All too often, there are policies that a supermajority of the populace support, but that are DOA in your local legislature. A well-written initiative can get around this deadlock as ColoradoCare and CarbonWA are demonstrating this year. It's not perfect, but it's part of how marriage equality happened.

I think that has to be decided first. I'm more than willing to take action or non-actions but need to know what the goal is.

A week or two ago I saw something about Economic Boycott I think on Tumblr, via Shaun King, while I was at work, but when I got home and had time to look I couldn't find it again. When I Googled it all I found was something to do with BLM, which seems to be different. Anybody know anything about this? Or did I hallucinate the whole thing, which is also possible due to stress and lack of sleep....

Anyway, we always buy bottled water from Costco. MIL however keeps buying the Nestle water. -_- And our cats eat Purina Vibrant Maturity formula; I didn't know they were owned by Nestle. Boo!

Barter and trade as much as possible. Form Co-ops. Buy used rather than new whenever possible. Support your local businesses, even if it costs a little more. No more box store shopping, chain dining.

On my list to do is to become less carnivorous (oh I love my meat). I wish I could drive less, but I'm already keeping it at a minimum and often drive friends when it's shopping day/errand day. But carpool if you can or take the bus or ride a bike.

Keep telling your friends and neighbors to get rid of their evil empire credit cards, move to a local credit union and try to get out of debt and pay cash for everything.

We need national strikes. Tax strikes, work strikes, shopping strikes. These could go international with the proper communication. Donate to EFF, we are about to lose a free internet.

The Willamette Valley has gotten into the buy local movement in a very big way. I have watched over the last few years as the support system has grown for this. It has provided a good number of jobs. It has also cut into the sales of places like Walmart. There has been something of a back lash wanting to label it as elite. It really isn't. It is a different way of thinking though. There are many ways around the costs. It also gets people looking at the quality of what they are buying. I have learned to include quality in my calculation of value. It started with a food movement but has expanded to other things as well. Some people think you can't change the world this way but I disagree. If you color enough dots on a map eventually they bleed into each other. At the local level it flys under the radar until its entrenched and can withstand the roadblocks the corporations try to throw out.

1. DO NOT borrow money if at all possible, unless from private sources. No car loans, no charge accounts. By paying cash for used autos, you can save hundreds monthly on your insurance bill.

2. If you have a blog, use it to cover local events. Think of it as informing the public. Who, exactly, sits on your local City Council, Planning Commission, Utility Board--you know, the people who rubber stamp requests for rate hikes. Who are those people? What are their ideologies, associations, sources of authority? Who appointed them and for what reasons? Who OWNS your city's or county's water system, sewers, mass transit, such as that is, electrical grid? If you want to take over something, instead of the Green Party chapter, consider your local alternative newspaper, which, if it is like the ones I have seen, is worse than useless.

I don't know if implementing these things would affect TPTB, but they might help insure the health and well being of us and ours.

Ryan lectured Young Republicans in his native Wisconsin last Friday, and the national news media were invited to listen along.

As he outlined his Wall Street–friendly proposals for tax reforms that would more rapidly redistribute wealth upward, and for budgets that would put vulnerable Americans at greater risk while increasing burdens for middle-class families, the speaker explained that his agenda can advance only if Republicans control both the House and Senate. “If we keep control of the Senate in the Republican hands…a nice guy named Mike Enzi from Wyoming is the Senate budget chair and he helps us get these budgets to the president’s desk, gets these tax bills through,” he said.

On the other hand, Ryan warned, “If we lose the Senate, do you know who becomes chair of the Senate Budget Committee? A guy named Bernie Sanders. You ever heard of him?”

Ryan’s comment drew a tepid response from the Young Republicans he was lecturing. No surprise there. Polling suggests that Bernie Sanders is among the most well-regarded political figures in the country, especially among younger voters, and the long-time independent generates far less partisan antipathy than veteran Democrats.

But when word got out that Ryan was rattled by Sanders, the response from around the country was electric. People who might have been having a hard time getting excited about the presidential race were most intrigued by the possibility that Sanders might become a powerhouse in the Senate.

The possibility is real enough.

“Too bad for Ryan, that's a scenario millions of millennials would welcome.”

The senator from Vermont is the ranking member of the budget committee, and if Democrats gain control of the chamber on November 8, he would be in line to chair it. But Sanders could also end up chairing then powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which he could use to advance many of the proposals (for affordable college, empowering unions, and investing in public-health programs) that made his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination so popular.

The final list of committee assignments will be influenced by the choices of senior senators, such as Washington’s Patty Murray. “There’s lots of individual choices ahead, of people who are senior to Bernie,” says Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who is set to replace retiring Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Yet Schumer says of Sanders, “He will chair a significant committee if we win the majority.’’

That prospect scares Paul Ryan.

But it excites a lot of other people.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/18/paul-ryan-if-republicans-lo...

I've really been thinking a lot about new things that I plan to boycott. I've always been a "consumer" of newspapers and some magazines, but now I clearly see that the information they "deliver" can no longer be trusted. I wonder if they have considered that, when this sham is done, who is ever going to trust them again, much less want to spend money for them. We've been subscribers of our local paper for nearly 50 years, and I've read it every day. But, with the election season, I find that it only piles up, unopened, until it goes to the recycle bin. I really think that when it expires this time, that's it.

I'm already boycotting Brawny and Northern paper products, Koch. And Soros owns Teva Pharmaceutical. The pharmacy that we use will order most any brand that we want, and many drugs have many different manufacturers, so no Teva for us. I haven't done too much more research yet, but definitely plan to add to that boycott list. We've never had cable, so that's easy. I've already cancelled many magazines, even though I have acquired most of them as free subscriptions (I'm good at finding free stuff). I really expect that we will see more and more censorship online, if this campaign is any example, and I expect many websites may disappear.

We will be expanding our container gardening even more, especially when more food is "fake" without being labeled as such. No more Sierra Club, that ended when they endorsed her. And no more PBS contributions, after seeing how they censored that conversation with Jill Stein. We are old enough to "escape" the new Wall Street retirement plans, but I must say, I am very apprehensive about the future. We years ago swore off Wall Street investments, and use only credit unions. The interest rates have so low for so long, who knows where that goes. Privatization of public functions is scary for me, and we can plan to see more of what happened in Flint.

In one way, our lives won't change too much, we've been big spenders on much of anything. But I see the storm on the horizon, and I don't think it is far away now. I wonder what will happen when people see how they've been "had" this time, when they are left with little or nothing. I'm very sad. I've spent time on Midway Island and seen the remnants of war that still remained there; I've also seen the beautiful, majestic albatross there, whose babies are now dying because they are full of plastic. I sometimes wish I'd never seen a history book.