The governor’s proposal already includes a few jabs at the rich, like new taxes on yachts and furs.

A late December Quinnipiac poll made it clear where voters stand.  They support raising the state income tax on people who make more than $1 million per year by 84 – 13 percent. Even Republicans back a millionaires tax 72 – 27 percent.  Even the head of the New York assembly, Sheldon Silver, backs it.  Only 10% support cutting services in education or health care, though that’s what the government is planning to do.

In These Times has a great story on the subject featuring a number of key points that, somehow, escaped the attention of the New York Times. To wit: New York has halved the top income tax rate in the past 30 years; New Jersey has already raised taxes on the wealthy; and a reminder that Leona Helmsley said, “Taxes are for the little people.”  Check it out here.

Of course, the devil will be in the details.  Some are pushing for raising taxes at the $250K income level, others for some point between $250K and $1 million.  The millionaire tax passed by NY’s assembly last summer only raised taxes on millionaires 1% (more for those making $5 million plus).  And revenue is one thing, spending is another.  However, I take this as a good sign that the pendulum of power is shifting.  Now we just need to push elected officials to do the right thing – and find and elect people to replace them if they won’t.

• Burger King and Subway joined McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Whole Foods in agreeing to improve wages and working conditions for farmworkers in Florida.  Youth worked the fact that they are biggest target market for fast food and took their Fair Food tour around the country.  Burger King’s hiring an infiltrator to go into the Student Farmworker Alliance backfired on them big time, as news got out that BK’s CEO was behind it and scathing editorials busted out all over.
• Youth mobilized for the environment: In San Francisco, young artists and activist staged Grind for the Green, the first solar-powered hip hop show. Across the bay, the city of Oakland launched its inaugural Green Jobs Corps. On September 27th, more than 50,000 people across the nation participated in a national day of action, calling on politicians to invest in green jobs. Adding to the green momentum, Energy Action Coalition‘s youth-led Power Shift initiative (including nearly 50 environmental groups) led a national campaign calling for collective action on energy efficiency. Power Shift was active on over 300 campuses, with some 300,000 young people participating across the country.

To read more, go here.

Another story notes that Palestinians are “under a rain of cluster bombs, dropped by Israel, bought and sold by us. Last night, the US blocked – once again – a call for a cease-fire at the UN Security Council, today Senate “leaders” Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Mitch McConnell were standing solidly behind Israel’s ground operation against Hamas…let’s tell them where we stand.” Check out all of Alternet’s coverage here.

Common Dreams headlines “UN Leader: Invasion A Monstrosity.”   Huffington Post, called one of the biggest media stories of the year by Adweek for its explosive growth, tells us that even Jews in Sderot, where Hamas rockets have fallen, oppose this war (see the story here).  (Most deliciously, E&P notes the almost complete silence of the New York Times on this matter.)  They give us a story in the under-appreciated Editor and Publisher entitled “US Media Coverage Of Gaza Invasion Largely Biased Toward Israel.” (Stop the presses!  Check out the story here) Huffpo also links to a story in the Israeli paper Haaretz entitled “Right and Left, Diaspora Jews More Critical of Israel Than Ever.”

Anshell Pfeffer writes that Jews who care about Israel but are troubled by the excessive violence find that “others around them… can’t find in themselves compassion for the dead and wounded on the other side. They begin asking themselves very awkward questions: Are they surrounded by latent racists?”  He ends this way: “While the world’s Jews are still broadly in favor of Israel, they have more information and less innocence than ever before, and will give support, but with a healthy dose of criticism…Both Israeli and Diaspora leaders should be providing space for this kind of discourse, because stifling [it] will not consolidate support for Israel but increase frustration and disillusionment with it.”

This news comes from Harvey Wasserman, an activist who edits a website called nukefree.org.  He notes that the three communities currently rely on atomic power for some 75% of their electricity, which is supplied through Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon, America’s largest nuke owner.  With 11 operating reactors, Illinois has more reactors than any other state.

But 31,586 (68.3%) voters approved the referendum, versus 14,676 (31.7%) opposed.

Atomic energy will be one of the most critical issues the new administration will face. Obama was criticized  for taking campaign donations from Exelon.  Both he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden expressed campaign support for atomic power.

But the issue of how to finance such a “nuclear renaissance” now overshadows all the rhetoric, and will define the technology’s future.  A strong lobby is pushing new nukes.  The financial community hasn’t been excited, but new ratepayer-based reactor financing is now being shoved through state public utilities commissions in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and possibly elsewhere, with tens of billions in potential liability.   Also, in the fall of 2007, the industry inserted into a Congressional energy bill a package of loan guarantees meant to provide $50 billion in taxpayer-backed funds to build new reactors.

That gambit ultimately failed, thanks to some strong grassroots organizing.  This fall an even larger federal loan plan, offering virtually unlimited funds, was on its way to the US Congress.  Fortunately, the financial meltdown has put the kibosh on it pretty well for now.

Exelon will no doubt still have the President’s ear and his sympathy.  This strong vote by the people who have the most to lose from nuclear power – those who have to live near the plants – is a good sign that the resistance is strong and growing, and that the new administration won’t be able to sneak a favor in for their pals on nuclear power.

FAIR’s Jeff Cohen said it best: “With his legacy of best-selling books and historic recorded interviews, Studs will no more be silenced by death than Wobbly songwriter Joe Hill was by a Utah firing squad. If Howard Zinn wrote A People’s History, Studs developed “A People’s Journalism” – putting the stories and wisdom of poor and working class Americans [among others] on tape and the printed page.”  (Read Cohen’s whole commentary here.)

I didn’t know much about Miriam Makeba back in 1988.  I was home sick one weekend and decided to rent some music movies.  I watched a movie of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour and, while I’ve been a fan of Simon’s all my life, what knocked me on my ass that day was Makeba.  She impressed me more than almost any artist I’ve heard on the first listen.

Known as the “Empress of African song,” she grew up in South Africa, but she and even her records were banned there after she spoke out against the Sharpsville massacre and the apartheid system in the 60s.  Her third husband was Hugh Masekela; her fourth was Stokely Carmichael.  While some supporters of the apartheid boycott criticized Paul Simon for not conferring with exile groups before hiring South African musicians for “Graceland,” Makeba and Masekela gave him full support, because they felt the project brought important issues into general discussion and made cultural activity even more potent.  Like Studs and Joe Hill, she won’t be silenced; her work lives on.

Lawyers from the downtown firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel are trying to provide the knowledge. Peter Sloane, a partner at Cahill who has experience working with youth, introduced the concept at The Door, where his firm already was providing pro bono legal services.

There’s been some issues with the police activity in schools.  On Nov. 23, an estimated 200 young people rallied at City Hall in support of the Student Safety Act, introduced into City Council in August,  that would increase oversight of school safety agents.   Udi Ofer, advocacy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, says that under this regime, “What was once a trip to the principal’s office is now a trip downtown.”  So these grassroots activities are an important part of protecting the rights of vulnerable youth.

Check out the whole story here.

Two nonprofits — the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the Community Food Security Coalition in Portland, Ore. — formed a program last year to link up schools with nearby farms across the country.  Even Los Angeles has gone local: Rather than relying on a single food distributor, the school district now sends a buyer to farmers’ markets in the wee hours of the morning each day.

The National Farm to School Network estimates 2,000 programs have been set up.  Since its inception, the network has advised parents, farmers and school administrators interested in starting their own farm-to-school movement, and also lobbied for changes in federal legislation that would make it easier to do so, says co-director Marion Kalb.

It’s a win-win-win:  kids love the food and eat more,  local farms get money, it builds the market for local produce.  Even large food suppliers like Sodexho and Sysco are working more with local suppliers rather than trucking all the good in from far away.

“You’ve got to be taught/Before it’s too late/Before you are 6 or 7 or 8/To hate all the people/Your relatives hate…” The Matthew Shepard Foundation hopes to get to young people early so they can live “healthy and hate-free,” unlike  the imagined kids in the “South Pacific” song.  They’ve created their own website about it, Matthewsplace.com, and are linking up with Myspace, Facebook, etc.  Habbo.com, a teen-targeted virtual world, is partnering with them to educate their members through discussions about a range of issues including bullying, discrimination and hate. Beginning July 7, the Foundation will lead discussions twice a week in Habbo.com’s InfoBus, a virtual room designed as a safe environment for teens to discuss issues.

Hard to believe it’s been ten years since Matthew Shepard was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime.  I’m glad his parents are working to make sure others don’t meet the same fate.