5 Protests Blooming in Washington, D.C., This Spring

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/activism/5-protests-blooming-washington-spring



***SNIP

1. Act. Fast.

In the first week of April, more than a hundred women spent 48 hours in the nation’s capital at the close of a month-long national fast to end deportations and compel the administration to take action on fair immigration. Following the nationwide April 5 day of action against deportations, We Belong Together co-sponsored Act. Fast. to highlight the stories of women and children who are disproportionately burdened by our broken immigration system.

***SNIP

2. NSA: Stop spying on us

The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to move a bill within the next month that, like its Senate counterpart, would essentially legalize mass surveillance. At the same time, the USA FREEDOM Act, which would make some changes to current NSA spying in favor of privacy, is languishing in the House Judiciary Committee. To influence its chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, to stop dragging his feet on moving the bill out of committee, a coalition of national groups called for constituents to take action on April 10 around the country.

***SNIP

3. Representation Day

With the Supreme Court’s recent decision on the McCutcheon case, now unceremoniously referred to as Citizen’s United 2, it has become ever more clear that policy decisions are increasingly being made by whomever can write the biggest campaign check, or bribe. For a small number of folks, that is great news. For the rest of us, who can’t afford to buy access, it’s akin to taxation without representation.

***SNIP

4. Cowboys and indians

It’s not what you are thinking: Dozens of tribes, farmers and ranchers who live close to the land, and consider themselves stewards of the earth and its waters, have come together to create the Cowboy Indian Alliance. This alternative CIA has dedicated itself to fighting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline intended to transport tar sands oil from the Alberta oil fields to the Gulf of Mexico. Although tar sands are toxic to all life forms, indigenous communities — and others living on the path of the pipeline or in the shadow of the sites where it is mined and processed — are effected disproportionately. Embracing their connection to the earth has enabled this alliance to build power together.