Staying Grounded in Dangerous Times #2

March 26, 2025

Filed under: Advocacy,Leadership,Politics — jonathanpoisner @ 10:30 am

February 28, 2025

I wrote my last email less than a week into our current wannabe dictator’s Term.

Now I can say: one month down, 47 to go.  Sigh.  

Last month, I noted that it felt wrong to put out an e-newsletter as if the world hadn’t changed fundamentally for nonprofits.

Of course, there are thousands of nonprofits right now struggling to survive as illegal and/or callous decisions seek to claw back their grants and contracts.  This is especially true for those involved in US AID and those reliant on funds related to the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act’s climate spending  If you’re among them, I feel your pain and hope you’ve found a way to get the legal and other support you need.  

For those of you who have yet to have your own funds cut, how do you react?  

Three bits of quick advice this month:

1. Reach out to your friends who’re struggling, either financially or emotionally.  We are stronger together.  

2. Speak out. Whether that’s calling your members of Congress (daily), writing letters to the editor, speaking out at town halls, or some other activity.  Now’s not the time to cower. 

3.  Be realistic about your own nonprofit’s fundraising.  I know a lot of groups whose annual budgets called for growth this year.  I’m not saying it won’t happen, particularly if you had solid plans and had investments (of time in particular) in place to actually do more fundraising.  Recognize there’s a very strong chance that increased inflation and massive layoffs, among with the business uncertainty engendered by chaos, will equal a recession. 

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Why Wisconsin Matters

February 24, 2011

Filed under: Politics — Tags: — jonathanpoisner @ 9:45 am

What’s happening today in Wisconsin and a few other states matters.   A lot.

Taking away the rights of public employees to collectively bargain and form effective unions represents a threat to our freedom.

The big battle for freedom in America today isn’t between citizens and so-called “Big Government,” as the right wing would have us believe. It’s between citizens and corporations.

(By corporations, I’m not referring to small businesses — heck I’m incorporated myself; I’m referring to large corporations publicly traded that have zero allegiance to anything except the singular goal of maximizing shareholder value).

Yes, government takes some of our income as taxes and places some limits on our behavior through laws.

But corporations limit our freedom in many more profound ways.   And they’d limit our freedom far more if not for government as a tool citizens use to fight back.

Corporations thrive by making us dependent on them.  And we are – for our health, our sustenance, our housing, and many other necessities.  It’s impossible to live in America today and not transact with corporations literally dozens of times per day.

We are rarely in a position to bargain with corporations; almost always we must accept their terms.

Aside from limiting our freedom when we buy, corporations limit our freedom in many other ways.

Corporations limit freedom when they pump poisons into our air and water, thus limiting our ability to safely breathe the air and drink the water.  If not for government enforcing clean water and clean air rules, our freedom would be limited to a far greater degree.

Corporations limit freedom when they charge obscene amounts for basic health care and use all sorts of underhanded tactics to remove sick people from health insurance coverage after taking their money.  I have a friend who is still paying off medical bills more than a decade after a major illness, when he lived briefly without health insurance because his employer had him under contract instead of permanent employment.

Corporations limit freedom when they prey on desperate people, charging usurious rates of interest short-term loans.

Let there be no mistake – the battle over whether public employees can unionize is really part of a much larger battle over whether and how individual citizens can band together via unions or any other type of institution to seek redress from government and corporations.

If states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and other states with long union traditions strip away the rights of public employees, it will mark an acceleration in the decline of America’s middle class and a significant weakening of our ability to fight back.

So if I were in Wisconsin today, I’d be at the rallies.  And perhaps even more, I’d be raising money and preparing for an epic election in the year or two ahead.

And when it comes down to it, we’re all in Wisconsin when it comes to this battle.

The November 2012 general election is just 621 days away.   There’s no time to waste.

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