Saving Our Democracy: Aug. 1-7, 2019

Jul. 30, 2019

12:51 p.m.

Emily Shullaw Emily Shullaw for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

The Shepherd Express serves as a clearinghouse for all activities in the Greater Milwaukee area that peacefully push back against discriminatory, reactionary, racist, sexist, homophobic and authoritarian actions and policies of the Donald Trump regime, as well as other activities that seek to thwart social justice. To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com.

Saturday, Aug. 3

Peace Action of Wisconsin: Stand for Peace @ the corner of Howell Ave. and Howard Ave., noon-1 p.m.

Every Saturday from noon-1 p.m., concerned citizens join with Peace Action of Wisconsin to protest war and literally “Stand for Peace.” Signs will be provided for those who need them. Protesters are encouraged to stick around for conversation and coffee after the protest.

Tuesday, Aug. 6

EXPO MKE August Meeting @ UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena (2821 N. Vel Phillips Ave.) 6 p.m.

Pete Koneazny, of the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee will join EXPO members to discuss conditions of confinement in Wisconsin Prisons and in particular, Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility. Those who administer detention sites are responsible for providing adequate food, clothing, shelter, sanitation and medical care. Do prison officials fall short of that responsibility?

To submit to this column, please send a brief description of your action, including date and time, to savingourdemocracy@shepex.com.

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Comments (4)

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Free market failures

A free market depends on elasticity of the supply and demand curves.
When people have a choice to spend or not spend, they will pull back when it is too expensive, they will buy more when it is cheap.

When you have a choice, people who can afford to pay more for better quality will choose that better quality. Those who cannot afford it will be stuck with low quality or go without anything. That works on things that are "choice" and not "necessary".

But take a look at things like prescription drugs that are needed every month to stay alive and healthy... Insulin for a diabetic, hypertension and cholesterol meds for people aging out of the workforce, migraine meds that allow people to work a full productive day for their employers.

Can we really afford to go on foreign made generics that escape the quality control enforcement by our FDA? It's a little hard to do a surprise inspection in India when the FDA inspector needs the drug maker's permission to get the entrance Visa.

Isn't that the same as "throwing Grandma off the cliff"?

We all remember from our 9th grade US History about the Anti-Trust break-ups of Rockefeller's Standard Oil. We all knew that when a company has a monopoly on a necessity like lamp kerosene, people just have to pay a higher price for the same quality good. There was no talk of "watered down" lamp oil back then.

And then there was Prohibition and it's repeal, the enforcement of a liquor tax stamp. Think that was only about taxing business activity? How about making sure that alcohol is grain alcohol and not tainted with wood alcohol, which cause blindness and other harm to the body while people got their drunk on.

We all know that entitlement hawks like Paul Ryan was saying that free market rules are supposed to cut out and stop serving the people who can no longer afford to pay full fare, so they depend on a form of assistance.

We cannot even do a death sentence for every person on a sex offender list (Billionaires included), how can we do a death sentence for people whose only "crime" is they got old, lived past traditional "work until you die" expectations?

Back when the Social Security system was created, not very many workers who paid in were going to live long enough to collect, and we sure were not giving out their saved lump sum to the widow or children. Now that people live longer, something has to change.

Remember the 35 day federal shutdown of 7-8 months back? How they estimated about 1/4 of the American people could not face a $400 emergency? Who's rent is only $400 for a month, not to mention utilities, food, gasoline to get to work anyway.

Work on problems like that. You know that these people were not all black and "illegal" brown. Most were white, Christian and straight, doing exactly what the US economy demands out of the working and Middle Classes... spending all of their paycheck every month, as soon as it is earned. Retail profits depend on this spending, even when people have lost their jobs.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago

Oops, missed point on Monopolies.

What I meant to say is that today's monopoly is NOT about getting a higher price after the affordable competition is eliminated. Today's takeovers are really about shutting down a good company to do a forced takeover of their customers, forcing them to accept a lower quality product.

Companies are going to make money, they are not going to carry a loss product with mandated low-price while preserving high US pay and top quality they will abandon that product line if that is the way it turns out.

Companies already know that when prices go up, then sales volumes will go down. So they will cut wages or out-source to non-US places to keep the costs down and therefore keep the minimum sale price down. That way they get to keep the sales volumes to make their plan work out.

But here is the kicker... they will even take shortcuts and reduce quality to keep those prices down.

A GM engineer some 35 years ago told me that their goal was to make the car fall completely apart as soon as it reached 100,000 miles. If a part lasts less, make it better. If a part lasts longer, make it cheaper. Wash, Rinse, Repeat until they get their 100,000 mile goal for all parts of the car.

Yes, it is all about controlled minimal quality.

We need to bring innovation and quality back again, that is the part that made America great, it was not about a few getting rich and neighborhoods staying white that made America great.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago

The failure of small-d democracy... race

Why Trump won was that America IS divided into socioeconomic layers, whether due to "rights" of "white" (or "wealth") privilege, or simply due to "personal greed I can use (and not get caught)" in a supposedly free and trusting country. There is rampant "un-documented" stereotyping and prejudice around many lines of division, it exists among Democrats and Republicans both. Here in SE Wisconsin, this division is exceptionally strong regarding skin color, equated to "the poor", (aka "people to be KEPT poor.") But it is also strong in parts of all of our country, blue states included.

Trump's support comes from the roughly 40% of America who harbor this "racism". None of these people are stupid enough to reveal under oath (or in so-called "anonymous" opinion polls) how race is the reason for their actions. They know that to reveal this truth gets them a hate-crime adder or gets their business put under sanctions by our government that "temporarily" still has Constitutional amendments that grant citizenship and equal protection. -- Southern plantation owners did not send their slaves back to Africa (or put them to death) when they were no longer allowed to own them. Maybe they were waiting for Lincoln's work to be "repealed and replaced" like Obama's.

While 40% may take racism to their grave (Trump was their best "great white hope" of ending Civil Rights in all its forms), there are probably another 40% of white people who will not mind if someone else ends Civil Rights. They "know" our hard, non-socialist, money-first, American life is easier when decision making only has to consider just one type of people. Only one type to craft labor policy to, to market to, to have in their neighborhoods, their schools, their retail stores, their places of entertainment, their holidays, even their places of worship. Older white people remember how hard life was when their domain was pure white. They know including blacks, immigrants, non-straights, non-Christians just makes life harder.

After Obama, Democrats are NOT going to get very far by defending school busing or any other "government forced" integration policies or "tax redistribution" policies. Traditional people who choose to avoid the hard work of diversity have enough problems already.

Democrats would be better served to focus on what parts of American Life are "free market failures", things like Health Insurance, Drugs for rare superbugs, post retirement finances, clean well water when outside city water utilities, renewable energy, common infrastructure, internet privacy, "net neutrality", and problems with patents, trademarks, copyrights, protecting the small local business from the multi-nationals who have access to cheap, non-US labor.

Focus more on the rising cost of housing when working class pay-scales have not been going up, focus on how regular people gave up hope on doing a good job when they know they will never benefit from doing good work anyway. Focus on Quality and Honesty.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago

"No Collusion"

There was no direct, signed contract "collusion" between Trump and Russia, contracts are not needed for a shared understanding of how "leadership" really works. Signed contracts are only needed for those "untrusting" win-lose deals where there is a higher court of law that both parties of the contract are forced to respect.

Just like you do not need two major corporations to "collude" to milk their customers for everything they can get away with, the contract is only needed when it is corporation A against corporation B. That does not mean that both corporate leaders can gather in a "no wires allowed" country club sauna and agree to fix the price, reduce quality, or out-source so that both of them get rich faster. That is just undocumented collusion. In fact, the leaders do not even need to meet to know that they both want the same thing. Those common goals are even harder to label as "collusion."

Repeat the above paragraph, replacing corporation with nation, customer with constituent, contract with treaty, economy stuff with government stuff. Same difference when it comes to "collusion" or "deals",

What I am getting at is that both Russia and Big Corporate see "one man one vote" democracy as an enemy to their desire to carry out "dictator" minority rule over their own bottom 99%... no collusion needed at all to know top leaders do not want the lower ranks to have any voice or decision-making power.

That goes for both national citizenship/resident as well as labor union rank and file.

SE Wisc. Citizen more than 5 years ago