Tag Archives: civil rights

Sign the letter to Google. Tell them to stop being evil and protect the free and open Internet.

Hi — this is Jason Rosenbaum, a new campaigner at the PCCC. I’ve got some urgent news.

Google, who’s corporate motto is “Don’t be evil,” is about to do something really, awfully evil: kill Net Neutrality, the First Amendment of the Internet.

As reported on the front page of the New York Times, they’re in secret talks with Verizon “to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.”

Click here to stand up for a free and open Internet and sign an open letter that we’ll deliver to Google’s DC headquarters next week.

The more people who sign by next week’s delivery, the more pressure Google will feel — so please pass this email to friends.

Many groups that organize over the Internet are joining together to save the Internet. This includes the PCCC, Free Press, MoveOn, CREDO, and Color of Change. Josh Silver at Free Press writes at Huffington Post:

The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it. Since its beginnings, the Net was a level playing field that allowed all content to move at the same speed, whether it’s ABC News or your uncle’s video blog. That’s all about to change…

A problem just for Internet geeks? You wish. All video, radio, phone and other services will soon be delivered through an Internet connection. Ending Net Neutrality would end the revolutionary potential that any website can act as a television or radio network.

This Google-Verizon deal, this industry-captured FCC, and the way this is playing out is akin to the largest banks and the largest hedge funds writing the regulatory policy on derivative trading without any oversight or input from the public, and having it rubber stamped by the SEC. It’s like BP and Halliburton ironing out the rules for offshore oil drilling with no public input, and having MMS sign off.

Google can still stop this deal — click here to sign the open letter to Google and stand up for the free and open Internet.

Along with this letter, we’re launching an ad campaign targeting Google, so they know people all over the country are watching this deal.

We need you to stand with us and tell Google to stop being evil.

Click here to sign the letter to Google.

Thanks for being a bold progressive,

Jason Rosenbaum and the PCCC team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Sell Target?

08/08/2010 Nativegrl77

Target is one of the first corporations to take advantage of Citizens United. It donated over $150,000 to an anti-gay, anti-immigration candidate in Minnesota. We need to hold Target accountable—and show other corporations that they will pay a price if they follow Target’s lead in hijacking our democracy. Can you chip in $5?

Contribute Now

Breaking news: After Target’s contribution to a far-right candidate in Minnesota ignited a public outcry, the company’s stock took a hit. In one day, it lost $1.3 billion in value—and some observers said the threat of a boycott was one cause.¹

But Target won’t stop trying to buy elections. In fact, Target’s CEO is already talking about “future donations.”² Maybe he’s listening to the analysts who are “downplaying” the downsides of Target’s political activity.³ So we need to turn up the heat to make sure that Target—and ALL corporations—understand that Americans won’t tolerate corporations hijacking our elections.

We’ve been working round-the-clock on new, visible ways to get our message across—including skywriting above Target’s headquarters, viral videos from angry customers, and live events outside stores around the country. We need to hold Target accountable, and help show other corporations that they better not follow Target’s example.

Target gave a right-wing candidate $150,000. We need to raise at least that much right away to keep fighting back.

That’ll take 64 donations from Seattle—can you chip in $5? Just click here:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/target.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=22407-9640874-r0UfT.x&t=3

It’s clear that we’ve got real momentum. A Facebook group protesting Target ballooned to over 40,000 members in less than a week. A woman with a gay son went to her local Target to protest respectfully—and the resulting video racked up over 200,000 views on YouTube.⁴ Target was forced to set up a special phone line to handle the volume of customers’ phone calls.

But Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel hasn’t promised that the company will stop intervening in elections. He emailed Target employees and defended the donation as focused on “business objectives”—and, later, pledged to set up a “review process” for future donations.⁵

Future donations? As long as corporations like Target think that it’s OK to plow money into political campaigns, we’re in trouble. Corporations are not people. We need to make sure that Target and each and every corporation in the country gets this message: Stay out of our elections!

To bring that lesson home, we need to use all our movement’s creativity and energy. So on Friday, MoveOn members at over 1,100 Target stores around the country (!) dropped by with letters expressing their disappointment. And we’re getting ready to display our message in the sky overhead Target’s headquarters!

We need resources to pay for these high-profile tactics. If we can raise $150,000—the same amount as Target donated to a right-winger—we’re confident we can break through the media chatter and spin.

That’ll take 64 donations from Seattle—can you chip in $5? Just click here:

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/target.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=22407-9640874-r0UfT.x&t=4

Thanks for helping us bring home this message to Target and other corporations—and for all you do.

–Ilyse, Robin, Anna, Milan, and the rest of the team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Google vs. the Internet?

08/07/2010 Nativegrl77

Click here to sign the petition to Google:

“Google: Say no to the reported agreement with Verizon to kill Net Neutrality and the open Internet.”

Sign the petition

Big news: according to reports, Google is about to cut a terrible deal with Verizon that would end the fair, open Internet as we know it.¹

The reported Google-Verizon deal would allow giant corporations to control which websites load quickly and easily on the Internet and dump everyone else onto an Internet slow lane. This is exactly the kind of unequal playing field that Google itself has opposed in the past.²

We only have a few days to stop it, so we’re launching a grassroots protest calling on Google to scuttle the deal. Will you sign our emergency petition to Google? Click here to sign:

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-9640874-gX7kVex&t=4

The petition says: “Google: Say no to the reported agreement with Verizon to kill Net Neutrality and the open Internet.”

The Internet was founded on the principle that all data is equal—and that no corporation should be able to decide whose data goes faster or slower. It’s this principle, called Net Neutrality, that has made the Internet such an amazing platform for individual speech, democratic action, and entrepreneurial creativity.³

And until now, Google—which uses the corporate motto “Don’t Be Evil”—has been a staunch defender of Net Neutrality.⁴ But now, Google is threatening to turn the Internet into a closed, pay-to-play, cash cow for large corporations. This move is evil, and Google knows it.

Here’s why this is a big deal. President Obama’s new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair initially came out strong for Net Neutrality, in line with the President’s campaign promises.⁵ But the big telecom companies launched a lobbying frenzy, and soon the FCC was meeting with them behind closed doors.

Because Google and Verizon are two powerhouse corporations that have historically been on opposite sides of this issue, an agreement between them will put enormous pressure on the FCC to go along with their recommendations. Essentially, two giant corporations may be deciding the future of the Internet—if the Obama administration goes along, and if the public doesn’t push back right away. Click here to help stop them now:

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-9640874-gX7kVex&t=5

Google was once a champion on this issue—Google chief executive Eric Schmidt once attacked “phone and cable monopolies” who “want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest.”⁶

But today’s news stories report that under the new deal, Verizon could be allowed to give some sites preferential treatment. Even more ominously, it appears that Verizon would have free rein to discriminate on the mobile Internet (smartphones, cell phones, etc). Since that’s where most people will access the Net going forward, this would essentially spell the end of Net Neutrality.

Google has issued a short, carefully worded statement challenging some of the details in The New York Times story, but it hasn’t denied that it is going along with this agreement to kill Net Neutrality.⁷ So much for “Don’t be evil.” Will you sign our petition today and tell Google not to be evil on Net Neutrality?

http://pol.moveon.org/google/?id=22383-9640874-gX7kVex&t=6

Thanks for all you do.

–Kat, Justin, Carrie, Steven, and the rest of the team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

They Can’t Deny it Anymore

08/07/2010 Nativegrl77

They Can’t Deny it Anymore

Watch the Video | Sign the Letter | Send To A Frien

For weeks, U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan have denied they killed several dozen civilians in Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23. But our new video exposes the truth about one of the worst civilian casualty incidents of the war. Watch our exclusive interviews with survivors and demand that your elected officials act to prevent future catastrophes like this.

First, NATO denied knowing anything about the incident.

Then, they said only six people were killed and that most of them were insurgents.

They can’t deny it anymore.

Working with a brave team in Afghanistan headed by Anita, Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project sent an intrepid local blogger into Sangin District of Helmand Province–one of the most dangerous areas of the country. He brought back extraordinary first-person accounts from survivors of the Sangin catastrophe. Thanks to his work, there’s no doubt anymore: as many as 52 people were killed by a rocket fired by NATO forces.

Survivors tell of a scene of absolute carnage and despair, and when the smoke cleared, according to one local, “They [NATO] did nothing and afterwards they said nothing, just like nothing ever happened.”

But something did happen, and we have to act.

Watch our new video and send it to your elected officials. Tell them you’ll remember how they reacted to Sangin when you enter the voting booth this November.

Sincerely,

Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald and
the Brave New Foundation team

Donate today to help bring an end to this atrocious war that’s not making us any safer.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Nelson and Lincoln vote to extend Bush Tax Cuts …ThinkProgress.org

08/06/2010 Nativegrl77

ECONOMY — NELSON AND LINCOLN VOTE TO PERMANENTLY EXTEND BUSH TAX CUTS, MASSIVELY INCREASE DEFICIT: Last month, as the Senate was gridlocked by a Republican filibuster of a bill to extend much-needed unemployment benefits to millions of out-of-work Americans, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) stood with the GOP against the extension. Nelson claimed that his concerns about the deficit overrode his support for the extension; he voted against the bill that finally passed 60-40. Later that week, Nelson came out in support of an extension — “for now” — of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which adds many billions more to the deficit than the unemployment insurance extension. In fact, extending the Bush tax cuts for one year alone would add $115 billion to the deficit, compared to the “relatively tiny budgetary cost of $33 billion” for the extension of unemployment extension benefits. Yesterday, Nelson provided further evidence that he is a deficit peacock — someone who claims to be concerned about the deficit but isn’t actually interested in taking serious steps toward a balanced budget. Before the final vote on the states’ aid bill that passed yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) offered two amendments that would “massively add to the deficit” by “freezing in place” the current tax rates on individuals and businesses, which, in effect, would permanently extend the Bush tax cuts. On both votes, only Nelson and Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) “crossed the aisle to vote with all Republicans,” with the exception of “noted deficit hawk” Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH). Nelson and Lincoln (who also claims to be concerned about deficits) apparently don’t mind spending $3.1 trillion over the next 10 years to pursue ineffective tax cuts for the wealthy. DeMint, “one of the most fiscally conservative members of Congress,” is not so concerned when it comes to paying for his extraordinarily expensive amendments. Both came “with instructions to offset as necessary through spending reduction,” Senate-speak for “we’ll worry about the cost later.”