Hello,

I am sorry to say, that society is falling apart. You may already know that and feel that now. I say society is falling apart due to purely economic reasons, because it is true. As you know, I am also becoming an economist. Simply put if the people have less economic means, then society will not be able to function normally, as it should. The private economies are doing well, but the overall society is not.

Let me give you some background. In 1971, America went off the gold standard. The Bretton Woods Agreement terms changed. In that US dollars would no longer be backed by gold or silver, for that matter. From that point, America and other nations, could “print” money at will. A reason why we had such high inflation, or “stagflation” in the 1970s. Again we are having high inflation now.

In the present economic downturn, many states have decreased their spending, particularly in the area of public health. That's why it's gratifying to see City Council, the Department of Public Welfare and the General Assembly working together to bring more dollars into the state so we can actually improve care for the Uninsured and Medicaid eligible population in Philadelphia.

Quick Fact! Just because a person has Medical Assistance Health Coverage, that doesn't mean they can find a doctor! Most doctors around here refuse to accept Medical Assistance, that's why the Federally Qualified Health Centers and the City's Health Centers are so important.

Council took the first step yesterday to move a plan that will move millions more dollars into our hospitals and health centers. PUP is especially excited because the Department of Health believes that these new funds should enable them to bring wait times at City Health Centers down to less than 30 days and improve health care by implementing electronic records throughout all city facilities (including jails and youth centers).

More details in the jump!

Judge Darnell Jones anounced an innovative plan to stem foreclosures in Philadelphia Wednesday. Philadelphia homeowners will have a chance to modify the terms of sub-prime and predatory loans so that they can again afford the payments. It's a modification, not a re-finance, which means that they don't have to reapply or accrue new settlement fees. The lender simply agrees to lower the interest rates and change the terms on the existing mortgage. The deal only applies to owner-occuppied residences. It also only applies if the owner-occupant takes advantage of the court-mandated opportunity to meet with attorneys for their lender within 45 days of the foreclosure filing. If they don't, foreclosure will proceed like it always does.

In Harold Brubaker's story on the deal in yesterday's Business Section of the Inquirer, Tobi Walker of the Pew Charitable Trusts said, "This is one of the more innovative approaches we've seen."

The situation for lenders has been bad enough that they have been willing to pursue modifications with homeowners, but the process has been so cumbersome that many homeowners have still lost their homes because the foreclosure moved faster than lenders' workout staff could get through the volume of cases. Philadelphia advocates had a key insight: we have a large workforce of housing counselors available and willing to manage the lion's share of the modification process, if only the lenders would agree to give them that authority. Now, the court is requiring it.

Common Please Court has made this happen procedurally. It now simply requires lenders to give homeowners the opportunity to modify loans before permitting a foreclosure to go forward in court. There's no case or decision to look up. The court has simply changed the way it conducts the business of foreclosure.

Here's how it happened: late last year The Philadelphia Unemployment Project began calling Philadelphians holding mortgages through Countrywide. We invited them to meet as a group with our housing counselors, discuss their options as individuals and ask them to join with us as a group to press for a better deal through our Foreclosure Crisis Committee. Then, in December, the Save Our Homes Coalition convened in the PUP offices. Community Legal Services, ACORN, Philadelphia Legal Assistance and various Housing Counseling Agencies from around the city.

Meanwhile, the whole economy began teetering badly as the collective misjudgement of America's housing market by the world financial industry became apparent. Click read more to find out the rest of the story.

Shadow World is a project by David Kessler to document the lives of real people living under the El Train in Kensington, a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. He gives people a chance to give a first person account of their lives. It's political work, giving a voice to people that aren't heard from as much.

I thought Jennifer had written about this guy at some point, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, a lot of times, political types have a hard time with political art. What's the message? Where's the demand? Artists are taking on a different project than we are, though. They are moving consciousness and perspective and causing unusual juxtapositions that shake up our comfortable realities. Kessler's video work is pretty simple, but that's because his subject is so rich that he doesn't need to dress it up.

As you can see, there is an opening tomorrow night at The International House, 3701 Chestnut St, 6PM - 8PM. As long as the weather is bike-able, I'll be there. Maybe I'll see some other Philadelphians I know there, too? Let me know if you plan to go.

Cross-posted at ThisTooWillPass

YPP--

This community has been an important way for me to get the lay of the political land here in Philadelphia. I only got here in 2005, and this site has really helped me to get grounded. Readers, writers and those of you who just show up to Dan's parties have all been important to me.

So, I'd like to express my appreciation by adding you guys to my Earth Day mailing list. Other people do Christmas Cards. I do Earth Day cards. I make a comic every (or most) years for Earth Day and I send it out to friends, family and progressive fellow travellers around the country as a fun way to spread some eco-consciousness.

The Media Mobilizing Project got big time coverage today in The New York Times. Todd Wolfson and the MMP crew really are getting new media tools in the hands of new and hard-pressed communities.

I met Todd through my work at PUP, and I have to confess that I was pretty skeptical about what his organization was trying to do when he first told me about it. You could even say I was skeptical to the point of being discouraging.

I can be accused of many things, though, but not of failing to acknowledge it when I'm demonstrably wrong. The fact that MMP really is getting normal people to use these tools has been well (and prominently) documented today. Click read more for the details!

The Daily News today editorialized in favor of the demands PUP and the coalition of groups working here to prevent foreclosure made before City Council last week.The editorial board wrote:

Those people on the front lines of the issue - such as ACORN and Philadelphia Unemployment Project- seem to agree that pressure must be put on loan servicers to work more closely with local housing agencies to devise workout agreements with homeowners facing foreclosure.

Lenders and servicers can't work fast enough - or don't want to - to handle large numbers of mortgage workouts. But they need to be pressured to come to the table and work with those on the front lines to help homeowners.

Click read more for a breakdown of our demands!

YPP book club! This Thursday, Matthew Countryman will be at the Penn Bookstore with his book, "Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia".

During the 1940s and 1950s, liberal civil rights groups in the city successfully campaigned for Philadelphia's new City Charter to be the first in the nation to include a ban on racial discrimination in municipal employment, services, and contracts. Within a decade, however, black activists in the city were leading consumer boycotts and street protests against the city's liberal establishment for failing to overcome entrenched structures of racial inequality in labor markets, residential neighborhoods, and public schools. ....

Challenging the view that it was the inflammatory rhetoric of Black Power and the rising demands of black activists that derailed the civil rights movement, Up South documents the efforts of Black Power activists in Philadelphia to construct a vital and effective social movement that combined black nationalism's analysis of racism's constitutive role in American society with a program of grassroots community organizing and empowerment. On issues ranging from public education and urban renewal to police brutality and welfare, Philadelphia's Black Power movement remade the city's political landscape. And, in contrast to the top-down middle-class leadership of traditional civil rights groups, Black Power in Philadelphia fundamentally altered the composition of black leadership in the city to include a new cohort of neighborhood-based working-class and female black community activists.

I picked up this book, and am about to start reading it. If anyone else does, tell me and we can totally do an ad hoc book club. I know bits and pieces of the story: the intense murals at the Church of the Advocate, the Black Panther men up against the wall, people lining Girard Avenue under the College gates. I want to know more, and if anyone reading has personal stories of their involvement in or memory of these struggles I would love if you shared them.

So, go to the talk: Thursday February 7 at 5:30 at the Penn Bookstore, 36th and Walnut Streets. And then walk down to the Penn Book Center at 34th and Sansom and buy or order the book, because the Penn Bookstore is owned by Barnes and Noble and you shouldn't support them. Oh and there is totally a paperback that just came out, so even though it printed by an academic press, it's not even too expensive!

This morning, I took part in an action with SEIU against David Rubenstein. Kati Sipp has already put SEIU's official shout-out up here. The story has already broke here and in The New York Times. The Inqy isn't quite right. Police did show but no arrests were made. The action's organizers had every intention of leading us out either before or when the police showed. Cops in Philadelphia are very respectful of protest of all kinds (I'm sure this isn't always true, but it has been for me). As long as you do what they say when they say it, I've never known anyone to get arrested. And, by that time, you've made your point so there is no reason not to go.

Rubenstein is a billionaire investor at the helm of the private equity firm, The Carlyle Group. Carlyle recently purchased Manor Care, the nation's largest nursing home chain. The work of a private equity firm is not, of course, quality services, quality work, honoring a mission or any other socially responsible business motive. The work of a private equity firm is to squeeze as much cash out of its investments as it can. At times, this might mean making a company do its job better, but it might also mean selling it off in pieces. Or kicking out Unions. Or scaling back services even more but in not quite measurable ways.

In the case of Nursing Home Care, of course, poorer services means a lower quality of life and shorter life expectancy for seniors. SEIU has an official campaign website for the issue.

I came along to the action as a friend of the Labor Movement and not as any sort of leader or Organizer. I was with the flyering group on the floor and joined in with the people unfurling the banners in the balcony when they chanted:
"Better Staffing, Better Care!
"No more money for The Billionaires!"

The event took place at The Bellevue. Click read more for the juicy details!

This is Ida May Fuller. From the Social Security website:

Miss Fuller (known as Aunt Ida to her friends and family) was born on September 6, 1874 on a farm outside of Ludlow, Vermont...Ida May never married and had no children. She lived alone most of her life, but spent eight years near the end of her life living with her niece, Hazel Perkins, and her family in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Miss Fuller filed her retirement claim on November 4, 1939, having worked under Social Security for a little short of three years. While running an errand she dropped by the Rutland Social Security office to ask about possible benefits. She would later observe: "It wasn't that I expected anything, mind you, but I knew I'd been paying for something called Social Security and I wanted to ask the people in Rutland about it."

On January 31, 1940, Ida May Fuller was the first person in the US to get a Social Security check. Sure, there are problems with Social Security today, but imagine voting for Roosevelt in 1932, seeing him pass the Social Security Act in 1935, and getting a check that helped you retire--a previously unheard of federal benefit by 1940. That sure would make me want to keep voting...

The New Deal was by no means perfect (our leftist equivalents in the 30’s saw it as a major compromise) but at least the Democrats and Roosevelt did something to respond to the Great Depression, and address the injustices caused by the the excesses of 1920’s corporations.

Can we expect the same today? (woo-hoo! The Fed is suggesting a rate cut--that'll solve all of our problems!)

Even though Democrats today have managed to regain power in the US Congress, the real accomplishment of the Republicans was not their 30 year majority rule, but the slow devolution of federal power to the states they achieved while in control. The result is that we are more reliant on the kooks in Harrisburg than ever before. And it's a lot harder for cities to go to the Feds for big pots of money to solve local problems.

What’s my point?

• The Presidential election is very important, but the Democrat we elect next November can only do so much to address Philadelphia’s problems: violence, wage loss, net population loss, a weak education system, and environmental assault.
  
  
• City Council and Mayor Nutter can tinker around the edges—-there is a lot to do there—-but at some point, they have to dive in to the big issues, and the biggest among them is generational poverty and a shrinking middle class.

These are familiar themes of course, but as we move into the first 100 days of the Nutter Administration and the new City Council, I’d love to see the new leaders of the city lay out a New Deal for Philadelphia--in writing, in detail.

I want to be able to post a picture her in the next few years of a woman, like Ida May Fuller, who gets something from city government she never expected before like an affordable housing unit paid for by expiring ten-year tax abatements, or a free education at Community College, or a decent-wage job, or free after-school for her kids.

There's been a lot of talk about hope the past few weeks, and this is my greatest hope. That’s not too much to ask is it?

Well, last year ended with 392 murders in Philadelphia, slightly less than 2006, despite a gruesome summer.

What was behind this violence, and its sudden decline. There is no one solution, but I think this NPR story holds some clues. What we saw was good law enforcement in action! Yes!

You see, according to federal drug enforcement officials, such as Drug Czar John Walters, there were major successes in curbing the amount of drugs, particularly cocaine, coming into the country early this year. One of the first places hit by the cocaine shortage was Philadelphia, where the scarcity started in May. In the following summer, there were massive amounts of violence.

Coincidence? I think not.

Barring massive tradgey or something out of the Wire Season 4, Philadelphia will have less murders in 2007 than it did in 2006. If you recall, 2006 was noted for having 406 murders - the highest number since 1998. And, earlier this year, it seemed we were on pace to surpass the 2006 mark. Somehow, some way, the murders slowed at the end of the Summer. Otherwise, we would have certainly surpassed 406.

Despite the issues pointed to by some, I am eager to see how the Nutter Adminsitration and Comm'n Ramsey respond to these numbers and gun violence in the City. After reading Dave Davies article in the Daily News today, it does seem that, a shift in policing strategy can lower the rate of gun violence and murder in Philadelphia. Check this out:

Just wanted to offer a couple thoughts on simple things the YPP community could do to help more people find us (new readers, commenters, new writers, new candidates and new reporters looking for stories, too). The web has created some powerful new tools for helping people to find the site, but it requires participation by users. Fortunately, they are all pretty fun.

I'd like to suggest regulars here consider joining one of these sites to tag your favorite posts in YPP and other great stories and blogs they find around the region. From what I've read on-line, when communities form around certain pages on the sites below and start posting favorites to these things, the attention for the websites expands dramatically. I think we are missing a lot of Philadelphians. Help us change that!

Del.icio.us. This site is so old school it's beautiful. It's just a page for saving favorite links. Do you know what I really love to use Del.icio.us for? If someone sends me a link and I'm working and want to look at it later, I don't have to email it to myself (which I will lose). I save it to my Del.icio.us page.

Stumble Upon. This one is great for people who like to take a break and look at a couple interesting things and then get back to whatever they were doing. Rather than visit the same ole things, it helps you to "stumble upon" something cool. I like to click "Stumble Upon News," which tends to reveal some really underground and intriguing stories that don't make the major dailies. This is also the place where I'm most likely to add my favorite posts (like Mansei's thing on the PPA this morning) to my page in case I want to find them later or send them to friends.

Digg.com. This one seems to be for higher quality links and users who really want to say why they like things. I think the idea of Digg is that users can view links and then sort of vote on how cool they are. So links rise up or sink down. It asks a little more of you to post a link, so I save the best of the best for my Digg page.

CLARKE IS AT IT AGAIN!

No longer content with simply tracking your purchases and banning "offensive" images, he now wants to personally oversee where restaurants go. I'll simplify the bill for you; If you have a take-out restaurant, then your going to be zoned just like if you were a strip club! In order to get a variance from the city, you would need to talk to your City Council rep. And, oh look, Clarke is in control of half of Center City! Namely, the WESTERN HALF! Considering that means everything west of City Hall, the business district and the places where the most revitalization has happened, it's obvious that this bill is here to make life hell for anyone running a business.

Credit where's Credit Due, City Council President Anna Verna is also sponsoring the bill.

Let's not forget what Darrell Clarke also wants to do:

Clarke wants to ban being able to display nooses, burning crosses, and swastikas in public. Being a fan of the First Amendment, as well as belonging to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a First Amendment group, I oppose it with every American bone in my body. It doesn't mean I entirely agree with these symbols, but at the same time, let's consider that the Swastika alone has a VERY long history of non-violence before the freakin' Nazi's bastardized it.

It's all detailed here in Bill No. 070914.

He also wants to pass two other bills. Both would create electronic tracking of beer, alcohol, spray paint containers, indelible markers and etching acid!

Bill No.: 070875 - The bill that would track cigarettes and beer:
http://www.hallwatch.org/councilnotices/bills/1192803462538

Bill No.: 070876 - The bill that would track spray paint:
http://www.hallwatch.org/councilnotices/bills/1192803462937

On November 24th, Rep. Payton and I recorded our second edition of The Legislator and The Agitator. You can download the episode in four individual tracks here.

01-The House Democrats Bonus Scandal

(14:57)

Introduction to the November 24th, 2007 show.

Discussion of the House Democrats recent firing of major staffers around large bonuses given to legislative staff.

We'll move into the issue of Reform and Rep. Payton's freshman class of Harrisburg Legislators.

02-Costing out - will the state ever pay for schools?

(16:07)

Good Schools Pennsylvania convinced the state to do a costing out study on what it would actually cost to pay for students around the state so we can do a better job of realistically discussing how much money we need to pay for schools. It started a big conversation on YoungPhillyPolitics.com.

Tony and Brady discuss the great amount of political maneuvering around this information as well as the lack of the real initiative to find the cash. Will it happen? Can it?

Also, Brady tells about the time that he fought back against a really big bully.

It makes sense in context.

Click "Read More" for the next two tracks!