#Policy Reform

[ivygorgon]

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Out with Incest Laws: Reconsider Blood Quantum Laws in Native Reparations

An open letter to State Governors & Legislatures

1 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!

I am writing to express profound concerns about the continued reliance on Blood Quantum Laws, or Indian Blood Laws, in Native Reparations Programs. These laws, established by federal and state governments as far back as 1705, define Native American status based on fractions of Native American ancestry, perpetuating harmful consequences for tribal communities and some, alarmingly, terminating before just 5 generations.

The use of Blood Quantum Laws has led to detrimental effects on Native American families and communities. It has incentivized harmful family planning practices, compelling individuals to marry within close kin networks to maintain "pure bloodlines." This practice not only violates individual autonomy but also jeopardizes genetic diversity and the long-term viability of tribal populations.

Of utmost concern is the declining population within many tribal communities, with some nearing critical thresholds of fewer than 1000 individuals. This situation is further exacerbated by the principles of population biology, particularly the 50/500 rule, which underscores the need for a minimum population of 500 individuals to reduce genetic drift and ensure sustained viability. It is troubling to note that these laws inadvertently encourage cousin marriages, posing additional risks to community health and resilience.

Moreover, Blood Quantum Laws impose an arbitrary expiration date on government-funded reparations and jeopardize the cultural continuity of these communities. By tethering Native American status to ancestry thresholds, these laws undermine the diversity and autonomy of tribal enrollment criteria.

I urge policymakers to urgently reconsider the use of Blood Quantum Laws in Native Reparations Programs and advocate for a more inclusive and sustainable approach to reparations. This approach should prioritize the cultural and social integrity of Native American communities, safeguarding their continued existence and resilience for future generations.

Our villages were razed by colonizers, our ancestors were genocide survivors, and, as ever, our children bear the enduring impacts of historical injustices.

Thank you for considering these critical issues and taking decisive action to address them.

Source:

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[afracturedfacade]

AI Seems Scary, but it Will Likely do More Good Than Bad

Just venting my personal opinions all over this post, which few if any people will see anyway. Call it organizing my thoughts I guess? AI is here to stay, and that's not a bad thing, or at least it doesn't have to be. Back in the day there were doomsayers, many of them well known and respected personalities, all over the place touting the dangers of the Internet and you know what? They weren't entirely wrong. They were also more wrong than right. So-called experts have an unfortunate tendency to make wrong predictions about the future, especially in regards to emerging and novel technologies. A couple of centuries ago, there were publications on expert opinions about how it wouldn't be possible to travel at high speed (like 50kph+) because it would lead to asphyxia.

The internet is a modern mainstay, nearly as important as electricity. Without it, much of what we count on day to day will grind to a halt. Putting aside personal devices like desktops, tablets, etc. that are usually internet-connected, there are a lot of other things that rely on it. Credit card machines are internet connected and without it our increasingly cash-less society will grind to a near halt. Many companies, especially larger ones, need to 'check in' with some central sever somewhere to function effectively. That'd be gone too. A lot of information will be lost outright, or at least isolated where it isn't terribly useful. The impact of internet on both personal and business productivity is in the trillions per year. It saves time, sometimes a lot of it, and 'time is money', as they say. This is to say nothing of how much power it puts in the hands of the average person with internet access. It can empower people to find better opportunities, and advocate for themselves. It is a jumping point for learning new skills, often for free.

I see AI as much the same. If you consider its growth and accessibility, it is a lot like the internet. At first it was used mainly by governments, corporations, and in research. Institutions, in other words. The internet back in the day was mostly used by the same groups. So at first it was mainly the people that work at these places that experienced it. Then enthusiast tech-heads started getting their hands on it for personal use, experimenting with what it can do. Then there was limited public access in the form of AI assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Bixby, etc. Those could be sort of useful, sometimes. Now we're at the point where it's getting better, and at an increasing pace. It has 'blown up' with the introduction of Chat-GPT and the like. Sure, it's still awkward, and it can be abused, but the same is true of the internet. There will always be those that abuse useful tools to exploit others and cause harm and mayhem for either personal gain, to further their extreme goals, or just to watch the world burn. Protections will evolve to try and keep pace, though they won't be perfect, and the average person will have to learn to take some pains to protect themselves as well.

And yes, AI is going to take jobs away and that will cause a lot of people problems, and while that is unfortunate it is also perfectly normal for new technologies. With that change comes new opportunities. The tools will be there for you to use to your advantage, just like the internet.

Or maybe you'll just amuse yourself by trying to get your AI to do something lewd. Probably that.

The main problem I see in future isn't the singularity. No, I'm worried that countries will fail to make appropriate policy changes to reflect the increasing automation that AI and robotics technology together, eliminating most menial labour whether it's manual or data-processing related. We could end up with a large percentage of the population that can't find work, let alone work that pays all their bills. With the increasing productive capacity of countries it should make it very much possible to sustain the population as a whole even if a large percentage aren't producing any work. It would simply not be sane to let society proceed down a path of dystopia, as the burden of a large and dissatisfied homeless and overworked population would result in civil unrest and possible violence, and more to the point such a society would be costly. It is literally cheaper to provide a basic level of housing and resources to someone who would otherwise be homeless, than it would be to deal with a homeless population.

Similarly, I can't see a world where a large fraction of the population having no purchasing power would be good for international trade. If much of the population of every country, including the wealthy ones, have no purchasing power, trade of finished consumer goods like electronics, processed foods, media, clothing, etc. would stagnate. It seems it would be more healthy to have some surplus wealth circulating through the population to keep both the country, and international trade of goods, healthy.

I don't know, it just seems like the future will become a policy choice between 'dystopia' and 'increased free time', all because of the near elimination of unskilled and low-skilled work. Low wage and low skilled workers are already prone to being treated like garbage that doesn't deserve to make enough to live on, and unless policy changes to match the times, this will only get worse.

tl;dr - There will definitely be some growing pains with AI, but it doesn't have to end in an 'AI Destroys Humanity' scenario, and likely won't. Policy changes not being made to reflect a rapidly diminishing need for menial labour is a far more pressing concern, in my mind.

[willowstea]

I hope i become some old bald car-corp guy's nightmare

[jaffacakerebellion]

i shan't derail...

and when he's walking he's leaving that sli-i-ime... and when he's talking he'll tell you in rhy-y-yme...

his shell's an act of god... the best dressed... gastropod... he's an uptown snail...

uptown worm.... into the oval office she will squirm... all her policies are fair but firm... i'd elect her to a second term

[carlthemuse]

The Internal Struggle: How American Politics is Becoming its Own Enemy

[iclegalnz]

Strengthening Immigration Law Enforcement with New Tools

Explore the latest measures enhancing employer compliance in immigration law enforcement. INZ introduces infringement notices from April 11, 2024, targeting immigration non-compliance and protecting migrant workers. By strengthening deterrence against those who exploit migrants, this initiative addresses lower-level immigration non-compliance.

[spartanmemesmedical]

Access to Abortion Care: A Human Rights Perspective

Introduction:Abortion remains a contentious issue globally, with complex implications for public health, human rights, and social justice. This assignment delves into the multifaceted aspects of abortion care, emphasizing its significance in promoting comprehensive healthcare, human rights, and gender equality. Overview:The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of complete…

[nerdykeith]

Trans women have been mistreated in prisons for a very long time. What this woman had to go through was nothing short of a disgrace. At least there is a silver lining and this is triggering a policy reform. Hopefully this will lead to a step in the right direction 

[alwaysbewoke]

[travelingtwentysomething]

You know what's funny? The minute people start aiming higher and taking out the powerful and wealthy and "elite", they're going to change the gun laws. Because their goal has always been for us to stay fighting each other instead of looking towards them as the real threat to our life, liberty, and freedom.

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Right Wing Watch:

Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s second pick for U.S. Attorney General, has ties to New Apostolic Reformation dominionists who worked hard to put Trump back in office and believe his election will bring about a spiritual “great awakening” that will help like-minded right-wing Christians take control of the “seven mountains” of influence in America—government, business, education, media, arts and entertainment, religion, and family. 

After Bondi left office as Florida’s Attorney General, she joined the America First Policy Institute, a think tank created by former staffers that, like the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, has been laying the groundwork for a “revolutionary” plan to “seize control” and dismantle the “administrative state” -- federal agencies charged with protecting American workers, consumers, and communities from corporate wrongdoing. This year, AFPI partnered with dominionist Lance Wallnau’s Courage Tour, which mixed religious revival with Christian nationalist politics and pro-Trump political organizing. Wallnau celebrated the announcement of Bondi’s nomination as a “great pick,” noting, “She’s part of the America First Policy Institute, a great group I had the privilege of working with in the last year.”  Reflecting the MAGA movement’s increasingly aggressive Christian nationalist orientation, AFPI claims scriptural foundations for every aspect of its right-wing policy agenda, which it has called “10 Pillars for Restoring a Nation Under God.” 

Former Florida AG Pam Bondi, who Donald Trump tapped to replace Matt Gaetz for the DOJ head job, has ties to Seven Mountains Dominionists and Christian Nationalists.

[racefortheironthrone]

Which federal laws and policies would you get rid of or modify in order to help the American labor movement.

I was looking through the labor law tag on my blog and your ask reminded me I haven't actually written a comprehensive post about this on Tumblr. (Indeed, you'd have to go back to my old, old policy blog from 2009...it's been a while.)

One silver lining of the Sisyphean struggle to restore American labor law that's been going on since the 1970s is that the labor movement and their allies in Congress, academia, think tanks, and progressive media have been thinking through this very issue of "what reforms would make a real difference" for a long time. I'm not going to say it's a solved question, but the research literature is pretty robust.

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to focus on the three most recent reform packages: the Employee Free Choice Act that was the main vehicle during the Obama years, Bernie Sanders' Workplace Democracy Act (which was introduced repeatedly between 1992 and 2018), and the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act) that is the current proposal of the Democratic legislative caucuses. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between these proposals, because it's very much an iterative process where allies in the same movement are trading ideas with one another and trying to stay abreast of new developments, but I'll try to tease out some of the similarities and differences.

EFCA

While EFCA contained a number of provisions that sought to close various loopholes in U.S labor law, the three main provisions largely target the flaws that have made it extremely difficult to win a union through the National Labor Relations Act process devised in 1935 that has turned into a Saw-style gauntlet thanks to the professionalization of union-busting and the Federalist Society's strategy of death-by-a-thousand-cuts:

"Card check." Probably the most common pattern of union-busting in the workplace today is a war of attrition by management waged by an industry of specialized law firms. Generally what happens is that the union files for election with a super-majority of ~70% workers having signed union cards, then management delays the vote as long as possible to give their hired "union-avoidance" firm to systematically intimidate, surveil, propagandize, and divide workers, up to and including illegally firing pro-union workers pour encouragez les autres. Over several months, what happens is that the initial 70% of pro-union support starts to erode as workers decide it's just too dangerous to stick their necks out, until the vote happens and the union loses either by a squeaker or a landslide.

Card check short-circuits this process by just saying that if the union files with a majority of cards, you skip the election and the union is recognized. And for all the pearl-clutching by the right, this is actually how labor law works in many democratic countries, because the idea of a fair election that lets management participate is an oxymoron.

Arbitrated first contract. In the event that enough workers keep the faith and actually vote for a union, management's next move is to draw out collective bargaining for a year or more. After a year, the original vote is no longer considered binding and employers can push for a "decertification" vote, which they usually win because workers either give up hope or change jobs. So this provision says that if the two sides can't reach an agreement on a first contract within 120 days, a Federal arbitrator will just impose one, so that at least for two years there will be a union contract no matter what management wants.

Strengthening enforcement. As I said above, one of the problems with existing labor law is that there are basically no penalties for management knowingly breaking the law; companies literally just budget in a line-item and do it anyway. This provision would allow unions to file an injunction against employers for unfair labor practices or ULPs (at present, injunctions are only required for violations done by unions), and would add triple back pay for illegal firings and fines of $20,000 for each ULP. This would make union-busting much more expensive, because companies routinely rack up hundreds and hundreds of them during a campaign.

Workplace Democracy Act

Sanders' proposal includes the main proposals from EFCA, and adds a bunch of additional reforms, like mis-classifying workers as independent contractors, banning captive audience meetings, making "joint employers" liable for labor law violations by franchisees, legalizing secondary boycotts, and requiring employers to report to the NLRB on all anti-union expenditures during a campaign and barring anyone convicted of an unfair labor practice from being hired for anti-union campaigns and making "union-avoidance" consultants liable for fines for ULPs (which would kill the "union-avoidance" industry, because they commit ULPs for a living).

PRO Act

The PRO Act is very much an updating of the previous efforts we've talked about. It bans captive audience meetings, allows for secondary strikes and boycotts, massively increases fines and allows for compensatory damages, ends mis-classification, speeds up the election process, etc.

It also contains a couple new and ambitious proposals:

it allows unions to sue management in court instead of having to complain to the NLRB, which opens management up to a very expensive legal proceeding and discovery.

it bans "right-to-work" as established by the Taft-Hartley Act.

it requires that any worker who's fired for pro-union activity be immediately reinstated while their unfair labor practice process or civil lawsuit is going through the process. This would be enormous just on its own, because it changes the entire veto structure of illegal firing. As it stands, employers fire people and maybe maybe have to pay some back wages in a couple years when the worker has found another job and is unlikely to come back. This would reverse the balance of power, such that the worker is immediately back and other workers can see that they can speak up without getting fired, which makes illegal firings a giant waste of time and money for management.

In terms of stuff that's not on this list that I would add, I would say that an enormous difference could be made by simply making it illegal for management to lock-out their workers or hire scabs. You do that, and unions can win almost every strike.

[flashhwing]

I understand not liking all of Harris's policies. I understand not wanting her as president. I understand believing she will not improve things for the vast majority of people. what I don't understand is looking at the two choices we have and choosing to focus on how much she will not help, because if we're honest at worst she will maintain status quo, whereas Trump is vying to make it worse. like at a certain point you gotta man up and understand that sometimes you're not voting for who wins but rather who loses. why would you rather Harris lose than Trump

[squishymochithethird]

My mom was going on and on about how “far left” and “radical” Tim Walz is and I finally listened to some of his points and.

He’s one of the most reasonable politicians I’ve heard in a very long time. I’m surprised she doesn’t like him tbh, he’s kind of the perfect democrat for someone like her??