December 31st
Dear ones,
At long last, 2020 is going to come to an end.
It does not look good for $2000 relief checks, thanks to Mitch McConnell. It was probably the wrong move anyway, as we seem to have a national aversion to helping the people most in need. And there are a great many people who are still not covered by the aid that was included in the bill signed last weekend.
Please sign this petition to call on Cuomo to establish a $3.5 billion fund to ensure that excluded workers get the relief they need to survive this crisis.
Los Deliveristas Unidos — the folks who deliver take out, newspapers, groceries, etc. — are demanding paid sick leave, an end to wage theft, health insurance, and unemployment insurance. The State Senate has already passed (S7256), the so-called SWEAT Act, “a bill to hold shareholders personally liable for wage theft.”
Call on your Assembly representative to vote for the SWEAT Act (A9008).
Donate to the Workers’ Fund, to provide organizing support to their fight to gain basic protections as essential workers in New York City.
Another group of workers who need our support is the army of patient, big-hearted people — most of whom are immigrant women — who provide home care to people who are elderly and/or disabled.
Please sign this petition to Governor Cuomo and our legislative leaders, calling on them to push for caregiver pay at 150% of minimum wage and to fund the Home Care Jobs Innovation Fund to improve job quality, recruitment, and retention of a qualified home care workforce.
Here is a juicy piece of good news from a southern neighbor: Argentina’s Senate voted to legalize abortion in the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy. This triumph for human rights and public health has the president’s support and has already passed the lower house.
Wednesday’s victory is the result of five years of mass protest marches by Argentina’s grassroots women’s movement, which began as a Twitter campaign against gender violence that used the hashtag #NiUnaMenos (“Not one less” – meaning no more women lost to gender violence).
The first spontaneous march came on 3 June 2015, in reaction to the murder of 14-year-old Chiara Páez, who was found buried underneath her boyfriend’s house after being beaten to death and a few months pregnant.
Activists are hopeful that this victory will pave the way for more South American nations to decriminalize abortion. For those of us who grow frustrated at ‘the long arc of the moral universe,’ it is heartening to witness the bending toward justice.
The Louisville police officer who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her home will finally be fired (he’s been on desk duty, collecting full pay). This is late, and not enough, but we know all about the long arc. Frustration is entirely reasonable.
Then again, there’s this bullshit: The US Justice Department announced this week that the officer who fatally shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice will not face federal charges.
[F]ederal prosecutors with both the Civil Rights Division and the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio concluded that they could not prove that Rice's constitutional rights were violated or the officers obstructed justice.
Wtf? An American child was killed while playing in a park seconds after a police car arrived. This was over six years ago and yet the outrage feels pretty fresh.
We’ve got to channel our anger into something positive. I’m going to give some thought to the best way to direct the $600 that I’m getting to people who really need it.
This morning, one of the spiritual adventurers in the 8 AM Sangha that I attend read us a short passage from A Fierce Heart by Spring Washam. The last three sentences seem like a fitting send-off to this difficult year:
What’s next? Who knows? Let’s go.
I’m going to take tomorrow off. Back on Monday.
with love,
L