{"id":3795,"date":"2022-11-29T02:09:58","date_gmt":"2022-11-29T07:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/?p=3795"},"modified":"2022-11-29T12:53:01","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T17:53:01","slug":"chairpersons-report-politics-and-our-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/2022\/11\/chairpersons-report-politics-and-our-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Chairperson&#8217;s report: Politics and Our Union"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_970\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-970\" class=\"size-full wp-image-970\" src=\"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Meredith-Byline-photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"288\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-970\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"photocredit\">Photo credit: Diane Alancraig Photography<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>Much hangs in the balance with the outcome of the 2022 midterm election. Republicans, who appear poised to take control of the House as I write this column, have openly promised to stall Biden\u2019s Democratic agenda until after the 2024 presidential election. They have also explicitly threatened to force a default on US Treasury debt unless they obtain cuts to programs like Social Security and Medicare. As imperfect as our system of government is, certain ideals\u2014representational government, equal opportunity, and no citizen above the law\u2014are core values of our Constitution. Will we be able to retain our majority-rule democracy or succumb to the ultra-right MAGA Republican delusions of minority rule, fueled by corporate super PACs?<\/p>\n<p>Despite having dodged the pandemic bullet, our orchestras remain in jeopardy because our country\u2014our democracy\u2014is in jeopardy. Rights and freedoms long assumed sacrosanct are being stripped away by a radical Supreme Court. Conservative state legislatures are curtailing the right of their citizens to vote and threatening to take control of the electoral system altogether, regardless of the popular vote. The looming reality of climate change continues to destabilize our economy and our planet.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As we have learned over decades of economic vicissitudes, when the going gets tough, the arts go first.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Coming out of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration passed the New Deal programs, a sweeping package of federal regulations, financial reforms, and public works projects enacted by the Federal Government to help the American people survive. Among those programs, which included banking industry regulation and the establishment of Social Security, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The arts program, known as Federal One, ultimately inspired the passage of the National Foundation of Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 (NEA and NEH) under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The NEA provided the foundation for many of our full-time ICSOM orchestras (Chairperson\u2019s Report, <i>Senza Sordino<\/i> April \u201922). Without the possibility of passing universal healthcare coverage through Congress, Medicare and Medicaid were signed into law in 1965 as an amendment to Social Security.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Republican control ushered in the era of reducing big government\u2014recall Reagan\u2019s famous quote that \u201c&#8230;government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.\u201d Funding for public works has been cut mercilessly ever since. Social Security and Medicare remain under constant threat. Union membership and bargaining power have diminished along with the salaries and working conditions of Americans. The banking industry and Wall Street are untethered from regulation and corporate subsidies continue to grow along with a burgeoning military industrial complex. Money continues its upward flow into the hands of the top one percent\u2014ironically, the very money that our orchestras are now dependent on for survival.<\/p>\n<p>By necessity, our orchestra associations are apolitical. Our nonprofit business model requires that we fund-raise from every ideological stripe. But we are not our orchestras. We are members of the American Federation of Musicians and of ICSOM. We are a labor union. Unions have the collective power to change our society but only so long as we retain our representative government and stop the silent, slow-motion insurrection that is undermining our democracy.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>It is encouraging to see the beginnings of a resurgence of organized labor across the country. New industries are organizing and voting in favor of union representation under a collective bargaining agreement. How can we, members of ICSOM, help to turn the political tide in our country? What can we do alongside our AFM colleagues to affect the political landscape and help create a more egalitarian society\u2014one that supports the rights of all our citizens and promotes a more democratic and representative government?<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Our union is our political vehicle. Check in with your Local and see what might be on their political agenda. It may be too late for the 2022 midterms but the 2024 presidential election cycle is right around the corner.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The future of our country is in our hands. The futures of our orchestras, the AFM, and ICSOM are in our hands. We are the living network that connects our orchestras to one another\u2014and we are their voice within our union. Let\u2019s make use of it and see what we can accomplish together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much hangs in the balance with the outcome of the 2022 midterm election. Republicans, who appear poised to take control of the House as I write this column, have openly promised to stall Biden\u2019s Democratic agenda until after the 2024 presidential election. They have also explicitly threatened to force a default on US Treasury debt&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/2022\/11\/chairpersons-report-politics-and-our-union\/\">[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14,245],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chairperson-reports","8":"category-november-2022","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chairperson&#039;s report: Politics and Our Union | Senza Sordino<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/2022\/11\/chairpersons-report-politics-and-our-union\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chairperson&#039;s report: Politics and Our Union | Senza Sordino\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Much hangs in the balance with the outcome of the 2022 midterm election. Republicans, who appear poised to take control of the House as I write this column, have openly promised to stall Biden\u2019s Democratic agenda until after the 2024 presidential election. They have also explicitly threatened to force a default on US Treasury debt... [Read more]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/2022\/11\/chairpersons-report-politics-and-our-union\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Senza Sordino\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/ICSOM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-11-29T07:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-29T17:53:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.icsom.org\/senzasordino\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Meredith-Byline-photo.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"288\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter de Boor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ICSOM\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" 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