Left Hand Books

Boulder Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is hosting a showing 'Healing US', documentary about how Medicare for All (single payer) see: https://www.healingusnetwork.com/ It is on Sept. 22 from 2 to 4 pm (also learn about growing Colo. movement) at the new North Boulder (NoBo) Public Library at 4500 13th Street

Healing US Network Healing US Network is a collective of healthcare reform activists from around the United States. Supporting Single-Payer Universal Healthcare for all Americans

At yesterday's Longmont City Council meeting, Rev. David joined UUs and other members of the community to speak in support of Longmont making a meaningful increase to the minimum wage. He shared this:

Mayor Peck, Council Members:

I’m the Rev. David Schwartz, I live here in Longmont, and I serve as lead minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder. I’m speaking in support of raising the minimum wage.

The current minimum wage does not come close to providing the resources a person needs to live.

And because of that — just like religious communities do all over the county — my church steps up. We runs food drives and clothing drives and toy drives. We help with rent and grocery cards and healthcare bills and gas money.

We don’t do it for fun. Your religious communities and social service organizations are subsidizing an un-liveable minimum wage. We are providing part of the safety net which lets people be paid less than they need to survive.

The church I serve — like religious communities throughout the county — works for the full flourishing of our members and our larger community. I don’t want my people to barely scrape by. I don’t want my neighbors to barely scrape by.

You’ve heard the economic analysis this evening. You’ve heard the breadth of that effort and the nuances of the assessment. You have a gigantic task in designing implementation. My job is less complex than all that. My job is to say, simply and directly, that it is unjust to allow employers to pay a wage that keeps a person in poverty.

None of the four paths being contemplated to increase the minimum wage actually provide a wage that allows for self sufficiency. But I hope you’ll move as quickly as you can in the right direction.

*

My church is also an employer. We’re a staff of seven — just two of us full time — and we’re funded only by free will donations. In the post-Covid years, with expenses up, we had to decide: do we hire more staff, or do we pay a living wage? I would love — and we could dearly use — a bigger staff team.

But my hourly staff saw their rents jump, saw their grocery bill jump, saw the price of everything go steadily up. And we decided to pay at least a living wage to every person on the team.

There’s a dozen other things to do with that money that would have advanced our mission and vision: things that would have helped us grow faster and do more. But we felt an obligation not to treat our staff like a means to an end, but like people who deserved fair pay to live on.

The economic argument suggests a net positive effect from moving steadily forward. The moral argument is much simpler.

Thank you.

The Affirmative Action
of
Generational Wealth

Connections Connections is a weekly call-in program focusing on a variety of topics. With Kathy Partridge, Fiona Foster, Duncan Campbell, Rossana Longo, Joel Edelstein, Leilani Henry and Eli Kalen.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/24/israel-fund-us-university-protest-gaza-antisemitism?CMP=share_btn_url

Exclusive: Israeli documents show expansive government effort to shape US discourse around Gaza war As the Gaza war rages, Israeli funds target US college campuses and push to redefine antisemitism in US law

"Trump winning would strengthen the elites who control the Dem Party. They want a discourse thats all anti-Trump & marginalizes pressure on the Dem Party itself...So if you want to help the Dem Party's corporate bosses, then your choice is clear: Vote Trump." -

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/19/joe-biden-edited-videos

Videos of Biden looking lost are a viral political tactic: ‘low-level manipulation’ The edited videos are often posted to question the US president’s mental fitness at 81

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/politics/video/america-not-democracy-republic-trump-maga-digvid

Democracy is overrated, some in MAGA base say | CNN Politics CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan explores why many MAGA Republicans are claiming that America is a republic, not a democracy.

https://coloradosun.com/2024/06/18/colorado-state-board-of-education-election-charter-schools/

Future of Colorado charter schools could be determined by Democratic primary for a State Board of Education seat Nearly $685,000 from Progressives Supporting Teachers and Students, a pro-charter school state-level super PAC, has poured into a Democratic primary for a seat on the board

https://ruralurbanbridge.org/

The Rural Urban Bridge Initiative invites all of us to think differently, talk differently and act differently in order to understand the causes of the rural-urban divide and then do something to repair it. We develop political, economic and communications strategies that build bridges and serve the common interests of all working and middle class Americans.

Rural Urban Bridge Initiative The Rural Urban Bridge Initiative invites liberals and progressives to think differently, talk differently, and act differently in order to understand the causes of the rural-urban divide and then do something to repair it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/14/when-protests-cross-the-line-into-antisemitism-this-hurts-the-palestinian-cause

When protests cross into antisemitism, it hurts the Palestinian cause | Jo-Ann Mort The pronounced antisemitism in recent protests is an unsettling phenomenon

Michelle Goldberg... excerpt: It’s common to read about movies that are shown in most of the world but not released in, say, Russia or, more often, China. Should “The Apprentice” end up widely available globally but not, for political reasons, in the United States, it will be a sign of democratic decay, as well as an augur of greater self-censorship to come. After all, if anxiety about enraging Trump is already shaping what you can and cannot watch, it’s probably bound to get even worse if he actually returns to power.

The Chilling Reason You May Never See the New Trump Movie This week I finally got to see “The Apprentice,” an absorbing, disturbing movie about the relationship between the red-baiting mob lawyer Roy Cohn a...

https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/

Poor People's Campaign A National Call for Moral Revival

https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2024/06/deguire-the-dark-money-funding-a-candidate-for-colorados-state-board-of-education/62459/
DEGUIRE: The Dark Money Funding a Candidate for Colorado’s State Board of Education

yesterday Trump returned to the scene of the crime and was cheered by Republicans... When will he return to D.C. as the defendant in the federal trial on Jan. 6 insurrection? Maybe never if he becomes president again....meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has delayed the process by taking an awful lot of time mulling over whether he was "absolute immunity"...

stealth pro-charter schools candidate... from Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy:

Before I turn to other news on what I have been doing as your county commissioner, I want to urge you to vote, if you haven't already done so, for Kathy Gebhardt for the State Board of Education for CD2. I haven't used this mailing list to promote a candidate in the 2024 primary. I am doing this for Kathy for two reasons. First, she is an exceptional candidate for anything related to public education funding, cirriculum, educational policy and student equity. Kathy provided outstanding leadership during her two terms on the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education. I first got to know Kathy through her courageous litigation to require adequate funding for public education as required by the Colorado Constitution. She is brilliant and dedicated, and a quiet leader. The second reason I am writing is because Kathy is being attacked by big money from Independent Expenditure Committees that don't have to disclose their donors. They are sending glossy mailers on behalf of her opponent on an almost daily basis with baseless allegations about Kathy's record. And they are promoting a candidate with no public record of having acted to support public education, but who is funded by big money to get their agenda into law. Their agenda is largely to fund unaccountable charter schools, both for-profit and non-profit, at the expense of everyone else.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/13/russia-accused-of-deliberate-starvation-tactics-in-mariupol-in-submission-to-icc

Russia accused of ‘deliberate’ starvation tactics in Mariupol in submission to ICC Lawyers say strategy of denying food and services to people in Ukrainian city during siege could amount to war crime

I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated, and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again. -Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)

what is going on here? not too sure...

from BBC: Hamas has released a statement welcoming a UN Security Council resolution calling for a "full and complete ceasefire" in Gaza. The vote signals international support for the three-part ceasefire plan outlined by US President Joe Biden on 31 May, which he had dubbed an Israeli proposal. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is in the Middle East to drum up support for the deal, called the Hamas statement a "hopeful sign", but noted the group's political leadership in Gaza had yet to formally respond to the proposal. Russia, which abstained but did not use its veto power against the US-drafted resolution, remarked that Israel's official position on the deal remained unclear. The proposal has been agreed to by Israel’s war cabinet but has not been divulged to the wider government. Some far-right ministers have already made clear they oppose it and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly endorse the plan.

https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=43245&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=5e00575f-3b62-4c4f-81f0-3e6d2a627183 many disturbing questions

Hostage Deal? No. It's Iran, Stupid (Hard Questions, Tough Answers- June 10, 2024) Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necess...

Only about 2 percent of this cycle’s donors to Democratic candidates or through the Democratic giving platform ActBlue have also given to Republicans over the past few cycles, POLITICO’s analysis found. But 46 percent of donors who have given to Democratic candidates via AIPAC this cycle have given to Republicans since the 2020 cycle.

AIPAC is the biggest source of Republican donors giving to Democratic primaries AIPAC sees support for Israel as bipartisan, and its donors come from both parties. But its practice of sending money from GOP donors into Democratic races has enraged progressives.