June 11, 2024
Dear friends,
Jenny and Finn, celebrating Pride
It’s Pride Month and the era of solidarity here at the wiffij.
With 65 percent of the vote and lots of endorsements from influential Democrats, Lauren Ashley Simmons, a queer Black union organizer, sailed to victory and thanked her supporters:
“[W]e all won BIG last night! We are so grateful, and so proud of the strong message this decisive victory sends to those who seek political gain by using bigotry, hatred, and fear: STOP. Thank you!"
That’s solidarity talk.
I’m not much for the special months or days to celebrate groups, although I understand their value in places where visibility is hard-won. I am interested in the ways that our individual identities endow us with the strength to work for each other any day of the week.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said it better:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail, April 16, 1963
I finally finished the intro to Hunt-Hendrix and Astra Taylor’s book on solidarity. They say it plainly:
Siding with others is the only way to rescue ourselves from the catastrophes that will otherwise engulf us.
In the project of “building an egalitarian, multiracial democracy that assures each person a dignified life without destroying the natural world”, Hunt-Hendrix and Taylor solidarity does not elide our differences when we come together, nor does it eliminate the Us vs. Them struggle.
Solidarity still requires of us that we oppose
the people who discriminate, pollute, exploit, and profiteer.
This may not look like good news, but Emily Atkin cites a paper that was published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review that urges more states to criminally charge fossil fuel companies.
“Prosecutors regularly bring homicide charges against individuals and corporations whose reckless or negligent acts or omissions cause unintentional deaths,” wrote George Washington University law professor Donald Braman and Public Citizen climate director David Arkush.
In their paper, Braman and Arkush said that criminal prosecution—whether it be for homicide or criminal negligence—could be a more powerful and effective tool for spurring change than civil litigation, because a conviction or settlement could result in mandated changes to how fossil fuel companies operate.
The goal is not to lock people up. The goal is to stop the pollution and profiteering.
The first group of lawsuits resulted in the 3M Co. offering up to $12.5 billion and three companies tied historically to E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. offering $1.18 billion in court-approved settlements.
A second group of public water system cases has begun to move through the national case with personal injury, state, and other lawsuits to follow.
Many of the claims beyond the public water systems’ will fall on 3M and the DuPont-related companies.
On the democracy front, a bill passed to repeal the lifetime ban that prevents folks with felony convictions from serving on a jury and local boards of elections will now be able to set up absentee ballot drop boxes.
A street safety and home rule bill will allow NYC to quadruple the number of red light cameras at intersections from 150 to 600.
The Climate Change Superfund Act passed, which could
raise $3 billion a year from polluters to help pay for climate mitigation measures and related infrastructure improvements.
The mechanism in this bill is to require companies to contribute to a climate action fund. All it needs is Governor Hochul’s signature, which is not assured.
Tell the Governor to sign the Climate Change Superfund Act.
New York is the first state to implement the federally-funded rebate program to assist families to pay for heat pumps, electrical panels and new wiring. Low-to-middle income homeowners — with household earnings of up to 80% of the area's median income — can get as much as $12,500 in rebates to make these energy-saving upgrades.
The next phase of the program will be rolled out later this year and will include some funding open to all households.
For information on eligibility and restrictions for energy upgrade rebates, visit the Department of Energy’s rebate site.
Annabelle Jenkins has been a devoted library user and volunteer who has always loved books.
Jenkins said at her local library she volunteers more than anyone who isn't retired.
"So, this place means a lot to me and libraries, in general, are the types of spaces I want to spend my life protecting.”
Lawmakers in her state passed legislation allowing families to sue libraries if children are able to check out “questionable” books. This resulted in many books being removed from library shelves, including a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale from Jenkins’s own school library. A teacher had challenged the librarian, insisting on its removal.
Although her graduating class had fewer than 50 students, Jenkins decided to register her protest. The superintendent refused to take the book from Jenkins, so she dropped it at his feet. The 12-second video posted on TikTok has received millions of views.
As a devoted library patron and volunteer, I applaud Annabelle Jenkins. We have a different struggle here in NYC. Our libraries are valued public spaces and they are being starved of funds. A young person named Emily Nussbaum has started a letter campaign to protest cuts that could result in Saturday closures of branch libraries.
Tell Mayor Adams to keep the libraries open! Emily made it easy.
I’m heading over to the library to see a Buster Keaton film with live music and to celebrate the public goods we all share. We’re going to defend them and we’re going to build on them. We are going to bail each other out. I just know we can.
with love,
L