05/09/05  DallasArena.com inspiration

Congratulations on the BIG victory on Saturday night.  The people spoke and turned a "thumbs down" to an insane power grab! 

The "informed opposition" was there to counter all the money and the press pushing what the mayor and Blackwood were trying to do.  Citizen activism, via the internet in large part, has provided our side access to people in large numbers, telling the folks what "They" aren't telling them. 

Twenty years ago, citizens like you and me had little to no chance of countering the "big money machines" pushing certain political issues.  The internet has changed all that!

I believe Dallasarena.com was the first website I came across that really went up against the power brokers of Dallas.  It takes guts to step out there and take on the establishment.  It's always tougher to take a stand against that which is wrong.

There was an obscure little website a while back which profiled what appeared to be a fake hate crime over at Ron Kirk's church, which prompted passage of the state's hate crimes law in 2001.  The website was an analysis of a crime whose "big picture" was vastly underreported.  The website received hate mail, which I'm sure you have, too.  That's the price that is sometimes paid for standing up to the status quo.

Much as you stand up to the power brokers in Dallas, I have recently embarked on my own mission in a way that has not been widely done.

I'm a proud 19-year member of a national union, comprised of some 1.4 million workers.  I belong to a local near Fort Worth. 

Like many of my union brethren, for years I had "assumed" that we had few, if any, rights within our union.  We had thought we didn't have any access to financial decisions regarding use of our dues moneys.  "They", meaning our local and international union officers never made informed the members on a wide scale of the rights we enjoy as union members, despite a federal law containing those rights, passed in 1959, that requires unions to inform their members of the provisions of that law.  It has simply been ignored.

To advise my fellow local union members of information that the union officers have not, a small group of us have set up a website.  Using the free speech rights we enjoy, we are simply informing the 99% or so of our members (who don't know) of what's going on at our local, particularly in the area of finances. 

Some of our members have not been to meetings in years.  Therefore, they can't hear details of spending which are read only at meetings.  With a local membership over 4000, we're lucky to have 25 people show up to a meeting.  Most who attend are "loyalists" to the incumbents, who themselves have a very checkered past.

We've gotten hold of 11 years of our local's financial reports, filed annually through the Labor Dept., and have pointed out wasteful spending.

I've talked to 30-year union members who had never seen these reports and didn't know they had the right to see them.  It's another reason why unions haven't followed the law.  "Keep 'em dumb" seems to be the union hierarchy's take on stuff, while the dues money (up to $64) a month keeps rolling in. 

I got legal guidance.  Every thing I'm saying is within my free speech rights.

Sharon, I simply wanted to share with you my own little brand of "citizen activism".  I consider you my "mentor", for you have shown me that people, despite the bashing received, can stand up against that which is wrong.  Had it not been the inspiration of seeing what you have done with DallasArena.com, I don't think I could have ever embarked on a quest like this. 

Citizen K