the police handy. These were towns considered hostile, right in the middle of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s district. (Virginia’s 7^th District)Continue reading “Alliance Cross Training is Vital to Growing the Grassroots”

Alliance Cross Training is Vital to Growing the Grassroots

(Post written by Alain Nahimana, posted online by David Fleishman)

Sharing resources between organizations includes putting people on the ground, side-by-side.

Pushing Back Against the Criminalization of Everyday Life.

In the past four decades, mass incarceration and immigration control in the United States has skyrocketed. Today, the U.S. incarcerates more of its population than any other country in the world – at rates unmatched in modern history.

More than seven million people are under control of the criminal justice system. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world’s population, but we have almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. China, which has four times more people than the United States, is a distant second in incarceration numbers, with 1.6 million people in prison.

With the increase in private prisons – driven by making profits for their investors – we are seeing an increase in the criminalization of everyday life.

Read our new report –

Communities Under Attack: Pushing Back Against the Criminalization of Everyday Life.

When Living Your Life is Called a Crime

Millions of people have become casualties of the prevailing system of criminalization. Entire communities of people must be deemed “throw-away” or “castaways” in order to gain maximum profits and drive a robust free- market that exists beyond the realm of ethics and humanity. These communities are almost always low-income and disproportionately, communities of color.

The influence of the profit-driven in our legal system and the systems that feed it must continue this trend in order to maintain their financial gains. Gains made at the expense of millions of Americans.

The Institute for Pragmatic Practice, Union Theological Seminary and the Alliance for a Just Society hosted Cell Blocks and Border Stops in NYC.Continue reading “When Living Your Life is Called a Crime”

Caldwell, ID City Council Asked to Move Payday Lenders Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Community and ICAN Push Council to Limit Industry From Preying on the Poor

“With the average payday loan in Idaho carrying an interest rate of 350% and with the average borrower taking out 7 payday loans to pay off the initial loan”, predatory loan businesses continue to swarm into our state. Last year alone, payday loans accounted for a negative economic impact of $1 BILLION! http://www.insightcced.org/uploads/assets/Net%20Economic%20Impact%20of%20Payday%20Lending.pdf This is money that our communities lost, nationwide.

Volunteers and members of Idaho Community Action Network went into the neighborhoods of Caldwell and gathered 400 signatures from families who both see and personally experience the impact of payday and title loan businesses. The canvassers met families; families who have lost their only vehicle; families who lost their home; their job and even their children, because they needed help. They learned about loved ones who died owing a debt to a predatory lender. Continue reading “Caldwell, ID City Council Asked to Move Payday Lenders Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

“Millions of Small Steps for Americans… One Giant Leap for Health Justice”

It isn’t often we want to reach out and simply congratulate everyone for a job well done. Since 2009, when President Obama held the first summit on healthcare, we have tirelessly organized millions of grassroots voices to demand affordable insurance coverage for every American.Continue reading ““Millions of Small Steps for Americans… One Giant Leap for Health Justice””

Main Street to Microsoft: “Stop offshore tax dodging”

This week, hundreds of Washington state small business owners affiliated with the Main Street Alliance of Washington sent an open letter to Microsoft calling on tech giant to stop offshore tax dodging, the Seattle Times reports.

According to BloombergBusinessweek, Microsoft tops the list of U.S. tech firms with the biggest overseas profit hauls, holding $76 billion in profits stashed offshore. In their letter, small business owners express their disappointment that Microsoft has joined in coalitions with other big corporate interests lobbying for a permanent tax amnesty on offshore profits – a so-called “territorial” tax system – while backing cuts to Medicare and Social Security that would wreak further havoc on the Main Street economy.

“Small business owners are proud to contribute our fair share. We know that in order to build strong local economies, Continue reading “Main Street to Microsoft: “Stop offshore tax dodging””

Bad Medicine Report Details Influence of Pharma in DC Budget Failure

Released to the Press

September 25, 2013

New Report Analyzes Interest Group Influence in Blocking Proposed Cost Saving Measures in Medicare

Report Finds Influence of Pharmaceutical Industry as Major Impasse to Common Sense Budget Fixes

Congress has failed to act on a commonsense, good-government approach to controlling health care costs. The significant resources the pharmaceutical industry has put toward influence and access has rendered Congress unable to act in the public interest.

Bad Medicine: Pharmaceuticals’ Prescription for Profits Over People, released by the Alliance for a Just Society details the overwhelming influence of Big PhRMA on congressional outcomes and finds that the imbalance created by industry spending harms both the interest of the American people and our democratic process.

Continue reading “Bad Medicine Report Details Influence of Pharma in DC Budget Failure”