Interview with Richard Becker

1. What is your favorite aspect of KFTC?
I like that in a world of so many partisan political organizations, KFTC remains progressive but non-partisan.
2. What are some of KFTC’s activies that you have participated in?
I have lobbied with KFTC and have participated in voter registration drives and the rallies against mountaintop removal mining and in favor of restoration of voting rights for former felons.
3. What role do you feel organizations like KFTC play in the political process?
KFTC plays an important role  in providing a link between legislators and their constituents and works to increase voter turnout among traditionally low-turnout voting blocs.
4. When and why did you join KFTC?
I joined KFTC in fall of 2005 out of an interest in getting more involved in the Lexington progressive community.
5. What issues does KFTC work on, that you feel are the most important/significant?
I am most personally interested in the issues of mountaintop removal mining and tax justice, because I think they both put Kentucky behind in the game, as usual.  By that count too, restoration is important because it also reinforces the negative image of Kentucky as a backwards state.

Interview with Katie Goldie

1. When did you join KFTC?

My dad was always a member, and he took me to Camp Wellstone, hosted by KFTC last summer. This is really what inspired me to actually be involved with KFTC. So I was a member long before that, but after Camp Wellstone was when I decided to be active about it.

2. What do you like the most about KFTC?

I love that KFTC is a membership driven organization. KFTC listens to real people about real concerns, and tries to address those concerns through effective activism like voter empowerment, and lobbying. KFTC stands up for the concerns of Kentuckians that are underrepresented, like the poor and the disenfranchised. Furthermore, KFTC promotes a tradition of activism where well experienced activists can help young people like me and my peers to develop into experienced and effective activists ourselves.

3. What does UK KFTC do?

UK KFTC is still very young, and has spent its first year involved in a variety of activities. We have co sponsored events and talks on topics such as Restoration of Voting rights, we have traveled to Frankfort for various lobby days, such as I love Mountains day. We also organized Concert for the Commonwealth, where UK progressive student organizations could all join to raise awareness about their specific issues while giving students a fun event to attend. We also made a voter guide for Student Government elections and worked on other voter empowerment issues, such as voter registration. I a

m excited to see how UK KFTC will evolve as a positive and progressive campus organization.

4. What do you do as a coordinator for UK KFTC?

Initially I was assigned the title of “publicist” so, in the beginning of the year I helped with advertising, specifically for the Concert for the Commonwealth. However, as the year progressed, the organization developed in a way that each of the active members just took on the responsibility that they were most interested in/best suited them. I would say toward the end of the year, my main contribution was in helping UK KFTC produce the Student Government Voter Guide

6. What your most favorite/frustrating thing about being a coordinator for UK KFTC?

My favorite thing about UK KFTC is that we communicate well as an organization and try our best to be in touch with important campus issues. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is dealing with apathy. It is hard to get students to care about political issues, even if they are directly affected. However, every time we succeed in one of our endeavors, it is inspiring and hopeful enough to keep on trying.

Reflections

For the past year I have worked as an intern with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. I’ve learned a great deal from it. I now have a better understanding of community organizing, citizen lobbying, and Kentucky politics. The experience introduced me to issues that I wasn’t aware of and showed me many aspects of Kentucky that I didn’t know about.

 Seeing Kentucky politics up close was often an eye opener. While I intellectually understood the that special interest groups control our state government I didn’t fully understand it until I saw it up close.  As I write this the coal industry quickly jumps to mind. Each day in Eastern Kentucky mountains are destroyed by coal companies in order to extract coal. Its a cheap and effective way to mine coal and make exuberant profits.  This comes at the cost of Eastern Kentucky’s natural beauty. It also destroys the streams in the area and displaces the homes of many the area residents. 

Eastern Kentucky’s legislators are among the strongest defenders of MTR. They are often bankrolled by the coal companies.  For years they have blocked any legislation that would limit MTR and have ensured that other legislators turn a blind eye to it. KFTC works against this.

This year we managed to get a stream saver bill before a committee, but it failed to make it out. But just the fact that it was heard was major step forward. We brought tons of people to Frankfort to lobby their legislators and to put pressure on our leaders.  The experience showed me what can be accomplished with citizen activism, but that we still have along way to go.

I never understood what community organizers did until my internship. I had always assumed that it was the equivalent to activism. It’s not. Organizer do not simply go and advocate for an issue. They go into communities and work with the people in them to help bring about the changes they want to see. An organizer facilitates and coordinates but doesn’t lead. KFTC does this. Members not staff speak for the organization.

KFTC is complety membership driven. The members decide what we work on and how we do it. In twenty five years other organizations have come and gone, while KFTC had grown to over 5, 000 members and has expanded into central Kentucky, Louisville, and many other places.  New chapters are developing in western Kentucky and older ones are growing.

I would recommend this internship to anyone who is concerned about social, economic, and environmental justice. It taught me a great deal about the problems Kentucky faces and how we can bring change. I loved it and will continue to work with KFTC for as long as I can.

UK KFTC Updates

UK KFTC has been very busy this semester and I wanted to take a minute to recap all of the work that we’ve done this semseter.

Just recently we decided to put together a voter guide for UK’s student government election. We asked all the candidates a series of questions on a variety of issues that included how to make UK more diverse, safe, enviromentally friendly. All of the candidates responded. We created a website uksgaelection.org. We managed to have UK send out a campus wide email and we handbilled across campus to promote it. The website garnered over 4,000 hits.

UK KFTC also managed to get a major represenative of the Clinton campaign to awnser a question about mountain top removal.  When Chelsea Clinton came to campus last tuesday Joe Gallenstein was the first person she called on. He used this opprotunity to ask where her mother stood on the issue. She awnsered that her mother had voted against in the past and work towards finding a balanced solution in the future.

Recently we took a moment to reflect on what we had done up to this point and what we hoped to do next year. Everyone was pleased by the amount of students we had registered to vote, the student turnout for KFTC’s two major lobby days, the concert we held last year, the SG voter guide. But we all agreed that there are areas we can improve in. Next year we hope to grow our membership on campus and increase the number of active members we have. Also, at the start of last year we decided that workers rights should be a major focus of our chapter. This an issue that we have not done a lot of work on and next year we hope to change this.

The year isnt over yet. We still have to pick our officers for next year and decide what out longterm vision will be.

Restoration Forum

The event went great. Student from UK KFTC, UK College Democrats, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Kappa Alpha, LASO, Amnesty International and many other gathered to learn about the movement to restore the vote to former felons.

We started the night with a brief showing of the ACLU’s documentary Democracy’s Ghosts. The film  chronicles the efforts of former felons in Rhode Island as they attempt to get their voting rights back. The movie was very emotional and as I watched the film I could not stop myself from feeling the pain that these people go through. The people in the movie make it abundantly clear how important the right to vote is and how those who do not have it are regulated to second class citizenship in this country.

 After the film former UK basketball player Tanya Fogle and Rep. Jesse Crenshaw spoke about how the issue impacts UK. Mrs. Fogle told how she became a felon and the difficulty’s she had to deal with before she could vote again. Rep. Crenshaw explained his bill that would give felons their rights back and his efforts in Frankfort to change the laws. Both were very passionate and spoke with great eloquence.

KFTC has been working on this issue for some time now. When we registered voters in 2004 elections we targeted lower income communites. Many people told us that they would love to vote, but that they couldn’t because they were felons. We soon discovered that this was a very widespread problem. Over 168,000 Kentuckains can’t vote because of this. That amounts to 1 out every 17 Kentuckians overall and 1 out of every 4 African Americans.

 This cannot stand. KFTC had led major lobby efforts in Frankfort and will continue to do so until all Kentuckians have the right to vote.

Reading Anaylsis of Missing Mountains

Missing Mountains is a collection of essays against mountain top removal from thirty five of Kentucky’s most prominent authors. The writers were inspired to speak out after attending the April 2005 Kentucky Authors Mountain Top Removal Tour. KFTC arranged the tour to show the devestation that mountain top removal has wrought in Eastern Kentucky. The essays in the book manage to convey the scope of the issue. Not only does it cover the environmental devastation, but more importantly it covers the human cost. The sentiment of the book is conveyed by Silas House when he writes, “It is important to point out that this is not only a book about the loss of place, but also about the suffering of people…This is a collection of writing that remembers the children who do not have good water to bathe in, the people who travel unsafe roads or live beneath sites that have already sent boulders crashing through their homes.”

Many of the writers focused their essays on the stories they heard from several different residents living around mountain top removal sites. Lucy Flood told the story of Daymon Morgan. Mr. Morgan’s whose community had been devastated by the actions of the coal companies. Much of the land he grew up on had been destroyed and many precious plants were in danger of being destroyed.

Other writers used their essays to combat many of the myths that the coal companies put out about mountain top removal. Bill Caylor the President of the Kentucky Coal Assocation was the target for many of the writers. Mr. Caylor argues that the affects of mountain top removal have been greatly exaggerated and that much of the land is being improved by the coal companies. He argues that mountain removal is actually “sustainable development.” Caylor has declared, “In fifty years you’ll have use for this land. You can’t use steep hillsides.”   

Stephen George disputes this, “Such a view typifies the bizaro, Alice in Wonderland through the looking glass logic that come into play in such discussions: asserting that Appalachian tourism cannot revolve around the natural beauty of a prehistoric mountain range, but that it will thrive around things like golf course on leveled plains, is the opposite of logic.” By destroying Eastern Kentucky’s environment the coal companies also destroy its natural beauty. This area could become a major tourist attraction and bring in much needed revenue, but this will not happen if mountain top removal is allowed to continue.

Missing Mountains contained a great deal of facts and figures about mountain top removal. KFTC included a report that they had previously issued titled “The Impact of Mountain Top Removal.” According to the report mountain top removal has led to lower employment, the destruction of lands and forest, and the pollution of large amounts of drinking water. Kentucky has lost over 30,000 jobs and has seen over 400 hundred streams buried. This has caused a lower quality of life for the residents of Eastern Kentucky. The report concludes with a very chilling note, “For the first time in history, we have the power to destroy our planet. And that is what we are doing.”

Mountain top removal has devastated Eastern Kentucky and the twenty five authors in Missing Mountains have managed to convey this. Their essay demonstrate the loss of jobs, culture, and beauty that has been wrought by the coal companies.

Citizen Lobbying

With the state legislature being in session this year KFTC has been very active in making sure that we’ve had a presence their. Much of this has involved action alerts like: calling the legislative hotline, writing letters to the editor, sending hundreds of postcards to individual legislators, and most importantly lobbying.

Early in the year we had a lobby training session for the entire community for people who interested in talking with their legislators. People of all ages came out to partake in it. The key thing that we wanted to convey was that this is something that anybody can do and that it can make a difference. The key thing is to know the issue, to be honest, and to be polite. People think that legislators know much more about a specific bill than they actually do.  

 Another aspect of the trainging was telling people about the bills that we are hoping to pass. House Bills 70, 164, and 262. HB 70 would restore the vote to former felons, HB 164 would ban the destruction of headwater streams, and HB 262 would implement a more progressive tax code.

 So far KFTC has had big lobby days on behalf of HB 164 and 262. Next Thursday we are having one on HB 70. We will bring hundreds of people to Frankfort to make sure our legislators know that the people demand that their fellow citizens have equal rights in our Commonwealth.

But its not just about the big lobby days. KFTC generally takes handfuls of people to talk with their representatives. By doing this Kentucky’s leaders see that the laws they pass matter, and that they do impact regular people.

Restoration Forum Tonight

Tonight UK KFTC is hosting a forum on Restoration of Voting Rights for former felons. The event is at 7:00 at UK’s Student Center room 211. Rep. Crenshaw and former UK basketball player Tayna Fogle will be speaking about the issue. We’ll also be showing excerpts from the film Democracies Ghosts a very powerful film. Several other organizations have agreed to cosponsor the event including: UK College Democrats, Amnesty International, LASO, Newman Center, Black Student Union, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, UK NAACP.

 If anyone is curious about the issue, this is a great way to learn about it. Over 186,000 Kentuckians are unable to vote because they are former felons. In a country where Democracy is so cherished this a very anachronistic. Kentucky is only one of two states that does this. So please come out and learns about it. After the forum, i’ll post information on how it went and more information on the issue.

I Heart Mountains Day

On February 14th KFTC brought together over 1,000 Kentuckians to Frankfort to lobby for the passage ofHB 164. The bill would stop the destruction of headwater streams from mountaintop removal coal mining and valley fills. For those who don’t know about the issue burying headwater streams increases chances of flooding, and seriously degrades water quality, impacting all  communities downstream including those here in Lexington.

 We arrived in Frankfort early in the mourning. It was amazing to see so many Kentuckians from all  parts of the Commonwealth out in full force.  After a brief tutorial on the issue and on how to lobby, we broke off into groups to meet with different legislators. I had the opprotunity to talk with Representative Butler. He listened intently to what we had to say and agreed to vote in favor of the bill if it made it to the floor. It was my first time lobbying and it was a very positive experience.

 After that everyone met on the front steps of the capitol, where we heard from a variety of speakers. Wendell Berry urged for the immediate passage of the bill and decried the coal companies who have done so much harm to Eastern Kentucky. The most passionate and impressive speakers were the KFTC from Eastern Kentucky who graciously shared their experiences with the issue.

After a brief break for lunch we headed to the tunnel that connects the legislative offices to the house chamber. We lined both sides in wait of the tunnel in wait of the legislators who did not want face us, but were too cowardly to brave the cold. We cheered those who supported us and we urged the other side to change their minds. We chanted things like, “164 On the  floor” and “Whose mountains our mountains.” I truly feel that Frankfort heard the voice of the people that day.

 I would urge anyone whose interested to lobby. Its fun, easy, and you are making a difference. Bad laws get passed because society lets them. Citizen lobbying can prevent this from happening and it may even get some good laws passed.

New Semester…KFTC still fighting for Justice

    The winter break was fun, but with school back in session its time to get back to work with KFTC. This year KFTC has big plans. The UK chapter has several events planned on campus and are working on bringing students to Frankfort to lobby the General Assembly on a variety of issues.

Tomorrow KFTC will be headed to Frankfort to advocate for the implementation of a progressive tax code in Kentucky. This issue is vitally important given the commonwealth’s financial woes. If Kentucky took minor steps like reinstating the estate tax Kentucky would be able to general millions of dollars in new revenue. Later in the semester KFTC is planning to lobby in favor of ending mountain top removal and restoring the right to vote to former felons.

We’ve already had a number of great events this year. KFTC teamed up with Kcirr, Amnesty International, UK College Democrats, and the UFCW  Union show the documentary Morristown. The movie shows globalization and immigration affect a small town in Tennessee called Morristown. It was a great event and lots of people got to learn about immigration. KFTC often works with these organizations to promote the causes that we fight for, but it was the first time that UK KFTC had worked with Kcirr or the UFCW Union. By building these networks and relationships with ally organizations I hope that KFTC will be able to have an even larger impact across the state.

We have a number of events planned for this semester and I encourage anyone who is interested to come along. The whole purpose of KFTC is to make change for the better. Stay tuned for further updates.