An Earnest Letter Writing Campaign Begins

This week we are going to begin participating in a tradition as old as the republic- writing a letters to our elected representative.  We are not sending an email, or an electronic petition, or a form letter signed on the street, but rather a real letter, with stamps and everything.  There is general consensus that elected officials and their staffs are more likely to respond to snail mail, probably because the extra effort that goes into sending a letter demonstrates a more intense commitment to an issue than an email.

Our first set of letters will deal with the issue of campaign finance reform.  Some progressives will dislike the idea of focusing critical energy on people like Jerrold Nadler (the recipient of our first letter). After all, isn’t he one of the good guys?  But these letters are not intended to be adversarial, and as an important Congressman from Manhattan and Brooklyn, Mr. Nadler seems like a perfectly appropriate official to send our questions to.  Furthermore, if a self-described liberal with little election opposition cannot practice sound fundraising practices, who in this Washington climate can?  The first letter, dealing with some of Mr. Nadler’s major donors, will be sent tomorrow, at which point its contents will be posted on the website.  We will also post any response his office sends us.

The Bull Moose Movement’s main goal is increasing civic engagement, and not focusing on the top-down model of elections and advocacy for specific bills.  However, if indeed letters are a more substantive way to engage elected officials than other approaches, that is a worthwhile tool to pass on to people looking to advocate for themselves and help formulate the policies that will affect their lives.  Rather than push for individuals to co-sign pre-written letters, we will push for people to write letters reflecting how they feel about their government’s policies- if the politicians will listen.

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Zombie Parade Postponed

Dear Prospective Zombie Paraders,

Due to a rainy forecast, the zombie parade has been postponed.  We will reschedule and be in touch with you soon.

Thanks for your interest!

Til soon,

Cristina

Press release: Zombies Take Manhattan!

ZOMBIE CORPORATIONS TAKE MANHATTAN!
New Yorkers to present “zombie civics lesson” theater, inspire audience to act against corporate influence in politics

WHAT: Vibrant street theater presentation of “zombies,” “politicians” and citizens
WHEN: 2 p.m. Saturday, May 8 Press time (skit begins): 2:30 p.m.
WHERE: Tompkins Square Park, Avenue A and 3rd St., NY, NY

NEW YORK – Just weeks after the landmark Supreme Court decision to roll back campaign spending limits on corporations and classify them as “people,” young New Yorkers will host a ghouly, interactive and inspirational “zombie civics lesson” at 2 p.m. May 8 in Tompkins Square Park, educating and inspiring viewers to act and reclaim their collective power to effect policy change.

In a clever, creative street theater performance, New Yorkers acting as corporate zombies — from Chase Bank and other major corporations — will meet with others dressed as state and national politicians, promising them campaign funds and endorsements in return for support of their agenda, no matter the risk to the public interest. Then, more actors performing as everyday citizens will bravely stand up to these zombies and explain how they’re opting out of the cycle — by buying locally grown food, joining local credit unions, and more — inspiring the audience to take their own simple actions to end the influence of corporate zombies on our elected leaders.

“Multi-billion dollar corporations corrupt our democracy and our lives,” said Cristina Castro, co-organizer of the event. “They bribe elected officials, shaping our laws and policies for their benefit, not ours. Health care reform barely passed because of industry pressure, brutal wars abroad continue thanks to military industry arm-twisting, and our food supply remains unhealthy thanks to agricultural industry lobbying. Our government spends our taxes on these corporate interests to the detriment of our schools, our roads, our public services. What better than to portray corporations for what they are, blood-thirsty zombies?”

The event is organized by the nascent Bull Moose Movement, a nationwide nonpartisan organization founded in response to the Supreme Court’s pro-corporate ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. According to NPR, the decision could “unleash a torrent of corporate and union cash into the political realm and transform how campaigns for president and Congress are fought in the coming years.” The movement’s mission is to educate and empower the public of what individual citizens can do in their everyday lives to call on politicians to work for their interests, not those of corporations.

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For more information about this action, please contact Cristina Castro at 551-697-3239 or Jean Stevens at 508-769-2138. For more information on the Bull Moose Movement, please visit www.bullmoosemovement.com.

Today’s Stories of Interest

“What the hell did we do to deserve this?” says BP CEO to fellow executives. Hmm… how about ignoring the serious risks inherent with off shore drilling, insisting on industry self regulation and failing to implement key safety technology that would have allowed the oil leak to be easily shut down almost immediately.

A barn-burning look at how fraud, corruption and corporate influence peddling has soaked itself into virtually every aspect of governance and politics.

The Supreme Court takes another right turn, this time upholding corporate rights and dismissing workers’ rights in arbitration cases. Not a sexy subject, but one that could apply to any one of us- see banking agreements, phone contracts, etc.

How’s this for a change of pace?  Two leading candidates for Mayor of New York in 2013 are jockeying over who can better bring sunlight to NYC’s budget process.

May 8th Zombie Parade

On Saturday, May 8th, the Bull Moose Movement will put together a must-see spectacle combining some good ol’ street theatre and some healthy and much-needed civics discussion.  On this day we will hold the first of many zombie parades at the historic and revolutionary-spirited Tompkins Square park.  What’s a zombie parade you say?  The Bull Moose Movement believes that unlike what the Supreme Court would like to have us believe, corporations are not people.  Much like zombies, corporations do have some people-like qualities.  Like zombies, most corporations are parasitic in their nature, draining the resources of their hosts, namely our communities, with an insatiable fervor.  Therefore, in order to expose their true nature, we will choose the greediest, sleaziest corporations on the planet, you know, the ones that corrupt our democracy by bribing our elected officials and ultimately shape our laws and policies for their benefit at the detriment of society, and we will personify them in the form of creepy, blood-thirsty zombies.

So grab your craziest zombie gear and join us on May 8th at 2 p.m.  Our hope is that our antics will help start a conversation.  It’s time our communities empower themselves by verbalizing the issues that are hindering their progress.  Together, we can learn from each other.

“Happy Tax Day” from the Bloated Pentagon War Machine

This Tax Day, why not take a moment to think about how sad and wasteful it is that so much of our hard-earned salaries are going to our bloated Pentagon budget?

Despite tough words from President Obama and Secretary Gates, the $704 billion defense budget is the highest ever, with the $549 billion non-war spending a 3.4% hike over last year.  $704 billion.  Isn’t that nuts? It’s actually almost double what we spent in 1998, which weren’t exactly shabby times for the military-industrial complex.  This Tax Day let’s take a second to think about the cash we throwing into the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the billions more we are happy enough blowing without even being at war.

Let’s start with our two favorite wars. Yes, we may have spent $983 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan, but even if these wars ended tomorrow, American taxpayers would be saddled with all kind of hidden costs, as Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes explain in their excellent book, The Three Trillion Dollar War:

To date, we have spent close to $1 trillion in upfront out-of-pocket costs — but the war will cost at least $2 trillion more, when we include the cost of paying for veterans disability compensation, veterans health care, replacement of armaments, and damage to the US economy.

Then there’s our regular old, non-war, run of the mill, gargantuan Pentagon expenditures. At the State of the Union, President Obama regrettably (but predictably) continued the hero worship of the Pentagon by exempting it from his proposed “spending freeze”.

This year the  U.S will account for 47% of the world’s military spending.  In case you wonder why some foreigners love calling us imperialists (NOT a term I agree with), consider that our military budget is barely matched by the rest of the world combined, let alone our quasi-rivals China ($130 billion) or Russia ($80 billion).

We certainly don’t this much money to militarily confront our Axis of Evil buddies.  Dave Lindorff, an investigative journalist who does great work in this area, notes that North Korea and Iran each have military budgets of about $5 billion, roughly equal to what the U.S military will spend next year on “childcare and youth programs, morale and recreation programs and commissaries on its bases.”

Nowadays the news is all about deficit reduction.  The Democrats are in charge, so of course now it’s time for tough, politically loathsome choices.  Many here would agree that Democrats should be categorically opposed to balancing the budget on the back of critical social spending programs.  I’d argue that Democrats should make a stand and oppose the slashing of entitlement, education and anti-poverty program spending without a commensurate cut in military spending.

This is unlikely to happen, of course, because military production in this country is often government workfare by another name.  Witness the bipartisan outrage that bonded Ted Kennedy and right-wing loon John Thune when President Bush tried to shut down several non-essential military plants, including a South Dakota plane manufacturer and a Massachusetts navy shipyard. I remember watching the news coverage thinking, ‘This is the only time in my life I will side with George Bush over Ted Kennedy.’

Hey, but a job is a job, even if it’s a job making something we don’t need, manning a base we don’t need or transporting oil at $400 a gallon (yep, $400 a gallon) in a war we don’t know how to end.

I’ll give our President credit for his rhetoric, which is a first step. Declaring, “Even though the Department of Defense is exempt from the budget freeze, it’s not exempt from budget common sense,”  Obama scrappedthe C-17 transport plane program ($2.5 billion) and research on a second engine for the F-35 fighter plane ($465 million)

Gates and Obama used the Quadrennial Defense Review as a shield against criticism.  The QDR is a somewhat laughable audit, given its composition of war hawks and industry reps, but if even they suggest cutting a program, it must be really useless.  Unfortunately, as the name suggests, the QDR Report is only completed every four years, so who knows how rigorously Gates and Obama will approach program slashing in next year’s budget.   And even these modest program cuts spawned rabid howls of outrage from the right, though hopefully by now Obama just brushes that dirt of his shoulders.

I could ramble on about what the U.S government or American taxpayers could do the hundreds of billions of dollars we’d have to work with if we ended both wars and slashed the Pentagon budget, but I’ll leave that to the creative imaginations of Kossacks.

If you’re not in a creative mood, Cost of War has a nifty function where you can calculate how the money from our ongoing wars could have been spent in your local community. Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan is taking that idea to the next level, raising private funds to install a Cost of War clock at City Hall so all residents can see how much of their tax dollars are going to support the Pentagon.

I could ramble on about the 700–6000 military bases we are currently maintaining around the world, a figure that the internets has some trouble coming up with, but I’ll let words like ‘imperialism’ get thrown around in the comment section.  It’s Tax Day, and the focus today is cold hard cash.

It’s worth noting, as always, that this is not an anti-veterans post by any means.  The profiteers of war are not the folks going door to door in the middle of the night in Kandahar or Basra looking for suspected insurgents.

Also, I’m certainly not pinning this all on President Obama.  Though he is our Commander-In-Chief, no one person set this black hole of public funds in motion. But if Obama is serious about his rhetoric, this is definitely going to be one of those issues where “we make him do the right thing.”

Finally, it stings to see taxes ripped out of your paycheck.  That’s a pain we can all relate to.  But while some right-wingers want to respond by drowning government in a bathtub (except the Pentagon, of course), folks like us recognize the important programs our tax dollars are funding.  That includes maintaining an adequate military to keep America safe. In 2010, during a recession, however, I cannot stomach that $704,000,000,000 being spent by the war machine.

Charlie don’t surf and we think he should
Charlie don’t surf and you know that it ain’t no good
Charlie don’t surf for his hamburger Momma
Charlie’s gonna be a napalm star

Everybody wants to rule the world
Must be something we get from birth
One truth is we never learn
Satellites will make space burn

We’ve been told to keep the strangers out
We don’t like them starting to hang around
We don’t like them all over town
Across the world we are going to blow them down

The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can’t free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their Coca Cola

It’s a one a way street in a one horse town
One way people starting to brag around
You can laugh, put them down
These one way people gonna blow us down

-The Clash, “Charlie Don’t Surf”

Coffee Party Takes a Strong Step Forward

This morning the Coffee Party announced that it will be focusing its attention on financial reform and campaign reform, and is polling members to determine the specific legislation it will focus its efforts on.   For those who have been observing the Coffee Party with cautious optimism, this is great news, and a tremendous step forward for the nascent organization.

Financial reform and campaign finance reform are not sexy issues, but they are both critical issues America needs to confront now.  They are also not easy topics to grapple with.  I know this from having studied the issues closely on behalf of the Coffee Party research team.  The Coffee Party deserves credit for engaging two complicated issues that matter rather than  more superficial issues that lend themselves to easier messaging.

The Bull Moose Movement stands for the improving the civic education of Americans so that they can make the right choices at the ballot box and be engaged enough to pressure their elected officials between elections.  The Coffee Party has demonstrated the potential to play a similar role, but we have all been waiting to see how their online sign-ups and coffee house meetings will translate into meaningful engagement and action.

By choosing these issues, the Coffee Party is demonstrating a willingness to tackle important, substantive issues.  This is a relief, as I, and many others were unconvinced of their initial goal, which was to ‘foster a more civil dialogue.’  We wondered what the dialogue would actually be about, and the answer, reassuringly, is a discussion of two major policies.

The selection of campaign finance reform and financial reform also demonstrate the Coffee Party’s astute dedication to big-tent political issues.  Both of these issues should be bi-partisan/non-partisan, and Republican opposition in Washington to both is astonishingly out of touch with independents and moderates.   Never in recent memory has Republican hypocrisy been more flagrant than on the issue of financial reform.  Even as Republicans slam the bailout initiated by George Bush that many of them voted for, and label Obama the Wall Street President, they shake down Wall Street for campaign handouts in return for their continued opposition to reform.

It still remains to be seen what exactly the Coffee Party will do to follow up discussions about these reforms.  I suppose 100,000 people calling their Congressional representatives would send a strong message, but more effort than that went into stopping the Iraq War and fighting for the public option. Most elected officials are obstinate people who read their campaign treasurer’s reports before they ask how their constituents are doing.

My hope is that the Coffee Party will  embrace the promotion of civic education that we are pushing for at the Bull Moose Movement.  Really get into neighborhoods and talk to neighbors, small businesses and local media about why all of this matters.  The Bull Moose Movement’s goals are extremely long-term, as civic education on the larger issue of corporate influence can’t happen overnight, or in one election cycle.  That is why we do not really lobby for specific bills, which are often heavily watered down by the time the ‘debate’ starts (see: Senate financial reform bill).   That said, the Coffee Party is strong in numbers, and could perhaps provide the last bit of momentum needed to push this weak sauce financial reform bill through.  As for campaign finance reform, 100,000 phone calls won’t be enough to get the changes we need, but it’s not a bad start.

Today’s Stories of Interest

Even after 3 bailouts, we continued to inadequately regulate Citigroup. When is enough enough? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/08panel.html?hpw

Will Obama step up to the plate and appoint a true progressive upon Justice Stevens’s resignation? The stakes are higher than ever! http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100419/editors

Beneath the surface of the Virginia mining tragedy, lies a prime example highlighting the need for campaign finance laws: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/will_we_forget_the_miners_again_20100407/

Breaking up the banks for the sake of change. Will you break up with your bank? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/apr/07/paul-krugman-break-up-banks

Scary numbers behind Haitian relief funds. From the money pledged by the U.S., 40 cents on every dollar goes to the U.S. military, less than one cent goes to the Haitian government, and contracts to help rebuild are being awarded to U.S. private contractors. Hmmm… http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/08-4

The Revival of Cottage Industries

“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?”

-Henry David Thoreau in a letter to Harrison Blake

(16 November, 1857)

Welcome to Cottage Corner!

This is a virtual cottage-diary where I, Artemis Folk, artisan crafter and urban homesteader, delve into the trials and travails of learning cottage skills and making a living from them. It will include my projects, reflections, questions, and DIY tools for curious people.

I started seriously crafting last fall (2009) when I was finally able take time off from the usual grind and devote my energy to learning the skills I find intriguing and practical, a kind of self-reeducation. Here are some examples of what I’m doing/learning/practicing/studying in no particular order:

• Wool felting
• Carpentry, wood working, and household repairs
• Sewing, clothing alterations, following a pattern, making a pattern, by hand and machine
• Food production/gardening/small scale farming
• Food preservation: storing, canning, dehydrating, freezing, fermenting
• Seed saving, preserving genetic diversity
• Cooking and baking
• Bicycle building and maintenance
• Silk screening
• Wild plant identification and gathering
• Natural medicine and herbalism
• Metalsmithing and jewelry making
• Dyeing fabrics with natural dyes
• Book binding
• Paper making
• Ceramic pottery
• Block printing
• Just about anything else that I would normally purchase from a corporation

The name Cottage Corner refers to cottage crafts, or cottage industries. When I say cottage crafts, I am talking about small scale, independent, skilled production of goods and services in a home-based environment. Cottage industries preceded factories. It was a way for small scale crafters to contract with a distributor. In the 1400s this distributor was often just a marketplace, a way to centralize trades and sales. Overtime, this changed from contracting to factory labor to the industrial revolution. Now, I’m not here to knock the industrial revolution. But I am here to knock cheap, corporate controlled labor that strips communities of both natural and human resources while stockpiling profits with CEOs and investors.

Cottage crafting goes by many other names. Other terms I’ve heard for what I’m doing include: traditional folk arts, primitive skills, survival skills, and homesteading. I refer to myself as an artisan crafter and urban homesteader. My project, the subject of this blog, involves both learning skills and profiting from my products/services.

What does it have to do with the Bull Moose Movement?

Making my own stuff is a political choice, as well as a spiritual, ethical, economic, and idealistic choice. I would rather make something, learn a skill, nourish my creative mind, conserve resources, and undercut Target at the same time. Efficiency is very important to me because homesteading and hand-crafting are by nature gloriously slow.

Before I buy anything, I ask myself where it came from and how it was made. Unfortunately, the thing in question is often produced in a factory by underpaid labor and distributed by a corporation. Then I ask myself if I there’s something else I could use that I already have, or if I could make the item myself with a reasonable amount of labor and materials, and finally if I will learn a new skill or practice an old one while creating the desired object. If I can’t make the object, I look for an option that was made locally and is being sold by an independent person or business.

After many years of asking the question, “How would I make this?” I decided to devote some time in my life to learning how to be more self-sufficient. I wanted to know how to build, sew, and grow. This move is married to my efforts to defy corporate greed and carnivorous marketing schemes by putting my money where my mouth is and not supporting corporations. Now I am not only buying locally made cottage products, I am a crafter contributing to the cottage market and hoping people will buy my handmade wool mittens instead of the pair from the L.L. Bean catalog.

Enough philosophizing, let’s get to this post’s topic:

Felted Wool Stuff

I love clothes and accessories and I’m not ashamed to say it. (I’m also not ashamed to quote Walden.) But how do I satisfy my desire for cute sweaters and tall boots while maintaining my political integrity and homesteader street cred? Two words: felted wool. Not just any felted wool either. We’re talking wool from sweaters reclaimed from the local thrift store where clothes are sold in bulk for 50 cents per pound.

I buy used, 100% wool, merino, and cashmere sweaters for about 30 cents a sweater. I felt them at home in the washing machine. Then I cut out whatever pattern I want, sew the seams, and voila! We have hand-crafted, felted wool mittens with cashmere lining and quirky embroidery.

This winter I designed wool mittens for my sweetheart who bikes through the winter. I made them double layered to keep out wind. The inside layer is cashmere and the outside is a rougher, thicker, felted wool. Both layers used to be the sleeves of sweaters. I added bike tube palm pads for waterproofing. Bicycle shops throw out used bike tubes and give them away for free. I take the larger ones, slice them down the middle, and wash them inside.

I sew with heavy duty, cotton embroidery thread and a big needle with a large eye. I make colorful, visible stitches that add to the aesthetic and advertise the handmade quality. I want people to see that I made this neat thing and think, “How would I make those?” And if they ask me, I’ll tell them.

Why is wool awesome?

Wool is a natural, renewable fiber from sheep and goats. Animals do not need to be harmed to harvest wool (but beware: industrialized practices sometimes do harm the animals).  Wool is very warm in the cold and stays warm even if it gets wet. It also breaths when you’re hot. It can be thick for sweaters, or woven thin and smooth for undergarments. Wool can be torn apart and felted back together. Wool does not absorb odors like other materials. Wool is very easy to work with and can be dyed with natural, plant dyes. High quality wool is available inexpensively in resale stores and bulk thrift stores. It is adaptable and will form to a mold when felted.

Felting is the process of wool fibers being knitted more closely together. This can be done with small barbed needles (needle felting), or with hot water and soap. When you shrink a wool sweater accidentally in the wash, you’ve felted it. It’s not fun to wear anymore, but it is now a stronger, more durable material with infinite potential futures as mittens, boots, vests, patches, shoes, hats, headbands, wallets, soap pockets, potholders, belts, legwarmers, bags, purses, funky jewelry, tea cozies and more.

That’s all for now folks!

For DIY instructions for wool mittens go to my blog: http://artemisfolk.wordpress.com

Why the Tea Party is Not the Party of Tea

A Guest Post By Monica Morrison

It all started with the tea bag campaign. They Jacksonian mob listened and did just what they were told, commencing with the disbursement of the bags to politicians, and the throwing of bags in public demonstrations. While much can be said about the content of these protests–notably, the incoherency and the unmatched bigotry– I will state what our hyper-caffeinated Starbucks culture for the most part missed. This was a perfectly good waste of tea. It is fitting that these men and women, the ones who have no regard for their sick brothers and sisters, to throw tea around and have no respect for even the product itself. After all, tea is medicine. Of course they want to take medicine away from the rest of us. Of course they want to limit access even more by ruining tea parties for the rest of us, by using tea as a prop, by ignoring the hands and fuel and global economy that brings America tea in the first place.

But all of us do it, all of us forget how many people it takes to drive this post-industrial American economy bus. When the international corporations were unleashed on the world, they scoured the globe to seek out goods and labor for the lowest price. They left Paul jobless and homeless in any rich country to hire Peter from pretty much anywhere else. They moved their monetary headquarters while they build large figure-head offices over here, reaping all of the benefits. It is time that we all stood up and acknowledged the human cost that goes into maintaining these multinational corporations. And it is time that workers everywhere sought fair compensation for the money they have been making for a small portion of the population. If companies can desert entire swaths of the United States, why cannot we as Americans desert the American corporations? Why can we not at least purchase our medicine internationally, much like the tea that gets shipped all over the world?

As for the Tea Party, they protest in droves to drive away the sick. How can the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, how can they come together to match the force when they are not yet enrolled in Social Security or Medicare like many of the protesters, and are truly sick? Personally, I have a chronic health condition. And I do not have insurance. But my health is a matter of privacy, something I would like to keep in confidence. I do not have the physical or emotional strength to stand up like the man with Parkinson’s and tell the shouting mobs that I need care. But that does not change the fact that I do. And the clinics in Maine have yet to make it to New York, and have yet to be able to treat severe chronic conditions. And all of the wishing in the world does not change the fact that I am employed and still without health care. And with a pre-existing condition, there is little that anyone can do to get me coverage at the moment. But there is always 2014, when I will finally be eligible for Medicaid (that is, unless I can once again reach the threshold of making more than poverty level wages, which I have not done since the Obama election). Until then, all I can really do is save up to take a healthcare holiday abroad. Or pray that I can join the high risk pool. Or piggyback on my parents’ policies. Oh wait. They don’t have insurance either.

Stop listening to the mobs who do not know better. Forgive them, for they truly know not what they do. The only way to fix many of the problems this country faces is to have civil discourse about the needs and the rights of American citizens, and to build a consensus around those ideals. Without all of the posturing, all of the senseless pride, all of the blaming, and all of the special interest selfishness. Let’s all admit to each other that every single one of us needs help, we need medicine, and above all– we sincerely need one another. That becomes clear during a real tea party. Each person’s contribution to the conversation is cherished and appreciated, people treat one another with respect and civility, and everyone gets as many servings of medicine as they like.