Posts Tagged ‘politics’
Higher education is the road to career success. Career success is the path to financial stability. Financial stability makes it possible to look beyond your own immediate survival needs. Only then can you have the time and resources to notice what the corporate and legislative bigwigs are doing to our society.
NOW you know why the bigwigs are trying to ruin our educational system. Keep the masses uneducated, uniformed and too busy trying to survive to notice anything outside their own immediate circle and the Bigwigs can pilfer, steal and destroy without any limits.
Senator Bernie Sanders Introduces a Bill to make College tuition free
WE NEED an educated electorate! GO BERNIE!!
The Artist As Widget
Posted January 19, 2014
on:- In: artist's rights | Commentary | Education | Music | Politics | worker's rights
- 2 Comments
So I am one of the few oddballs who actually watches C-SPAN. I find it to be a window into a very distant world. But a world whose actions and decisions affect us in ways we only begin to comprehend. And sometimes those decisions have consequences that we, down here on the ground, only feel after it is too late to do anything about it.
In yesterday’s House Sub-committee Hearing on Copyright Regulations and Intellectual Property Law I had a moment of clarity that revealed why, when it comes to legislation about the arts, those mountain-top decision makers so often get it wrong.
The House panel was asking questions of a number of “experts” including Professor Glynn Lunney of Tulane University Law School. The question of the moment had to do with copyright restrictions applied to the music industry that used to exist but that had been recently eliminated. The Professor was asked if the elimination of the copyright laws had any effect on “content producers” (meaning song writers, composers, music producers, etc.).
The professor cited a study that charted the amount of content produced before and after the elimination of those restrictions. The study showed that the amount of content produced by the industry before and after the lifting of those artist protections had not changed. So the conclusion the professor and his ilk have come to is that those protections must not have been necessary!!
WOW!! Talk about a major misunderstanding of your intended subject!!
The inference here is that the additional protections the laws had been providing would motivate artists to produce more because income from your work is more likely. And conversely, without those protections artists will produce less music.
This is stunningly wrong.
These conclusions are based on a business model that, I suppose, works for shoes or driveway pavers or plumbing pipe. But artists produce because we HAVE TO! Not just because we are getting paid to do it. Don’t get me wrong, here. Getting paid for what you create is important. I have always felt the creator of the art should be fairly compensated for each creation. But it is also true that we do not choose to become artists. We are called to it by something greater than ourselves. And it is a demanding calling.
Whether you are a musician, a writer, a painter, a poet, a sculptor, a clothing designer, a novelist, a choreographer or any other type of creative spirit there is something within you that demands to be expressed. Those who ignore that demand will pay the price, one way or the other, in personal anguish.
Artists will create whether or not we are fairly treated by society. And that is the crux of the misunderstanding of the politicians and industry experts who are creating the laws that either protect us or leave us to be taken advantage of.
As long as the politicians treat art the same way they treat widgets we will never have a system that truly understands why we create art or that values what artists contribute to society.
If any of you out there are brave enough to contact Professor Lunney, please explain this to him.
Tara Sitser, Proud Singer/Songwriter
Los Angeles, CA
January 19, 2014
The Few, The Voters
Posted March 12, 2011
on:- In: Commentary | Politics
- 1 Comment
Local elections are generally poorly attended. It’s been difficult to get people to understand just how local politics affects their lives. This Letter To The Editor appeared in today’s Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times and it states the case beautifully:
I would like to thank the 82.41% of registered voters of the great city of Los Angeles for having such trust and confidence in the 11.59% of us who voted in Tuesday’s election.
Half of the City Council, half of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education and half of the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees were picked. Voters also weighed a bunch of ballot measures that will decide where some of our tax money will go.
Yes, less than 12% of us decided how the city will be run for the next few years.
Dorit Dowler-Guerrero, Los Angeles
It’s very simple. As long as we still have a democracy, get out and vote. It’s the way our voices are heard.
- In: Commentary | Politics
- 1 Comment
In the face of the massive, ongoing power-grab by the right-wing conservatives in the service of their corporate masters there has been little to cheer about in recent months. Item by item we have seen our constitutional protections threatened, our rights degraded and our societal safeguards pulled out from under our feet.
Underlying so much of these losses is the fact that our politicians are almost completely bought and paid for by corporations looking to curry favor from elected officials. And in the face of such large amounts of money, most politicians lose any shred of integrity they may have had and think only of how they will win re-election when their current term is up. By accepting large corporate campaign donations the elected official feels obligated to make political and legislative decisions that favor their corporate donors – usually at the expense of the middle class, the working poor, seniors, the mentally ill and other vulnerable groups, not to mention the environment.
BUT! We finally have some good news as a result of the passage of Ballot Measure H which passed in yesterday’s Los Angeles election. Measure H is the first step in changing the way elections are held in the state of California. Establishing public funding for political campaigns is the only way we will ever get our democracy out of the clutches of big money and level the playing field so that qualified candidates can run for office without having to seek out or accept corporate or private donations. When elections are publicly funded the elected officials will not be beholden to any donor. They will be able to do the job they were elected to do without corporate influence and without spending – as they do now – almost 30% of their day fund-raising for their next election rather than doing the people’s business.
Public funding for campaigns exists now in 7 states and it works! Read on for a statement from the California Clean Money Campaign:
http://www.caclean.org/progress/
Voters Resoundingly Say “YES” to Fair Elections in Los Angeles!
Last night, Los Angeles residents sent a message to leaders across the state and across the country: It’s time to end corporate and big money special interest control of our political system.
By an overwhelming 3-1 margin, 75% of Los Angeles residents voted “YES!” on Measure H, the Los Angeles Clean Money, Fair Elections measure.
The immediate ramification of Measure H is that bidders on large city contracts will no longer be allowed to make campaign contributions to elected officials who decide who wins – some of the most potentially corruptive campaign contributions one could imagine.
But the most important result of Measure H is lifting the maximum balance in the City’s public financing campaign trust fund. This will eventually allow L.A. to move to full, Clean Money, Fair Elections public funding of campaigns, so that candidates don’t take big money from any special interest donors and are accountable only to the voters. And believe us, when the time is right, we’ll be asking you all to help demand that it does!
This victory has statewide and national implications. As Nick Nyhart, President of the national Public Campaign said:
“There should be no doubt about it – this is a victory that will boost the fortunes of money and politics reform far beyond LA.”
True Public Service
Posted by: Tara Sitser on: November 22, 2017
I published this post six years ago. It has gotten only more relevant as time passes. As we reach this year’s Thanksgiving celebration I give thanks for those in public service who actually understand that their jobs exist to serve the public.
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was a playwright, journalist, public speaker and champion of the working class. He wrote more than 60 plays in his lifetime and was the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion (adaptation of his play of the same name).
Many of us may be surprised to learn that he was also a co-founder of the London School of Economics. No slouch he.
In stark contrast to the attitudes of so many of our currently elected officials, here is his statement about public service:
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