The Institutionalized Vice

While sleazy -- to put it nicely -- state legislatures in states like Arizona, Kansas and Missouri, to name a few, go out of their way, as much as they can legally get away with, to put strict limitations on welfare assistance to the poor, equally sleazy private big business and public governmental human resources/personnel offices actually examine the names of job applicants with a figurative, and probably literal in some cases, magnifying glass, trying to figure out what ethnicity/race applicants belong to, or checking to see if "very experienced" actually means "too old."  These are just a couple of unseemly hurdles that job applicants must clear before or if they can successfully land a job other than becoming self-employed or entrepreneurs; and don't even bother complaining to the worthless E.E.O.C., which is one federal agency that should officially be put out of business by Congress. 

Then pompous, self-righteous legislators go around sermonizing and lecturing about "personal responsibility" while at the same time building or enabling these same institutionalized barriers to employment, including enabling policies that sends jobs out of the country, importing foreign workers, abolishing good government services that provide jobs, knee-capping labor unions, and crafting budgets that handicap or prevent needed public works projects, such as repairing or expanding useful infrastructure.  Commoners are being squeezed from both ends of the institutionalized vice, and our only hope for improvement is to vote the elected scofflaws out.

[Originally posted on Commoner on 4/13/15; revised on 4/28/15.]

Judge Price Rules on Initiative 1338 Ballot Title and Summary

A little like some race horses, we had a rough time getting out of the starting gate:

Thurston County Superior Court Judge, Erik Price, revised the ballot summary for the GMO food labeling measure, I -1338, but the Commons Party was pleased that no radical changes were made to the Attorney General's wording, which was neutral and fair, and in fact a kind of a de facto compromise from an earlier though very similar measure which was withdrawn last month.  Price made a couple of semantic changes to the summary and more than likely deflated the expectations of labeling opponents who were pushing for biased and misleading wording.  If the labeling opponents had gotten exactly the kind of language they had wanted for the title & summary, that would have deterred us from circulating 1338, but now we can begin circulating this petition with the big job of getting at least 300,000 signatures before July. 

That will not be an easy task, and no easier since some of last year's labeling leaders still seem shell-shocked from the '13 vote -- not to mention possibly inflated egos that may not care to see new leaders succeed where they didn't -- and for these reasons and others, 1338 is slow to get on the state radar screen.  "Commons," by the way, helped 522 where we could, and with more than signing petitions and voting.  Nonetheless, there is still the hope that the funders of 522 might give 1338 money, and if we received only 2% of the money that they gave 522, that would tremendously boost our efforts to get 1338 on the ballot where anything could happen if it goes to the voters, especially since 2014 will probably be a bigger mail turnout year than 2013, which should work to the advantage of the pro-labeling side. However, if we have to get on the ballot with all volunteers, then we can do that, too.

Of course, Monsanto, et al. will be waiting in the wings, if this gets on the ballot, like sharks, but we'll make this more than about the right-to-know.  This is also about fooling with Mother Nature.

[revised on 2/25/14]

Initiative 1338: New GMO Labeling Petition Ready to Go: Need Volunteers

Update (2/8/14):  GMO Labeling opponents have appealed the Attorney General's ballot title & summary for Initiative 1338 to Thurston County Superior Court, and these opponents are trying to craft misleading wording for the initiative that would practically ensure its defeat at the polls.  The Party of Commons supports the Attorney General's wording.  The petition is ready to be sent out the moment the decision is rendered by the court, just write for your sheet to keep as a master copy to make copies for signatures that you gather.  This is hardly going to break your wallet -- 500 signatures would be about $10.

State of Washington: After the defeat of the GMO Labeling Initiative 522, Washington should try again to get some kind of initiative to label genetically engineered or modified food, and the Party of Commons will lend a hand to that effort by sponsoring an Initiative to the People (522 was not ours), but this time, it will be a compromise effort to strike a balance between the two polar opposites in the debate.  This initiative is not the same as the 2013 effort by a different sponsor.

On the general front, Initiative 1338 is looking for 200 Field Representatives to get 500 signatures apiece, 400 Delegates to get 300 signatures apiece, and 800 Circulators to get 150 signatures apiece.  No experience needed.  Just choose whichever of the three categories would best fit your schedule.  All volunteers will need to commit to getting their particular quota amount between whenever you're reading this and June 30, 2014 .  This is a popular idea, so the signatures will be easy to get.  We also need general volunteers who can get as many signatures as they want or can, so there's no specific number for that.

To get your name in as a potential volunteer petitioner for this new GMO labeling campaign,  write to poc_senator@yahoo.com  (write "GMOlabeling volunteer" in the subject line, please).  Please, be patient regarding a response, we typically won't reply on the same day (due to schedule and time limitations), and possibly not even the next; so it could take 2 - 3 days.   It doesn't matter from where in Washington you are from. 

We'll need all volunteers from all over the State of Washington lined up through the months of February, March, and April.  Please, send e-mail today: poc_senator@yahoo.com.  This shouldn't be that hard to get on the ballot, but only if YOU step up.  You can also see send mail through our I-1338 site: http://www.brandnewelections.us.

We also need money to print petitions and other initiative costs, which are very costly.  Please, contribute by sending a check or money order to C.M. Greene, RMNCW treasurer, P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009.  RMNCW means Respect for Mother Nature Committee of Washington.  No internet system for payments, now, nor maybe ever; please, send money the old-fashioned way for expediency right now.  RMNCW has filed with the Washington Public Disclosure Commission. 

Comments are welcome, but modified as to being published or not, to keep things on topic.

[revised on 2/7/14]

GMO Labeling Initiative 1338 Needs Volunteers

UPDATED, WITH NEW INITIATIVE NO., ON FEBRUARY 1, 2014

Website:  http://brandnewelections.us

E-mail:  poc_senator@yahoo.com

Contributions are needed for petition printing and signature gathering related stipends for volunteers ($10 suggested) and should be sent to:

C.M. Greene, RMNCW president, P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009. (RMNCW = Respect for Mother Nature Committee of Washington)

If you can only send less than $10, that's good, too.  Just do what you can.  Thank you!

Party of Commons Website:  http://www.partyofcommons.com

The Nation's Albatross

The Monsanto Corporation, the primary producer and sponsor of genetically modified (GM) food, is the nation's albatross.  They are presently trying to trick Washington into thinking that GM food is not harmful and thus trying to keep I-522 from being passed.  522, after all, is no more than labeling so that consumers can decide for themselves whether or not they want to eat and drink GM products, but it could lead to monumental changes in the entire nation's agricultural policies -- which Monsanto realizes.  Despite the sleight-of-hand that Monsanto and their supporters often use in saying that genetically modified or engineered food is normal, GM food is not the ordinary cross-pollination of crops, a technique that farmers have used for centuries, but instead is something that started over the last quarter century-or-so: a new scientific experiment in which the molecular structure, itself, of plants is manipulated, deformed and changed, an experiment in which human beings are the unwitting guinea pigs. GM food is a long-term health hazard to humans according to many top scientists, and tests have shown that animals (whose senses are often sharper than humans) instinctively avoid it when given an equal choice between natural food and GM food.  These animals, including birds, instinctively know better than to eat Monsanto's stuff when given a natural option.

If Monsanto and the lesser known companies that do essentially the same thing as Monsanto are not stopped, agriculture across the U.S. will inevitably be ruined further than what it already has been, and America will have to import much of her food from countries that have enough sense not to let this albatross on their farms.  The corrupt U.S. Congress has long let Monsanto have their way in devising our nation's farm policy, and the current Secretary of Agriculture (Tom  Vilsack) is Monsanto's #1 sympathizer.  Therefore the effects of Monsanto's and Vilsack's policies have caused  much of America's plants and crops to be despoiled, including alfalfa which was fairly recently unprotected from the GM frenzy, and these effects could be long lasting.  Now, however, Washington (trough Initiative 522) has a chance to be the first American state to trip up the albatross and Vilsack, and hopefully, lead the rest of the nation to the side of normalcy and naturalness for the sake of the survival of American agriculture and humanity.  This debate is no less critical than that.

[Originally posted on Northern Pacific Report on 10/18/13 and revised on 10/20/13.]

Northward

Welcome to North, our newest blog regarding our northern U.S. from Pacific to Atlantic.  The Party of Commons, Tradition, Progress and Ecology, is known for having some of the most incisive commentary and news about political affairs anywhere.  Please, join us in the comments field when you get a chance.  Ever northward!