At South Seattle Emerald, Matt Remle and Nikkita Oliver write—Seattle Municipal Bank: A Future for Us All:
In February, Seattle made history as the first city to divest from Wells Fargo.
Organizers from the local Native community with support from allies, launched the Mazaska Talks global divestment movement successfully. Soon after Seattle divested a rip tide of global momentum took hold with individuals, cities, universities, and tribes all taking similar action to divest.
The immediate question following the Seattle vote was who should Seattle bank with given other Wall Street banks are equally disreputable in their practices? The answer being the city needs to create its own municipal bank bank free of Wall Street influence where we can ensure Seattle’s money is not used to finance human rights violations, pipelines, private prisons, or immigration detention centers.
A municipal bank where we can see the City’s money, our money, re-invested into the people of Seattle; a bank where its first and primary mandate is the public interest of our city and its residents; a bank guided by and invested in the values of our “progressive” city.
A municipal bank sounds exciting, but is it even possible?
Yes, we are not the first city to consider this. It can be done and we, Seattle, are on our way to do it. This last budget session—in partnership with environmentalists, prison divestment organizers, and members of the Native and Black communities—the Seattle City Council approved $100k to complete a public bank study. The goal of this study is to investigate the feasibility of a municipal bank, the benefits, and how this shift will provide Seattle with more financial capital to address crisis such as affordability, housing, and homelessness.
This is about so much more than a publicly owned city bank. This is about our vision, our values, and, most importantly, our shared future and existence. First peoples own, occupy or use about 25 percent of the world’s surface area, and yet safeguard 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. The continued resistance of indigenous people has awakened many non-indigenous peoples’ sense and desire to live in ways that protect our natural resources and our shared human existence.
Resistance and divestment are not enough. We must also build the world we most need to see. This includes establishing shared financial institutions which, like us, also protect our natural resources and shared human existence. Our future–all of our futures–depends on it.
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~Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)
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On this date at Daily Kos in 2003—Saddam Captured: What Next?
They dug him out of hole.
It's one of the most ignominious ends to a tyrant's freedom, almost as humiliating an end to his reign as when the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were dangled from a pole in the Piazza Loreto in Milan, like deer carcasses being bled out in a hunting camp. Saddam's done, and the world is a better place for it.
Clearly there will be celebrating by many in Iraq. But what's next? The U.S. officials haven't indicated what will be done with Saddam, but Ahmed Chalabi is already making declarations that Saddam will go on public trial before the Iraqi people. Will there be a public trial? Will the U.S. choose to keep Saddam quiet?
What about weapons of mass destruction? Now we've got the guy in custody, and he's probably beaten and demoralized. Maybe he'll be like Milosevic and stay defiant, but the early pictures don't show a man with the energy to maintain resistance. So he may be inclined to tell the truth about WMD. But is the truth what the Bush administration wants Saddam to tell?
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin marks the anniversary of what people in Newtown call simply, “12/14.” More AL-SEN fallout, and the GOP rifts it exposed. Trump emoluments roll on. Alt-right dorks brag on, disavow Schumer smear when cops are called. OK, WTF with Yemen?
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