Lost funding, lost history?

 FCN 1/26/99

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Lost funding, lost history?
African Burial Ground Project may be cancelled by federal agency

by Charles Brooks

NEW YORK-When hundreds of artifacts and 427 skeletal remains of Africans brought to America were unearthed in May 1991, it threatened the construction of a 34-story, $276 million federal office building in lower Manhattan. In response to intense pressure from the Black community, the General Services Administration (GSA) made a commitment to preserve the historical legacy of this discovery.

But the African Burial Ground Project, which has yielded important evidence about the 18th century slave presence in the north, may shut down by April 30, if additional funding from GSA isn't obtained. The project team, led by Dr. Michael L. Blakey, is locked in a heated dispute with the federal agency.

POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND (PART II)

words by Charles Brooks 

Police reform in America is difficult because police unions, elected officials – Democrat and Republican – along with their largely white constituents seeks to maintain a racial order disguised as “law and order”. Opposition to police reform is seen in the public and political support for blue lives matter, and proposed anti-protest legislation across the nation that will clearly pit police officers on the front line against protesters deemed rioters.  We saw this during the seventies when the activist demand for community control over the police was met with the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights or LEOBOR – such as the one passed by Maryland in 1974. Passed into law at a time when politicians and the police, together basked in the spectacle of “law and order” – which meant, get tough on Black folk.

POLICE REFORM COMES TO MARYLAND (PART I)

words by Charles Brooks

The public display of Floyd’s gruesome death ignited massive protests across the country demanding reduced police budgets along with bans on tear gas, chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and limits on the police use of force. State and local legislators responded to the thousands of demonstrators on the streets with a barrage of their proposals attempting to address police reform.

Since last summer, state legislators in Maryland took notice and followed suit by convening a workgroup  to hammer out legislative proposals to address police reform in Maryland. On the ground, a coalition of 95 organizations – the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Police Accountability (MCJPA) began their grassroot campaign for police reform with demands grounded in racial justice and self-determination. Their demands seek to reverse unaccountable police misconduct with a process more transparent, more democratic and more aligned to the interests of the community, particularly those with Black working-class folk. In fact, three of their demands – if met – can fundamentally transform policing and the lives of Black folk in Maryland.

'Follow the Money': Corporations Gave $50 Million to GOP Lawmakers Behind Voter Suppression Onslaught

"No matter how many PR statements Big Business puts out, its complicity with the antidemocratic forces that want to make voting harder is clear."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

The cover of the new report from Public Citizen—titled "The Corporate Sponsors of Voter Suppression"—features a photoshopped version of an image of Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signing that state's voter suppression bill into law last month with a painting in the background overlaid with logos of major corporate donors who have lavished campaign contributions on the GOP in recent years. (Image via Public Citizen)

Since 2015, AT&T, Comcast, UnitedHealth Group, Walmart, and other big businesses have donated a combined $50 million to state Republican lawmakers who are currently supporting voter suppression bills across the United States—generous political spending at odds with recent corporate efforts to rebrand as defenders of voting rights.

A new report (pdf) released Monday morning by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that during the 2020 election cycle alone, U.S. corporations donated $22 million to Republican architects of voter suppression bills that are advancing through state legislatures nationwide.

"Corporations should keep their money out of our democracy—and Congress must put the people back in charge by swiftly passing the For The People Act."
—Rick Claypool, Public Citizen

"AT&T [since 2015] has given the most, $811,000," Public Citizen found, citing data from The National Institute on Money in Politics. "AT&T is followed by Altria/Philip Morris, Comcast, UnitedHealth Group, Walmart, State Farm, and Pfizer. Household names that fell just out of the top 25 list... include Nationwide ($182,000), Merck ($180,000), CVS ($174,000), John Deere ($159,000), and Caterpillar ($157,000)."

"This is why you follow the money, not the good PR," Public Citizen tweeted.

The group's findings came after a number of prominent corporations—including AT&T, Comcast, and Georgia-based companies Coca-Cola and Delta—issued statements denouncing a sweeping Georgia voter suppression measure only after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed it into law last month.

Despite vocal demands for them to speak out and use their influence to fight the bill, those companies were largely quiet as the measure made its way through Georgia's Republican-dominated legislature.

Between 2015 and 2020, according to Public Citizen, corporations donated more than $10.8 million to Georgia Republicans who are supporting the 26 voter suppression bills that have been introduced in the state's legislature this year. Corporations have also donated big to voter suppression advocates in Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas.

"From coast to coast, politicians that Corporate America helped elect are pushing racist voter suppression laws," Rick Claypool, research director for Public Citizen's president's office and one of the authors of the new report, told Common Dreams.

"No matter how many PR statements Big Business puts out, its complicity with the anti-democratic forces that want to make voting harder is clear," Claypool added. "Corporations should keep their money out of our democracy—and Congress must put the people back in charge by swiftly passing the For The People Act."

According to the latest tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, legislators have introduced 361 bills with vote-restricting provisions in 47 states this year, and five have become law.

In the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters, many large corporations vowed to temporarily suspend all political giving as they faced backlash for financially supporting Republican members of Congress who helped provoke the attack with brazen lies about the 2020 presidential election.

But Public Citizen argued Monday that such face-saving efforts—as well as belated disavowals of voter suppression measures—"will amount to a meaningless gesture if corporations continue to bankroll the bills' supporters with future campaign contributions."

"The days in which corporate America can fund politicians and then claim no responsibly for their actions may be coming to an end," the group said. "Corporations seeking to demonstrate their reverence for our democracy could best do so by ending their attempts to influence the outcomes of elections at the federal and state levels."

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org. Originally published on April 5th, 2021. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. 

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'Outrageous': 46 Million Americans Say They Would Not Be Able to Afford Healthcare If They Needed It

"The American model of health reform—throwing money at private insurers—cannot solve it."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

A nurse comforts a woman who was distraught seeing her husband on a ventilator due to Covid-19. (Photo: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

A new study released Wednesday morning shows that nearly 50 million Americans would be unable to afford quality healthcare should the need for treatment suddenly arise, a finding seen as further evidence of the immorality of a for-profit insurance system that grants or denies coverage based on a person's ability to pay.

"People can't afford their goddamn healthcare," Tim Faust, a proponent of single-payer healthcare, tweeted in response to the new report. "Families spend less on food so they can make insurance payments. This problem is felt by all, but concentrated among poor people and black people. The American model of health reform—throwing money at private insurers—can not solve it."

"Our system has been structured for many years on the basis of private health plans and very deep dysfunction politically and within the medical industry."
—Dr. Vikas Saini, Lown Institute

"The rot is pervasive and it runs deep," Faust added. "People who can't afford healthcare just don't get healthcare. Wealthy men get to live fifteen years longer than poor men. We have condemned poor children to die from things which do not kill rich children. In America, sickness makes you poor; poorness makes you sick; then you die."

According to the report by Gallup and West Health, 18% of U.S. adults—around 46 million people—say that if they needed access to quality healthcare today, they would not be able to cover the costs. The same percentage of adults report that, amid a deadly pandemic, someone in their household has opted to skip needed care over the past year due to inability to pay.

"The chances of any given household suffering from this form of healthcare insecurity are inversely related to annual household income, with 35% of respondents from low-income households—those earning under $24,000 per year—reporting forgoing care in the prior 12 months," Gallup's Dan Witters notes in a summary of the study's findings. "That is five times the rate reported by those from high-income households (7%), defined as earning at least $180,000."

Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute think tank, told The Guardian on Wednesday that "unfortunately, it's not surprising that millions of Americans can't afford healthcare."

"It is, however, shocking and kind of outrageous," Saini added. "Our system has been structured for many years on the basis of private health plans and very deep dysfunction politically and within the medical industry. Americans have been facing this mammoth problem. It was there during, and looks like it's going to be after, the pandemic...  Americans want, and need I'd say, a radically better healthcare system."

The study comes two weeks after a group of House Democrats led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) unveiled the Medicare for All Act of 2021, sweeping legislation that would transition the U.S. to a single-payer healthcare system over a two-year period. The new system would guarantee comprehensive medical care to every person in the U.S. for free at the point of service, eliminating premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.

According to an analysis released by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen earlier this month, a Medicare for All system likely would have prevented hundreds of thousands of coronavirus deaths in the United States, which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the world.

"There is a solution to this health crisis—a popular one that guarantees healthcare to every person as a human right and finally puts people over profits and care over corporations," said Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. "That solution is Medicare for All—everyone in, nobody out."

In their new study, Gallup and West Health show that over 80% of Americans support "setting caps on out-of-pocket costs for both prescription drugs and general healthcare services for those who are insured by Medicare." Sixty percent of Americans support "making Medicare available to everyone," according to the report.

The study also finds that 65% of U.S. adults support lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60, a proposal that congressional Democrats are reportedly planning to include in a forthcoming legislative package.

This article originally appeared at CommonDreams.org. Originally published on March 31st, 2021. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. 

Please support and visit The Brooks Blackboard's website, our INTEL page, OPEN MIND page, and LIKE and FOLLOW our Facebook page.

Follow me on Twitter at @_CharlesBrooks