Act for the environment and healthcare!

Here is the latest from PAGE (Progressive Action Global Exchange) and Kathy's suggestions in STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! 

This week, our actions focus on defending the right of US residents to good healthcare, protecting our environment, and expanding our historical knowledge.

Priority actions:
Oppose the deregulation maelstrom at the EPA.
As recent reporting has noted, the Trump administration’s malevolence has far outpaced its incompetence in one area - dismantling environmental regulations that protect our air, water and climate. The EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has been taking much more input from industry than from his own staff. However, we can work together to create a record of public opposition to these efforts, giving support to those who wish to stop them - or reinstitute them in the future.

1. Fill out a brief comment form by clicking here, and tell this administration it’s important to you to protect our nation’s water from pollution from coal plants! 

2. Support the Sierra Club as they stand up for the EPA and climate progress. Send a message to Pruit here. You can give money to the Sierra club here. Or check out any of their dozens of campaigns protecting the environment here.

Input into our Single-Payer Healthcare letter to the editor. PAGE is writing a letter that members can adapt and send to their local papers about experiences with public health insurance. Last week, we asked for your stories, and this week we are asking you for your input. The AHCA is not having an easy time in the Senate; Senator Mitch McConnell has said that if the bill does not pass, they will have to work with Democrats to prop up ACA markets. Those of us living with single-payer healthcare know that we can do better.

• Please suggest concrete points to include (studies, statistics, anecdotes) on this Google doc.

Extra Action

• Learn about other “revolutionaries”: The Fourth of July just happened, but we have many national holidays ahead of us. Indigenous people, descendants of slaves, and other marginalized folk are often feel excluded from these celebrations, and with good reason. As good accomplices, we should learn about other revolutionaries and counter-histories. Use PAGE'S  Anti-Oppression Guide’s Anti-Oppression Education Reading List to discover new heroes!  As a good start you can read An Indigenous People’s History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz​

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Rural progressives in West Virginia. For more see http://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/trump-west-virginia/

​STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! 
by Kathy Sherretts
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I visited the new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia last week, and heard a part the famous speech given by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852. It should have been part of last week's recommendations—the speech is an important reminder of what we're celebrating and who is being left out.  
Read Fredrick Douglass' speech
Hear it read by James Earl Jones

Podcast:
NPR: Hidden Brain: Is He Muslim? (28 min.)
In a five year period from 2011 to 2016, just twelve percent of terrorist attacks in the United States were perpetrated by Muslims. More than fifty percent, on the other hand, were carried out by Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, or other far right groups. So why do Americans spend so much time worrying about "radical Islamic terrorism?" This podcast looks at how the media over-covers some acts of terrorism — and quickly forgets others; also some of the psychological reasons we have a hard time putting the threat of terrorism in perspective.

Article:
Blue Virginia: “Rural Progressives”:  It’s Not an Oxymoron by Anthony Flaccovento
A message that “attacked inequality and trickle-down economics” appealed to people in rural areas. So why isn’t the left doing better in the red parts of states like Virginia? Because whether focused on politics or the economy, progressive and liberal organizations are largely clueless when it comes to rural communities, says the author. A group from southwest Virginia has developed the Rural Progressive Platform, written by rural residents, grounded in rural values, priorities and language. 

Article:
Vox Media: Study: cities rely more on fines for revenue if they have more black residents by German Lopez
Using data from more than 9,000 cities, researchers found that cities with larger black populations rely more on fines and court fees to raise revenue. They also found that having at least one black person on the city council reduced the relationship between race and fines by about 50 percent. “What a lot of cities do is rely on a source of revenue that falls disproportionately on their black residents,” says Michael Sances of the University of Memphis. “And when blacks gain representation on the city council, this relationship gets a lot better."