Monthly Archives: February 2022

Theres this little event going on in Canada right now, I dont know if youve heard about it, called the Freedom Convoy: A bunch of truckers and their supporters drove from Vancouver to Ottawa, straight across Canada, to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Its turned into a whole thing, leading to the complete shutdown of Canadas capital as well as several important international border crossings.

But if you look back into Canadas past theres another protest, one that I believe holds an important lesson for people today living through historic inflation and income inequality; it was called the On-To-Ottawa Trek and it saw disenfranchised workers crossing Canada by truck, car and rail to demand a better life. But instead of getting to park around Parliamentary Hill and blare horns all day, organizers were arrested and the movement was put down by police in Regina, Saskatchewan in a bloody riot.

When Americans know anything about history, its usually broad strokes about our more successful wars. Our own rich labor history isnt taught in schools, and certainly no Canadian labor history. But the struggles that happened here are closely mirrored and intertwined with our neighbors to the north.

The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were a double whammy of bad news in the U.S. and Canada in the 30s. The hard times drove many single men out of their family homes to look for work, but work was nowhere to be found. Many of these men ended up in unemployment relief camps set up by the Department of National Defence. These camps were rough; men were provided with a meager 20 cents a day, three meals a day, clothes, medical attention and a cot for back-breaking labor while living in poor conditions far from home. These camps were placed far out in rural areas where men built roads or airstrips.

They felt forgotten about, pushed aside. While the men were welcome to leave at any time, where would they go? Without a home or a job, they were likely to be arrested for vagrancy. The camps were a last resort, thanks to a conservative government that did nothing to provide reasonable wage programs or unemployment relief. The government also wanted young jobless men out of the cities, thinking they were ripe for the temptations of Communist organizers. In the end it was sending these young men to the camps that would expose them to Communist ideas. The Workers Unity League (WUL) and the Relief Camp Workers Union (RCWU), Communist organizations both, would go on to organize strikers in the British Columbia camps.

Over 7,000 workers walked out of the British Columbia camp and about 1,500 marched on Vancouver in a strike in April, 1935. Their demands were simple: 50 cents a day in pay, a six-hour day, five days a week schedule, compensation for injured workers, unemployment insurance, voting rights guarantees and separating the work camps completely from the Ministry of Defence.

Strikers occupied the city for two months, but it proved useless. Once they were out of the camps the federal government washed its hands of the men. By June, a convoy of 1,000 workers headed east to Ottawa to make their grievances known on Parliamentary Hill. The mass of protesters picked up steam (literally, as workers rode on top of freight train cars) as they traveled across a country devastated by poverty, plagues of grasshoppers and drought. By the time the trains, cars and trucks rolled into Regina, Saskatchewan, the On-To-Ottawa trekkers were 2,000 strong.

The swelling numbers of the protest made the conservative Prime Minster R.B. Bennett nervous. The federal government wouldnt let them move any farther East, denying travel by train, foot or car. Negotiation with cabinet ministers went no where so the Trekkers sent eight men ahead to Ottawa to negotiate with Bennett directly while the majority peacefully stayed in Regina, their food and shelter provided by the people and government of Saskatchewan. The meeting with Bennett proved disastrous as the men returned, and organizers decided to release the strikers. It had all been a frustrating, heartbreaking failure.

Even though the strikers were disbanding, Bennett still wanted to see the organizers arrested. On July 1, Canada Day, several hundred workers met to figure out next steps when their gathering was interrupted by a policemans whistle. What came next was the worst Canadian riot of the Great Depression. The CBC interviewed striker Rob Liversedge about the event decades later:

A shrill whistle blasted out a signal, Liversedge remembered, The backs of vans were opened and out poured the Mounties, each armed with a baseball bat. In less than four minutes Market Square was a mass of writhing, groaning forms, like a battlefield.

The strikers erected barricades and threw stones, and the Mounties retaliated with their .38 revolvers.

Police fired wildly into the crowd. The strike not only failed, hundreds of rioters were injured and two people were killed in the melee a detective and an unemployed American living in Saskatchewan. At least 130 rioters were arrested.

Following the riot, Trekkers drifted away from Regina, either returning to the work camps or hopping train cars, traveling from city to city to keep from being arrested for vagrancy. But their movement wasnt quite the failure it initially seemed. Support throughout Canada was squarely with the workers. Bennett, who was elected on his promise to bring jobs back to Canada, lost his government a few months later to the liberal party. The new power in Ottawa would raise wages for workers and lay the foundation for the social safety nets Canadians enjoy to this day while conservatives would not be able to form a government in Canada for another 23 years. An inquiry into the Regina riot led to the work camps being closed in 1936 after 170,248 men had already passed through them.

It feels like were living in the exact opposite of what happened in 1935. On-To-Ottawa Trekkers fought for equal rights based on their lived experiences while the Freedom Convoy is based on conspiracy theories swirling around lifesaving vaccines at worst, or just a contrarian cause I dont wanna attitude at best. Today, we have an unpopular minority80 percent of Canadians are fully vaccinatedshutting down communities over a government actually caring about its citizens health while police do little to dissuade protesters even when they are blocking international border crossings.

Trekkers had nothing no jobs, no homes and still tried to make something of themselves while maybe, against all odds, improving life for all Canadians. They knew theyd experience violence from officials but they were largely peaceful, respectful, organized and ultimately popular even in the communities where they stayed. Even the mayor of Vancouver, who literally read strikers the Riot Act after they occupied a department store for two months, felt that the trekkers were being treated unfairly by the federal government.

To me, the men of the On-To-Ottawa strike are true patriot heroes of Canada. Theres a nobility to putting your life on the line in the quest for a more equitable future. Its a far cry from terrorizing small border towns, facing down old women in their own neighborhood streets or thinking lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines are a conspiracy to kill white people.

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Forget The Freedom Convoy: More People Need To Know About The On-To-Ottawa Trek - Jalopnik

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Ottawa occupiers and other protesters across this country have been misusing the word, Emilie Nicolas writes.

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To be perfectly honest, I havent been feeling Black History Month this year.

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Perhaps in part because two consecutive winters of cancelled indoor gatherings would take its toll on any kind of large celebrations. But mostly, Im finding it hard to detach my attention from rampant misuses of the word freedom by Ottawa occupiers and other protesters across this country.

Freedom being the most important rally cry for Black people on this continent across centuries, the so-called Freedom Convoy, with its occasional Confederate flags, is being distracting, to say the least.

When Haitians rebelled against French enslavers, freedom or death became one of the key mottos. It came about in a context where the living conditions for enslaved Africans were so utterly inhumane, that many chose to take their lives to affirm that although their bodies were in chains, their will remained free. Basically, the ancestors chose to live freely or die freely unfreedom being no life at all.

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After the revolution, a good part of the population chose to exercise that freedom by building agricultural villages on a model inspired by their West African roots. Freedom meant freedom to sustain oneself in communities built for supporting one another, freedom to practice your ancestral religion and culture, freedom to have a family, freedom of movement; the freedom to live, really.

In the United States and in the British empire (including Canada), abolition of slavery came later. And even when it did come, living as a racialized minority in settler-colonial states created other barriers to freedom. Several battles had to be fought. People had been emancipated, but without access to good land, and the means to sustain themselves, were they really free

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If you are a sharecropper in the Old South, where youre not paid enough to not go into debt, and debt is punishable with prison, are you free? If you are a Black Loyalist denied employment in Nova Scotia, unable to feed your family, are you free? Over the decades, the old overtly racist practices that maintained degrees of unfreedom despite emancipation were replaced by the subtler yet very effective systemic inequalities we still see today.

Freedom is still fought for today because casual dehumanization still limits what people can aspire to, because organized intergenerational poverty still hinders people from sustaining themselves and supporting one another, because racial profiling and mass criminalization still threaten to put Black bodies in chains, and violently end lives in the name of the law.

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Fighting for freedom today also means healing. It requires taking the time and space necessary to address intergenerational trauma, and the ways its been impacting communities. In short, its about freeing the mind from harmful ideas that still impact our mental health, self-esteem, and our ability to truly show up for one another. And the freedom to reconnect with the parts of our heritage that have been stigmatized or lost by decades if not centuries of prejudice and forced assimilation.

Which brings me back to the Freedom Convoy, a large portion of which has been fighting for the freedom to infect others with a potentially life-threatening virus. And in doing so, has chosen to exercise a freedom to deprive entire neighbourhoods of sleep and rest with non-stop dangerous level of noise, a freedom to harass and scare fellow citizens, freedom to desecrate a cenotaph and make a mockery of Indigenous ceremonies, freedom to urinate and defecate in the streets, freedom to yell homophobic and racist slurs, freedom to stack potentially explosive gas tanks in residential areas.

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I am not surprised, to be honest, that a significant group of people today would choose to define freedom, basically, as the freedom to harm others without consequences. Its been a recurrent feature on this continent. If it wasnt the case, Black history would look completely different.

For centuries, Black people have stood against freedom defined as the freedom to cause the unfreedom of others. Who else, this week, wants to actively, energetically join that fight?

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Nicolas: The meaning of freedom - Montreal Gazette

In honor ofBlack History Month, Central Ohio Freedom Fund (COFF) has been making daily posts to social media, each centered on a person or group that has impacted the social justice movement. Rather than focusing on familiar faces from the Civil Rights era, however, COFF has embraced the posts as an opportunity to turn a spotlight on a numberof locals helping to shape the present.

A lot of times with Black history, and especially with Black History Month, we tend to highlight our ancestors and the people who came before us, and we tend to forget about the people who are currently making history, COFF organizer Stacey Little said by phone. Lets highlight some folks who are doing stuff now, who are here, who people can access. … We wanted to uplift some of what was already out there, what was already going on.

Little said documenting this history as it unfolds serves multiple purposes, including uplifting the marginalized voices currently doing the heavy lifting, as well as creating a public record so these actions arent lost or erased, which is something weve seen happen over time.

The subjects of early posts have included: attorney Sean Walton, who has represented the families of multiple people killed by law enforcement, including the families of Henry Green and Casey Goodson, Jr.; poet, author and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib; the podcast Columbus Cant Wait, which has engaged the community on issues of politics and police violence, among other topics; Dispatch journalist (and former Alive staffer) Erica Thompson; and artist Richard Duarte Brown, recipient of the 2022 Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Fellowship.

The posts will continue through the end of the month, Little said, ending with a tribute to the ancestors upon which this current movement is built. In the coming weeks,COFF will also highlight some of the youngsters just now beginning to make waves, effectively linking multiple generations of activism. In that sense, the ongoing campaign mirrors the evolution of COFF, the members of which have spent the last year learning from the past and assessing the present, all with aneye on creating a greater future impact.

The last year, we werent really able to do anything, navigating through COVID and all of that, Little said. There was a moment of reset, of reorganizing, and were going into this year doing the things weve really wanted to do.

Organizers including Little formed COFF in March 2020, the group rising to greater prominence alongside theresurgent Black lives matter movement that swept through the country in May 2020. Initially, the group formed around a goal of providing funds for people in Franklin County who were in jail not because they were convicted of a crime or incarcerated, but because they couldnt make bail. In the years since, though, this vision has gradually expanded, with the group championing legislation that could reduce the need for a more generalized community bail fund.

In Ohio, a pair of bipartisan, companion bills SB 182 and HB 315 would reform the current bail system in twocrucial ways: (1) the legislation would require a pretrial release decision be made within 48 hours of arrest, reducing the number of people in jail waiting for the court to determine their pretrial fate; and (2) it would establish a system that would allow the court to determine if a person posed a threat to public safety.

Moving forward, we always have to be ready for whats next, and whats next after we end cash bail? said Little, who, along with other COFF members, has engaged in conversations with community bail funds in cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia, learning from others immersed in these types of direct actions as a means of plotting new ways forward. "What is next for our community? And how can we still take care of our community when things change?"

Newly developedinitiatives include Commissary Comrades, where a $35 monthly donation can provide toiletries andother essentials for someone imprisoned, as well asexpanded training and educational series centered on abolition. In the future, the group'smission could expand, connecting ex-felons with services to help them reacclimate to life outside of prison. And eventually, Little said, COFF would prefer to turn over leadership of the group to those previously bailed out by it.

Thats really the ultimate goal, isnt it? Little said. We want people who have been directly impacted in positions of leadership, making decisions and freeing other folks. In the meantime, in the system were working in, its more about getting better at taking care of folksand connecting them to resources and other things of that nature. Thats how were always thinking, how were always moving forward.

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Central Ohio Freedom Fund pays tribute to the present, looks to the future - Columbus Alive

Enes K Freedom dropping a three is running rounds on social media in the middle of all the big trades news and rumors.

As James Harden missed his third straight game with left hamstring tightness, Kevin Durant remains out with a sprained knee ligament, and Kyrie Irvings ineligibility to play home games, the Brooklyn Nets got under the hammer of Boston Celtics.

Without their three superstars, the Nets werent competitive at all and lost their 9th straight giving Cs a 126-91 victory, making it their fifth 30-plus points victory in the last 9 games. This win also brought the Celtics their 6th straight victory, tying the Raptors for the best winning streak in the East this season.

Also read: Golden State Warriors Playoff Picture: An insight into the strength, weaknesses, playoff matchup, and a possible trade for a washing machine

While each of the Nets starting-5 failed to score in double digits, Jayson Tatum and Co had 4 starters scoring 10+ points in a free-flowing game where they shot over 55% from the field and 35% from the 3-point line. Jaylen Brown had yet another player of the match night.

Celtics had a 26-point lead to begin the 4th quarter and so everyone in the Boston uniform felt they shouldnt be left behind in trying their hands out from the 3-point line.

In a game where almost every Celtics player had an attempt from the perimeter, the last man anyone wanted to see shoot a three would be Enes K Freedom. But the center had a go at it, and to everyones surprise, he made his only attempt from the downtown.

On the night flooded with trade news, his 3-pointer by Freedom sent NBA Twitter on a frenzy.

Even the Nets fans wished it to be a dream that would never come true.

Meanwhile, a Cs fan tried to have some fun offering Freedom for Harden on a Nets fans Twitter space.

Also read: Michael Jordan used to always say you were born at the wrong time!: Charles Oakley describes the banter between him and MJ after the Knicks lost the 1994 NBA Finals to Hakeem Olajuwon and co

Both these teams look to have swapped places compared to when this season started. While everything has started clicking for the Celtics, the Nets struggle to get even one of their regular starters. Also, they literally have exchanged places in the Eastern Conference standings.

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"Aint no way Enes Kanter Freedom is splashing threes on the Nets": NBA Twitter goes on a frenzy as Celtics... - The Sportsrush

The report documents votes pertaining to reproductive freedom taken by all members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate during the first session of the 117th Congress. Not only did Auchincloss have a perfect score, but as did the entire state of Massachusetts.

"NARAL's annual Congressional Record on Reproductive Freedom is an important metric to measure our elected leaders' commitment to our values," said NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju in a statement. "We saw notable gains for reproductive freedom in last year's Congress, including the historic removal of the discriminatory Hyde Amendment from spending bills and the passage of the Women's Health Protection Act in the Housethe first standalone vote in Congress to proactively protect abortion rights."

"With our fundamental rights under unprecedented attack, it is more important than ever that our leaders in Congress rise up to meet this moment and fight for our freedom to make our own decisions about our lives, families, and futures," she continued.

NARAL Pro-Choice America's 2021 Congressional Record on Reproductive Freedom comes during a time of uncertainty for the future of legal abortion. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, involves Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban and threatens to end the constitutional right to legal abortion. Any ruling that upholds Mississippi's ban will overturn Roe's core protections.

To view the full Congressional Record on Reproductive Freedom, click here.

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Auchincloss Recognized For 100% Record On Reproductive Freedom - Patch.com

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SaverLife and the Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation (IFFF) today announced the launch of a national campaign to encourage more people to jumpstart their savings journey at tax time. The campaign builds on multiple years of research and success helping more than 100,000 people with low-to-moderate incomes pledge to save over $120 million at tax time. The partnership is accelerating paid digital outreach to find and motivate tens of thousands of new people to save a portion of their tax refund and maintain savings year-round.

SaverLife and IFFF first joined forces in 2018 to provide the tools many people need to build a strong foundation for long-term financial health. This shared purpose has been at the center of the tax time initiatives the two organizations have worked on together for the last five years.

Expanding the Intuit-SaverLife Partnership in 2022

IFFF is donating nearly $1 million in cash and in-kind services to support SaverLifes new digital media outreach campaign to broadly promote its successful Tax-Time pledge and tips for navigating tax time on saverlife.org, while testing new tactics that encourage savings, including challenges tailored to a users personal financial goals.

With Intuits deep experience in providing the tools, skills, and insights that help empower people to take control of their finances at tax time and beyond, and SaverLifes expertise in savings innovations, the partnership seeks to transform tax time into a powerful opportunity for financial health and prosperity among individuals with low-and-moderate incomes.

Since 2018, IFFF has invested $4.2M in SaverLife to bring an interactive savings experience to its members. The Foundations 2022 commitment is intended to accelerate the success of SaverLife's Tax Time program so that more people can build a strong financial foundation during one of the most critical financial moments of the yeartax time.

The last 18 months of the pandemic have solidified the importance of everyone engaging with the tax system, said Leigh Phillips, CEO of SaverLife. Together with Intuit, we have turned tax-time into an empowering moment to kick-start financial health all year long. We have built a successful program to support people living with low-to-moderate incomes to make the most of the tax season by ensuring they file, have the resources and information they need to maximize their tax refund and encourage them to save a portion of their refund.

SaverLifes new digital outreach campaign calls attention to its successful gamification tools to incentivize savings and to real-life testimonies from savers who have taken the tax time pledge. SaverLife will leverage current trends in digitized personalization to test new tactics to encourage savings, including challenges tailored to a users personal financial goals. Even small nudges can lead to long-term behavioral changes. As before, SaverLife will offer $20,000 worth of prize-based challenges through weekly instant win $50 scratchers.

At Intuit, everything we do starts with the belief that everyone deserves the opportunity to prosper, said Susan Mason, director at IFFF. Now more than ever, circumstances demand that we think and do things differently. We know from research that most people want to save but have to use their tax refund to catch up. We want them to be able to get ahead as well. The investment and partnership with SaverLife have been and continues to be critical to creating a world where everyone can do just that.

Separate from the Foundations funding and in-kind services, Intuit is also offering SaverLife members the opportunity for virtual taxpayer assistance to help them prepare and file their 2021 tax returns for free with TurboTax and assistance from Intuit volunteer tax experts.

For more on SaverLife, please visit: saverlife.org/ Visit the SaverLife blogs: saverlife.org/money-101 Follow SaverLife on Twitter: @wearesaverlifeVisit SaverLife on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/saverlife/

About SaverLife

SaverLife (formerly EARN) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit on a missionto inspire, inform, and reward the millions of Americans who need help saving money. Through engaging technologies and strategic partnerships, we give working people the methods and motivation to take control of their financial future. SaverLife has a number of esteemed investor partners including Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Prudential, JPMorgan Chase & Co., MasterCard, and Capital One. For more information or to join the SaverLife movement, please visit saverlife.org.

About the Intuit Freedom Financial Foundation

Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation is Intuits charitable foundation dedicated to public/private/not-for-profit partnerships and programs that help bring opportunities to prosper to all, especially those living with lower incomes. Intuit believes citizen engagement in preparation and filing of tax returns is an important, empowering opportunity for Americans to understand and improve their personal financial lives. This is especially true for lower income Americans and why Intuit has donated TurboTax to millions, founded Tax Time Allies, and provides funding and other support to nonprofits that build financial freedom including savings for those who need it the most.

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SaverLife, Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation Launch National Campaign to Help Thousands More People Use Tax Time to Learn More About and Take...

Edgar Bunton| Springfield News-Leader

The other day, Governor Mike Parson declared a pre-emptive state of emergency for a snowstorm that had not even occurred yet. Many area schools closed down over this alleged "emergency."

I will not live in fear of some "snowstorm" which I have taken to calling the "Snowverreaction."Even though it is far milder than storms we have had in the past, it is being used by government and cultural elites to limit our freedom, plain and simple.

Let's get some facts straight:

Did you know over99 percentof those who venture out into blizzards survive? They don't want you to know it, but it's true. Maybe we should worry about heart disease before we go cancelling school to protect against "weather."

Some claim winter gear like hats, coats and gloves protect against the cold, but many coat-owners still suffer frostbite. My sister's Scentsy dealer wore a coat and died from a heart attack two days later. Funny how the people who make money selling cold weather gear are the first to cry about how important it is.

Elitists say ice and snow may cause a car's tires to slip. They say we should drive slower and avoid treacherousroads. Are these the same people who said speeding and drunk driving were the main risks justafew months ago? Interesting they weren't even a little worried about snow over Labor Day weekend.

A lot of people who are injured or killed in these events were actually victims of other issues, and their suffering is being politicized to make people afraid. Someone drove off the road and hit a tree? Mark it "snowstorm."Someone needed their ear partially amputated due to frostbite? Mark it "snowstorm."

Most of those injured or killed by "weather" had pre-existing conditions that made them susceptible to the cold or vehicular accidents.

There is no reason to close schools and workplaces with theeconomy the way it is. This morning, I called my kids' school and demanded they resume in-person classes immediately. I urge all of you to do the same. Kids need to be in school, and if some silly, fearful cowards want to keep their kids home, that's fine. But I'm no coward. I am brave and don't care who knows it! As a taxpayer, I expect the school buses running with an army of terrified, underpaid drivers navigating slick country roads and risking their lives and the lives of others on my behalf.

And for anyone who "feels" that my logic on this topic is warped and ridiculous, please remember that this same reasoning is just as solid regardless of the issue youuse it on.

Edgar Bunton,Buffalo

Link:

A 'snowverreaction' created to restrict our freedom - News-Leader