Dear friends,
The dumpster fire continues. Two wars rage, an old man murdered a Palestinian child and assaulted his mother outside Chicago, and Congress cannot function. And a climate crisis that threatens our air, our water, and our food.
It’s probably best that you didn’t receive this earlier in the day!
We’re not going to ask Congress for anything today, for obvious reasons. A thing we can do is take extra care with our language. The dehumanizing language that is being used by politicians and even journalists in the US, Israel, and elsewhere is something we can stand against, individually and collectively.
Write and speak to people you know, politicians, and journalists about the dangers of dehumanizing and genocidal hate speech.
Another thing we can do to work for justice during a dumpster fire is move the levers that still work. And that means that we look at regulatory agencies and private corporations that are vulnerable to public pressure.
We have serious air pollution, which contributes to negative health impacts and climate change. And it turns out that clean air regulators have used a regulatory loophole called ‘the exceptional events rule’ to obscure the amount of pollution and claim the air was cleaner than it really was.
Extensive investigative reporting found that:
Local regulators in 21 states filed requests with the agency to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.
In total, local regulators made note of almost 700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust the data on 139 of them.
The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio rust belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.
In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.
Let the EPA know that they must ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent to protect us from toxic air pollution rather than conceal important information from us. I made it easy.
Writing for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dave Cooke explains that while the EPA’s mandate is to reduce particulate pollution, the NHTSA must cut petroleum use.
These rules have different objectives and work together to clean up the automotive sector. In the long run, we need to move towards a fully electric future, eliminating tailpipe emissions and cutting overall emissions as we continue to clean up the electric grid. In the short term, however, we need to be making sure that the remaining internal combustion engine fleet uses as little fossil fuel as possible. It is not enough to invest in the future—we need automakers to make good on the technology opportunities already available today to cut fuel use.
Cooke notes that the NHTSA’s proposal is okay, but unambitious, compared to what is possible to do in the timeframe for the rule (2027-2032). He suggests calling for improvements of 3 percent per year for passenger cars and 5 percent per year for light trucks.
Make a public comment on new rules to reduce transportation pollution. As always, personalizing your comments helps and you can draw from Cooke’s explanatory post.
Last year, workers at Trader Joe’s began to unionize and they have filed dozens of charges of unfair labor practices with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that have yet to be resolved. Workers allege that union supporters have been fired and that the company has failed to bargain in good faith.
Workers organized because of high rates of workplace injuries — 75% higher than the national average for supermarket workers. In addition, the company has reduced its contributions to retirement benefits and made healthcare unavailable for many workers.
Trader Joe’s United is an independent union, and they are calling for consumer support:
Individual boycotts don’t make a dent in corporate’s bottom line, and even if they did, corporate wouldn’t attribute that dip to union support.
To be effective, our union needs to tell Trader Joe’s how many customers are with us, and be able to credibly threaten an action if we give the signal. That’s why we aren’t considering the term “boycott” – if we want to make a difference, we need customers to go on strike with us.
We have to consider all of our options if Trader Joe’s continues to union bust and refuse to bargain in good faith. If it comes down to it, a customer strike could be on the table to send a message to Trader Joe’s demanding they respect our right to organize and negotiate a contract.
Sign on to stand with Trader Joe’s United if they strike.
On Mondays, I meet with a support group of people who are contending with Long Covid. Today, among other things, we talked about our increased sensitivity to noise, violence, and conflict. I have noticed this change in myself and the news of late has been contributing to feelings of unease.
At least 14 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend. It’s barely news in the US when this happens because there’s so much violence, at such a large scale. We are overwhelmed by images of violence and death; here is something we can do.
Submit your public comment to ATF to close the gun-show loophole. This quick action is from Everytown for Gun Safety.
This weekend, I found myself in correspondence with a dear friend who told me that I was breaking her heart because of what I had written about Israel. She told me that we could debate the issues forever and that she is prepared to agree to disagree.
I'm not much of a debater. Debate, like war, is about winning and losing, rather than understanding. From my standpoint, I was never debating. I told her this: I'm agreeing to listen to you and to read and think about what you're reading. Or we can avoid the topic altogether.
Here are two interesting pieces I recommend: The Fog of War in Israel and Palestine and There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive. Please feel free to share articles and opinion pieces that help you to understand the dumpster fire out there.
with love,
L