TonyPalmeri.com Update for August 12, 2004
1. Northeast Wisconsin's Media Monopoly: As promised in the last update, here's the cover story from the latest Valley Scene:
http://www.tonypalmeri.com/mediamonopoly.htm
2. Registering Voters: If you know of folks who are not registered to vote, direct them to this site:
https://www.workingforchange.com/vote/index.cfm?ms=AFSC001
3. August 28: Poverty Awareness, Fundraiser--On August 28 from 4 p.m. - 9 p.m., the UW Oshkosh Campus Greens and the Winnebago Peace and Justice Center are sponsoring an event to raise money for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. The money will be used to support Carla Eichinger's drive to teach poor children how to swim. At the even will be music and speakers. More about this event in future updates.
4. Sept. 18: David Cobb in Oshkosh--Green Party Presidential candidate David Cobb is tentatively scheduled to be in Oshkosh on Saturday, Sept. 18 from 9-11 a.m. He will be there to support the "Clean House With Carol Ann Rittenhouse" and Time For Tony Palmeri for Assembly insurgent campaigns for congress and the state legislature. Here's the Cobb/LaMarche site: http://www.votecobb.org/ Unlike the other presidential campaigns, Cobb/LaMarche are interested in local party building.
5. Earning Less: From our friends at the Wisconsin Fair Trade Campaign::
"Optimism shrinks" even as jobs grow in Wisconsin because workers
are "earning less in a service economy," the Los Angeles Times reports
8/9. "In effect, the state has been swapping well-paying factory jobs for
positions in restaurants, hotels, casinos, hospitals, banks, insurance firms
and temp agencies," the Times says, noting that the issue could "pack
a punch in this year's presidential race." Rick Baer, the chief executive
of Paper Converting in Green Bay, says his company has reduced its workforce
by 700 and lowered wages by $3.50 "in a Darwinian competition with overseas
rivals." These wages are "still too high" but "I have a
hard time trying to imagine how people can have a reasonable standard of living
[if they make] much lower than that," Baer told the Times. "Long-term,
I really struggle with their constant mania of driving prices down, down, down,
down, down," Baer said about what he calls the "Wal-Mart" effect
on job quality. "People are displaced into lower-paying jobs.... Their
purchasing power goes down, so they can't go into Wal-Mart and buy as much as
they used to. How will that work in the end?"
6. Not Even A Dime's Worth Of Difference?: I still have not decided how I am going to vote in the presidential election, but if anyone is looking for a reason to vote for David Cobb, Alexander Cockburn's latest piece on Bush/Kerry certainly might lead you in that direction: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08112004.html I will say that in my door to door campaigning the presidential campaign comes up frequently, and I so far have not noticed any real grassroots enthusiasm for Bush or Kerry. I've noticed that supporters of each one tend to provide as their major reason for supporting their candidate the fact that the opponent is worse. I agree with Bill Safire that this will be a year in which the presidential debates will make a big difference.
7. Rock Against Coca Cola in Turkey: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11488
8. More Palmeri: As a result of the campaign, I suspect, more people have been emailing me lately asking where they can read more of my "stuff." Some essays can be found on my UW Oshkosh home page: http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/palmeri/
I can sum all of that stuff up by saying "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good, oh lord please don't let me be misunderstood."
Peace,
-Tony