Bottom-Up Change Comes To California

Over the last three days, organized labor has been working in solidarity with one another in a project called Hollywood to the Docks, a three-day march and protest involving both Change to Win unions and AFL-CIO members, from the Teamsters to SAG, from the ILWU to the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports. They've literally walked from the heart of Hollywood to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for the last three days, concluding with a concert on the docks tonight and appearances by Speaker-Elect Karen Bass and LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Next Monday, April 21, will be a day of action across the state put together by a coalition called Students for California's Future, representing 3.2 million students, with major rallies planned in Los Angeles and at the state capital. They are rallying against cuts to education and the university system, and this will be just the beginning of a year-long effort to call attention to education funding.

And tomorrow, at 4:00 at the ABC/Disney headquarters in Burbank, in protest of the historically awful, content-free Democratic debate aired on ABC last night, the Courage Campaign and local LA activists are going to offer lapel pins to Disney employees. Otherwise, their network news anchors George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson will think they hate America, which they obviously wouldn't want. (We'll have a lot more on this later)

Angered by eight years of conservative failure and inspired by a fiercely contested Democratic primary, a rejeuvenated grassroots is building all over the country and in California. Find an organization that speaks to you. Participate. Organize. And inch by inch, we're going to take this state and this country back.