People Before Profit blog

Listening to America from coast to coast

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:35:00 +0000

The Barack Obama campaign’s nine day “Listening to America” project concluded July 27 after thousands of people gathered in at least 1,300 meetings to make recommendations for the 2008 Democratic platform.

The meetings in private homes, union halls, community centers and schools were organized mostly via the MyBarackObama.com web site which featured the candidate’s invitation and advice on how to organize the events.

A crowd of 33 turned up for the “Listening to America” meeting at the Old Dungeness Schoolhouse in Clallam County, Washington. Sylvia Hancock, chair of the meeting asked for a show of hands of how many people favored single payer health care plan free of the profit motive. Every hand shot up. Another hot issue endorsed by the crowd was support of Al Gore’s proposal to terminate fossil fuel generation of electricity within 10 years.

A leader of the Makah Tribe of Neah Bay hailed Obama as the first person of color to be nominated for president by a major party. The current administration has been a disaster in polarizing the nation and stripping minority people of their rights, he said. “I appeal to you to take a stand for inclusiveness for all people of color,” he said as the crowd applauded.

Grassroots efforts to shape the platform continued with Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) initiating an online petition urging the Democrats to include a pledge to fight for single-payer universal health care in the document. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) author of HR-676, the “Medicare for All” bill, was the first signer of the petition.

Gary Dotterman, a veteran peace and justice activist in Boston, told the World he attended one of the Listening to America sessions in his neighborhood. A month earlier he had sponsored a “Unite for Change” meeting at his home attended by 22 people. One neighbor at that meeting agreed to host the Listening to America meeting in his home.

“There was a lively discussion mostly on the economy,” he added. “Opposition to the Iraq war was unanimous. There was unanimous agreement that we need a national health care program but differences of opinion on how to do it. About one third supported single-payer health care. A full report on the meeting was sent to Obama headquarters in Chicago.

“The campaign provided a message from Obama on registering people to vote,” said Dotterman. “He stressed that the group should continue after the election to implement the change we’re talking about. This was a real attempt to organize community groups to win the election and remain active and organized after we win.”

It was a mixed crowd, young and old, Black, Latino and white, gay and straight, Dotterman added. It included some new citizens.

The energy was super high octane, Dotterman continued. One African American man who has not been active since he worked in the Mel King Campaign for Mayor decades ago. “It took him an hour and a half by train. But he was moved to get involved.”

Many said they plan to volunteer to work weekends in New Hampshire, a battleground state. One man said he plans to devote his two-week vacation to working for the campaign in Pennsylvania.

In Dearborn, Mich., 40 people gathered July 27 to discuss what should be in the Democratic platform. Josh Penn blogged on the meeting and said the overriding issue was the plummeting economy.

Penn reported that one participant, Maria, told the crowd she is employed by the state of Michigan as a caregiver, paid $7.00 per hour to take care of elderly and disabled people. She provides services that would cost tens of thousands if her patients were placed in nursing homes, she said, yet she is not paid even a living wage.

Another woman reported that she lives in Detroit, her two children enrolled in a dysfunctional public school that receives far lower per-pupil funding than wealthier, mostly white suburban schools. Funds were recently cut from the school budget forcing layoffs that have nearly doubled class size.

Michele from Detroit said she had one job when George W. Bush took office in 2000, got a second job around 2004 and recently was forced to get a third job to make ends meet.

Penn summed up the feeling in the crowd: “At a time where our country’s most pressing issues includes jobs moving out of America and homes foreclosed, these workers in Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, felt like they had never been consulted. Until now.”

greenerpastures21212 @yahoo.com

Offshore drilling won't lower gas prices

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:30:00 +0000

'This is all a phony issue,' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of the McCain-Bush offshore oil drilling proposal in an appearance last week on 'Meet the Bloggers,' a new online program by Brave New Foundation.

Responding to McCain campaign and congressional Republican claims that new offshore drilling is needed to counter rising gas prices, Reid pointed out, 'It takes from 10 to 15 years. If they wanted to go offshore right now, any place in the world, [it would take] 10 to 15 years before they could get a drop of oil.'

Reid also emphasized that oil companies also hold current leases on public lands on and offshore which have gone unused. 'They have 16 million acres they can drill on today,' he said.

Supporters of new offshore drilling insist that new technology has eliminated accidental oil spills and other environmental and safety hazards associated with offshore drilling.

In response to recent claims by John McCain and other Republican politicians that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in no oil spills, Reid remarked: 'I kept hoping it would be like the thing I read when I was a kid, Pinocchio. I expected to see all these big noses out there on the Senate floor, because these are outright fabrications.'

Reid added that along with new spills as a result of the storms, oil slicks in the Gulf have caught on fire.

The country has to be realistic and honest about new oil production, Reid said. 'America has less than three percent of the oil in the world, counting ANWR and all that offshore stuff,' Reid said. 'We use 25 percent of the world's oil everyday. You can't produce your way out of the problem. Drilling won't do it.'

Environmental and labor organizations also oppose new offshore drilling as the solution to America's energy crisis. This past week, the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental organizations, circulated a .

'We call upon the Congress to say no to coastal drilling in protected areas and yes to a comprehensive solution, a 'New Apollo Program' for America, that will invest in clean, renewable energy and homegrown fuels, and create millions of high-quality, green-collar jobs,' the petition read.

To combat high gas prices, the federal government should open the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR), groups like Americans United for Change (AUFC) and the Center for American Progress added.

McCain and the Republican's 'best answer to out-of-control oil prices is offshore drilling that wouldn’t yield a drop of new oil for 10 years. That’s not a solution – that's a distraction advocated by the same big oil companies making record profits,' said Caren Benjamin of AUFC.

Releasing oil from the SPR, 'would also prick the speculative bubble that contributes to record prices,' read a statement by Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. When past presidents ordered releasing oil from the SPR, prices fell from $5 to $10 per barrel, Weiss indicated.

On high gas prices, Weiss blamed George W. Bush, John McCain and their Republican allies in Congress and who have for years blocked immediate relief for high gas prices as well as long-term solutions such has higher fuel economy standards in vehicles that would have allowed drivers to use less gas.

Watch the video with Sen. Reid here:

We will not be demonized: Latinos form coalitions against hate

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:59:00 +0000

“Our message is simple: we will not be demonized. We will not be scape-goated and we will not be ignored,” says Janet Murgia President of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization. Murgia is leading NCLR, along with other civil and human rights groups, to challenge the national media and general public to reject the well orchestrated anti immigrant anti-Latino campaign being mobilized by right wing in the media, academia, and politics.

In January NCLR joined in founding the Wave of Hope Project along with allies to challenge the media and expose hate groups located online. They set up a web site at wecanstopthehate.org. Allied in the effort are the Anti Defamation League, Center for American Progress, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Media Matters for America, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The campaign was featured at NCLR’s national conference in San Diego July 12-15 with packed workshops on fighting anti immigrant hate groups. At the July 14 afternoon workshop NCLR Vice President Cecilia Munoz said the defeat of comprehensive immigration reform was tied to the activities of a vast network of right-wing groups popularized by “CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and hate radio” news and talk shows. “Although we know we mobilized a quarter of a million calls to Congress for reform, the politicians told us, the hate calls far surpassed ours” said Munoz.

This does not show “where the country really is” as polls show large majorities favoring reform she said, adding “the debate was not about public policy” but more about prejudice. Workshop leaders exposed how the network of hate has grown rapidly. In 2006 human rights groups tracked 37 hate groups, in 2007 there were 400.

Much of the network is traceable to FAIR, the Federation for Immigration Reform founded by right-wing guru John Tanton in 1978. Since then at least 38 key hate groups have been spun off of FAIR directly, or by groups founded by FAIR or by FAIR staff and funders. These include the Center for Immigration Studies, Immigration Reform Law Institute, US English, and the Minutemen all widely covered in the media. Workshop leaders pointed out that hate groups have been created aimed at labor unions, African Americans, environmental groups, Latinos. Tanton boasts that the US efforts are just a “skirmish in a global war.”

The Wave of Hope Project is developing messaging programs to “create rhetorical space and respect for human rights” says Munoz. The Fenton Communications group who helped develop MoveOn.org are involved and special efforts to reach women African Americans and labor groups are being developed.

The workshop also highlighted a successful community fight back in Providence Rhode Island where a local merchant illegally demanded Social Security cards of Latina shoppers. The community was outraged. Community based agencies responded by mobilizing and reaching out for allies among faith-based and civil rights groups.

NCLR president Murgia challenged the 5000 participants at the group's 40th Anniversary Conference in San Diego July 15: “It is time to take back the debate. It is time to make our voices heard. It is time for us to restore common sense and human decency to this equation,” she said. She stressed that criminalizing immigrants, forcing desperate people farther into the desert, denying care and assistance and raiding workplaces have not worked. Central to the fight back against hate is a massive voter turnout in the November 4 election. To do this NCLR has united with the National Association of Latino Elected officials, SEIU, Impremedia, and an Univision broadcast called Ve y Vota to increase Latino citizenship and is working with Democracia USA to increase the voter turn out.

The National Latino Congreso has launched a massive voter registration drive for 250,000 new Latino registrants and voters. It is also helping to convene a Black Latino Summit to build greater cooperation politically and socially between the communities. The labor movement is standing up to immigration factory raids and faith groups are spearheading a New Sanctuary Movement.

Green electricity by 2018?

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:55:00 +0000

In a dramatic speech recently, Al Gore upped the ante in the debate over oil prices, the economy and climate change. As Republicans tried to sell the public on handing over more public land to Big Oil drilling, Gore challenged the nation to take an immediate, giant step away from fossil fuels by producing all electricity from renewable, carbon-free energy sources within 10 years. Currently about 75 percent of our electricity is produced by burning coal and natural gas, spewing global warming carbon into the atmosphere.

“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative,” Gore told a cheering crowd of over 1,000 who packed the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall in Washington, July 17. “It represents a challenge to all Americans in every walk of life.” He also called for a rapid shift to cars that run on electricity rather than oil.

Citing melting glaciers, extreme weather, soaring gasoline prices, wars, jobs lost to outsourcing, auto companies in trouble and the likelihood of “environmental refugees,” Gore said these add up to linked economic, environmental and national security crises that threaten “the survival of the United States of America as we know it,” and even human civilization itself.

Taking what some might call a dialectical approach, Gore said “the tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately without taking the others into account” not only doesn’t work but makes problems worse.

“When we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them. Our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three.

“When you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures that are needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions that we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

“Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the Earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year,” Gore said. “And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of U.S. electricity demand.” Geothermal energy is another big potential “green” source.

“The quickest, cheapest, most efficient, and best way to start using all of this renewable energy is in the production of electricity,” and it can start right now, he said.

Gore’s dramatic call was praised by two labor-environmental coalitions.

In a statement issued by the Blue-Green Alliance, a partnership between the Steelworkers union and the Sierra Club, Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said, “The time has come for our nation to embrace the possibilities, economic and environmental, of investing in global-warming solutions — solutions that will create jobs and combat the climate crisis head on.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said Gore’s challenge should spur “a new energy policy that reinvests in America.” He added, “It is up to the people of this country — young and old, rich and poor — to come together to realize the economic and environmental potential of investing in a green economy.”

The Apollo Alliance, which includes the Steelworkers and Mine Workers unions as well as a host of other unions and environmental, business and social justice groups, also hailed Gore’s initiative. Alliance chair Phil Angelides said it is clear a movement is building for a national program to “get us off oil, make us energy independent, invest in clean energy, and create a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.” The alliance cautioned, however, that attention must be paid to guaranteeing that people whose livelihoods now depend on the carbon-based fossil fuel economy are “not left behind or caused undue hardship.”

The job-creating and union-boosting potential of clean energy production is demonstrated in Cambria County, Pa., where Johnstown’s steel mills used to produce 2 million tons of steel annually. After the mills closed, a recent article in the American Prospect notes, Cambria County seemed like “one more rustbowl outpost that crawled out of the wrong side of the 1980s.”

But the Steelworkers played a big role in bringing in a Spanish wind turbine company last year that now employs 240 workers in the area and is expected to add another 500 near Philadelphia. This June, the company’s workers ratified their first Steelworkers union contract.

Gore assailed as “perverse” the Republican push for more oil drilling, which experts say would have no impact on oil prices for years, if ever. He declared, “Our families can't stand 10 more years of gasoline price increases. Our workers can't stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy can't stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil.

“And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.” “But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise,” he said.

U.S. expanding roster of foreign bases

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:13:00 +0000

Three U.S. foreign bases are in the works that portend far-reaching consequences. They warrant addition to the scorecard kept by analyst Chalmers Johnson as to the total of U.S. foreign bases. Last year Johnson counted almost 750 bases in over 130 countries.

The first newcomer to the list is a base under way in Dutch-owned Aruba, off Venezuela’s northern coast. On his weekly television show July 20, Venezuelan ex-vice President Jose Vicente Rangel described U.S. construction at the Queen Beatrix Airport where subterranean excavations suggest preparation for military installations.

The build-up is aimed not only at expanded aerial and electronic espionage operations but also, according to Rangel, at backup for the newly reactivated U.S. Fourth Fleet. He charges that the purpose is enhanced capabilities to attack Venezuela, a purpose also envisioned for a possible U.S. base in Colombia’s northeastern La Guajira state. Another future addition may well derive from U.S. preparations to build a military airport in Kurdish-controlled Halajaba, a city in northern Iraq close to the Iranian border. Mayor Khadr Karim Mohammad said 1,500 acres have been designated nearby. He said landowners will be reimbursed. The July 22 report on www.presstv.ir cited “an anonymous Iraqi official [who] said the project is likely to be a ‘cover’ for an air base.”

Le Monde reported last year that Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, would accept the plans once they are approved by Iraqi government officials in Baghdad and authorities in nearby Erbil, site of a major Kurdish region airport. Lastly, the project of turning Guam into what the U.S. military calls “the tip of the spear” and “the unsinkable aircraft carrier” received unaccustomed publicity in Inter Press Service’s two-part interview with Guam independence activist Julian Aguon.

Under a 2005 agreement with Japan, Washington promised to remove 8,000 Marines from Okinawa. They are headed for Guam, population 170,000, where by 2014 the troop census will have risen to 40,000, with additional military dependents. On the agenda for the project are air surveillance capabilities, missile defense systems, and deep-water port facilities allowing nuclear aircraft carriers to dock.

For Julian Aguon, speaking for the 63,000 ethnic Chamorro people living on the island, the issue is colonialism. “The U.S. government basically decided to flood our ancient homeland with this many people, this many nuclear submarines, all of this destruction, without one bona fide public meeting, without any semblance of true consultation of the entire indigenous population of Guam.”

The $15 billion price tag for the massive project underscores his people’s subservient status. Teachers worry about being paid, he reports, adding, “We don’t even have adequate supplies of toilet tissue in Guam public high schools.”

Last year, Aguon and other Guam anti-militarist activists were present at the International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases in Quito, Ecuador. There, he said, “We really made some new links but deepened our friendships with other people who are struggling across the Asia-Pacific region.” The problem is that “We come from such a small place and we are such a small population. We need international support, we need allies.”

Corruption charges roil politics in Miami

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:09:00 +0000

In June, months after reports surfaced that $500,000 the so-called Center for a Free Cuba took from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was missing, that agency temporarily suspended all its programs providing money and support for government opponents in Cuba. USAID’s 2008 budget for Cuba projects totaled $45 million. USAID was responding to a directive from Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Frank Calzon, head of the Center for a Free Cuba, attributed Berman’s action to bias stemming from opposition to President Bush’s Cuba policies. USAID reported last week that stepped-up monitoring of its 11 Cuba programs revealed misuse of over $11,000 by the Group in Support of Democracy, another Cuban American funding conduit. Newly appointed Felipe Sixto, formerly associated with the Center for a Free Cuba, was forced to resign on March 20 from his position as Special Assistant to President Bush for Intergovernmental Affairs because of a possible role in the disappearance of the half-million dollars. The Justice Department is investigating.

Responding to pressure from White House and USAID, Berman announced July 22 his acquiescence in the unfreezing of USAID Cuba monies. A funding suspension remained in effect for the two groups accused of irregularities.

The Cuban American National Foundation published a report in May, covering a 10-year period, demonstrating that less than 17 percent of money appropriated for destabilization efforts in Cuba ever arrived on the island, the rest having been waylaid in Florida to pay for academic programs and expenses of exile groups. An earlier audit by the congressional Government Accountability Office led to similar findings.

Frank Calzon is an issue in Florida’s 25th Congressional District between incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart and former Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair Joe Garcia, who also served as executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation. Garcia has found it useful to accuse established Cuban American politicians of viewing the largesse from Washington that feeds anti-Cuban projects as patronage.

On a July 23 television talk show, wrangling between Garcia and Calzon over the missing half million dollars became so heated — especially after Garcia talked about theft — that Calzon cut off the discussion by barging out of the studio.

Part of the mix is a July 15 report from the Government Accountability Office alleging that Florida-based radio and television broadcasting to Cuba is funded through federal no-bid contracts worth more than $1 million. Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), chair of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, had requested the investigation. He told the Miami Herald that the U.S. propaganda broadcasts “have been plagued by allegations of mismanagement and corruption, inefficiencies, and ineffectiveness.”

The genius of Ewan MacColl, lifelong artist & activist

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:24:00 +0000

BOOK REVIEW

Ewan MacColl is best known as the writer of the Grammy-winning “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” the love song he wrote for his wife and musical partner, Peggy Seeger. But not only was he a singer/songwriter par excellence (whose range went from the most tender love songs to the most biting political songs), MacColl was also a highly regarded playwright (whose work was praised by George Bernard Shaw and Sean O’Casey), a producer of the BBC’s award-winning Radio Ballad series, a noted scholar of folk music and a lifelong communist.

MacColl was born in 1915. His father was an iron molder who was often blacklisted; his mother cleaned houses and offices. Both were militant socialists. In his song “My Old Man,” MacColl honored his father: “My old man was a union man/ Fought hard all his days/ He understood the system/ And was wise to the bosses’ ways/ He said, If you want what’s yours by right/ You have to struggle with all your might/ They’ll rob you blind if you don’t fight. That was my old man.”

“Class Act,” a lengthy biography of MacColl, makes an important contribution in chronicling his life and work.

MacColl was a complex and contradictory genius who could be difficult. His version of criticism and self-criticism was, apparently, “Now I will ‘self-criticize’ you.” Of one colleague, he said, “It was only in the last song where he finally broke through to produce a voice like a normal human being.” On the other hand, another colleague recalls, “When the energy was positive, it was an extraordinary inspiration … He was generous when other people gave great performances, never jealous, he loved it.”

MacColl left school at 14, just before the Great Depression. Often unemployed, he spent hours in libraries reading and developing a lifelong love for learning and language. In his later years, he could easily deliver “off-the-cuff lectures ... about Greek theater, Marxist aesthetics, anthropology, the origins of language, cathedral design, the radio ballads ... punctuating his lectures with snatches of song,” according to one friend.

MacColl joined a socialist theater group, the Clarion Players, and later the Young Communist League. He began writing for the British Communist Party’s factory newspapers, honing what Harker aptly calls “an instinct for well crafted political satire.” MacColl later called the Communist Party his university.

In 1931, MacColl and other members of the Clarion Players formed an agit-prop group, the Red Megaphones. A typical performance was “seven or eight minutes of knockabout comedy, some simplified Marxist analysis, two songs, and a mass declamation,” recalls MacColl. He read voraciously on theater techniques, developing the knowledge and skill that eventually led him to be described as “the British Brecht.”

With Joan Littlewood, a young actress from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later MacColl’s first wife, they formed the Theatre Union. One production, “Living Newspaper, Last Edition,” which dealt with the events leading up to Britain’s Munich Agreement with Nazi Germany, was raided by the police and shut down for “disturbing the peace.”

Harker fills in the World War II years of MacColl’s autobiography. MacColl was drafted in July 1940 when the world communist movement viewed the war as simply an inter-imperialist war. He hated army life and went AWOL in December 1940. When the character of the war changed, MacColl was filled with guilt that he never quite overcame. When he was charged with desertion after the war, progressives rallied to his defense.

Afterward, MacColl continued his work in theater, but the multimedia nature of his performances increasingly led him to music. He met U.S. folk music scholar Alan Lomax, an exile from McCarthyism, and through him, the British folksinger and musicologist A.L Lloyd, a fellow Communist and autodidact. All three saw folk music as a form of resistance.

In his message to the concert honoring MacColl’s 70th birthday, the head of the British National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, said Ewan McColl “made an outstanding contribution, not only to folk music, but to the entire working class movement.” If you want to know why that is true, read this book.

Class Act: The Cultural and Political Life of Ewan MacColl

By Ben Harker

Pluto Press; distributed in the U.S.

by the University of Michigan Press

2007, 360 pp, paper, $24.95

Challenging the Christian rights crusade

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:09:00 +0000

DVD REVIEW

The Christian right claims that in speaking out against gay rights it only adheres to Biblical orthodoxy. After all, the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, doesn’t it? Daniel Karslake’s persuasive documentary “For The Bible Tells Me So” begs to differ, arguing that the religious right’s hatred of homosexuality is based on a flawed interpretation of the Bible.

According to theologians, fundamentalist Christians commit the mistake of literally believing what the Bible says. Written several thousand years ago, the Bible reflects the issues and priorities of those times and not today, as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a 76-year-old veteran of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, and others explain. For instance, the prohibition against homosexuality found in Leviticus was based on the ancient Hebrew civilization’s need to increase its population. Gay couples cannot procreate.

Apart from a small number of isolated passages, the Bible does not deal with homosexuality in a comprehensive manner.

However, the Christian right chooses what scriptures it wants to follow and those it wants to ignore. Scriptures allowing slavery and forbidding the eating of shrimp and the mixing of different fabrics in clothing are not adhered to. The Bible calls on believers to give their wealth to the poor. Yet Christian right leaders such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart and others have accumulated tens of millions of dollars in wealth through their religious corporate empires. They have endorsed the Republican Party whose governments have made the rich richer at the expense of the poor.

Karslake’s documentary also provides an interesting and much needed discussion about the nature of homophobia. Hatred of women is the root cause of homophobia, he says. Bigots deride gay men for having feminine characteristics — a stereotype that bears no relation to reality in most cases — or for engaging in sex acts seen as feminine.

Touching interviews with fundamentalist Christian parents who changed or modified their religious views to accept their gay and lesbian children are interwoven through the film.

“The Bible Tells Me So” provides a balanced and much needed rational discussion about homosexuality and Christianity. It provides convincing evidence that the Christian right’s destructive crusade against gays and lesbians is based on a flawed and selective interpretation of the Bible. Believers and nonbelievers should see this film.

tpelzer @shaw.ca

“For The Bible Tells Me So”

Directed by Daniel Karslake

Vision Quest/Atticus Group, 2007

98 min.

This Jokers no joke

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Heath Ledger as the “Joker” in “The Dark Night” has many speculating he may win an Academy Award posthumously for the role. Ledger died last January of an accidental prescription drug overdose at age 28. The New York Times reviewer called his performance “so visceral, creepy and insistently present that the characterization pulls you in almost at once.” Commenting on the film’s record box office opening, the reviewer noted, “Apparently, truth, justice and the American way don’t cut it anymore, [which] helps get at why, like other recent ambiguous American heroes, both supermen and super-spies, the new Batman soared.”

The UK Independent reviewer called it “a film for troubled times” and said “part of the film’s project is to show how even the most courageous figures can lose their moral bearings.”

Boston Globe critic Ty Burr commented that the “pop-tsunami”-like response to the film “represents a perfect storm of studio publicity, public mourning, epic seriousness of filmmaking purpose, and the unspoken need for something in this crass tinsel culture to mean something.”

Fearing voter wrath, GOPers buck Bush on Medicare

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:37:00 +0000

Sen. Edward Kennedy’s appearance in the Senate recently, in the midst of his personal battle against brain cancer, to break a Republican filibuster against a bill to save Medicare will go down in history. Days later, on July 15, as the result of a 383-41 congressional vote to override a Bush veto the progressive measure became law.

The margin for passage of the override was even bigger than the original vote for passage of the bill itself because even more Republicans joined all the Democrats who backed it the first time around. Fear of election day retribution and the moving appearance of Kennedy at the earlier Senate session sealed the fate of the Bush administration’s attempt to kill Medicare by drastically cutting back on payments to doctors.

HR 6331, the bill that was passed, improves beneficiary access to preventive and mental health services, enhances low-income benefit programs, and maintains access to care in rural areas, including access to pharmacies. Rather than drastically cutting doctors’ payments, it reduces reimbursements to private insurance companies that complete with Medicare.

It is estimated that had the cuts in doctors’ fees gone forward, as many as 60 percent of physicians would have stopped treating new Medicare patients and would have dropped others from their rolls, according to the American Medical Association.

President Bush vetoed the legislation, making it clear once again that he is on the side of the insurance companies and giant corporations.

George Kourpias, president of the Alliance for Retired Americans, blasted those who had lined up with the Bush administration in this latest attack on Medicare.

“This egregious example of corporate welfare siphons valuable money from the Medicare Trust Fund, taking from those with the least and giving to those with the most,” Kourpias said, adding, “President Bush’s veto continues his legacy of sacrificing older Americans’ health care needs for the profits of large corporations.”

The bill had first passed the House June 24, 355-59. Republican Senate leaders — with White House support — roadblocked it. A vote to end a filibuster against the Medicare bill fell one vote short June 26.”

It was Kennedy’s appearance that broke the filibuster and caused even some House Republicans who voted against the measure the first time to switch their votes in favor the second time around.

An article in the Houston Chronicle notes that the bill also affects the 9.2 million active and retired military personnel and their family members. They use the Tricare system which bases its reimbursement rates on those set by Medicare. Sgt. Mark Seavey of the National Guard stated that military families already face a tremendous obstacle in finding providers within their network and rate cuts to doctors would have compounded their problems.

The AFL-CIO’s McCain Revealed web-site indicates John McCain has worked relentlessly to gut both Social Security and Medicare. The web-site notes that McCain has voted to cut $6.4 billion from Medicare. He also missed critical votes to bargain for lower prescription drug prices for seniors. He voted to increase seniors’ Medicare premiums and raise the Medicare eligibility age.

Patients, providers and others are pleased that even with tremendous pressure from the Bush administration, Congress was able to push back and assert itself.

Republicans who opposed the Bush Medicare cuts include even his longtime Texas allies —Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Reps. John Culberson and Michael McCaul. Cornyn was one of those who reversed his vote when the Texas Medical Association retracted their endorsement of him. Cornyn, McCaul and Culberson face stiff opposition in their re-election bids.

Obama trip spotlights new direction for U.S. foreign policy

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:43:00 +0000

News analysis

Barack Obama appeared to have scored a major success in projecting “commander-in-chief” ability and foreign policy savvy in his visits to Afghanistan and Iraq last week, and continued that path as he traveled to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and then on to Western Europe. After meeting with heads of state and other political leaders in each country, Obama continued to emphasize themes that have been hallmarks of his campaign so far: prompt, planned withdrawal from Iraq, giving top priority to achieving a two-state Israeli-Palestinian settlement and putting diplomacy before saber-rattling in U.S. foreign policy.

Before heading to Iraq, Obama told reporters, “I am there to listen,” but re-emphasized his “core position, which is that we need a timetable for withdrawal.” Such a move, he said, is in the strategic interests of the United States. Echoing concerns of U.S. military circles, he also said more troops should be shifted to Afghanistan to deal with the deteriorating situation there.

Even as Obama prepared for his Iraq visit, Iraq’s prime minister was telling the German magazine Der Spiegel that Obama’s 16-month withdrawal timetable was “the right timeframe” for Iraq.

Responding to charges from the McCain campaign that he was not listening to military commanders on the ground, Obama gave a broader definition of the commander-in-chief’s responsibility. That “job is to think about the national security interests as a whole,” Obama told ABC’s Terry Moran, “and to weigh and balance risks in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

In addition, he told reporters in Jordan, “Keep in mind, for example, one of Gen. Petraeus’s responsibilities is not to think about how could we be using some of that $10 billion a month to shore up a U.S. economy that is really hurting right now. If I’m president of the United States, that is part of my responsibility.”

Obama was accompanied on his Mid-East trip by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

McCain struggled to respond. As Iraqi officials pointed to a 2010 deadline for troop withdrawal, almost identical to the timetable proposed by Obama, McCain opposed any deadlines even as the Bush administration itself spoke of “time horizons,” a departure from previous positions. McCain went so far as to claim that only he knows what the Iraqis really “want.”

Obama foreign policy coordinator Denis McDonough told reporters earlier this month that by refusing to elaborate a clear position on when the U.S. would leave Iraq, McCain is discouraging Iraqis from seeking political reconciliation and taking command of the security situation there.

“It is pretty clear that [McCain] does not have a strategy for leaving Iraq — a strategy for success in Iraq,” McDonough said. “He has a strategy just for staying in Iraq.”

At the same time, peace advocates expressed concern over the new focus on ramping up military action in Afghanistan.

Peace activist Tom Hayden, who organized Progressives for Obama, wondered in The Nation last week, “Is an expanded war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, fueled by troop transfers from Iraq, winnable? In what sense?

“Ending one war in Iraq to start two more in Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be a dumb idea.”

Hayden, nevertheless, saw promise in Obama’s overall approach. “The beginning of an alternative may require unfreezing American diplomacy towards Iran and considering a ‘grand bargain’ instead,” he wrote.

Obama’s trip has spotlighted the direction that his administration would take on foreign policy — diplomacy and negotiations, working with allies in a multilateral way, a turn away from the unilateral militarism of the neoconservative Bush administration.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who works with Obama on foreign policy, told reporters Obama’s position on Iran sets him apart from Bush and from McCain.

McCain is advocating “a continuation of the Bush policy with respect to Iran,” Wexler said. The Bush policy on Iraq has only helped Iran’s current government to “enhance its position,” he said. Ending the Iraq war and a diplomatic approach with Iran are better alternatives, he suggested.

Referring to Jewish American concerns about threats to Israel expressed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Wexler said, “The smartest policy for America, the smartest policy for people who care about Israel, is for the United State to directly engage with Iran with tough, principled diplomacy.”

After leaving Jordan, Obama met with top Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Israel and the West Bank. Acknowledging before the meetings, “It’s unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region,” Obama vowed to work toward achieving a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations “starting from the minute I’m sworn into office.”

He said any U.S. involvement in peace talks must recognize “not only Israel’s security concerns but also the economic hardships facing Palestinians.”

Saying he would continue to “regard Israel as a valued ally. That policy is not going to change,” Obama continued, “What I think can change is the ability of the United States government and a United States president to be actively engaged with the peace process and to be concerned and recognize the legitimate difficulties that the Palestinian people are experiencing right now.”

jwendland @politicalaffairs.net

Economic meltdown: We need a new, green New Deal!

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:36:00 +0000

“Recession” just doesn’t seem to adequately describe the hits workers are taking today.

In the old days “recession” meant an economic downturn, unemployment and scrimping and cutting back until better days returned.

The current super-recession is putting us through much more hell than most of the “recessions” anyone can remember.

Official figures show that 7,000 folks are losing their homes daily now because of mortgage foreclosure.

The bosses have tossed 500,000 people into the jobless pile since January. Officially, we have almost 3 million more unemployed than when George W. Bush became president.

The consumer price index rose 1.1 percent in June, the biggest jump since 1982. That’s a double-digit annual inflation rate of 13.3 percent.

Energy prices rose 6.6 percent in June. Annualized, that’s an inflation rate of 78.2 percent.

Workers have cut back their demand for oil since last year by 25 percent or more. Yet the price of a barrel of the stuff shows no sign of dipping below $140, which is $50 more than it was a year ago. So much for those who tell us that a market driven by supply and demand will solve all our problems.

General Motors, for long the nation’s biggest industrial corporation, says it’s laying off even more workers because it is $15 billion in the hole.

That statement from GM’s accountants is as laughable as the fact that the company doesn’t have to count the profits it rakes in from overseas as part of its income. GM is opening plants all over the world.

Much worse, however, is the fact that GM is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the ultra-right’s war machine. The billions that GM makes building weapons for the Pentagon and its surrogates far exceed any “losses” it can calculate at U.S. plants. It has $15 billion in contracts to make armored vehicles, most of which it produces through subsidiaries overseas. These include vehicles suitable for biological and chemical warfare, in addition to ones that can launch missiles at targets 300 miles away. GM earns billions as sole supplier to the Pentagon of the Tomahawk missile. With war profits like these, why worry about auto plants or workers in the U.S.? Why not stay in Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else for 100 years?

Meanwhile, Wachovia Bank looks like it might soon join IndyMac as the place to line up outside of if you want to get your money before the mortgage scammers swallow it all up.

Is anybody doing a damned thing about all of this?

Well, congressional democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are talking about a “second stimulus package.” It includes provisions the labor movement has pushed for, including job-creating reconstruction of the nation’s roads, airports and bridges.

Barack Obama has called for a second round of rebate checks to help people deal with skyrocketing food and fuel costs. More significantly, though, he has called for establishment of a multi-billion-dollar fund that would create at least 5 million new industrial jobs to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure.

Bush has said nothing about an additional stimulus package but he has reminded us that anything we have in the bank, up to $100,000, is insured by the government! Very reassuring.

The Republicans and their standard-bearer McCain have come up with only a half-baked idea they say would solve the problem of oil prices — drill, drill and drill again, here, there and everywhere, even if, as experts say, it won’t come up with an extra drop of oil for the next 10 years.

It’s really not that hard to figure out what has to be done. History has much of the answer. We need a massive program like the one we had in the 1930s — the New Deal program that pulled us out of the Great Depression.

As with the New Deal, we need not just massive public works but strict new regulations to rein in the out-of-control profiteers who created this mess. And this time, we need massive projects aimed at creating a green economy that works for everyone, not just the rich.

Such a green New Deal to rebuild infrastructure and switch to new alternative energy could create many millions of new manufacturing jobs that should be good-paying union jobs. Simultaneously we need to get rid of anti-worker trade agreements and we need to institute national health insurance. The money for such a massive green New Deal could come from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ending all corporate-backed wars for resources.

Today, as it was in the late 1920s, it is the unregulated corporate thieves and capitalists who are to blame. Today, as in the 1920s, there are politicians who work at the beck and call of these thieves. In those days it was the Calvin Coolidges and the Herbert Hoovers. In these days it’s the George Bushes and the John McCains.

Here’s hoping that the voters, this November, give McBush the same treatment his political forefathers got!

jwojcik @pww.org

New scorecard flunks U.S. health system

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:32:00 +0000

A new national scorecard issued by the Commonwealth Fund’s Commission on a High Performance Health System gives failing scores to the U.S. health care system. The U.S. scores an average of 65 out of a possible 100 across 37 key indicators in the areas of health outcomes, quality of care, access, efficiency and equity.

Even though the United States spends more on health care than any other industrialized country, access and affordability have declined significantly since 2006, the report shows.

In 2007, 42 percent of all working age adults in the U.S. were either uninsured or underinsured — an increase of more than 7 percent from the previous year. The report also reveals wide disparities in health care received by African Americans and Latinos compared to their white counterparts. It also shows widespread discrimination against people with low incomes. The most vulnerable, those needing the greatest services, are less likely to receive them. Children, the elderly and the impoverished are the majority of this group.

The scorecard grades the performance of each state, with an interactive U.S. map on the Commonwealth Fund web site. Wide disparities are apparent from state to state, region to region and across hospitals and health plans even within the same geographical area. Overall, the South and parts of the West score at the bottom.

The Commonwealth Fund, which focuses on health policy reform, issued its first health scorecard in 2006. This year’s scorecard “tells us that we are losing ground in crucial areas like access to health care,” said lead researcher and Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. “We now have 75 million Americans who are uninsured or underinsured. Poor access pulls down quality and drives up costs of care. The U.S. leads the world in health care spending — we should expect a far better return on our investment.”

The report identifies several key sources for the current system’s failures.

Most adults cannot afford to pay health insurance premiums, which have increased faster than wages. In 2007 41 percent of adults reported that they had medical debt or trouble paying their medical bills. That was up from 34 percent in 2005.

Resources are allocated in an inefficient and wasteful manner. The report says tens of thousands die annually from errors and from causes that could have been prevented if these individuals had been provided quality health care initially.

The U.S. fell from 15th to last among 19 industrialized nations on premature deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective health care, the report notes.

The U.S. has failed to keep up with health care improvements made in other countries, the report says. For example, we lag far behind other leading countries in the use of electronic medical records, which would help both doctors and patients.

Nonwhite patients, low-income patients and uninsured patients experience the worse outcomes, the report shows. They wait longer to see a doctor when they are ill, encounter more delays, poorly coordinated care, avoidable hospitalizations and uncontrolled chronic disease when compared with their higher-income white counterparts.

The U.S. has some of the best-equipped hospitals and best-trained physicians in the world providing extraordinary care, yet millions of its people cannot benefit from this, the report points out.

Health insurance administrative costs account for billions of dollars. These could be reduced by $51 billion to $102 billion if the U.S. changed its system, the report says. Japan, Finland and Australia, with national health care systems, spend the least on administrative costs of the countries surveyed in the report. Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland are in the middle with a mixed private-public system.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, the “scorecard trends present a compelling case for change in the way U.S. health care is financed, organized, and delivered.”

The report calls for a national dialogue on the presidential candidates’ health care plans, with the aim of evolving a new vision for universal health care in the U.S. However it does not mention a single-payer national system as a potential solution for the U.S. Instead it offers a plan for mixed private-public group insurance and tax incentives for insurance providers.

phillyrose623@verizon.net

Edwards campaigns to end poverty

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:53:00 +0000

BRIDGEPORT, CT – Surrounded by an enthusiastic, multi-racial gathering of union and community residents, Senator John Edwards unveiled his Half in Ten campaign at Steel Point in Bridgeport, Connecticut last Thursday in the hot afternoon sun.

Edwards chose Bridgeport as part of his national tour to cut poverty in half in ten years because this former industrial hub is now one of the poorest cities in the country, located in the richest county and state.

The former steel production site now slated for economic development is the focal point of a city campaign to require that developers create good, union jobs and affordable housing

“We can’t allow developers to come in here unless they guarantee good union jobs,” declared David Harris, a three year member of SEIU 32 BJ who works at the train station. “With the union I have a regular paycheck, I can take my kids to the dentist, and I have time to spend with my family.”

To afford a two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport requires an hourly wage of $22.30. Minimum wage workers are forced to work many jobs to try and make ends meet.

“We know very well what has to be done, we just need the national commitment” said Edwards calling for a raise in the minimum wage, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the child care tax credit, affordable child care, the right to form a union, and expansion of unemployment insurance.

Edwards called on those assembled to be part of the effort every step of the way. Emphasizing the importance of the national elections he added to a rousing cheer, “Get Barack Obama elected as president.”

“It is time to call on the greatness of the American people to say no longer will anyone work and live in poverty,” he exclaimed.

Jim Himes, Democratic candidate for Congress in the 4th CD, now represented by Republican Chris Shays, was among those to sign a poster-size statement of support for a livable city initiative in Bridgeport for good jobs and affordable housing.

Edwards’ tour comes as economic indicators look bleaker than ever, with rising unemployment and continuing loss of jobs, the mortgage foreclosure crisis, health care crisis and escalating gas, electric and food prices. It is harder and harder for families to make ends meet, and food pantries and shelters across the country are overflowing.

The official unemployment rate is 5.5 percent, but the real unemployment rate is twice as high. Last year1.5 million families faced foreclosure, with 2.5 million expected in 2008.

Edwards’ campaign exposes the policies of Bush and McCain which have led to the crisis of everyday living.

The national Half in Ten project which Edwards heads, is a joint project of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR).

The project is partnering with local organizations and unions in cities across the country.

Before speaking in Bridgeport, Edwards conducted a roundtable discussion in Hartford with statewide political and community leaders involved in efforts to expand economic opportunity and reduce poverty and economic inequality in Connecticut.

Rising child poverty in the midst of great wealth for a few has been a cause of concern for the past decade. Legislative proposals to create a more progressive tax system which could provide the revenue to end child poverty have failed. In 2004 the legislature was the first in the country to enact a mandate to cut child poverty in half in ten years. But child poverty has not declined. Organizers hope Edwards’ national campaign will add pressure for specific action.

Netroots Nation event ends with call for unity

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:23:00 +0000

The several thousand strong Netroots Nation conference ended in Austin Texas on Sunday with a rousing presentation by Van Jones of Green for All who endorsing Al Gore's call for a 10 year plan ending US use of non-renewable energy called for a New Deal approach to aggressively achieving it. Jones urged novel and creative approaches to solving the energy crisis with green jobs. 'We cannot drill and burn our way out of this problem. If we do, we will burn this planet.' 'We can say no, we're not going to drill and burn out way out. We're going to invent and invest our way out,' said Jones as reported by Kate Sheppard of Grist.com. Jones had just returned from a trip to the Antarctica with Tom Dashle and Jimmy Carter.

Jones said the emerging new progressive majority had to prepare for governing. “The challenge here for you is that you have to figure out a way … to go from opposition to proposition, from protest to governance.

The four day conference featured dozens of panel discussions that ranged emerging health care trends on line to “Black Bloggin Beyond Obama” which centered on keeping the conversation on race alive after Obama is elected. David Sheih of the Austin Statesmen wrote that this panel, organized by Leutisha Stills of the Congressional Black Caucus Monitor Report Card urged bloggers to fight against complacency.

A labor panel stressed the need for deeper cooperation between the labor movement and bloggers based on common interests. Jason Lefkowitz, Change to Win Online Organizer said that Netroots represented a new way for labor to organize and get its word out. “We believe that Netroots is forming a new communication infrastructure for the progressive movement and labor is at the core of the progressive movement.” Lefkowitz said labor had to fine tune its message to bloggers, “We have to find ways to make our issues relevant to bloggers, help them see how these things are important.” The basis for doing this, he continued is that “unions are about collective action, which is something progressives believe in at the core of their philosophy.”

This sentiment was echoed by Stephanie Taylor of SEIU. “One of the beautiful things about the netroots movement is that there is a new way to empower ordinary folk to make change and to give them the the tools that they need to go up against big money to go up against corporate interests and take America back for working people.”

The AFL-CIO's Seth Michaels reported that:

At Thursday’s Netroots Nation Labor Caucus, more than 40 communicators and other activists from across the union movement—unions of the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and the National Education Association participated—and outside the union movement got together to talk about working family issues and how to engage the netroots around them.

Labor Caucus participants agreed the first step is to make sure this community is united behind the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers seeking to form unions.'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday stressed imperative of defeating Bush. “The power of the White House is huge and the unity that we must have is essential. So we cannot afford the luxury of 'my person didn't win and therefore, I'm less enthusiastic'”.

The 2009 Netroots Nation conference will be in Pittsburgh during August.

Gore, Obama at Netroots Nation conference stress renewable energy, grassroots activism

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:19:00 +0000

“This is about a new direction for the American people,” said Howard Dean at a rally at the Netroots Nations conference in Austin Texas over the weekend. The event gathered some 3000 blogger-activists. Dean was among a number of Democrats attending the four-day long meet, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore. Gore received a number of standing ovations and called on the assembled bloggers to aid a campaign to within a decade insure all energy used in the US is based on renewable sources.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama addressed the gathering via video while on his tour abroad. Obama stressed the grassroots character of his vision for a new progressive majority: “I've always believed that grassroots movements are the most powerful means of bringing about lasting change” he said.

The Obama campaign's grassroots strategy encompasses all 50 states and is besting the GOP in polling in areas formerly dominated by the Republican right. “We're already competing hard across the country, from Colorado, to Montana, to Virginia, to South Dakota, even Alaska,” he declared.

The Democrat emphasized efforts to construct a lasting infrastructure: “We're building the lasting infrastructure that will not only help us win in November, but build the progressive movement for years to come.” Obama continued, “We've got over 1 million activists on . These have organized over 70,000 events and made millions of phone calls from home and formed thousands of grassroots advocacy groups.”

Obama's approach was echoed in one of the workshops at Netroots, where campaign aid Steve Hildebrand stressed the movement building strategy of the campaign. Garance Franke-Ruta of the Washington Post reports that Hildebrand stressed that in Obama's view 'every state is a field state,” where a huge voter registration effort will be undertaken after the Labor Day weekend.

The goal from the beginning was to build a movement. 'Barack's point was, winning the presidency would be remarkable,” continues Hildebrand, “but building a movement at the grass-roots to actually get an agenda passed would be worth anything and everything they would have to go through.'

Strategists expertly devised an “on-line, off-line strategy” to achieve this goal. In this regard, the Post quotes Hildebrand: 'The online campaign component was going to be critical, but it had to be married to offline efforts. 'If our people on the Internet weren't also organizing on the ground, we weren't going to be as effective,' said Hildebrand. 'Barack had to be a different kind of candidate. He had to be authentic. If he ran and he ran as a traditional kind of candidate, he was not going to be successful. ... He had to take a different path.'

Take Action: Tell Congress no war with Iran

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:29:00 +0000

Take action!

Tell Congress:

No war with Iran. Negotiations, not threats and sanctions.

Oppose H. Con. Res. 362, S. Res. 580 and other provocative measures.

Call your senators and representatives. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

Latinos for Obama maps massive national campaign

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:33:00 +0000

SAN DIEGO — “I’m not taking a single Latino vote for granted,” Sen. Barack Obama promised thousands at the National Council of La Raza’s national conference here, July 13. To show his seriousness, right after Obama’s speech his campaign held a three-hour Latinos for Obama briefing for NCLR members where top-level Latino staff outlined the nuts and bolts of his Latino campaign strategy and answered in detail questions about his positions on key issues.

Daniel Sepulveda, senior policy advisor on Obama’s Senate staff, said Obama's core commitments that he will not compromise are “ending the war in Iraq, providing health care for all, reinvesting in education, and bringing the 12 million out of the shadows with a path to citizenship.” On trade issues, Obama is “committed to amending all the current treaties to add labor and environmental protections,” Sepulveda said.

Stressing that, “My boss will not vote for a pure temporary worker program,” he said Obama wants a program that will enable all who come here to work to get married, raise families and have a path to citizenship — there will be no new “bracero” program.

Regarding Obama's pledge to introduce and work to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in his first year of office, his advisor said Obama will seek a “real compromise, stand up to the right wing, and demand transparency in the process. Obama opposes the “Shuler bill,” HR 4088, which establishes what many consider a deeply flawed national worker identification program and would use the Social Security system to require employers to fire any workers whose names do not match their Social Security numbers. Obama says the privacy of all U.S. workers must be protected and no one should be fired without full due process.

Latinos for Obama national coordinator Cuauhtemoc Figueroa said the campaign would focus “like a laser on Latino voters in the battleground states of New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida,” adding that if Obama wins the three in the Southwest or Florida, he wins the election. Full-time staff will also be sent to work on the Latino vote in other states where the numbers are high like California and Texas, and also battleground states like Virginia with a 5 percent Latino electorate, and Ohio, with a 10 percent Latino population, where a big Latino turnout can be the margin of victory.

Major efforts will be made to bring out the Latino vote where key congressional and state legislative posts can be won, said Figueroa. Over 100 Latino organizers are being hired to carry this out. Major voter registration efforts are already going in key areas.

Referring to polls that show Obama leading John McCain 2-1 among Latinos, Figueroa said, “We have to do better.” He said the media would tend to favor McCain, pointing to the “myth” that Latinos don’t support African American candidates. He noted that Latinos have voted overwhelmingly for African American candidates in key local races. “Latinos voted 85 percent to elect David Dinkins mayor of New York, 90 percent for Wellington Webb in Denver, 80 percent for Harold Washington in Chicago, 75 percent for Kirk in Dallas” and were a major part of the Tom Bradley coalition in Los Angeles.

The campaign will make unprecedented major media buys in Spanish and English in Latino markets to help the Latino community know Obama better. Efforts will include mail, walk distribution pieces, print ads and get-out-the vote material.

A comprehensive “Blueprint for Change” booklet is available in English and Spanish detailing Obama’s stands on Latino issues. Conference calls and town hall meetings will be held on key issues with Latino organizations and groups. This includes a call in conference with former Clinton cabinet member and Denver Mayor Federico Pena.

State directors in New Mexico and Colorado are Latinos, Latino staff will be on the ground in at least 12 states, 3,600 volunteers will be registering voters across the country, and volunteers from bordering states will flood Latino battleground states.

Action priorities for volunteers include phone banking from home using an online phone banking tool, registering voters in battleground states, sponsoring buses to battleground states, holding house parties to raise $200 each to sponsor a voter registration canvasser for a weekend, and adopting a city in a neighboring battleground state to visit once a month until Election Day.

A Camp Obama program is in motion to train supporters in the basics of organizing based “on the traditions of community organizing in Barack’s own background.” Some 500 supporters will be recruited and trained in two-day Latino-oriented Camp Obama sessions from which 100 new Latino organizers will be hired and placed. The first two trainings will be in Florida and Nevada. The Nevada session will be July 25-27 in the Las Vegas Culinary Union hall.

rosalio_munoz @ sbcglobal.net

Low income tenants fight to save their homes

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:20:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. — Dozens of tenants at the California Hotel won a small but significant victory July 11, when a judge ordered the building’s owner and managers to keep the hotel open and maintain utilities, managerial and security services pending a further court hearing on July 30.

Many residents at the hotel, which has 150 units for low-income renters, are seniors and many are disabled. The management company told them on June 20 it was pulling out effective July 15. The building’s owner, a non-profit housing developer which says it has run out of money, advised tenants to leave before that date because it would not hire a new management firm.

In a lawsuit filed on behalf of over 50 tenants, attorney John Murcko charged the owners with violating a 1992 agreement to operate the hotel for low income residents for 30 years, in return for $7 million in tax breaks from the state.

At a rally at City Hall July 10, tenant Arthur Bunton, who uses a wheelchair, told the World, “Right now, I don’t know where I could move. I’ve put in applications at other places, but most have waiting lists and some are too expensive.”

Bunton said his current rent already takes up to 60 percent of his monthly SSI income. The hotel’s tenants pay an average of $500/month for their single-room-occupancy accommodations. While the hotel “has some problems, like any low-cost place,” he said, it used to offer a range of services to residents including a weekly visit from a doctor. Food banks and other supportive facilities are nearby.

Though after paying rent and food, he’s “pretty much broke,” Bunton told dozens of tenants and their supporters at the rally, “I’ve never been homeless, and I don’t intend to be homeless. We need to keep the California hotel open!”

Robbie Clark, an organizer with the housing rights group Just Cause Oakland, said the organization is calling on the city to help prevent the displacement of residents at the hotel and another building the same owners plan to close at the end of the month. She said five more buildings are threatened with closure in coming months.

“What we see as a resolution to this is to bring all who are involved to the table to talk about what’s necessary to maintain affordable housing and make sure it is sustainable,” she said.

The California Hotel, a landmark building once known for social events, is now one of Oakland’s largest low income residences. Besides the state tax breaks, the developers have also received millions in federal, state and city loans, as well as aid from the city to cover expenses after the developers said two years ago they were broke.

Sean Rogan, Oakland’s Director of Housing and Community Development, told reporters during the rally that the city is “disappointed” in developments around the California Hotel and the other threatened buildings, and continues to seek ways to stabilize the situation. The city has approved relocation aid for tenants, and is urging other low income residences to give them priority. But few tenants have accepted the offer, citing waiting lists and disruption of longstanding living arrangements.

Nor is the problem faced by California Hotel residents unique. “I would say that countrywide, and especially in this area, we are looking at the loss of this type of affordable housing, and at threats to public housing overall,” said Robbie Clark. “That’s been happening for many years with the federal disinvestment in housing. Now added pressures are coming from the instability of the housing market, and the foreclosure crisis.”

mbechtel @pww.org

Alliance to register 500,000 immigrants, get a million to polls

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:15:00 +0000

One of the main slogans of the massive marches which started three years ago for a just and comprehensive reform of immigration laws was, “Today we march, tomorrow we vote.” Today under the slogan, “My Vote, My Future: Millions Standing up for the American Dream,” the We Are America Alliance will work to make the first slogan a reality by registering half a million Latino and Asian immigrants to vote in time for the upcoming presidential elections this November.

The We Are America Alliance (WAAA), a national coalition of immigration and social justice organizing groupings, made the announce July 10 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, together with leaders of the New Virginians Initiative of Tenants and Workers United in Alexandria, and the National Association of Elected and Appointed Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund.

The voter registration drive will be combined with a comprehensive get out the vote campaign in 13 states to get over one million Hispanic and Asian voters to the polls. According to a WAAA press release, the different member organizations will target young voters under 25, new naturalized citizens and infrequent voters through a door-to-door organizing model. The coalition will also work with the “Ya es hora” campaign sponsored by Spanish-language television and print media, NALEO and the Service Employees International Union urging immigrants to become citizens and enter the electoral process.

The coalition has already started this work holding workshops for volunteers registering new voters and holding voter registration tables during naturalization ceremonies and other events.

Holli Holiday, WAAA executive director, calls the campaign “an unprecedented civil engagement movement involving a multi-ethnic alliance of national, state, and local organizations working together toward a common goal. The partners involved in this effort will be collaborating to mobilize more than one million Latino, Asian, and immigrant voters this election cycle.”

NALEO Educational Fund director Arturo Vargas noted, “Over the past decade, the immigrant electorate has grown significantly. The tremendous turnout in the presidential primaries sent a clear message that the Latino, Asian, and immigrant communities are prime for exercising their growing electoral power.”

The WAAA reported that in a nation-wide poll they commissioned among Hispanic voters that 70 percent said they had voted in the primaries this year. “These findings are extremely significant when considering that primary elections are often characterized by low turnout and participation from frequent and engaged voters. According to the survey, the respondents noted the act of voting as an effective mechanism for changing the political system.”

While the effort is non-partisan and the member organizations are tax-exempt non-profit entities, the significance of what the upcoming presidential elections was not lost on the organizers of this effort. “As the country prepares for an historic presidential election in 2008, one of the major stories after Election Day will be the rise of immigrant voters as increasingly engaged in the political process,” Vargas underlined.