The only crime of most college students and graduates is wanting an education and a middle class standard of living.

Sign a White House petition telling Obama to support Elizabeth Warren’s bill to give student loans same interest banks get: 0.75% http://wh.gov/JNiU

Then send it to two friends, especially if they’re buried under student loans.

I don’t know if Obama and Congress will pass this bill, but if 100,000 people sign it, he has to AT LEAST respond to it and address two uncomfortable issues at once:

1. Why Wall Street is getting continuous superlow interest bailouts in the tens of trillions from the Federal Reserve after their criminal conduct.

2. Why the rest of us are told to tighten our belts and suck it up in spite of number 1.

"Social Security Pledge" by ProgressOhio on flickr

The White House has put up a petition site. We need to see how seriously they are going to take it by demanding that they protect Social Security and other past progressive achievements rather than dismantling them at the behest of Wall St. It takes 5,000 to get them to respond to it, and it’s a little over 1,100 away from that.

Will they actually support the bill?  I don’t know, but if they won’t I want to hear why, which they will be obligated to do with a few more signatures.

Here’s the text of the petition:

Support Sen. Bernie Sanders bill to fix Social Security by removing the cap on income subject to the SS tax.

Unlike most government programs, Social Security has its own dedicated tax and is solvent until 2036. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, in S. 1558, has proposed gradually removing the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax, which would make it solvent for 75 years, and able to pay full benefits.

Removing the cap would also make this a flat rather than regressive tax.

Support this bill and refuse to support any “reform” such as privatizing, means testing, or raising the eligibility age that would weaken it for those who need it most in the working and middle class.

Sen. Sanders reform would strengthen the program whereas anything proposed by Wall St. would would take the “security.”

Washington has done enough for Wall St. It’s time to protect average Americans from them.

Sign at White House website

"Hey listen!" by quinnanya on flickr

The Obama administration has set up a petition site for the general public.  This is a good chance to see how seriously they are going to take the results, by asking him to give up a profoundly corrupt and destructive K-12 education policy and put the people who actually know what they are doing in charge.

Text of petition and link to sign:

The current education “reform” movement is driven by real estate, software, education management, and testing corporations who stand to profit from destroying existing public schools and replacing them with for profit charter schools that siphon for private profits that could have gone directly to classrooms.

Instead, listen to the teachers, involved parents, and scholars who do research on education to determine the best way to improve our schools while keeping them entirely public rather than treating our children’s future like a commodity to be speculated on like so many bushels of wheat or pork bellies.

What we can learn from the private sector is the best practices of entirely private schools, like your own children attend, and how to prepare our kids to benefit from them.

Sign at White House Petition site

Youtube is taking public questions for John Boehner.

I don’t think we will get satisfactory answers to any questions we ask, but it’s like Lyndon Johnson said when an aide told him a rumor wasn’t true that he was trying to start about an opponent having sex with a horse..  ”I know, ” Johnson said, “but I want to hear him deny it.”

If you know someone in the guard ask them if they will obey the order to disperse or even fire on their friends and neighbors, and what kind state they think they’d end up living in if they did. Then post their replies to blogs or here, anonymously if they want or with their names if they are willing.

It would be a good question for capitol and state police as well.

Reporters should be asking guard commanders the same question. (I’m going to email or call later today).

Even if they say they. Will follow orders, it will plant a seed of doubt.

If someone says they won’t follow the orders, I would challenge them to join the protest in uniform–which would be a good idea for veterans among protesters right now. If the right doesn’t mind calling teachers and other public workers lazy pigs, it will a lot harder for them to do if it makes them look like they aren’t ”supporting the troops.”

Maybe if you know a someone in the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, especially public workers deployed in the guard, you could get video clips of statements of support.

We need to do more than beat the right here–we need to make them afraid to bash public workers and union bash ever again. We should make them BEG for the privilege to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. This needs to be their Waterloo, and we need the troops on our side to d