GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION NOW!

In the wake of the latest gun violence tragedy, surviving students from the high school in Florida where the incident occurred have inspired the nation with their commitment to reduce gun violence in the US. Here are four things we can all do to work to achieve that goal:

Support the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, and others who join their movement to change laws in states and federally on access to guns, particularly semi-automatic weapons and magazines with dozens of bullets.
Support organizations that are fighting to reduce gun violence.
Know how to refute the arguments of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and others that are opposing efforts to reduce gun violence.
Know what meaningful policy changes should and need to be made to reduce gun violence.

If you’d like some inspiration to act, please watch this short video of the new anthem for gun control written and performed by Stoneman Douglas High School students in response to the shooting at their school: https://www.facebook.com/justicechoir/videos/1677544419005142/.

Ways to support these students and the movement they have inspired are evolving, but here are three actions you can participate in or support in other ways:

Women’s March Youth EMPOWER is calling for students, teachers, school administrators, parents, and allies to take part in a #NationalSchoolWalkout for 17 minutes at 10 am on Wednesday, March 14, to protest inaction on gun violence prevention. More information is at: https://www.actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/enough-national-school-walkout
Students from Stoneman Douglas High School are calling for people to join them on Saturday, March 24, in Washington, DC, and cities across the country for the March for Our Lives to demand legislation to stop gun violence. More information is at: https://www.marchforourlives.com/
Public rallies will be held nationwide on Friday, April 20, as part of a National Day of Action to Prevent Gun Violence in Schools. More information is at: https://networkforpubliceducation.org/national-day-action/

There are a number of organizations that you can join or support with contributions or volunteer activities that are on the front lines in working to prevent gun violence. Here are three major ones:

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control): http://www.bradycampaign.org/
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: http://lawcenter.giffords.org/
Everytown for Gun Safety: https://everytown.org/

The NRA and others who oppose meaningful steps to reduce gun violence have crafted their arguments and media strategy over many years. Here are some responses to their arguments:

No civilian needs to have or should be allowed to have a semi-automatic weapon or a magazine with more than 6 bullets. Semi-automatic weapons are military weapons that are designed to kill human beings and to kill as many as possible as quickly as possible. There is absolutely no need for anyone other than law enforcement and military personnel to have one.
Some people will kill other people. But guns mean those people will kill many more people. And semi-automatic weapons and magazines that hold dozens of bullets mean they can kill LOTS of people very quickly.
Mental illness is NOT the issue; guns are. Every country has individuals with mental illness, but no other country has anywhere near the level of gun violence that we have in the US because no other country allows the level of civilian gun ownership that the US does. The great majority of people who experience mental illness – and there are many who experience some mental illness at some point in their lives – are not violent. Moreover, a violent person without a gun can do very limited harm. (See the bullet above.) By the way, the Republicans in Congress and President Trump in the budget he presented just days ago significantly cut federal spending to address mental illness. Furthermore, by reducing access to health care by cutting Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, fewer people will have access to mental health services.
The Second Amendment to the US Constitution states: “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Beginning in the 1970s, the gun manufacturers, along with the NRA, undertook an extensive campaign to get activist judges to interpret the Second Amendment as giving civilian individuals the “right” to possess guns. The goal was to allow the gun industry to sell more guns and ammunition and, therefore, to make much bigger profits. Keep in mind that at the time the amendment was written, the arms referred to were muzzle loading weapons that took many seconds to reload, not weapons that fired multiple bullets per second. This individual “right” to have a gun represented a major change in interpretation of the Second Amendment, which for the first 200 years of this country’s existence was understood to apply only to arms for military purposes. Furthermore, until this re-interpretation, the power of state and local governments to regulate gun ownership had NOT been viewed as limited whatsoever by the Second Amendment. [1] The efforts to change the interpretation of the Second Amendment were so successful that by 1991 retired US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger stated that the Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”
Every serious piece of research on the presence of a gun in a home or elsewhere has found that the presence of a gun increases the chance of death or injury from gun usage. Having a gun does not make you safer, it makes it more likely that you, a family member, or someone else will be injured or killed by gun violence, accidental or intentional. (Some statistics on this are in my earlier blog post here.) (In response to this research, the gun industry and the NRA got a federal law passed that effectively bans federal agencies from doing or funding research on gun violence.)

I urge you to support the emerging movement to reduce gun violence through common-sense guns laws. Please participate in or provide financial or other support to one (or more) of the events and organizations listed above. In my next post, I’ll list some of the common-sense policies that should be enacted and would reduce gun violence.

[1] Stevens, J.P., 4/11/14, “The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment,” The Washington Post (The author, John Paul Stevens, was a judge on the US Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010.)

TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY DON’T STIMULATE THE ECONOMY

Tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations don’t stimulate the economy, grow jobs and wages, or increase government revenue. The evidence for this comes not only from national experience under Presidents Reagan and G. W. Bush, but also from the recent, dramatic events in Kansas.

In 2012, in an effort led by newly elected Governor Sam Brownback, Kansas passed a tax bill like the one recently enacted by President Trump and the Republicans in Congress. The Kansas law slashed income tax rates (especially for the wealthy) and for privately-held companies, just like the recently enacted federal tax law. It also cut tax credits that helped low and moderate-income families, just like the recent federal tax law.

Governor Brownback and his supporters in the Kansas legislature promised that Kansas’s economy would boom and state tax revenue would grow as a result, just like the promises President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are making. [1]

In the almost six years since Kansas’s tax cuts, it has had one of the worst performing state economies in the country, the state’s tax revenues have been falling by hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and Kansas ranks among the top ten states for the percentage of people moving out-of-state. The big tax cut for privately-held companies appears to have fueled more tax evasion than job creation.

To deal with the dramatic decline in revenue for the state’s $6 billion budget, Governor Brownback and Republican Legislature have:

Cut hundreds of millions of dollars from spending, putting public schools (see more below) and other service providers into crisis
Cut payment rates for health care services, putting many of the state’s hospitals into crisis
Cut state administrative capacity, resulting in residents experience lengthy delays and waitlists when accessing state services (e.g., the delays in approving seniors’ eligibility for Medicaid so they could go into nursing homes became so bad that the federal government charged Kansas with violating federal law)
Increased regressive taxes, such as the sales tax and alcohol and tobacco taxes
Diverted over $100 million from the state’s highway fund and $40 million from the required contribution to the state employees’ retirement fund in 2015 alone
Increased state debt by over $1 billion, which, along with other fiscal issues, led to the downgrading of Kansas’s bond rating

The cuts in public school funding led to a lawsuit where the state’s Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the state had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on K-12 public education. A previous, decades-long dispute between local school districts and the state over the levels and allocation of state funding for public education had been settled in 2006. That settlement required the state to increase funding for public education. However, the Great Recession of 2008 and then Governor Brownback’s tax cutting in 2012 had reduced state revenue so dramatically that, despite the settlement, the state cut funding for public schools by 16.5% (one-sixth) between 2008 and 2013.

In 2015, as state revenue continued its dramatic decline due to the tax cuts, Brownback cut another $28 million from K-12 public education funding. Two school districts were forced to end their school years early because they ran out of money. The cuts in state school funding disproportionately hurt low-income and urban school districts that couldn’t make up for lost state funding with increased local funding.

Some of the school districts sued and in 2015 the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the state had to provide $40 million immediately as a first step in correcting the under-funding of public education. In a further ruling in 2017, the courts required the state to come up with over $700 million for public education over the next several years.

In the 2016 elections, while Trump was winning 57% of the presidential vote in Kansas, Democrats and moderate Republicans were winning state legislative races due to concerns about the public schools and other issues. Facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall in the state’s two-year budget and a court requirement to significantly increase funding for K-12 education, the legislature voted in February 2017 to repeal most of the 2012 income tax cuts for individuals and privately held companies. Governor Brownback vetoed the bill and the legislature came up just short of overriding the veto.

In June 2017, the legislature again passed a repeal of most of the 2012 income tax cuts. Governor Brownback again vetoed the bill. This time the legislature overrode the veto by one vote in the Senate and four votes in the House. Although it will take Kansas many years to recover from the damage that has been done to the state’s schools, health care system, and economy, the state’s bond rating was lifted a step just two days later.

There are striking similarities between Governor Brownback’s tax cuts and those of President Trump and the congressional Republicans. There are also striking similarities in their promises of economic growth and increased government revenue. However, the great majority of economists and other knowledgeable observers believe the results of the federal tax cuts are very likely to be similar to Kansas’s experiences.

The major difference is that the federal government does not have to have a balanced budget. So, along with the recently passed budget bill, the result in the short-term will be federal budget deficits of roughly $1 trillion per year. This is not sustainable, financially or politically. Sooner or later, significant federal spending cuts and/or tax increases are highly likely to be necessary.

The only questions, in both Kansas and nationally, are how much damage will be done by the tax cuts and how long will it take to recover from them. Note that some individuals in Kansas, such as children whose schooling was compromised or people whose health was compromised by lack of access to health care or other services, will never recover all that they have lost. The harm on a national level will certainly be greater in scale – more people will be harmed. Only time will tell how great and long lasting the harm will be for individuals and for our society.

[1] Miller, J., 6/28/17, “Kansas, Sam Brownback, and the trickle-down implosion,” The American Prospect (http://prospect.org/article/kansas-sam-brownback-and-trickle-down-implosion-0)

CORPORATE MEDIA THREATEN OUR DEMOCRACY Part 2

Senator Bernie Sanders’ book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In [1] includes a chapter titled, Corporate Media and the Threat to Our Democracy. I summarized its information on the six huge media corporations that control 90% of what we see, hear, and read in my previous post.

Senator Sanders experienced firsthand the control and power the six huge media corporations have when he ran for President. Certainly initially, and probably throughout the whole campaign, his candidacy received less coverage than other candidates. Perhaps this was because many of the issues he raised and discussed were ones that made corporate executives uncomfortable. Senator Sanders summarized his experience as follows: “as a general rule of thumb, the more important an issue is to large numbers of working people, the less interesting it is to the corporate media. … Further, issues being pushed by the top 1 percent get a lot of attention.” (page 421)

As an example, Sanders cites the coverage of the assertion that Social Security’s benefits needed to be cut because, supposedly, money to pay them would soon run out. The financial challenges facing Social Security were exaggerated and solutions other than cutting benefits were largely ignored by the corporate media. Sanders and others organized a broad coalition in opposition to Social Security cuts that included AARP and virtually every other seniors’ organization in the country, the American Legion and every major veterans’ group, the AFL-CIO representing 13 million workers, the largest organizations in the country representing people with disabilities, the National Organization of Women (NOW), and others.

A press conference opposing cuts to Social Security benefits was held by this broad coalition, which represented tens of millions of Americans, along with U.S. Senators and Representatives. It received almost no coverage from the corporate media. Similarly, throughout the presidential campaign, many issues that Sanders raised got little to no coverage from the big media corporations, including economic inequality, poverty, Native American issues, the housing crisis, climate change, fracking, and a single-payer health care system. On the other hand, the topics of how much money each candidate had raised, when Sanders was going to formally announce his candidacy, and when he was going to drop out and endorse Clinton received lots of attention from the corporate media.

The corporate media view politics and elections as entertainment and a way to capture attention (and therefore revenue). They do not take responsibility for helping to build an informed American electorate. They are large corporations whose goal is to make as much money as they can for their shareholders and executives.

These media corporations rely on billions of dollars in advertising from the pharmaceutical, auto, financial, health insurance, and fossil fuel industries (among others). This advertising revenue presents conflicts of interest for the media corporations’ executives’ decisions on the reporting of news. Viewers and readers would be naïve to think that news coverage – or lack of coverage – is not influenced by the interests of large advertisers.

The media corporations have a perspective on what is important and worthy of coverage, and what is not. Few of the journalists who work for them cross the boundaries of the corporate perspective. As Senator Sanders writes:

“Over the course of my political life [roughly 45 years] I cannot recall a mainstream journalist coming up to me and asking what I was going to do to end the scourge of poverty in this country, or how I was going to combat the disgraceful level of income and wealth inequality, or what role I would play in ending the influence of big money in politics. Those, and many similar issues, are just not what the corporate media considers important. And my strong guess is that if by mistake, or in some state of confusion, a reporter for the corporate media started asking those types of questions, he or she would not last long with the company.” (page 436)

Concentrated, corporate ownership of the media limits the points of view and the information Americans receive. It limits cross-cultural and cross-class awareness and knowledge. It tends to break us into factions rather than building community in our diverse country. This is not good for democracy.

Furthermore, mergers are in various stages of consideration that could reduce the six corporate media giants to only three. Therefore, media concentration is likely to increase further in the near future, unless we and regulatory government agencies take a stand against it.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has eliminated net neutrality, which gives more market place power to the big media corporations through their control of Internet access.

I encourage you to take action to stop mergers among the giant media corporations and to work to ensure net neutrality. If you want more information about these issues, including how you can take action on them, go to freepress.net. There, you can join with hundreds of thousands of other engaged Americans to fight to save the free and open internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and ensure diverse voices are represented in our media.

You can also review my earlier post, Our failing mainstream media, that encourages the support of not-for-profit, public or consumer-funded media as a better model for a democracy than the current giant, for-profit, advertising-funded corporations. It identifies six broadcast, on-line, and print media outlets you can patronize and support as good sources of information and good alternatives to the corporate media.

[1] Sanders, B., 2016, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. St. Martin’s Press, NY, NY.

CORPORATE MEDIA THREATEN OUR DEMOCRACY Part 1

I’ve just finished reading Senator Bernie Sanders’ book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. [1] The first part (6 chapters) is about the campaign and is interesting if you’re a political junkie.

The second part (10 chapters) is the policy platform that was the basis for his run for the presidency. It includes chapters on health care, education, climate change, criminal justice, immigration, the middle class, an economy that works for everyone, and reclaiming our democracy. These chapters are interesting if you’re interested in any of these issues or in knowing how we can get back to a society that is fair and just and provides equal opportunity for all.

The chapter that had the biggest effect on me was the one titled, Corporate Media and the Threat to Our Democracy. This chapter identifies the six huge corporations that control 90% of what we see, hear, and read. Combined, they have over $275 billion in revenues and are controlled by 15 billionaires. (In 1983, 50 corporations controlled 90% of our media and that was a high level of concentration.) Today’s 6 media corporations, and some key information about them, are:

Comcast (Revenue: $56 billion in 2011) It owns NBC, Telemundo, USA Network, New England Cable News, and a portion of A&E, the History Channel, Lifetime, PBS KIDS Sprout, and Hulu, as well as much, much more. It wants to merge with Time Warner (see below).
Disney (Revenue: $40 billion in 2011) It owns ABC; ESPN; Marvel; 277 radio stations; music and book publishers; Touchstone, Miramax, and Pixar production companies; and majority stakes in A&E, the History Channel, and Lifetime; as well as much, much more.
News Corp (Revenue: $33 billion in 2011) It owns Fox, National Geographic, Dow Jones (which includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Smart Money), the New York Post, TV Guide, the book publisher HarperCollins, Blue Sky Studios, and a portion of ESPN and Hulu, as well as much, much more.
Time Warner (Revenue: $29 billion in 2011) It owns CNN, HBO, TMZ, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, 22 magazines (including Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Life, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, etc.), and much, much more. It wants to merge with Comcast (see above).
Viacom (Revenue $15 billion) It owns MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Spike TV, BET, Paramount Pictures, and over 160 cable networks that reach over 600 million people, as well as much, much more.
CBS (Revenue $14 billion) It owns Showtime; Smithsonian; Simon & Schuster, Scribner, and Free Press book publishing; 130 radio stations; and much, much more.

Currently, Comcast and Time Warner, two of these corporate media giants, are proposing to merge, while two others, Disney and News Corp, are discussing a possible merger, and some shareholders are pressing the final two, CBS and Viacom, to merge. Therefore, media concentration is likely to increase further in the near future, unless we and regulatory government agencies take a stand against it.

These media giants play a huge role in shaping public consciousness and knowledge, and, therefore, affect political beliefs, the public’s understanding (or lack thereof) of policy issues, and election outcomes. Note that there are multiple joint ventures among these media giants, which further limit the variety of content available and provide opportunities for collusion.

Realistically, freedom of the press is accessible only to those who own a press, a radio or TV station, or a cable network, or who produce content distributed by these media outlets. Concentrated ownership of our news media means that a very few human beings, who have significant conflicts of interest (e.g., with advertising revenue), make the decisions about what news is presented and how. More importantly, they make decisions about what is NOT covered or reported.

In my next post, I’ll share some examples that Sanders gives of what’s covered and not covered by the corporate media and why. I’ll also identify some opportunities for action on the power of the giant media corporations and their threat to our democracy.

[1] Sanders, B., 2016, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. St. Martin’s Press, NY, NY.