Via commentor Trollhattan, from the Sacramento Bee:
McDonald’s, Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants are expected to be targeted with acts of civil disobedience that could lead to arrests Thursday as labor organizers escalate their campaign to unionize the industry’s workers.
Kendall Fells, an organizing director for Fast Food Forward, said workers in a couple of dozen cities were trained to peacefully engage in civil disobedience ahead of this week’s planned protests…
Here’s a story by Steven Greenhouse in the Boston Globe:
The next round of strikes by fast-food workers demanding higher wages is scheduled for Thursday, and this time, labor organizers plan to increase the pressure by staging widespread civil disobe- dience & having thousands of home-care workers join the protests.
The organizers say fast-food workers, who are seeking a $15 hourly wage, will go on strike at restaurants in more than 100 cities and engage in sit-ins in more than a dozen cities. But by having home- care workers join, workers and union leaders hope to expand their campaign into a broader movement.
“On Thursday, we are prepared to take arrests to show our commit- ment to the growing fight for $15,” said Terrence Hays, a Burger King employee in Kansas City, Mo., and a member of the fast-food workers’ national organizing committee. At a convention that was held outside Chicago in July, about 1,300 fast-food workers unanimously approved a resolution calling for civil disobedience as a way to step up pressure on the fast-food chains.
The SEIU, which represents hundreds of thousands of health care workers and janitors, is encouraging home-care aides to march alongside the fast-food strikers. The union hopes that if thousands of the nation’s approximately 2 million home-care aides join in it would put more pressure on cities and states to raise their minimum wage.
“They want to join,” Henry said. “They think their jobs should be valued at $15.”
SEIU officials are encouraging home-care aides to join protests in six cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Seattle. Union leaders say the hope is to expand to more cities in future strikes…
************
Apart from keeping the flame alive, what’s on the agenda for the day?
BillinGlendaleCA
I’m not sure how effective protests in Seattle to pressure local government would be; being that Seattle has already raised the minimum to $15.
OzarkHillbilly
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!! (or at least as we know it)
Actually, very interesting, I did not know of the book/report. Now I have to read it.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I feel fine.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I feel a little sleepy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That is first sign of imminent collapse. First you feel fine, then you don’t….
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m always sleepy.
@OzarkHillbilly:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY
currants
@OzarkHillbilly: Seems like common-sense to me. The idea that we could have infinite economic growth in a finite world seems — well, let’s just say that economics isn’t physics.
And naturally, I should read the link before assuming the link/book/report is about economics and then commenting on the basis of said assumption.
MrSnrub
Three phone screens today, then projects around the house.
TarkaSteve
Today I learned that those lovely Beitbart chaps have setup in London. They’re every bit as adorable there; their take on the Scottish independence referendum is particularly heartwarming.
OzarkHillbilly
@currants: It is about that, and more. As I said, very interesting, and not crackpot. These researchers were from MIT. Things are now more or less tracking with a lot of their predictions, including global warming, something nobody was paying any attention to in 1972.
They played it out thru various scenarios, including the “business as usual” model. Can you guess which one we’re following?
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly: Much of that work in systems thinking was done at MIT by Jay Forrester, and others, beginning in the WWII era. A general description of the field in ordinary English can be found here.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: A couple of things: I have more computing power on the computer I’m typing on right now that they had access to 40 years ago, these arguments have appeared in Economics literature since the beginning of the discipline and usually have been wrong, they’re extrapolating from current trend lines which is quite risky from an econometric point of view.
/Techie with academic training in Economics
sparrow
@currants: As a physicist, let me say that we are acutely aware that exponential growth cannot go on forever. Because it is universally true, not just in human systems. In fact it was physicist Albert Allen Bartlett that first observed “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.” It’s so true I think I’ll have it engraved on my headstone when I die, because I think the end for all of us is not going to be much long after that (pockets of technologically advanced humans might survive through the next 500 years, but not much longer, I think).
Kropadope
So, these people are engaging in peaceful protest where they’re ostensibly employed. Why should there be concern of arrest?
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: as I said, interesting, not necessarily prophetic. Personally, I think global warming probably will be the end of civilization and quite possibly of us as a species. But I have no data to back that up, just the consistent refusal of certain parts of society to even accept it is a reality, never mind doing anything about it.
Why people think Homo Sapiens is immune to extinction while walking upon a testament to the inevitability of that end, amuses me greatly.
NotMax
Modest in the grand scheme of things, but speaking of the crumbling of growth:
(Spelling altered to mollify FYWP)
NotMax
Modest in the grand scheme of things, but speaking of the crumbling of growth:
(Spelling altered to mollify FYWP, and link removed because it included the offending word.)
Ben
@TarkaSteve:
I’m guessing without clicking the link that they’re pro-Independence because it would hurt Labor and help the Tories? Cleek’s Law clearly is international…
(Although, there are those on the left [Billy Bragg for one] who think that independence would force Labor to move back to its soshulist roots. I’m not so sure of that though.)
NotMax
Ah, I see a kind person has restored the post with ‘offending’ link intact. Thanks for that.
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
I assume we are using the “Screw business as usual, how can we make this WORSE?” model of society.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I still think global warming will just be the trigger not the cause. in 20-25 years, after the real damage become irrefutable the same mouth-breathing morons that just the week before had been telling us there was no climate change and/or it’ll be a good thing and we should encourage it will be screaming that something must be done & a thousand poison ivies will bloom, each more catastrophic than the last. IF any homo sapiens survive they will be living life as disease ridden hunter gatherers dealing with the toxic waste of a thousand nuclear meltdowns and wild weather swings.
But, I know, I am an optimist.
TheMightyTrowel
Open thread so here’s a small rant. I’m an academic. Part of my job is going to conferences to present papers. My university is one of the top in Australia (the Go8) and has lots of money (for some things) and surprisingly little for others (*cough cough* the humanities *cough cough*). Add to that we have an utterly balkanised internal structure with the finances of the different sectors being totally hived off. This means that different parts of the uni have different available pools of money. In other words, a poli sci person in one sector might have $5000/year for research funding while a (for example) archaeologist who is based in a different sector could have $0/year for research funding. You see where this is going.
One of the problems with my sector, aside from the shocking lack of funding, is that nearly all of it is labelled with ‘cannot be used to attend conferences’. I’m about to spend 4 weeks conference hopping across four countries (presenting 4 papers and participating in a workshop). I’m doing it entirely on my own funding, having not found anyone at the uni willing to give me a couple of thousand even for a flight. My research group just made a small pot of money available for conference travel (not, incidentally, enough to cover a full return flight to Europe or the Americas), but they also declared that it cannot be used retroactively and they’re denying me access for this trip because i leave on Friday and the application deadline for the money is in 2 weeks.
I kind of want to murder someone. 3 weeks ago they told me (for the third time) that no money was available and none would be to support my conference travel.
Cervantes
@BillinGlendaleCA:
True.
Which are “these arguments”? If you think all Meadows and company did in Limits to Growth was “extrapolat[e] from current trend lines,” it could be that you’re thinking of something else, not their work.
Eric U.
@NotMax: pretty interesting. I always found those places to be really annoying, but they have their methods. Most of the established ones make you walk through the machines/tables to get anywhere. Apparently Revel hid that stuff away. Wonder how long it will be before the building comes down, apparently the utilities are a million a month
Schlemizel
@NotMax:
Speaking of “peaks” I have thought for some time that we had hit peak [places to toss money away that FYWP won’t let us spell out – PPTMA]
When every state has many PPTMAs and every reservation has one and there are several on every major waterway there is no need to travel to a place like Atlantic City to set fire to your retirement. Both Vegas & AC have become expensive places even outside the fire pit as corporations attempt to squeeze every last dime out of every square inch of their places. At least when the mob ran them they were inexpensive vacations because the goal was to get you to the fire pit & keep you there.
rikyrah
3ChicsPolitico @3ChicsPolitico
Follow
Guess who’s behind the GoFundMe page 4 Darren Wilson?Jeffrey Roorda,a democrat running 4 state Senate. http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ferguson-officer-fundraisers-20140831-story.html …. #Ferguson
10:26 PM – 1 Sep 2014
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel: I can’t wait for them to start screaming about all the climate refugees streaming north of the border…..
of Florida.
Cheryl from Maryland
@TarkaSteve: Another Thatcher baby whinging. We’ll see how happy he is once North Sea oil is gone. And whiskey. He’ll be crying for a tartan to keep him warm.
Disclaimer — Scottish and Welsh ancestors, the Scots one with the lovely name of Brown, same as Queen Victoria’s best bud after Albert’s Death. Check out the film with Billy Connelly. As for the Welsh, Aneurin Bevan is a hero getting MDs on board for universal health care in the 1940’s.
Schlemizel
@Eric U.:
Before it comes down the banks will get the city/state to fund redevelopment efforts in the belief this will create jobs. There will be sad attempts to turn them into shopping/office/condo developments that will languish with very low occupancy rates for a few years then they may try tax increment financing to lure some large startup to move operations there. If the startup actually survives they will never fully utilize the building and eventually move anyway once they have bled the taxpayers as much as they can. THEN it will become a parling lot.
Anyone who lives in a large American city has seen this movie played out already, probably multiple times.
rikyrah
Armed Open Carry activists crash Ohio anti-gun violence rally and harass protesters
By David Ferguson
Monday, September 1, 2014 13:18 EDT
A group of armed Open Carry activists descended upon a group of protesters against gun violence in Akron, Ohio on Sunday in a misguided attempt to “educate” them.
The blog Liberaland.com compiled a timeline of social media updates and marchers themselves tweeted and took photos as the men carrying assault rifles and handguns approached them and began to berate and harass the people attending the protest, which was organized by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
Late in the afternoon on Sunday, pastor and marcher Kristine Eggert posted on the social medium Twitter:
https://twitter.com/pastorkriscleve/status/506225656309379072/photo/1
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/01/armed-open-carry-activists-crash-ohio-anti-gun-violence-rally-and-harass-protesters/
Schlemizel
@OzarkHillbilly:
One of the scariest things to me after living on America’s dong is that climate change will force all the assholes in Florida (sorry Betty, I know there are not 14 million of them but there are too many) to flee to America & I really don’t want those poisonous SOBs making my state even worse than the local assholes are making it.
Cervantes
@TheMightyTrowel: Sorry to hear about your troubles. It’s a private university, I gather.
What you’re contending with sounds like no fun; and it’s familiar, or at least not inconceivable, to academics everywhere these days. I know this doesn’t help much.
Kropadope
Oh, I missed this thread the other day, but I don’t understand how anyone could hate on Hillary Clinton for her comments on Ferguson. I’m no fan of hers, I would say she has a lot of work to do to get my vote, EVEN in the general.
But seriously, regardless of how focus-group-tested she may have sounded to some people, those comments were right on point. Also, that sort of inversion is just the sort of thing that may finally get through to the potentially-persuadable white people who just don’t get it, you know, HRC voters.
Also, who cares if the suit isn’t the most fashionable thing in the world? She looked very grandmotherly. In a good way.
PurpleGirl
With four gambling palaces closing in Atlantic City, NYS thinks now is the time to bring gambling to the Catskills. State officials are claiming we can get several hundred million a year in tax revenue. Yeah right.
ETA: Heard a story on NY1 about a lawn painter in SoCal who has so much business from people who want their lawns painted green. He only started the business in July. WTH.
Elizabelle
That nice Eric Cantor has a job again. And — get this — it’s with a Wall Street investment bank that plans to open a DC office.
None of us could have seen that coming. New employer is Moelis & Co., “boutique” firm with 500 employees.
No more pesky constituents. Or pretending that they’re the constituents you’re actually serving.
Eric U.
@Schlemizel: the redevelopment scam might be a hard sell in AC, because there is no way anyone would want to run a business from there. Cristie already dumped 400mil of state money into this venture, so I suppose it’s possible
shelley
When I first saw that photo of Judy Collins, I thought,,,,”Oh no, not another one…. First Jean Redpath…”
RaflW
Uh, well duhhh. Except for the carefully placed “dwindling” that is of course intended to make unions sound pathetic, I see nothing wrong with this sentence.
Workers are being treated like shit. There’s a union that wants to organize them so they can’t be abused so much. That will, by definition, “boost their membership.” Good.
rikyrah
Pursing my lips going UH HUH
UH HUH
…………………………………………….
Emanuel-Rauner ties create campaign subplot
By John Chase, David Heinzmann, Jeff Coen,
Tribune reporters
JUst a few months before announcing plans to become Chicago’s next Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel strolled down the gravel path to a Montana resort restaurant with Republican businessman Bruce Rauner, both men smiling as they carried bottles of wine.
In his hand, Emanuel carried a bottle of Napa Valley Reserve. The wine — which a spokeswoman says was not Emanuel’s — is so exclusive it is available only through a private vineyard whose members pay six figures to join the club.
It was not the only time Emanuel, then chief of staff to President Barack Obama, has been a guest of the venture capitalist, who owns thousands of acres of ranchland and homes out West. Their relationship — steeped in the high-stakes investment banking business and a shared approach to remaking public education — is no secret to anyone who follows Illinois politics.
Still, the 2010 scene along the banks of the Yellowstone River underscores one of the most intriguing subplots of the fall election season: How deep are their ties, and how will that alliance play out as Rauner seeks to unseat incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and Emanuel launches his 2015 re-election campaign?
Emanuel has endorsed Quinn for re-election. And both the mayor and Rauner have said they disagree with each other on many policy issues, including how to reform public pension programs and whether to raise the minimum wage. But they have more in common than they may care to admit, starting with money.
During a brief but lucrative stint in investment banking after leaving the Clinton White House, Emanuel helped hash out a deal that made Rauner’s firm, GTCR, about $500 million. The deal also helped make Emanuel a wealthy man.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-rahm-emanuel-bruce-rauner-20140829-story.html#page=1
Botsplainer
The terrorists hate us for our freedom, white Christian conservative men are courageous in their defense of people’s freedom and the thin blue line keeps us all safe.
Enjoy this record of a woman silently videoing an open GOP campaign event as she gets roughed up, ejected and arrested.
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2014/08/30/watch-nydia-tisdales-video-adventure-at-the-dawsonville-gop-rally/
Bail was set at over $6000 dollars on a felony charge of assault, which manly man husband-owner is insisting upon. Deal sat silently like a chickenshit, and none of those manly men gun toters put a round through deputy meatslab’s melon. The local GOP woman’s rep left the event in disgust, to her credit, and the AG was a standup guy.
Deal needs to pardon her (assuming he has that power), and the GBI should take a real hard look at deputy meatslab, whose department cleared him already.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle: It’s not their first DC office, either, if you catch my drift.
Suffern ACE
@Eric U.: I think Cole should move balloon juice headquarters to a suite atop the Revel. He could probably get enough money in tax credits back to keep Steve in Spanish Sardines for the rest of his life.
Harold Samson
All of this “END OF THE WORLD” talk is extremely silly.
We humans have challenges ahead. Life on Earth has been *very* easy for us on the whole.
And humans are the best single species at adapting to climate change. The best.
rikyrah
Police Arrest Young Black Politician For Distributing Voting Rights Leaflets
by Alice Ollstein Posted on September 2, 2014 at 9:17 am
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA—The stars of North Carolina’s Moral Mondays movement took the stage Monday at Charlotte’s Marshall Park to condemn the state’s record on voter suppression and racial profiling, and urge the community to organize and turn out at the polls this November. Just a few hundred feet away, police cuffed and arrested local LGBT activist and former State Senate candidate Ty Turner as he was putting voting rights information on parked cars.
“They said they would charge me for distributing literature,” Turner
told ThinkProgress when he was released a few hours later. “I asked [the policeman] for the ordinance number [being violated], because they can’t put handcuffs on you if they cannot tell you why they’re detaining you. I said, ‘Show me where it’s illegal to do this.’ But he would not do it. The officer got mad and grabbed me. Then he told me that I was resisting arrest!”
There is a local ordinance prohibiting leafleting on cars. But according
to local activist Casey Throneburg, who filmed the above video, it is
almost never enforced, and “certainly not with handcuffs.”
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/02/3477768/police-arrest-young-black-politician-at-moral-mondays-rally/
OzarkHillbilly
@Harold Samson:
Quite the contradictory statement there.
It is certainly premature, but silly? What, I wonder, are humans going to eat? I also find it very interesting to call a species that has been on the planet a mere 200,000 years (the entire genus of Homo has only been around for 2 and a half million years) as better at surviving than the great white Shark which has been around for 16 million years, while sharks in general have been around for 450 million years. I find it amusing too.
We have entered the “Anthropocene” (no, not official yet) which is marked by a rate of species extinction not seen since the end of the Cretaceous 65 million years ago.
I am not feeling as hubristic as you.
Harold Samson
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s not hubris, it’s informed optimism.
Name another single species that can survive at the equator and north of the Arctic circle. Only humans can do that.
Despair is a lousy way to deal with problems.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes:
Oh yeah. And this, from the WaPost this morning:
Republican? Check. Politico leadership? Check. Keeping Fred Hiatt. Check.
I didn’t care much for Katharine Weymouth — not her grandmother. Keeping an open mind on Ryan, at least it’s not Paul Ryan, but Politico??
And hoping the keeping Fred Hiatt is what you say when you’re actually reserving your options.
Cervantes
@Harold Samson: What “END OF THE WORLD” talk?
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Her grandmother and the Reagans were good friends, beginning in the 1960s. She voted for Carter in 1980, she said, but she also said she “wasn’t at all displeased” that he lost.
Bob In Portland
An open letter to Merkel from Ray McGovern et al about the unreporting of unfacts in Ukraine, which is rapidly becoming Unkraine.
Considering that some of that bad intelligence in Syria was based on intercepts of Syrian communications by a German spy ship in the eastern Mediterranean, I imagine she won’t be waving this around in Wales later this week.
Bob In Portland
Wouldn’t this be considered a violation of sovereignty?
mclaren
Now we finally see why local police departments are getting SWAT tanks and lawes rockets and flamethrowers and .50 caliber guns mounted on their up-armored MRAPs — so when they roll out to crack down on the terrorists (formerly named “union organizers”), they can deploy overwhelming firepower and massacre ’em all.
Clearly Americans have learned from the 1895 Pullman strike, where the governor called out the state militia to shoot down striking workers like dogs. Americans have learned to ball right in hard and use .50 cal rounds and napalm.