For opinion pieces on any topic.
The Climate Strike. What an incredible outpouring of commitment, community, passion and determination.
Hundreds of people-( some counts are as many as 1000!) many of them elementary and high school students took to the streets to voice their fears and anger about the mess adults have made of this earth and the terrible legacy they are left with.
Hopefully more and more people will join the growing movement to have Brattleboro either step up or tear down the parking garage. A huge number of people no longer park there because The Town of Brattleboro has abdicated its basic duty to taxpayers and citizens to upkeep the garage. Let’s go through some basic undisputed facts about the current state of the garage:
Trash and stains punctuate the parking garage. Parking Enforcement told me there used to be a full time caretaker of the garage and now that person was cut to only 4 hours. Everyone feels this is unacceptable; there needs to be a full-time caretaker.
The anti-war and anti-US-meddling wings of all parties should be very happy today. John Bolton, the evil warmonger who has been Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor for the past year and a half has just exited the White House, stage right. Trump fired him, says Trump. I quit, says Bolton. Who cares? He’s gone and the world feels slightly less scary as a result.
Ya want to hear a conspiracy theory?
19 disaffected Muslim men armed with box cutters and led by a sick Saudi on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan hijacked 4 commercial planes, flew them around unhindered in any way for an hour or so then crashed them into 2 skyscrapers in New York and the US Pentagon, outwitting the most sophisticated intelligence network in the world.
Last week Israel announced it would bar two American lawmakers from entering the country. One of them wanted to visit her dying grandmother who lives there.
Reps Omar and Tlaib have long been fierce critics of the Israeli government and its treatment of Palestinians. Most Americans are unaware of this treatment.
Here is the full text and comments of the proposed “Declaration of Climate Emergency” from Brattleboro Common Sense. The issue is on the agenda for the next meeting of the Brattleboro Selectboard.
….
Whereas this article, to be known as the Declaration of Climate Emergency, is in accordance with a resolution promoted by the selectboard in 2003, and with resolutions on energy and climate change promoted by Brattleboro Common Sense through votes of the people in 2010, 2014, and of town representatives in 2018; and whereas the youth of Brattleboro are calling on today’s town leaders to formally acknowledge the truth of the emergency;
The rumors are flying already:
1. Epstein is alive and well and living in Patagonia.
2. Epstein was murdered to keep him from revealing unspecified information about an unspecified person or people.
The plastic bag ban in Brattleboro banned plastic shopping bags. Grocery stores immediately complied, removing them from the available options to shoppers. Reusable bags were offered for sale.
Paper bags, always a free convenience for shoppers, suddenly had a price tag. Depending on the store, paper bags to carry purchases from a store now cost 5 or 10 cents. I’m speaking primarily of grocery stores and supermarkets.
Ask cashiers why a previously-free store amenity suddenly costs money, the answer is often “You have to blame to Town of Brattleboro.” But this isn’t true. Brattleboro did not mandate charging for paper bags.
VERMONT AFL-CIO UNITED!
A TEN POINT PROGRAM & SLATE FOR WORKING CLASS POWER!
VT AFL-CIO United! Candidates For Executive Committee
President: David Van Deusen, AFSCME
Vice President: Karl Labounty, AFSCME
Secretary/Treasurer: Danielle Bombardier, IBEW
Member-At-Large: Tim LaBombard, IBEW
Volunteer In Politics: Omar Fernandez, APWU
You may have read that courts ruled that Trump, using a Twitter account for official, open government purposes, cannot block people based on the views they express. This applies to all public officials, not just Trump. It’s a first amendment issue.
Members of the Selectboard and elected Representative Town Meeting reps should take notice and proceed with caution.
Libyans in Tripoli are again under siege, anti-imperialists should be encouraged to use this window of topicality to have the public know the truth about the colonial powers’ annihilation of Africa’s most prosperous nation. Let us look back at a peaceful and prosperous Libya, just five weeks before the UN Security Council voted to bomb it. the UN Quality of Life Index of 2010 ranked Libya 53rd highest nation in the world.
What you have to understand is that sometimes there are forces and events too big, too powerful, with so much at stake for other people or institutions, that you cannot do anything about them, not matter how evil or wrong they are and no matter how dedicated or sincere you are or how much evidence you have. That is simply one of the hard facts of life you have to face.
Americans, who flinch at the sight of their nation’s flag, never forget the rage in the voice of former President Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright during TV news bites of him shouting, his finger pointing to heaven, “God bless America? No, no! God damn America for her crimes against humanity,”
President Donald Trump is now focusing all his attention on the Middle East, and this is causing the rest of the world to look there too. It’s also causing Middle Eastern nations to look at themselves and take sides. Since there are at least two major factions, led by the Saudis and the Iranians respectively, one would expect that a US invasion of Iran would lead other Middle Eastern countries to get involved on one side or the other. As a spokesman for Iran said last night, one bullet could set the whole region ablaze and US interests with it.
Some landlords speaking at this week’s Brattleboro Selectboard meeting had a few problems with the proposed apartment inspection program. In speaking up, they brought up a community need for both landlords and tenants.
The first issue for landlords was cost. Multi-unit landlords said that to suddenly have a bill due for a couple of thousand dollars, all at once, wasn’t terribly appealing. The board tried to make the point that it was only a couple of dollars per month per unit, but the new ordinance doesn’t call for billing monthly. It’s all due in one lump sum, 30 days from the date billed. Penalties and interest extra.
Had it ever been suggested that the Strolling Fair would improve if it was squeezed onto the Common such a notion would have been summarily dismissed with a great guffaw. Not worth the effort even thinking about. Then the Retreat decided that it could no longer tolerate an entire day of tumult on its front lawn. Its residential denizens became too frazzled and distraught staring out between the iron bars at the frolicking crowd eating ice cream and dripping sausage, oblivious to the fate of those inside. The Strolling was booted. Like it or not it was going to be packed onto the Common. This produced one of the best Fairs ever!
The speed limit leaving Brattleboro on Route 30 is wrong.
Currently, the posted limit is 40 mph until after the distillery. The road, though, was engineered for a faster speed. Driving 40 mph now feels very slow.
Driving 40 mph along this stretch seems slow for many reasons. The road is wide as it is. The shoulders are wide enough for extra lanes. The curves of the road are wide and gentle.
This week D Day, the invasion of Normandy was heralded in spite of the enormous cost in lives. Anyway:
WWII & Holocaust COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED Without Corporate USA Rearming Germany to Destroy the USSR
The sixty or seventy million men, women and children didn’t die because of Adolph Hitler, they perished because the wealthy in the US and Western Europe empowered Adolph Hitler to make war.
Cabot, Vermont -In 2017 they told us, “we can’t do right by working Vermonters because we don’t have the votes to override the Governor’s veto.” Then we gave them enough votes to do just that… And on Friday the Vermont Speaker of the House sought to adjourn without achieving a livable wage. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Vermonters continue to labor 40-60 hours a week at poverty wages (many thousands without healthcare). And throughout the five months during which the General Assembly was in session, they could not even be bothered to hold one single hearing on card check (S.36). But this should not come as a surprise…
Imagining What Many GIs Who Lost Their Lives Might Be Saying On Memorial Day If They Could Speak From Their Graves: ‘While our family and friends mourn our absence, conglomerate owned media, after having used our patriotism to have us fight criminally unjust wars based on lies, now hypes our inglorious death as beautiful military service, blacking out our senseless massacres of millions over the last 60 years.’
