Activism done right, Seattle divestment

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39353-seattle-moves-toward-divesting-...

The Seattle City Council will vote tonight on whether to remove $US3B of city money from Wells Fargo Bank, an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline. The City Council Finance Committee voted unanimously in favor of the proposed divestment and the full City Council will almost certainly vote in favor as well. Naturally, very little about this important development has been seen or heard in lamestream media.

This is Seattle mind you, not Portland or Berkley, but a major world city, fourth busiest port in the US.

So far as I can determine from what has been published, the campaign for divestment was conducted in an enthusiastic but civil manner, no riots or insults, no angry call outs of bystanders or namecalling.

I would also point out that the campaign seems to have had a specific goal, divestment, from which it did not allow itself to be diverted.

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PriceRip's picture

          My mortgage is but a tiny thing in the scheme of things, but to me it is a big deal.

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@PriceRip I hope you can make that work without penalties to yourself.

Never say it is a small thing. You might well inspire others to do the same.

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Mary Bennett

PriceRip's picture

@Nastarana
          Just like my credit card with Bank of America. I am determined to keep it as long as possible.

          It is a legacy credit card called "Working Assets". Bank of America bought this socially conscious enterprise in order to kill it, but a few of us never took advantage of their offers to "upgrade" our accounts.

          So, until we all die or go senile, Bank of America is required to pay a small fee our socially conscious organizations each time we use the card. It is a tiny thing like a gnat, irritating but not very effective at doing anything useful. Buzz Buzz Buzz

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Creosote.'s picture

@PriceRip
everything paid off, awaiting transfer of title. It only took 38 years.

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Mark from Queens's picture

for what true liberalism looks like. We must, and she has her whole time in office, keep the focus on Wall St.'s influence as the omnipresent and dominant factor over our lives for why life for the 99% has been so decimated.

As far as I'm concerned Kshama Sawant is the nation's sole or top Progressive (Liberal, or whatever e're calling ourselves today) politician.

Check out these credentials: former Occupy activist and college professor, elected 2x to Seattle City Council in which she defeated Big Money from both the Rep and Dem parties, ran on Fight for 15 and rent freezes in a city being overrun by global financial elite pillaging, promised to give her salary back to the movement and only give herself the median income of the city, encouraged Boeing workers to occupy their manufacturing plant with a sit-in strike when the company was threatening to leave to another city for tax abatements, won largely on the strength of a grassroots campaign of volunteers and canvassers who believed in the basic principles of socialism, has become a great national voice of a new movement of folks fed up with the dysfunction of DC and the duopoly's Neoliberal handouts to the 1%, and conducted very successful and packed town hall meetings in Seattle over citizens' concerns over rising rents and lack of affordable housing.

This is the way it's done, folks. I've been a more work-outside-of-the-system person since Occupy, but Bernie's campaign gave me one last dance volunteering for a politician. Sawant may have the blueprint. I've donated to her and seen her speak in person (in NYC) a handful of times. She's dynamic and focused.

Kshama is fearless, sharp as a whip and committed to pragmatic Socialist principles that will certainly resonate with voters across the political spectrum who want real life solutions.

Like Nastarana says, this is activism put into practice and appears to me on this day to look like the best way forward.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

@Mark from Queens Thank you for telling us more about Ms. Sawant.

However, this divestment has come about because of Ms. Sawant and her co-sponsor and the many Seattle residents who came out in support, called their own council members and so on. Maybe, finally, we are getting the kind of focused, responsible leadership we need, instead of the parade of self-serving snobs and crazy drama queens of the last few decades.

May I ask, what does 33 and 1/3 at TOP mean?

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Mary Bennett

Creosote.'s picture

@Nastarana
but I think 33-1/3 refers to the rotation speed of long-play vinyl records.

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@Creosote.

In other words, the revolution of record?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

ZimInSeattle's picture

@Mark from Queens Kshama Sawant is the real deal. As always it gets back to follow the money. Back in 2011 during Occupy there was the Move Your Money campaign and we were protesting at Chase Bank and Bank of America in downtown Seattle. I refinanced my mortgage from B of A to Boeing Employees Credit Union and tore up my big bank credit cards. $3 billion divestment will be quite the slap in the face of the oligarchs.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Just really a side note. I saw an interview with Chris Hedges done by Huffpost. Part of the interview was about his critique of the democratic party, with the interviewer asking how about the democratic party fighting for increasing the min. wage. Hedges reminded the audience that the movement to increase min wage to %15/hr started with a socialist and people in Seattle and had nothing to do with the democratic party.

And in fact, the democratic party establishment has refused to support $15/hr min. Well, in double fact, as Wikileaks revealed the Clinton campaign wasn't even aware of the movement and refused to support $15/min. wage as recommended by Neera Tandem who would have become Clinton's HHS cabinet choice.

And thinking about it, this democratic party establishment crap spilled over to the SEIU leadership when it was leadership that supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie in the primaries: the base supported Bernie hands down from what I saw. Even after Clinton's loss to Trump, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry refused to acknowledge leadership made the wrong choice and praised Clinton big time. Even now, I read part of a SEIU press release and it sounded not like a union, but the DNC.

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http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-officials-look-to-cut-c...

The vote was not last night. According to this, City Council will be meeting today, this afternoon.

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Mary Bennett

Hawkfish's picture

@Nastarana Lots of stuff got cancelled.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

@Hawkfish It is very dangerous.

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Mary Bennett

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-seattle-divests-from-wells-fargo-201...

Like I said above, a major world city cannot just be dismissed as a bunch of radicals. I wonder how Mr. T. is going to tweet this one.

Snowflakes united is an avalanche!

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Mary Bennett