Pay It Back by the Red Clay Ramblers for the Moral Mondays movement and the upcoming

[mmonk]

Moral March on Raleigh.

http://www.reverbnation.com/redclayramblers/song/19943099-pay-it-back

[mmonk]

1. For those of you who don't think this fight is your fight,

understand this is your fight. We haven't been controlled by Republicans since before reconstruction and they are changing our ability to vote in proportion to our numbers, Also look at Wisconsin. It is time to stand up, wake up, and do some good. We are you barring an election. Thus we had the unfortunate reality of a Republican victory in a census year. But that only means we cannot help the cause because of gerrymandering, not the way we vote. America needs to be fundamentally changed to proportional voting or it is simply a joke when it talks about the will of the people.

[marions ghost]

5. Koch money is not JUST an NC issue

This article has a quick summary of the reasons why:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/koch-brothers-exposed-robert-greenwald-david-koch-charles-koch_n_1380335.html

[mmonk]

6. You're correct. It's an American issue.

Are we going to let them buy every legislature in the land?

[marions ghost]

7. They are working hard at it:

The Echo Chamber of Influence - Documents and interviews unearthed by Brave New Foundation researchers illustrate a28.4 million Koch effort that has manufactured 297 opinions and commentaries, 200 reports, 56 studies and six books distorting Social Security's effectiveness and purpose. This is just one example of the vast industry comprised of Koch brothers' spokespeople, front groups, think tanks, academics and elected officials, which has built a self-sustaining echo chamber to transform fringe ideas into popular mainstream public policy arguments.

Voter Suppression - Through their web of political influence, the Kochs' have bought access to democracy's lifeblood: free and fair elections. The Kochs' have funded efforts to thwart 21 million Americans from voting as Koch dollars helped write and propose voting suppression bills in 38 states.

Re-Segregation - Americans for Prosperity led the effort to remake a successful school diversity policy in Wake County, NC; which was the model framework for scores of school districts across the country. The 2009 school board election provided the Koch brothers' front group an opportunity to lay the groundwork for candidates who advocate for re-segregation, or in Jim Crow terms "neighborhood schools."

Cancer in Crossett - Koch Industries is among the top ten worst air polluters. And, Georgia Pacific, a Koch Industries subsidiary in Arkansas, is one of the largest manufacturers of the human carcinogen, formaldehyde. While the Koch brothers wage war against safety precautions, every day this factory is dumping millions of gallons of wastewater into streams that flow near a small rural town. The surrounding area is noticeably affected by air pollution - particularly in a minority neighborhood now dying of cancer. The brave community members of Crossett give powerful testimony to how they believe their health is being ravaged by a Koch Industries plant.

Keystone XL - Koch Industries and its employees are the single largest oil and gas donors to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Along with ample evidence linking the Kochs' business to the Canadian tar sands, they refuse to testify in Congress about their financial interest in the controversial Keystone XL. At the same time, the Kochs' allies in Congress are doing their best to stonewall and remove oversight.

Higher Education - At a time when governments are slashing higher education funding, the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation has given more than14.39 million in grants to over 150 universities. In return, some of these campuses are required to hire candidates who adhere to Koch-defined ideological guidelines.

[mmonk]

8. I think erasing 21 million votes is especially horrid.

It really affects my ideas about this country and it's future.

[marions ghost]

9. Sticks in my mind...

The Kochs' have funded efforts to thwart 21 million Americans from voting as Koch dollars helped write and propose voting suppression bills in 38 states.

-----

We have to change that future. Their agenda is transparent now.

[mmonk]

10. They are truely the human garbage of the human race.

I feel isolated in areas where unintelligent unevolved thought has flourished. I do not view these people as evolved members of the human race.

[marions ghost]

11. There have always been

sociopathic exploiters in our midst, seekers of greed and power above all else. I see it as a sickness, a disease. But in America, we have let this cancerous element get out of control. They have made inroads into our vital organs. We can no longer encapsulate them. It is a battle between the sane and the not sane. As you say, between those who see and those who are blinded by self-interest. They have the advantage because they will use any means, no matter how criminal, to control, whereas our side will not.
And now, they have the money to make all their sick dreams come true.

We don't have to go to Beijing to see uncontrolled business interests running roughshod over everybody. This week we witness West Virginians sickened merely by drinking from the public water supply. We are a stoic people but Americans are putting up with too much.

for Sanity to prevail. For people who have Wisdom about the true condition of life in this precarious world to prevail. For people who have the intelligence to imagine a future longer than three years to prevail. For people who really understand that we are in danger of losing everything we ever valued about this country--to take a stand.

[KoKo]

2. Recommend!

[octoberlib]

3. K&R!

[mmonk]

4. I hope to have some photos from this Saturday's protest.

But I have a feeling the bigger protests are coming later in 2014.

[marions ghost]

12. Saturday at 9 am

Details:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/06/3597437/naacp-and-other-protesters-against.html


--------------------------ALSO:
http://www.southernstudies.org/2014/02/from-selma-to-raleigh-moral-movement-readies-for-m.html

The Moral March on Raleigh, as the Feb. 8 event is billed, draws on that history at a time when voting rights are under attack in North Carolina and other Southern states. Last year, North Carolina's Republican supermajority-controlled legislature passed a voting law that's been called the worst voter suppression legislation in the nation, with numerous provisions that disproportionately affect voters of color, women, the elderly and youth.

The Moral March on Raleigh also builds on a tradition with roots closer to home: North Carolina's Historic Thousands on Jones Street People's Assembly marches, named for the address of the state legislature. Held annually on the second Saturday in February since 2007, the event -- nicknamed "HKonJ" -- involves a broad coalition of social justice groups led by the NAACP that promotes a 14-point legislative "people's agenda" that includes expansion of voting rights, better funding for education, livable wages, and health care for all.

The HKonJ movement won a number of key legislative victories, including a law allowing same-day voting and another that banned racial discrimination in administration of the death penalty -- both of which were overturned by the legislature last year.

The legislature's reactionary response to the gains made by the HKonJ coalition -- and last year's decisions to block Medicaid expansion to 500,000 North Carolinians under the Affordable Care Act and to cut extended unemployment benefits for some 170,000 long-term jobless -- spurred the Moral Monday protests, which began last April and continued in Raleigh for 13 weeks before spreading across the state. The protests gained national media attention and have inspired similar actions in other states.

The Feb. 8 Moral March on Raleigh is the North Carolina movement's first mass protest of 2014 -- a key political year with all members of the General Assembly facing re-election this fall.