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Whether shining his eye on the rightwing media in Outfoxed, on corporate greed in Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, or on corrupt politicians in The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress, Robert Greenwald uses the art of film to tell stories about way our society is being taken over by corporate greed.
The Latest
Growing-Economy
Landmark Land Use Bill to Cut Sprawl and Carbon Emissions
Marking the largest change in California land use laws in a generation, the California legislature has approved SB 375, a bill which promotes both affordable housing and less sprawl in the state. In a coalition as landmark as the legislation itself, affordable housing advocates, the building industry, environmentalists, and local governments came together to endorse legislation that will encourage more compact development along transit corridors. The legislation's key feature is to integrate what are now three separate planning processes -- regional development, affordable housing and transit development -- into a synchronized system. This is considered a critical step in achieving California's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as established in 2006 through AB 32.
Key Features of SB 375 include:
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Transportation and planning: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will set regional greenhouse gas reduction targets, which will then be incorporated into each region's Regional Transportation Plan (RTP).
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Housing Planning: Local jurisdictions' share of regional affordable housing will become aligned with the land use plan.
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Anti-Sprawl Incentives: New developments that follow transportation planning needs will get quicker approval under state environmental review systems. Local governments will also have regulatory and other incentives to encourage more compact new development and transportation alternatives.
Valuing-Families
Making College Affordable for All
The benefits of a post-secondary degree are plentiful. For example, an employee with a four year college degree earns 60 percent more than a worker with only a high school diploma. Paying for college, however, has become increasingly difficult for most American students and families. The cost of higher education across the country is rapidly increasing, at almost double the rate of inflation, outstripping increases in financial aid and outpacing many families’ ability to pay. The combination of these factors result in too many students being unable to earn or complete their degrees due to financial constraints.
As tuition rises, undergraduate students from low-income families (with parental income below $20,000) are particularly finding it harder to meet the rising cost associated with attaining a post-secondary degree. Despite increasing racial and ethnic diversity in enrollments, most of the growth in dependent undergraduate enrollments is centered around students from high-income families (with parental income of $80,000 and above). In fact, only 13% of dependent undergraduate students are from low-income families. Further, low-income, black and Hispanic students are increasingly concentrated in public two-year institutions. By comparison, the proportion of higher-income students at public two-year institutions has declined.
Many state governments are also experiencing a budgetary pinch. State budgets and fiscal policies greatly impact affordability and access to higher education. The recent difficult state economic conditions threaten to put a squeeze on the amount of appropriations state legislators can allocate to assist higher education institutions in keeping tuitions down and providing financial aid to students. The result is that today's post-secondary education is quickly being placed out of reach for the neediest students. Even those students who manage to attend and graduate a post-secondary institution are not unaffected by soaring tuition and related fees. Instead, these students leave school with increasing amounts of debt, which impacts career, family and lifestyle choices for years to come.
Increasing-Democracy
Inside PSN: Interview with Thomas Frank on Conservatives and the Wrecking of Government as We Know It
This Wednesday, PSN Executive Director Joel Barkin sat down for a phone interview with Thomas Frank, author of the new best selling book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. Their conversation touched on a number of issues surrounding how conservatives have worked over the last decade to dismantle government as we know it in Washington D.C. and throughout the country.
After a lengthy research and writing process, Frank was able to provide probing insights into the strategies through which the Right has proved able to effectively outsource the responsibilities of governance to corporate interests. From "de-funding the left," to laying siege to public employees and privatizing every government service within sight, Frank painted an ominous picture of a strategy that has trickled down from D.C. to the states, a strategy that progressive leaders at every level would do well to study.
We've provided an excerpted transcript of the interview below. You can also listen to and download a full recording of the interview in mp3 format here.
Increasing-Democracy
Election Integrity – How We Lost It and How States are Getting It Back
The 2000 presidential election propelled America's problems with our elections into the national spotlight in an unprecedented way. Americans, night after night, watched news stories exposing the many problems that are routine in elections but that receive little attention: confusing ballots that lead people to mark their vote for the wrong candidate, voter suppression aimed at minorities through voter registration purges, and weary election officials trying to discern voters’ intent on ambiguously marked punch card ballots.
In response the federal government passed the Help America Vote Act which funded wholesale changes in how Americans cast their ballots, most visibly by increasing the use of electronic voting machines. Reacting to the problems caused by electronic or so-called “black box” voting, a grassroots movement of citizens and legislative leaders across the country have been steadfast in their pursuit of secure and transparent voting systems. In cooperation with election reform organizations and prominent computer scientists, they have mounted a series of local and national campaigns that are steadily changing the debate on election integrity and changing the way people vote. This Stateside Dispatch will highlight how state leaders have sought to protect ballot integrity, create post-election audits that work to protect voters rights, and have fought the privatization of elections into the hands of potentially partisan and often incompetent corporations.
Valuing-Families
While US Olympians Excel, US Health Care Under-performs
US athletes are now showing their mettle, competing against the world in the Beijing Summer Olympics. Since the modern summer Olympics began in 1896, the US has been a force; consistently fielding a dominant cadre of athletes and ranking first, or among the top, in the overall medal count. In the spirit of competition and international comparison, this Stateside Dispatch will look at how well our health care system stacks up against our peers in the international community.
The sobering truth of America's health care system is that it dramatically under-performs. In an August 2008 poll by the Commonwealth Fund, 8 of 10 adults agreed with the statement that the health care system "needs either fundamental change or complete rebuilding". This becomes even clearer when comparing our system with those of our international peers - each of whom guarantee coverage to all residents through a mixture of single-payer or mixed-payer public/private systems. In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the performance of the US health care system 37th in the world. In this and other international comparisons, despite spending more than twice per capita than our peers, we are beaten on virtually every metric of health care cost, quality and access. In other words, we spend more and get less.
Increasing-Democracy
Inside PSN: Progressive States Network Welcomes New Co-Chair, New Board Members
Today, PSN proudly announces a new Co-Chair and new members for its Board of Directors. Longtime PSN board member Representative Garnett Coleman of Houston, Texas will take up the position of Co-Chair alongside PSN Founding Co-Chair David Sirota. Wisconsin Senator Spencer Coggs, Maryland Delegate Tom Hucker, Georgia Senator Nan Orrock, Arizona Delegate Kyrsten Sinema, and Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott will all take on new roles as PSN board members.
