Why does the USA have so few legal protections for ordinary people, and how can we change that?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Buttflapper@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

I’m just a regular person making about $70K a year in a big city, and I’ve recently felt incredibly powerless dealing with private companies. For instance, my landlord’s auto-pay system had a glitch that excluded my pet rent and water bill. I ended up with over $1,000 in late fees. Despite hours on the phone, it turns out their system doesn’t really do auto-pay and requires a fixed amount instead of covering the full rent. It feels like a scam, and my options are to pay the fees or potentially spend a fortune on legal action.

Another frustrating experience was trying to cancel my pest control service. I had to endure a 40-minute call followed by 35 minutes of arguing, just to finally cancel. There’s no online cancellation option, and the process felt like a timeshare sales pitch.

Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices, and how can we change this? How does one person even start to address these issues?

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Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The country was founded by slave owners. After that we had various “industry barons” like railroads, petroleum, automobiles, etc. Now we have multinational corporations (with larger budgets and more power than several countries) calling the shots in congress. It’s always been like this. Post-WWII provided a brief respite, but that limited run of the “American Dream” was temporary and no longer exists.

Part of the solution would be: worker cooperatives. We need a lot more of those. It won’t solve everything, but it’s a really good start.

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- stoly@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Basically we got all our rights in the post war period. Baby boomers and their parents had an excellent time, got theirs, then pulled up the ladder behind them. Zoomers will probably fix this but it’ll be interesting to see if it sticks this time.
  
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  - murmelade@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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- AndrewZabar@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We need a kind of everybody union.
  
  I had this conversation with lots of people if everyone saw a company is doing things or taking advantage of people imagine if on the exact same day, one million customers canceled their accounts. That kind of unity can give all the power needed to the regular people. But you can’t get people to cooperate or even to have enough self-discipline to go along with something that isn’t for their immediate and measurable benefit. And so the big players know they can abuse and exploit.
  
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  - rimmedalpha@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    A more perfect union, that can establish justice and domestic tranquility. One that provides for the common defense, promotes the general welfare, and secures the blessing of liberty for ourselves and future generations.
    
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  - RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    One big union? For all the industrial workers in the world? I wonder if anyone has thought of that before.
    
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  - tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    We need a kind of everybody union.
    
    In a democracy, that’s called a government.
    
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  - lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Isn’t that ideally what the government is supposed to be? We can’t all individually fight for ourselves, so we vote for people to represent us and work to protect our interests. That is, if politicians actual represented their constituents and not the highest bidder.
    
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  - Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I have had this same thought many times! Vote with our wallets en masse. It’s kind of almost happening to fast food.
    
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  - trolololol@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    In Australia ACCC takes care of abusive businesses, surely there must be something like that? Even 3rd world countries like Brazil has something like it.
    
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- Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  The country was founded by slave owners.
  
  Thanks for starting your argument with this, so I know I can ignore the rest.
  
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  - Boozilla@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    So you don’t understand basic American history or what the word ignore means. Got it.
    
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- umbrella@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  basically capitalism
  
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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Vote. Seriously. Recent history around consumer protection has been very partisan and this is something that impacts us all

One party creates things like

cfpb

net neutrality

ACA

education assistance

The other party. Cancels, sues, interrupts. Project 2025 probably tries to entirely destroy
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- UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  One party creates things like cfpb
  
  Putting warning labels on predatory lending. Spending more time fighting various right-wing interests in the right-wing dominated courts than doing any actual regulating. Does nothing to deliver actual money to the people who need it - all they can do is regulate the extent to which a private loan is shitty and extortionary.
  
  net neutrality
  
  Tries to regulate the ISP monopoly rather than breaking it up. Doesn’t actually guarantee internet access to anyone. Doesn’t extend high speed internet or establish public internet access points. Also constantly under fire in the right-wing dominated courts, such that they can’t effectively deliver on their function.
  
  ACA
  
  The best thing about the ACA is the extension of who qualifies for Medicaid. Everything else is a band-aid on a band-aid. Just open up Medicaid as the Public Option and you’d have done more good for more people in the long run.
  
  education assistance
  
  Doesn’t limit the total cost of education. Can’t even extend loans at the Prime Rate, because some private middle man always needs to get a cut. Doesn’t improve access to education by setting up new public schools or vocational programs. Doesn’t increase teacher pay, reduce student housing costs, or mitigate the cost of living while pursuing an education.
  
  Blah blah, the Republicans Are Worse. But the Democrats only ever seem capable of operating through the private sector via subsidies and civil penalties. Where is the actual public infrastructure? What does the public sector actually own and operate? What is being delivered at cost rather than as a profit-center for a third party?
  
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  - faltryka@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I once got screwed by my mortgage provider and was helpless. I submitted a complaint to the CFPB and they contacted my mortgage provider and made them make things right. That directly translated to significant money back in my pocket.
    
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  - SoJB@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And for the cherry on top, the party in the 2-party system that claims to be the “good” side trying to implement all these citizen-friendly policies have enjoyed multiple majorities in the last 40 years that would have allowed them to do these with the snap of a finger using well documented legal mechanisms.
    
    And yet, they do not.
    
    That liberal sneer about leftists just wanting to complain rather than fix things? Also projection.
    
    Really weird how everywhere I turn, the “good” side is doing the same fucking thing as the bad orange side.
    
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  - Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    All of these are really important policy changes that have positively impacted our society. How do you spark change to the effect of all these? I recently reached out to the Federal trade commission on one company that has some extremely predatory practices but don’t think that’ll do anything. What other methods can I use? Email congressman or something?
    
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  - FierySpectre@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It’s sad that this is the best option for y’all.
    
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How_do_I_computah@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Good question and good examples. With things like forced arbitration in user agreements I’d love to know more on how to turn things around on this.

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- Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I spoke to a lawyer about something similar to this recently and he basically just laughed at me. Told me there is no way it’s worth it, would cost tens of thousands of dollars to fight it in court and would basically have no gain to me personally at all. Overturning such a small amount no matter how wrong or immoral it is would be extremely costly on both sides but they have way more money to throw at the issue than I do which I totally agree with honestly. So you can do something that’s totally immoral, just as long as you have tons of money behind you to pay for it
  
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  - bobs_monkey@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And this right here is one of the fundamental injustices of the American legal system. It’s completely fucked that some conglomerate can basically railroad an individual into poverty from a bullshit lawsuit and that private individuals without deep pockets essentially have zero recourse in the legal arena.
    
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Gordito@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I finally was able to cancel a Telus home security service after they tried to put me in a 3 yr contract. I finally was able to cancel. I sent the equipment back and then they started charging me other monthly fees as if I had renewed. I didn’t even have their equipment anymore.

another 45 minutes on the phone and they say it is finally cancelled. But who knows. I’ll probably have to call again when they take the amount from my bank account despite removing my bank info from their site.

A company with 19.2M users. Imagine how many people are robbed “by mistake.” This is not a mistake but part of their internal procedures.

Cancelling a service even when contract is over is made difficult on purpose.

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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is why you never use autopay
  
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  - HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    only use it on accounts you can easily cancel.
    
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ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
When corpotations are allowed to buy out politicians, this is the end result. Corporations have no responsibility, they know they will not be held accountable.

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- Angry_Autist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  if corporations were people, most would literally be narcissistic sociopaths, which is of course why the owner class likes them so much.
  
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my_hat_stinks@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s a lot of replies here about why US citizens are in the situation they are but not how to fix it, which was the question you asked. You have two political parties in a first past the post system with largely similar corporate focussed policies, people primarily vote against a party rather than for one that represents them. If you really want to change things you’ll need to overhaul your voting system to break up your two party system and encourage competition from parties that actually represent what people want.

Unfortunately there is no safe and easy way to do this; it means the two parties in power giving up that power which they will not do willingly. You’ll need large scale consistent and actually disruptive protests, ie not just meeting up for a day then returning to life as nornal, but the US has a history of responding to protests the same way they do everything; with violence.

So more practically, you can contact your representative at the appropriate level of government and hope they don’t completely ignore you this time.

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Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In a word. Lobbyists.

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- Etterra@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It turns out if you throw enough money at people then you can make them do anything you want.
  
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  - Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yep. Welcome to the hell that is corporate capitalism.
    
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olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The US is incredibly bad at reining in capitalism. It also only has two parties that are both heavily influenced by lobbyists.

To fix it, not sure, calling politicians and showing up to stuff will help but it’s always going to be an uphill battle. Anyway, just vote, if you get the option to choose then vote for a third party as long as you’re not in a swing state.

The real solution is still voting reform to get more diverse opinion so if that’s on the ballot vote for it and try to get other people to do the same. The UK missed a major opportunity for voter reform.

This can happen over a couple of generations by removing winner take all representatives for a state and cause a hung parliament. Coalition talks will then be more likely to include concessions on the two state systems to get a governing coalition.

You can look at the UK as being the same only one generation ahead if things go well.

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- Landless2029@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I agree with one correction.
  
  Vote even in non swing states.
  
  There are far too many registered voters who don’t vote.
  
  Texas could be blue every year if half the dem no shows just voted.
  
  Also even less vote outside of the presidential election.
  
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- Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  It also only has two parties that are both heavily influenced by lobbyists.
  
  And yet, one party keeps enacting consumer and worker protection laws, with the other party taking them away. HMMM CURIOUS oh well I’m sure they’re both equally bad
  
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  - olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yeah, Democrats are way better at making legislation that benefits an average person. They’re also respect the parliamentary conventions and the democratic process.
    
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- KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  moving away from something like FPTP (what the majority of america uses) and to something like IRV (maine uses this iirc, and most euro countries also do) can vastly improve things.
  
  As for american elections the states themselves have a lot of control over their own voting process, and even some of the federal process. So just voting locally for voter reform can be quite impactful.
  
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  - olafurp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Exactly, state elections with referendums on voting reform are absolutely crucial to move the needle.
    
    There’s a major thing happening right now in the US where states are agreeing to pledge their vote to the winner of the popular vote as soon as the pledged electors get past 270 which is a big win in my opinion. It’s still doesn’t help with the two parties situation but any democratic improvement is a win.
    
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- SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yes, IMO when there is more competition, politicians start caring about the little things besides the big things like inflation.
  
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UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
One of the things more and more companies are doing is

Ignoring the Laws.

They have learned to ignore what they are required to do or what they are allowed to do . Knowing few will sue and those who win will get no more than they were due.

The companies have learned there is no downside for being criminal… So they have become criminals.

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4grams@awful.systems ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I swear shit has gotten exponentially worse since I was young. For example, last year I suffered a brain injury, I have about a month of missing memory. During that month, my homeowners association sent notice that they were being sold to another management company and the autopay I’d been using for 5 years would be cancelled. I missed this notice due to my brain damage and so never got new payment switched over.

I’m used to companies being gracious and working with their customers. Instead I had a lawyer sicked on me and the paperwork to forclose my house was started. I wound up having to pay all their legal fees and penalties which was an order of magnitude more than the actuall missed payments.

This was the most painful one recently but this is par for the course. Someone else said it in this thread but it’s become a real dog eat dog world, something that used to be a folksy saying has now become a harsh reality.

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- parrhesia@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah I’ve been feeling like there’s just not enough blood from this stone that they keep squeezing
  
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TokenBoomer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Capitalism. The answer for most societal problems we face.

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Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why would regular people need protection? They don’t have shareholders! 🤷🏻‍♂️

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Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That latter issue is actually being worked on, law wise, right now.

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- Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Which is an excellent answer to the question, “how do we fix it?” Vote for fucking Democrats!! Democrat administrations enact consumer protections!
  
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- jg1i@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Explain how!
  
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  - Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The FTC is working on a bill or something to make “one click cancel” required.
    
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  - MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    nytimes.com/…/us-government-unsubscribe-membershi…
    
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theparadox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices

Assuming you are in the USA, it’s fundamentally because our politics is fueled by private money. The “haves” spend lots of money to make rules that protect and enrich themselves at the expense of the “have nots”. The rich get richer, and the rest of us get a larger share of the burden.

The rich then spend more of their money convincing everyone else that some minority group of their fellow “have nots” are to blame and let us fight amongst ourselves. They starve us but leave us with just enough left to loose so that the price of doing something about it is too high (quitting, losing insurance, getting arrested at a protest, etc) for most of us to bear.

how can we change this?

Get money out of politics. Get the public to stop blaming their fellow have nots and demand change from the haves.

How does one person even start to address these issues?

Have empathy for and help your neighbors if you can, especially when they take the risks required to push for actual change. Talk to people. Organize. Support/start unions or a mutual aid organization. Go to local government meetings and make your voice heard. Run for local office.

Its easy for a small group of wealthy organizations to tilt specific elections or politics in their favor. It’s much harder them to do that in 1,000+ small communities across the nation.

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- laverabe@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Excellent points and to add to that support local journalism, the smaller the better. The media is really the fourth branch of government when it comes to checks and balances. If media integrity was restored, they could use there influence to hold Congress accountable to the people.
  
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- 4grams@awful.systems ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  well said. money in politics has some pretty awful downstream effects. who’d have ever thunk it…
  
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KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
because private companies were never meant to big this big and powerful.

They have so much power because they lobby and control the government, part of the problem is dems being generally unappealing and trying to focus more on less significant social issues rather than doing things like, taking away the rights that big corpos never should’ve had in the first place.

It’s a take and give game, the less regulations you have, the more companies you have and the more capital you have moving through you, the more you have the less regulations you have and the less capital you have moving through you.

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Angry_Autist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why: Because we are, and always have been, an oligarchy

How to fix: Bloody revolution, that’s about it.

The owner class never give up their power willingly, and we can’t afford to bribe the politicians enough to force them to.

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- Azal@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  How to fix: Bloody revolution, that’s about it.
  
  I disagree with this. It’ll take some revolution, but can be avoided bloody.
  
  On revolution I do say vote. The 2022 election was a turnout of 52% of the voting age population. Just barely over half, and that’s the second highest turnout to a nonpresidential election year since 2000. All the oxygen always goes to the Presidency but what OP is dealing with comes up in local elections, and the local and state shit deals far more with your day to day than the national. Hell, when national laws even come up, weed is still schedule 1 “more dangerous than cocaine” to the federal government but just about every state has legalized it.
  
  It’s not a quick solution, and it’s not as simple anymore as “go out and vote” but gotta kick everyone up who hasn’t given a shit (if they’re not voting, think they’ll back you in a revolution?). It’s a fucking slow ass slog that takes daily fighting, like I’ve got a group that I’m the one who posts the ballots, the dates, the links, honestly do everything but bang on their doors and drag them to the polls but it’s a little bit that helps. As I saw “A vote is not a valentine. You’re not professing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move for the world you want to live in.”
  
  The Republicans have been doing that for years, they’ve never let a single dem run even for superintendent across the country uncontested. They worked slow and methodically to get the supreme court. Their revolution can be argued to have started as far back as Nixon. We’re arguably at their end game, but it seems like they’ve overreached this time, it’s time to start clawing back territory.
  
  The reason though I’m against a bloody revolution is, yes it’s useful as a last resort, but it honestly is at that in the chess analogy above picking up the table, throwing it in the room and starting a riot. You hope you come out okay but at that point it’s really up in the air who comes out on top. Guillotines come up a lot, and France is doing pretty well right now. But remember between modern France and the guillotines was a messy time post revolution that was stabilized by someone who declared himself Emperor and attempted to conquer all of Europe.
  
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  - Angry_Autist@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If we get a jan6 2.0, that is literally the last resort.
    
    I’m hoping no human ever kills or dies for a political ideology but I am not that naive to think that blood won’t be spilled.
    
    It already has, boogaloo boys and streaming church shooters.
    
    And let us not forget there has never once been a successful capitulation with fascists, ever.
    
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RangerJosie@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I can’t tell you. Because the mods won’t like it.

But it rhymes with Piolence.

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- weeeeum@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And Viola Ants
  
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PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Well one big fix would be to make legal services free at point of services and instead make the government responsible for paying the salaries of lawyers.

Call it Justice for All like Medicare for All but more patriotic sounding and litigious.

Kills SLAP suits, and opens the gates for people who had legitimate grievances but were scared of the legal fees and costs to have access to their day in court.

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Ibaudia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Start organized movements to heavily push for ranked choice voting. If it becomes a national movement then maybe we’ll first start seeing it locally, then on a larger scale.

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kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Most countries have Capitalism but few suffer as badly as post-Regan America (except maybe post-Thatcher UK).

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Sam_Bass@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because we ordinary people do not possess extraordinary funds to buy that protection

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brygphilomena@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
$1000 is likely small claims court. At least where I was, no lawyers are allowed for small claims so the landlord would have to come to deal with it himself or a representative of the payment company.

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chemicalprophet@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Capitalism.

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- GiddyGap@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  European countries are also capitalist countries, but they have much better consumer protections and laws. It can be done.
  
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  - Allonzee@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think such protections have to happen BEFORE the market capitalists are able to use their immense hoards of power, that’s what capital is at scale, to capture their own governments and regulators that were supposed to act as a firewall protecting regular citizens from them, as the market capitalists have in the United States for almost half a century.
    
    Once that happens. Good fucking luck. Greed doesn’t let go of what it acquires.
    
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emerald@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think going back in time and video gaming Reagan would be a good start

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- thelasttoot@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Video gaming?
  
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  - linearchaos@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You should consider the kind of things that happen in video games.
    
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- buzz86us@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sure as long as you bully him into implementing socialized medicine
  
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andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s been deliberate dismantling of social services.

I was married to a wealthy man. He was controlling and abusive, and had the police remove me from our home. It wasn’t legal, but the police have lost the records of whatever they did that night. I couldn’t get a lawyer to help me, he had access to my bank accounts and emptied them. I reached out to multiple domestic violence agencies - there is no shelter, there are no lawyers, there are maybe one or two therapists if you are lucky. But I’m basically completely helpless.

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BlucifersVeinyAnus@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In a nutshell: average Americans don’t have extra billions of dollars laying around to lobby against corporations writing laws so lawmakers don’t have to be bothered with it

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- ITGuyLevi@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Really each vote only costs thousands from what I’ve heard, plus with recent rulings/interpretations/laws, you might not have to prepay and hope they follow through. That last part could be me taking the piss at something I read about kickbacks from contracts though.
  
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Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
You have basically two options.

vote for Democrats, and make sure your Democrat representatives know that you care a lot about consumer protections

make a shit ton of money so you can fight these companies on more even footing
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swordgeek@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Open revolution is about the only avenue left.

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dan1101@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t know, but companies shouldn’t be allowed to merge if you call either of them and the wait time to speak to a person is more than 2 minutes.

Also companies should have customer conceriges, call them and explain your issue and they navigate the company infrastructure, resolve your issue, and report back.

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Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s because the culture individualism has successfully divided up worker’s power that makes standing against wealthy and powerful individuals next to impossible.

I will say this because people in the US don’t seem to look out for neighbours that they can’t see.

Vote for politicians who will empower the working class and take billionaires and multinational corps down a notch. Don’t let culture war distractions take people’s eyes off the ruling class intentionally diverting the attention away from them.

Team up with your neighbours… you don’t have to start a protest/riot immediately but ask them if they’ve had a similar issue with the landlord’s autopay system. Have barbecues or potluck dinners with them on occasion.

Go to your local city council when an issue you care about comes up. Write to your city council, state rep, house rep and senators about things that concern you. Join local movements or participate in their events to enact change you want to see. United you will be stronger.

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