A mass organization can’t make it without members and volunteers doing a tremendous amount of work. There is no way that any level of dues collection or number of self-sufficiency schemes can ever substitute for all of the work needed to build large organizations. At the same, it’s almost impossible to be sustainable without some staff.

Recently, I was in Ireland for the first-time visiting tenant support and action groups in Dublin, Limerick, and Galway. Their work over the years had been amazing. The support groups had done great work in eviction defense. At different times the groups had been able to come together, particularly in Dublin, to rally thousands against government cutbacks or mass evictions in private and social housing with all the work done by volunteers and activists.

Despite claims by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to have defeated its own troops using Facebook (and, really, what plot to take over a high school hasn’t done that?), the biggest challenge NATO will face this year will probably not be nefarious Russian social media posts.

Nor will it be the dreaded Russian military, now sucking down 6 percent as many dollars each year as the war machines of the NATO nations.

Nor is NATO terribly threatened by a U.S. president who demands that its members spend more, that more nations join, that the North Atlantic nation of Colombia partner up, and that the war games and weapons deals and expansion eastward press ahead, but who once blurted out obvious stuff his handlers would never allow him to act on, such as that NATO serves no good purpose. (Which of his projects does serve any good purpose?)

About four months ago, I organized over 100 scholars, intellectuals, and activists to publish an open letter to Senator Bernie Sanders, which was then signed by over 10,000 more people, several of whom volunteered to deliver it to Senator Sanders. So, we know he received it.

Before publishing the letter, I only changed the text slightly from my original draft of it. The change was that, as published, it didn’t indicate that we had all refused to support his campaign last time around, or promise that we would support his campaign this time around if he did what we were asking. The reason for the change was that some signers had supported him last time despite the significant shortcoming mentioned in our letter, and some might still not support him this time even if he mended his ways. But as for me, I meant the letter the way I had originally written it. I didn’t get out and campaign for Sanders last time, but I was promising to do so this time, if he came through.

He has now come through, and I think we should all support him as long as he continues to. Before I explain that, here’s what the Open Letter said:

With March being Women’s History Month and women only holding 23.7% of the seats in Congress despite making up 51% of the U.S. population, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst States for Women as well as accompanying videos.

To identify the most women-friendly states, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 24 key metrics. The data set ranges from median earnings for female workers to women’s preventive health care to female homicide rate.
 

Monday, March 5, 7-8:30pm
Whetstone Library, 3909 N. High St.
Joe Schiavoni, former gubernatorial candidate and state senator, and Tina Pierce, Ph.D., school board candidate and educator, will discuss the impacts of a potential state takeover of the Columbus City Schools.
The meeting will begin at 7:00 in the Public Meeting Room at the Whetstone Library. Snacks and conversation from 6:30 to 7:00. See you there!