People Before Profit blog

Peoples Center receives award from Black and Hispanic Caucus

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:20:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Just two weeks before election day, Anthony's Ocean View Restaurant was packed for the third annual New Haven Board of Alders Black and Hispanic Caucus Gala, honoring three individuals and the New Haven Peoples Center.

The event was a welcome opportunity to take a break from the hectic door-knocking election campaign schedule, kick up heels on the dance floor, and raise funds for youth and senior programs in the city.

Accepting the community service Heritage Award on behalf of the Peoples Center, Joelle Fishman expressed appreciation for the courage of the Caucus in recognizing this all-volunteer institution which has been a welcoming space for labor, community, youth, peace, immigrant, and many other groups for 77 years.

"All this does not come easy," said Fishman, detailing activities over the decades for which the building was named a site on Connecticut's African American Freedom Trail. "If you stand up for justice you can expect opposition from those who identify with the one percent and don't want to change the system," she said.

"The Peoples Center has been picketed by immigrant haters, union haters and anti-communist red baiters. They say the Peoples Center is unpatriotic. But what could be more patriotic than working toward equality?" she concluded to a standing ovation.

Attending the Gala as part of the Peoples Center were ten members of the New Elm City Dream and Young Communist League youth groups that have been organizing on behalf of the needs of their generation. Several other tables were filled with representatives of unions and organizations that utilize the Peoples Center space, including AFT Connecticut, SEIU 32 BJ, Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans, Unidad Latina en Acción, Connecticut People's World Committee, and the New Haven Peace Council. Others throughout the audience also identified as part of the Peoples Center community.

Other awardees included Robert Proto, president of the New Haven Labor Council and Unite Here Local 35 at Yale, WYBC radio personality Juan Castillo, and Clinton Avenue School principal Carmen Ana Rodriguez.

Twenty of the city's 30 Alders are in the Black and Hispanic Caucus, reflecting the composition of the city. Many came into office in 2011 as part of a large campaign that elected many union members and allies to local office.

"At that time we realized that we would like to do something positive for all of the youth and seniors of New Haven," said caucus chair Dolores Colon, Ward 6. The Gala has raised tens of thousands of dollars that have been donated to dozens of youth and senior groups.

Photo: Joelle Fishman displays the Heritage Award, presented to the New Haven Peoples Center by the New Haven Board of Alders Black and Hispanic Caucus.

GOP on wrong side of history on immigration

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:04:00 +0000

Suffering amnesia about their personal histories, nativist Republicans want to expel the 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants, the people who harvested America's Thanksgiving vegetables and care for America's toddlers and grannies.

The GOP has threatened to sue, shut down the government and impeach President Barack Obama to punish him for issuing an executive order giving fewer than half of the nation's undocumented workers a limited ability to remain in the United States.

Americans would prefer if Congress fixed this problem. But Congress hasn't. In the year and a half since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill, House leaders refused to permit a vote on it. So now, Obama, like all 10 presidents since 1965, Republican and Democratic, issued an executive order on immigration. His order says America will treat 5 million striving unauthorized immigrants with respect.

Exactly one week before Thanksgiving, the president described his order. It broadens the "dreamer" program that provides temporary reprieves from deportation to unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children.

It establishes temporary work authorization for undocumented immigrants who have lived in the United States for at least five years and are parents of American citizens or military personnel. It directs the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to focus on deporting criminals and suspected terrorists and orders Homeland Security to help secure the border.

It disqualifies new undocumented immigrants. Anyone who entered the United States recently or who enters now without authorization is excluded. The order is limited as well. It lasts only as long as Obama is president. The next executive could continue it. Or kill it.

If such a program had been in place 14 years ago, actress Diane Guerrero, who plays Maritza Ramos on the show "Orange Is The New Black," would have been spared separation from her parents and brother. Guerrero described her family's deportation in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. She was just 14 when she arrived home from school to find lights on, dinner started but her family missing.

Born in the United States, Guerrero was a citizen. Her parents and brother were not.

Neighbors broke the news to her the INS had seized her family and would deport them to civil war-torn Colombia. In the op-ed, Guerrero pleaded for relief for families like hers. Obama provided it. Thank goodness.

Immigrants like Guerrero's family don't enter the United States to take. Like everyone who has arrived on America's shores, these new émigrés work to give their children a better life. Some young undocumented workers today labor to give their parents in Mexico remittances that enable them to survive after NAFTA destroyed their ability to eke out a living from subsistence farms. Americans respect those family values.

Unauthorized immigrants are lured into the U.S. by the promise of jobs, whether it's making hotel beds, washing cars or picking produce. Employers want their labor. Farmers who rely on the backbreaking work of unauthorized immigrants found themselves with produce rotting in the fields after some states passed anti-immigration laws in recent years.

Americans should know Obama's order is a blessing to native-born citizens as well as immigrants. A study by the Bipartisan Policy Center found immigration reform is good for the economy, while inaction is destructive.

The center's task force, co-chaired by former governors from both parties, said immigration reform would be a powerful instrument of economic revitalization: "The results make clear that reform has the potential to significantly increase the number of young, working-age people in the economy. This influx of labor would spur economic growth, reduce federal deficits, help the housing sector and mitigate the effects of an aging population. By contrast, preventing unauthorized immigration without providing replacement labor would cause severe damage to the economy."

In addition, reform means immigrants no longer need fear deportation for reporting violations such as wage theft, perilous working conditions and workplace violence. This protects native-born workers because employers who become accustomed to impunity for illegal exploitation of immigrants quickly attempt to abuse all workers.

While unauthorized immigrants have long prayed for reform, 57 percent of native-born Americans now believe those entreaties should be answered. The number is higher - 74 percent - if reform includes a path to citizenship, fines, back taxes and background checks.

But a president's power is limited, and Obama stopped short of extending citizenship. That's Congress' responsibility. Obama asked lawmakers to act: "Scripture tells us, we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too."

At a press conference held last week by groups supporting Obama's executive action, Maria Teresa Kumar, president of Vota Latino, told the story of one of those strangers. During the holidays four years ago, she recounted, a young man who had just finished boot camp and was on his way to deployment in Iraq called her for help. He'd just learned the INS had detained his father. On Christmas Eve, the soldier lost his father to deportation, and his family lost a breadwinner.

Leo Gerard is President, United Steelworkers

Photo: Labor unions participate in Chicago's May 1, 2006, mega-immigrant rights march. (PW/Pepe Lozano)

Activists shut down malls on Black Friday as Ferguson protests intensify

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 13:12:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - It is known as the busiest shopping day of the year, but this Nov. 28 Black Friday, was more than just long lines and last minute tiffs between shoppers eyeing the leftover merchandise.

Walking inside the Galleria Mall shoppers were greeted by the sound of Ferguson demonstrators who continue to protest and fight for justice in the case of Michael Brown; their commitment to continued demonstrations has recently intensified after the grand jury's announcement that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed Brown, would not be indicted.

Gathering around the mall's Christmas tree, demonstrators began carolling loudly as they rewrote the words to many holiday classics and focused much of their attention to speaking directly to the holiday shopping crowd. People passing by either gave a wave, smile, or a thumbs up of support for what they were doing but there were still those few who decided to curse, shout, and demonize the peaceful demonstration.

Around 12:45 p.m., demonstrators began a massive die in, people laid right where they had stood for four and a half minutes of silent reverence. As a demonstrator nearby mentioned, "We want you to think about going to college in 30 days then getting shot six times and left bleeding out in the street for four and a half hours."

As the silence ended, demonstrators regrouped and were joined by other protestors who had been further down the mall. Shortly after, event organizers began a march to the second floor and within the moments demonstrators took control of the top level stomping and chanting, "We shut sh*t down!"

As if on cue, store managers began frantically running to their stores' respective entrances, locking the doors, and pulling down the exterior fences. "Stop shopping and join the movement!" was the victory cry as one by one all the kiosks and stores around them closed.

Demonstrators successfully shut down the Galleria for about an hour and did so not only for Mike Brown but also in solidarity with the striking Walmart workers across the country.

This early afternoon action led to similar shut down demonstrations at the West County Mall in nearby Des Peres, Mo., and the Chesterfield mall. These protests coupled with demonstrations in Chicago, New York, Seattle, and Northern California, where protestors chained themselves to trains, were among the largest in the country this Black Friday.

Photo: Jeff Roberson/AP

Lesson from the 2014 elections: Inclusive 50-state strategy needed

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:55:00 +0000

A lot of teeming water has already passed under the bridge since the 2014 elections. People are marching and sitting-in over the no indictment in the police murder of Michael Brown, mobilizing to support President Obama's executive order on immigration and organizing Black Friday protests.

The time for licking election wounds is over, but lessons are still being drawn from the setbacks.

Many factors came into play that determined the disappointing outcome. The electoral battleground was unfavorable to Democrats, and history was against President Obama's party in the midterm election of his second term.

The coalition of voters that re-elected President Obama in 2012 didn't turn out in the same way in 2014. Voter suppression laws whose sole purpose was to prevent African Americans, Latinos, and youth from voting may have tipped some races.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of "dark money" influenced the outcome, $300 million from the Koch brothers alone.

The GOP furiously obstructed the Obama presidency from the get-go and then declared the administration incompetent and a failure.

A perfect storm of events occurred over the past year sending President Obama's popularity plummeting. People were unsettled and frightened by the Ebola panic, ISIS beheadings, the border crisis with thousands of children fleeing violence, the Veterans Administration scandal, and the Obamacare website disaster. The GOP exploited these fears and a sense that government can't solve big problems.

Millions are enduring daily economic pain, fear and insecurity; consequently, reports of an improving economy ring hollow. Democrats failed to articulate a message that convincingly addressed the massive wealth inequality, joblessness, wage stagnation, household debt and retirement security. Dominated by sections of Wall Street, the Democratic Party showed its contradictions and limitations.

GOP candidates were more diverse and less polarizing than in 2012, often moderating or hiding their stances. They copied the Democrats' voter identification and GOTV methods.

Millions took their anger and frustrations out against the President and Democrats or expressed their disillusionment by staying home. Turnout was the lowest in 72 years.

30 years of right-wing ideology

Into this combustible mix the GOP poured racism and other right-wing ideological flammables. For over 30 years these toxins have penetrated the body politic. If people experience the harsh realities of right-wing policies, why did Govs. Scott, Walker, Kasich, Brownback, and Snyder win? How can it be that with Republican opposition to equal pay for women and the Violence Against Women Act, 48 percent of women voted Republican?

These are tough questions.

We are fighting an interrelated system of putrid ideas that includes racism, hatred of the working class and labor, women, LGBTQ people and immigrants. It is anti-science, anti-environment, and attacks the role of government. One or all of these ideas in combination can influence people.

The right wing has been relentless in its hostility toward President Obama. The vilest of racist expressions are stated without inhibition. As is customary when a president is unpopular, many Democratic candidates in "red" and "swing" states distanced themselves from Obama. But they also made accommodations to the Republican racist narrative by refusing to challenge the hostility or defend the positive achievements. They also prevailed on him to delay issuing the executive order on immigration, again accommodating to right wing racism. They wanted the president to mobilize African American and Latino voters, but stay out of their states.

If racist appeals are not challenged they are more likely to penetrate thinking and consciousness. Among white workers this is especially so in a world seemingly turning upside down, rapidly changing demographics and full of insecurity.

This is sharply illustrated by the fact that outside the South, white voters preferred Republicans by an average of only eight percentage points. But in 10 Southern states with an election for Senate on the ballot, Republicans won white voters by an average of 42 points. Even though only one-third of midterm voters said their vote was "to express opposition to Barack Obama," a plurality-45 percent-said President Obama was not a factor. Nearly 20 percent said they voted to support him.

Struggle against racism and right-wing ideology

In the past few months, the American people have engaged in important national discussions, which have caused millions to reflect more deeply. The horrific murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., exposed the brutality, inhumanity and deeply entrenched institutionalized racism of its police and political structure. This tragedy laid bare the New Jim Crow of racial profiling, police crimes, and militarization for millions to see, including millions of white Americans.

Sharing photos and videos of racist police crimes via social media has helped millions understand it is a national epidemic. The ongoing protests in Ferguson are fostering a nationwide movement. The involvement by organized labor, including low-wage workers in alliance with the established civil rights movement, religious community and youth, is new.

Movements are growing in opposition to mass incarceration and prison privatization. The passage of Proposition 47 in California to change sentencing guidelines is a major victory. Again, the involvement of the AFL-CIO is new.

Millions are discussing the racist name and logo of the Washington NFL team, making it one of the largest movements against anti-Native racism in years.

Shifts in attitudes are taking place toward undocumented immigrants. Over 57 percent of the American public now believes they should be granted legal status and a path to citizenship.

People across the country discussed, including on sports talk radio and television, domestic violence and violence against women after horrific revelations of assaults committed by NFL players.

And over the past few years a sea change has taken place in people's thinking toward marriage equality and LGBTQ rights.

These movements and discussions are exposing people to new ideas and challenging their beliefs, prejudices and sensibilities.

In the wake of the murder of Michael Brown, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka addressed racial equity at the Missouri AFL-CIO convention and illustrated how racism dehumanizes, divides and hurts all workers and the common interests our multi-racial class has in uniting against it. He displayed confidence in white workers' ability to change.

Along with stressing the utter immorality of racism, Rev. William Barber II, leader of the Forward Together Moral Movement, pointed out that the same extremists who passed voter suppression laws also "denied 500,000 North Carolinians access to Medicaid, cut unemployment and denied the earned-income tax credit."

Paraphrasing Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where you find a labor hater, you will find a race baiter," and to that I would add a climate denier.

The emergence of a new movement in the Deep South based on multi-racial unity of labor, Forward Together Moral Movement, immigrant rights and women's rights offers enormous potential to reconfigure politics of the South and the nation.

These developments should have encouraged Democratic Party candidates to directly confront racism. For example, Alison Lundergan Grimes, who absurdly refused to say she voted for Obama when everyone knew she did, should have told Mitch McConnell, "Stop trying to divide the people of Kentucky with your racism and using it to hide your own anti-people agenda. We don't want either."

50-state strategy needed

Ours is a multi-racial, multi-national, multi-lingual and multi-cultural people and nation, and has been so since before its founding. This diversity is a source of tremendous strength and inspiration. Movements for equality have been central to expanding democracy. Whenever people are united, advances have been made toward social justice.

Demographic shifts mean the U.S. will be a majority non-white country this century. Some Democratic operatives are working under a strategy for winning future presidential and congressional elections by relying almost exclusively on demographic shifts. It is a response to Democratic candidates winning only 30 percent of white working class voters overall.

The approach flows from a decision by the Democratic National Committee to drop the 50 state strategy championed by Obama following the 2008 election.

But this approach is flawed and leads to further disunity. First, it puts the onus on African American and Latino communities who often bail out candidates while their support is taken for granted. Too often, little is done afterwards to address issues facing those very communities of color decisive to victory.

Second, it writes off a significant section of the electorate, mainly white working-class voters, and by default entire regions including the Deep South. It tells white working-class voters they are inherently reactionary and will never overcome racial influences.

Third, it ignores developing effective solutions that address the concerns of all working people, people of color, women and youth, and unites them.

Fourth, it is a concession to influences of racism. It's a non-struggle approach.

It ignores the all-inclusive approach of the Obama campaigns to the entire working class - black, brown and white. Without it, the field is wide open for Republicans to make appeals based on racism, hate and prejudice.

And depending on the appeal, other Democratic base voters can be "peeled" off the coalition, enough to win a close election. For example, support among Latinos, Asians and youth eroded from 2010. And depending on the candidate, Republicans made big inroads. Nevada Republican governor candidate Brian Sandoval won 47 percent of the Latino vote. In 2012, Asian voters supported Obama by a margin of 47 percent, but in 2014 a majority supported Republicans. Women voters went for the Democrats by a large margin in 2012 but narrowly went Democratic this year. Youth 18-30 voted in smaller numbers, their vote was a smaller percentage of the electorate as compared to 2012, and they voted in smaller percentages for Democrats.

It's not automatic that Hillary Clinton, the presumed 2016 Democratic candidate, will succeed in reassembling the Obama coalition, although she will energize women and other parts of the Democratic base. It is also possible Republicans will nominate someone with broader appeal, particularly to some Latino voters. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or former Gov. Jeb Bush could be formidable candidates.

All the more reason white working-class voters cannot be ignored, and the entire multi-racial working class must be embraced. A message of economic justice must be advanced, combined with how racism and prejudice divide and hurt the entire working class, are immoral, and dehumanize us all.

For the multi-racial working class to play its historic role, it must be united, politically and ideologically mobilized. Influences of racism, patriarchy, prejudice and bias must be overcome. The broad people's movement led by labor must be built in all 50 states, including "red" states and districts, suburbs, exurbs and rural areas if democratic advances are to be won. There is no way around it.

Photo: The Moral Monday Movement in North Carolina is seen as the type of movment that can turn things around, not only in the South but across the country. Tim Wheeler/PW

Man fights for justice inside Alabama prison

Mon, 01 Dec 2014 11:38:00 +0000

In August of 2013, a young man named Melvin Ray, incarcerated in Alabama's St. Clair Correctional Facility, began developing and sharing a philosophy and plan for resistance to mass incarceration from within the confines of the prison itself. He penned what some might characterize as a manifesto for what would become the Free Alabama Movement. Incarcerated individuals who joined this movement since January of 2014 have used several tactics of resistance, including filming the conditions of these facilities with cell phones and posting the videos to YouTube.

The use of this new technology as a subversive tool spurred a media campaign by the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) emphasizing the "danger" of cell phones in the hands of prisoners. It was claimed that it might lead to "overseeing drug deals or calling for a hit." It is incredibly suspicious how the ADOC's media campaign did not begin with some notable criminal act organized from within prison walls, yet it conveniently coincided with the release of videos and photos damaging to the reputation of the state agency, just as an investigation for abuses in another facility within the state by the U.S. Department of Justice was drawing to a conclusion.

But the tactic that Free Alabama Movement has emphasized most in their struggle is the stoppage of labor - strikes within the prisons. Melvin and the others have consistently decried free, uncompensated labor as the main reason for the persistence of mass incarceration in the U.S., placing prisoner exploitation in the general context of the struggle against capitalism.

I asked Melvin a few questions that I felt were relevant to the general anti-capitalist and black liberation movements, that he might assist those of us in the "free world" in understanding the underlying thought behind Free Alabama Movement's actions and development, and its relationship to those on the outside. Although I had originally intended to write a paragraph-style article interspersed with quotes from the interview, both the dynamism and cogency of his responses persuaded me instead to offer readers more of his unclad words:

Is there a connection between poverty wages within oppressed communities and free labor in the so-called "justice" system?

Poverty wages are part of the social/economic/political control mechanism of capitalism, and it is very much related to forced prison slavery/free labor. With limited resources due to low wages, you are restricted in many ways, including where your family can afford to live, what they can afford to buy (quality of life), and the most important control is their access to education. When your income only allows you to live in a poor community, then you typically only have access to under-performing schools, due to a lack of investment from state and local government. When confined by wages, the people of these poor communities are then closer in proximity to crime and criminal influences, which are directly related to incarceration, where forced slave labor is introduced. Consequentially, most people who are incarcerated also come from the poor communities where wages are depressed. The cycle then repeats itself because slave labor is forced on the socially and politically impoverished, because we lack traditional economics (no income) and political power due to disenfranchisement.

How would you describe the connection between white supremacy on the streets with police violence and white supremacy in the context of mass incarceration?

The fabric of white supremacy stretches across all threads of America because it is of a cultural and psychological nature, as described by Marimba Ani in her groundbreaking book Yurugu. In order to erect the concept of white supremacy, there has to be a foundation for it to stand on, and that foundation has always been black people. So with a psychology and culture built upon an identity that must destroy the black image and all things black, it's easy to see the connection between police brutality, mass incarceration, and a host of other elements (poverty, low wages, lack of investment opportunities, discrimination in housing and college admittance, and on and on).

The same mindset that allows a police officer to summarily execute an innocent, unarmed black person in the street is the same mindset that allows an officer to plant evidence, to lie on the witness stand, and for a white juror to find guilt. It allows a judge to appoint a knowingly incompetent defense attorney, and it allows a prosecutor to withhold evidence, use false evidence, to overcharge, and to discriminate against black jurors, all with impunity. The Dred Scott case (1857) captured it best when the U.S. Supreme Court said that "no black man has any rights that a white man is bound to respect." That applies whether it is an innocent black man or woman like Sean Bellor, Renisha McBride, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mafundi Lake, Move 9, on up to the Scott sisters, Mike Brown and Ezell Ford.

Under the dictates of white supremacy, if you are black in this society, then you can be murdered or raped with little consequence, or you can be subject to murder or rape in prison with the other weapons of mass murder and destruction like the death penalty, life without parole, malnutrition, substandard healthcare, on down to police brutality, forced free labor, long-term solitary isolation and sensory deprivation, and exposure to widespread disease, all subsumed in mass incarceration.

Under white supremacy, this is the lot for black people so that white people can validate their supremacy. In a "democracy" where the resources are controlled by a few and political will is enforced by the vote of white-majority politics, white supremacy will reign for a while longer.

What role does capitalism plays in the mass incarceration of people of color within U.S. society?

Capitalists seek the highest return on their investment, and the best way to increase returns is to find ways to reduce the cost of production. The cheaper the cost to produce, the greater the return. One production cost that any corporation would like to reduce is labor costs. Why? Because labor costs (paying employees salaries and raises, sick leave and maternity leave, vacation time, payroll and income tax, Social Security, 401Ks, and compliance with labor laws) are the greatest expense to a business. Corporations have found that the best way to reduce these labor costs is to use free prison labor because when the capitalist uses a prisoner/slave, he doesn't have any such expenses. He can replace all of these expenses with a campaign contribution to the politicians who can guarantee that he has access to prison labor.

It's all a matter of bottom line profits. The capitalist doesn't care where it comes from, and when you have power brokers who deem a certain segment of society ideally suited for that purpose (black, poor, uneducated, no political power), then they pass legislation like the "war on drugs" to create a system of mass incarceration/prison workforce slavery. Global competition within capitalism from producers like China made the decision to mass incarcerate large swaths of young black men for the purpose of exploiting them for prison/slave labor quite easy.

After the laws are passed, the next step is to get the media involved to play their role of demonizing and assassinating the character of black men so thoroughly in movies, TV, radio, and on the evening news ("crack babies," "drug predators," "violent gangs," "monsters," etc.) to the point that not only does no one care about the mass incarceration/government control that is taking place for over 7 million people, but most people think that when these people are imprisoned, they should be made to work for free as part of their punishment.

At the same time, these corporations fund colleges that begin teaching students in criminal justice curricula that prison labor is a necessary form of punishment for crime. Before long, everyone is drinking the same Kool-Aid.

With so many restrictions on your own personal freedoms, how do you cope? How do you keep resisting the system of mass incarceration?

I don't "cope," that's why I resist! My freedom was taken away from me in a violent manner by the state. In essence, I was kidnapped. That's how I define my incarceration at this time, as a kidnapping.
I had a family that I was raising, a business that I was starting, and a future that I was preparing for. The state decided that they would use their legal system to take all of that (and so much more) away from me for a crime that I didn't commit, and on top of that, I was sentenced to life without parole. So there is no way to cope with that.

I resist because I have no choice. The rules of prison are made to institutionalize you and make you a slave. The state needs for us to accept this way of life that they have chosen for us, so that we aren't a management problem for them. Well, I have a problem with it. Harriet Tubman spoke about how although she freed hundreds of slaves, she could have freed thousands more if only they knew they were slaves. Well, I know what's going on here, and I reject it wholeheartedly.

When the innocent, mentally ill, and the guilty are enslaved under the same oppression simply because the system deems you expendable, then I recommend that you better resist too, or else you will suffer the most ignoble fate known to humanity: dying as a slave of old age. It's far better to die fighting for your liberation, freedom and honor than it is to live a life of service and docility, constantly enduring abuse by your master. You have to at least be a problem for him; make your name taste like shit in his mouth; constantly be in his head; worry that bastard to death! Whatever you do, don't let him rest at peace at night as long as he holds you captive.

Photo: St. Clair Correctional Facility. Google Street View

San Jose coalition for affordable housing wins big

Wed, 26 Nov 2014 11:40:00 +0000

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A broad coalition pressing the City Council for a fee on developers of "market-rate" housing to fund affordable housing for working families won even more than they were asking for on Nov. 18, as the City Council not only passed the fee but also committed itself to exploring other funding sources for the same purpose, including a county-wide tax and a fee on commercial developers.

San Jose, which advertises itself as "the capital of Silicon Valley," has one of the highest housing costs in the nation, as well as - not coincidentally - one of the highest rates of homelessness. The high-tech industry, including such tech behemoths as Apple, Google, and Facebook, generates enormous wealth for the tech élite, but families with less than a six-figure income are out of luck in finding housing they can afford. According to official estimates, an income of $107,000 is required to afford the rent on an average apartment.

The city used to receive $40 million a year from the state Redevelopment Agency to build affordable housing, but those funds disappeared in 2012 when Governor Jerry Brown dissolved the Agency, creating a major crisis for the whole region. Not only are working families suffering, forced into homelessness or into doubling or tripling up in substandard housing, but also businesses are complaining that they cannot attract workers because of the high cost of housing.

In response, affordable housing advocates assembled a coalition to press for a housing impact fee, an approach that has worked successfully in other cities in the region and elsewhere. The logic of the fee is simple: Every individual or family that moves into market-rate housing requires services - police, sanitation, retail, and others - staffed by workers who can't afford the city's inflated housing costs. So it's reasonable to ask the developers of market-rate housing to pay toward providing housing for these needed service workers. A study commissioned by the city showed that the developers could pay a fee of up to $28 per square foot without significantly cutting into profits or raising rents.

A leader in building the coalition to support this fee was the Sacred Heart Housing Action Committee (SHHAC), a group of activists operating out of Sacred Heart Community Services, an organization that began in 1964 as a social service agency and over the past five years has turned itself into a major center for community organizing in San Jose. SHHAC helped pull together a broad spectrum of allies around this issue, including Working Partnerships, a community organization allied with the South Bay Labor Council AFL-CIO, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a business organization wielding considerable clout in the region, the Affordable Housing Network, and charitable agencies such as United Way and Catholic Charities. Through intensive grassroots organizing, SHHAC was able to bring to the City Council over 3,000 letters demanding that the fee be passed at the highest possible level.

A rally organized by SHHAC in front of City Hall fired up around 200 activists before they went in to the council chambers to testify and show their support for the measure. Pat Farrow of SHHAC opened the event by pointing out the sort of activists and leaders that make up SHHAC: people like herself, a senior on fixed income; like Robert, a homeless man who has a voucher for low-income housing but finds that every apartment that will take it has a long waiting list; or like Jolene, who has been on 20 housing lists but has yet to find a place. She described the two-year struggle that SHHAC and its allies have conducted: "When the city lost redevelopment funds, SHHAC went into action." To loud cheers, she declared, "We have waited two years for this day, and finally it's here - we have been heard. People who work here should be able to live here!"

Shiloh Ballard, vice-president of Silicon Valley Leadership Group for Housing and Community Development, reported that her organization, which represents some 400 businesses in the area, asks its members every year what the biggest impediment is to doing business here, and every year they get the same response: Housing.

Hip-hop artist Andrew Bigelow roused the crowd with a song about the inequities of life in Silicon Valley: "There's lots of gold, but not enough to go around - somebody's robbing somebody!" "We live in one of the wealthiest places in the world," he said, "yet we have people freezing on the streets."

SHHAC activist Anthony King told of being homeless from 1998 to 2103: "I have lived in numerous tents along the Guadalupe River," a favorite haunt of many homeless in the city. He told of finding help from a non-profit, but the going was still tough. He got a Section 8 voucher for low-income housing, but he went to many places only to find himself outbid by someone willing to pay above market rate, until finally, with the help of his case manager, he found an apartment. "But the point is not to dwell on my success," he said, "but to think of the thousands who haven't found housing. Today we have an opportunity to rectify this situation with an affordable housing impact fee!"

Rebecca Irelan, pastor of Willow Glen United Methodist Church in the center of San Jose, spoke of her morning spent helping someone find a rental van for their belongings so they could move out of the area because they couldn't find affordable housing - a very usual occurrence in her work. "If we want God to have a home in this valley," she declared, "we must make homes for God's people. Not just for some people, not just for those who have high-paying jobs, but for all people."

Pat then asked people to turn to their neighbor and ask whether they had ever struggled to find affordable housing in the city. Complying, this writer got a powerful lesson in the extent of the housing crisis. Valerie, who recently got a master's degree in public administration from Harvard - not the sort of school whose graduates are expected to wind up homeless - said she had spent the last several months sleeping on her sister's couch, along with twelve other people who couldn't find a place to live within their means.

The activists then filed into the council chambers, filling over half the pubic seats, and gave testimony after testimony to the depth of the crisis: Long waiting lists for low- or even middle-income housing, no affordable housing for students or even graduates of San Jose State University, lifelong residents of the city forced to move away for lack of housing, people repeatedly forced into homelessness as landlords jacked up rent.

A few opponents of the measure from the real estate industry tried to put up a smokescreen, overstating the fee's cost to developers, property owners, and renters of market-rate housing and forecasting an end to housing development if the measure passed - despite the fact that neighboring cities have instituted similar fees without any of these consequences.

The Council was not fooled and passed the measure seven to three. In an additional, and unexpected, victory, it added two provisions that the affordable housing coalition had not even asked for. One, proposed by progressive councilmember Don Rocha, committed the city to investigate other sources of housing funding, including a fee on commercial developers. In an ironic twist, the other came from councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio, a notorious fiscal conservative, who, in an effort to derail the impact fee, proposed that the city ask the county to consider a county-wide tax to support affordable housing, only to see his proposal added to the resolution instituting the fee.

So when they went across the street to 4th Street Pizza, the activists had plenty to celebrate.

Photo: AP

Law center for Muslims to challenge presumption of guilt

Tue, 25 Nov 2014 15:59:00 +0000

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - A former U.S. military attorney keynoted a well-attended Muslim Legal Fund of America fundraising event here, Nov. 15, announcing the formation of a new law center specifically for Muslims in the United States facing constitutional and civil rights violations.

The evening featured speakers MLFA executive director Khalil Meek, internationally known Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf, and Lt. Cmdr. (Ret.) Charles Swift, an attorney who is setting up the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America. The center will be a non-profit law firm that will take on civil and criminal cases for Muslims suffering violations of human rights. All three speakers hammered home the grave violations of the civil rights of Muslims, including unjustified and indiscriminate surveillance, politically motivated prosecutions and convictions, and entrapment of youth by FBI agents.

Formerly a top military attorney for the Navy, and not a Muslim himself, Swift set the tone for the gathering when he described how he came to his passionate commitment to defend Muslims under attack. While still a Navy lawyer, he was called on to defend Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, who was then being held at Guantánamo. Appalled by unconstitutional procedures in the court at Guantánamo, Swift won the right to have the case transferred to a federal court, only to find that federal courts were no better.

"If you were Muslim," said Swift, "you were not innocent until proven guilty; you were guilty until proven innocent"-a statement that gave the title to the event, Guilty Until Proven Innocent. Hamdan's conviction was ultimately reversed, and he was able to return home to Yemen.

"The first thing I learned in government," Swift continued, "is to follow the money." He pointed out that in the period since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been 500 terrorism-related prosecutions targeting Muslims, out of a total of 10,000 federal prosecutions-but the government spent 40 percent of its prosecution budget on that 5 percent. "They need results," commented Swift.

Entrapment has become a common FBI tactic in dealing with Muslim youth. FBI agents posing as members of a terrorist group will approach a Muslim teenager, perhaps one who has expressed some dissident views about U.S. foreign policy, and persuade him or her to agree to join in some criminal act-whereupon the confused young person will be arrested and charged. A number of Muslim youth are serving long prison sentences as the result of such entrapment. Swift pointed out that of the 27 so-called "major" terrorism prosecutions since 9/11-that is, those involving actual planned or (in three cases) realized attacks, all but one (the Boston Marathon bombing) were in fact planned by the FBI as part of this entrapment policy.

Swift reported that since 9/11, the FBI no longer needs probable cause to put someone under surveillance or on a "no-fly" list; in the case of Muslims, traveling to certain countries, including Pakistan and Israel, or simply refusing to talk to the FBI without a lawyer present, is enough to get a person on a list of persons "suspected" of connections to terrorism. In 2009, that list included over 200,000 Muslims; by 2013, it included over 400,000-out of an estimated 2.75 million Muslims in the U.S., according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. (That same survey showed negligible support for extremism among U.S. Muslims.)

Being on the list can, among other things, cause long delays for applicants for citizenship or residency; some 19,000 Muslim applicants have been caught in this so-called Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program. People put on the list have no access to due process for getting off it. "What does this tell us?" Swift concluded. "That in the view of the government everyone in this room is presumed to be guilty." (The overwhelming majority of attendees were Muslim, many of them immigrants.)

The Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America will combat these attacks on constitutional rights by taking on cases that are likely to have an impact on civil liberties, especially those involving "national security" laws with dangerously vague provisions. Swift also indicated that the center will seek to build coalitions with other organizations such as the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations; encourage major law firms to take on Muslim civil rights cases and develop young Muslim attorneys.

Swift said that his passion for this cause was in his blood; an ancestor of his, Bridget Bishop, was hanged as a witch in Salem, Mass., because she was "different."

"I want to do this," he went on, "because I believe that this country is the greatest country in the world, but I don't think it's defined by a flag. What is unique to this country is the Constitution. And the Constitution has to be defended by the minorities. This is the most important cause of our time."

Photo: Attorney Charles Swift, a retired Navy lieutenant commander, speaks during a 2008 press conference on the Hamdan case. Fellow defense attorney Joe McMillan stands behind Swift. (CC)

St. Louis protesters demand justice for VonDerrit Meyers

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:52:00 +0000

ST. LOUIS - Last night at 9 p.m., some 100 protesters congregated on Shaw Ave. here near the spot where 18-year-old VonDerrit Myers was killed by off-duty police officer Jason Flanery on Oct. 8. The police claim Myers was armed and fired at Flanery. While that has yet to be independently confirmed, an independent autopsy shows that Myers was shot seven times, six times in the back of his legs, and once in the face.

The historic Shaw neighborhood is a well-integrated neighborhood compared to much of St. Louis or any other city of its size. As the group of mostly college-aged white residents marched through the mist towards Grand Ave., chanting familiar slogans, a dozen police vehicles following slowly behind, their blue lights dizzying the rain.

Turning onto Grand Ave, the crowd moved towards the intersection of I-44. From the number of Guy Fawkes masks, college students in keffiyehs, and familiar chants the group shuffled through, you could mistake them for Occupiers ("This is what democracy looks like!).

While the Shaw and Ferguson neighborhoods are as different as the cases of Michael Brown and VonDerrit Myers, many here find the daily reports of white police officers killing defenseless black youth, and using over kill tactics on those who do resist, as irrefutable evidence of institutional racism's callous brutality.

Flooding the intersection of the I-44 on-ramp and Grand Ave, the protesters shut down all traffic with no interference from the police sitting in vehicles on either side of the crowd. Reporters are everywhere as are legal observers. Standing in the middle of the intersection, three young black women, all medical workers, stand in a cluster.

Janece Jones, Tynisha Smith, and Brittany Furr are out this evening to support the fight against police violence. While police violence and institutional racism are nothing new Janece Jones said that the movement in St. Louis "is different." She said that all of the "people coming together is new, this generation is different, we're not as crazy as people make us out to be." The three women laughed. "Maybe this will be an example," Smith said. Her friends nodded in agreement: "It isn't even about race anymore," she said. "It is about injustice."

After holding the intersection and blocking the I-44 on ramp for 10 minutes a few police officers walked over and stood a short distance away with their hands in their pockets. Before the order to disperse was given, the protesters withdrew from the intersection and returned to Shaw - leaving behind a message scrawled on Flora Pl. near the spot where 18-year-old VonDerrit Myers died violently: "If we burn, you burn with us."

Photo: James Raines/PW

President’s immigration action expands democracy, time to carry it forward

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 16:39:00 +0000

In a bold and welcome action, President Obama announced last week that he would temporarily end the threat of deportation for an estimated five million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. This delivers a huge relief to almost one-half of the estimated 11 million who now live in the shadows because of their undocumented status.

Those covered include parents of U.S.-born children and immigrants who have been in the country for five years, an estimated 4 million people. An additional 1 million will benefit from removal of age limits in the president's 2012 executive order that gave deportation relief to children brought to the United States by their parents without legal status, a generation often called "Dreamers." These immigrant children have spent most of their lives in the U.S. but because they are undocumented, no matter how hard they work or how much they achieve educationally, they are forced to live a semi-legal life.

Republicans raged that the president's action would practically end the world as we know it. But nothing of the sort has happened since Obama's announcement. Executive orders on immigration have been issued by presidents of both parties since Eisenhower. Yet, the Republicans threaten to shut down the government, impeach the president or at the very least block his Cabinet and court nominations and immigration reform legislation

President Obama's order does not extend legal status to either the Dreamers or the newly eligible immigrants. It simply provides a temporary respite from threats of deportation.

Certainly it falls far short of what needs to be done to reform the immigration system so it is fair for families and workers. The new executive order still leaves some 6 million hard-working undocumented immigrants who could still be living in fear of being ripped from their families. But it is an enormous step in the right direction.

To permanently change immigration law for the better, Congress has to do its job and pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that addresses the reality that 11 million people live in and contribute to this country economically and civicly yet do not have any legal protection.

Employers, politicians and law enforcement officials often use this situation for financial or personal gain, making 11 million people vulnerable to immoral and often illegal practices. Republican fulminating about "amnesty" as some kind of threat to our way of life is designed to cover up the reality of the profits made from exploitation of undocumented workers and from pitting native-born against immigrant workers - all of whom have a common interest in fighting for fair treatment, better wages and conditions and an end to exploitation for greed.

Preventing these 11 million people from obtaining legal status hurts all Americans, morally and economically. The Republican effort to whip up hysteria on the issue essentially seeks to hold these families and individuals hostage. That is what's anti-American!

In short, what the immigration battle represents is a battle over whether or not to expand democracy and what it means to be an American. There was a time in U.S. history when enslaved black people were not considered American - or even fully human! The U.S. Constitution said they would be counted as three-fifths of a person. That began to change with the onset of the Civil War, and arguably the most famous and important U.S. presidential executive order in history: the Emancipation Proclamation.

But as significant as that order was, it did not abolish slavery, nor did it confer citizenship on the newly freed people. That had to be done by Congress in the form of legislation that led to constitutional amendments.

Other historic executive orders that helped pave the way to a freer and better United States include: Truman's Executive Order 9981 that desegregated the armed forces; FDR's Executive Order 7034 establishing the Works Progress Administration; Kennedy's Executive Order 10925, creating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and Eisenhower's Executive Order 10730, enforcing the desegregation of schools by sending federal troops to Little Rock, Ark. Each of these orders had to be accompanied by congressional action. Each of these orders had moral as well as political and economic authority on their side, backed up by movements of ordinary people making sure that America's promise of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is kept.

The "undocumented and unafraid" young Dreamers are the conscience of America on this issue today. They have, at great risk to themselves and their families, stepped out of the shadows and said, "We have been here most of our lives. We are patriotic. We contribute to the country. We want to be counted as Americans." Through their actions, these undaunted young people are redefining the concepts of citizenship. Shouldn't they - and other undocumented immigrants - have a shot at legalizing their status? Shouldn't people be judged by their actions and not their birthplace?

There will be some who argue that America's promise is for citizens only. But what makes a citizen? People emigrate to the United States and become citizens all the time. Immigration laws, historically and today, have been designed to limit immigration from certain countries and class statuses. Remember, we used to have laws that said white and black people could not be educated together, or even drink from the same water fountain. There were laws that denied women the right to vote or own property. Laws should serve society's democratic functioning and fit with the times. When unfair laws stand in the way of democracy, they need to be changed.

President Obama's order needs to get strong support. Yet it is just the first step in overhauling our broken immigration system. With the Republicans screaming all the time, instead of cooperating with their Democratic colleagues and the president, the prospects of getting anything passed in the new Congress are dim indeed. But all is not hopeless. Republicans will have to finally show they can do more than obstruct and attack everything the president does. Winning control of the Senate was not a mandate for more of the same, nor was it a mandate for their right-wing agenda. So we have a big opportunity and challenge: Keep the pressure on for comprehensive, fair, immigration reform legislation.

Photo: Demonstration in which activists note the importance of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. AP

“Low-cost, high quality” public education at stake in Calif. tuition debate

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 15:39:00 +0000

Last week's decision by the University of California's Board of Regents to hike tuition has kicked off a new round in the long struggle between the university and the State of California over funding for the 10-campus system.

Overriding protests by students, professors, campus workers and Governor Jerry Brown, the regents voted 14-7 on Nov. 20 to raise tuition by as much as five percent per year for the next five years, unless the state ups its funding significantly.

If the decision is fully implemented, in-state tuition would rise from just over $12,000 now to over $15,500 in 2019-20, with out-of-state students paying nearly $45,000 in that year.

For weeks, UC president Janet Napolitano and other UC leaders had talked up the urgent need for an increase, with Brown countering that the university would be breaking its agreement to freeze tuition in return for more state funding.

In the lead-up to last week's vote, students protested at campuses across the state. Last week they delayed the start of the regents' meeting at San Francisco's Mission Bay campus by blocking the entrance, continuing their protests inside and outside the meeting site.

The regents' decision followed more than a decade in which funding cuts by the State of California have far exceeded modest increases.

In a statement, the Council of UC Faculty Associations blamed the governor for the tuition hike. In the 2001-2002 academic year, CUCFA said, tuition was just under $4,000, and the state provided $3.2 billion in funding ($4.4 billion in current dollars). When Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed state funding, tuition soared to more than $11,000. CUCSA noted that after further cuts by Brown, a Democrat, current funding is more than one-third less in current dollars than it was at the start of the century.

The Faculty Association called on the governor to fund all public education, including UC, the California State University System and the community colleges at the 2001 level, and pointed out that such funding would cost the median California taxpayer just $50 per year.

The governor claims a tuition hike would break a four-year agreement that the state would provide more funding for UC in return for a tuition freeze, following passage of Prop. 30 two years ago. The last two state budgets have each increased UC funding by five percent.

UC officials deny such an agreement exists, and Napolitano charges that "massive state disinvestment" has made the tuition increase necessary, despite the recent modest rise in funding.

Students say they feel left out of the discussion by both sides.

Interviewed on Public Radio Station KQED Nov. 17, Kevin Sabo, chair of the UC Student Association's Board of Directors, called on the UC administration to bring students into the decision-making process. He also pointed out that the State of California "needs a greater investment in UC, certainly more than four percent.

"This tuition explosion, as we're calling it, certainly is a nonstarter for us," he said. "And the UC needs to be better about the resources it already has."

Use of resources was also an issue for the union representing over 22,000 service and patient care workers at UC's 10 campuses. In a statement earlier this month, Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME Local 3299, pointed out that the tuition hike comes when UC has given "pay increases as high as 20 percent to five of its highest paid employees," with over 3,400 employees paid more than $250,000 annually. Lybarger also cited "millions of dollars" spent by UC on outsourcing custodial work "to contractors that pay their employees rock bottom wages with no benefits."

She added, "The cost of these misguided priorities has already left UC facilities dangerously short staffed, and undermined the California Master Plan guarantee for thousands of qualified students in our state. Demanding more money from students and taxpayers without first correcting the tone-deaf mismanagement that has been a catalyst for UC's financial problems is a nonstarter."

As Governor Brown prepares his proposed budget and the state legislature debates funding through the first half of 2015, not just money but the very concept of public higher education in California will be at stake.

Testifying at the regents' meeting, UC San Francisco professor Stanton Glantz, vice president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations, put the issue squarely: "You should not be arguing how much to raise tuition, but how to mobilize the public support to restore the California Master Plan of low-cost high-quality higher education for all ... We call on you to fight to restore the California dream."

Photo: Students shout their disapproval after the University of California Board of Regents voted to raise tuition Thursday in San Francisco. Eric Risberg/AP

Poll shows support for Obama’s action on immigration

Mon, 24 Nov 2014 12:22:00 +0000

A new poll by Hart Research Associates shows broad support for the executive actions on immigration announced last week by President Obama.

The firm conducted a national survey on the topic of President Obama's executive action on immigration. The survey was conducted among 800 likely 2016 voters from Nov. 19 to 20, 2014, and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. The following memo reviews the survey's key findings:

"Voters respond favorably by an overwhelming 39-point margin to executive action by President Obama that would focus immigration enforcement efforts on threats to national security and public safety while allowing some illegal immigrants to stay and work in the United States (67 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable). Support is broad, incorporating a majority of voters in every region of the country, among both men and women, and in states won by both Obama (67 percent favorable) and Mitt Romney (65 percent favorable). Younger voters under age 35 express particularly strong support (72 percent), but more than 60 percent feel favorable in every age cohort.

"Executive action receives support from 91 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of political independents. While a narrow 51 percent majority of Republicans oppose executive action (41 percent favor), this is driven mainly by a 34-point margin of opposition among tea party Republicans (30 percent favor, 64 percent oppose). Among non-tea party Republicans opinion is more divided, with 47 percent in favor and 45 percent opposed.

Description of executive action: The action would direct immigration enforcement officials to focus on threats to national security and public safety, and not on deporting otherwise law-abiding immigrants. Immigrants who are parents of children who are legal U.S. residents could qualify to stay and work temporarily in the United States, without being deported, if they have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, pay taxes, and pass a criminal background check.

Many individual elements of the executive action are very popular with voters, such as: allowing undocumented immigrants who are parents of children or young adults living legally in the U.S. to stay here without being deported (66 percent favorable, 28 percent not); expand the DACA program that provides temporary legal status and work permits to undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children (63 percent favorable, 27 percent unfavorable); provide temporary work permits to qualifying immigrants (76 percent favorable, 21 percent not); and shift more security resources to the Mexican border (79 percent favorable, 16 percent not).

Republican leaders are aggressively challenging Obama's legal authority to take this executive action. The survey results show that Democrats have the better of this debate, with voters agreeing by a 10-point margin (51-41) that the president does have legal authority to act. Independents agree that the president is acting lawfully by an 18-point margin (54-36). This is the debate respondents heard:

Democrats say the only way to fix our broken immigration system once and for all is for Congress to pass bipartisan legislation. But in the meantime, the president has the legal authority to set enforcement priorities to deport drug dealers and smugglers instead of immigrants who have lived and worked here for years and are contributing to America. (51 percent agree.)

Republicans say that the president has no legal right to start rewriting the nation's immigration laws-only Congress has the constitutional authority to do that. A president can't just decide to stop enforcing the laws he doesn't like, and legalizing millions of illegal immigrants is an abuse of presidential power. (41 percent agree.)

Voters strongly reject aggressive strategies being considered by Republicans to block executive action, including a government shutdown and impeachment. By a 48-point margin (72 percent oppose, 24 percent favor) voters oppose a strategy of Republicans shutting down the government until the president agrees to end his executive action. While tea party Republicans favor a shutdown strategy by 61-36 percent, Republicans who do not identify with the tea party oppose a shutdown by 62-32 percent. And by a 31-point margin, voters oppose impeaching the president and removing him from office in response to this executive action (63 percent oppose, 32 percent favor).

After hearing a detailed description of the provisions of the executive action, and a balanced debate over the policy, voters support it by an even larger - 69-27 percent - majority. Voters also say, after learning about executive action and hearing the debate, that they have more confidence in President Obama (44 percent) than in Republicans in Congress (35 percent) to deal with immigration (independents trust Obama by an even larger, 21-point margin, 47-26 percent).

Photo: Gaby Perez, left, hands over all her paperwork to get guidance from immigration attorney Jose Penalosa, right, in Phoenix, Arizona, for the Deferred Action program. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Union activist says immigrants are his brothers and sisters

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 11:53:00 +0000

President Obama acted boldly last night, using executive authority to help keep immigrant families together, stop fear in families of being split apart and to create a humane and rational immigration system.

President Obama's action does not fix all the problems. But it will temporarily make life for five million families safer, better and happier. And that is a big thing and a righteous thing.

For those of us who are native born workers, immigrant workers are neither our enemy nor our problem.

Immigrant workers are not sucking up all the wealth in this country. They are not busting our unions. They are not keeping wages at poverty levels. They are not the ones refusing to invest in the future of America. Immigrants are not those who refuse to raise the minimum wage. Immigrants have not off-shored and outsourced our jobs. Immigrants are our fellow Americans who love their families and work hard every day.

Those of us who are native born and work for a living and get a pay check from someone else have a real present threat in the 1 percent, the plutocrats who want to run our country, the oligarchs, the radical rightwing.

Any man or woman who comes to America to feed the kids, work hard, sacrifice for a better life for their family is my brother and my sister.

The radical rightwing are going nuts. Republicans, do you really want to destroy the quality of life and hope for five million people? They are attacking the president. They will try to sue the president. They will try to impeach the President. They will threaten the President and all the rest of us. They will stomp their feet, hold their breath, scream and holler like the spoiled, privileged brats they are. They will say the President can't do this without knowing American history and the fact that President Lincoln enacted the Emancipation Proclamation by executive action. The radical rightwing will use this action to distract us from the continued impoverishment of American workers and the destruction of the middle class.

Thanks for acting boldly President Obama. Now let's take on the Wall St and the One Percent, the destruction of the middle class and the future of the kids of all of us.

Stewart Acuff is a life-long union organizer and trade union leader. For many years he was the special assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO. Currently he is organizing director of the National Union of Healtcare Employees, 1199 in Philadelphia.

Photo: Marta Granillo, right, crying for her husband, relatives and friends who were arrested yesterday in an immigration raid at a plant in Greeley, Colo. | Ahmad Terry/AP & The Rocky Mountain News

President praised for bringing millions out of the shadows

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 11:18:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Helen F. Chavez, widow of the great farm worker union organizer, Cesar Chavez, hailed President Obama's speech Nov. 20 in which he announced executive actions to protect five million undocumented people from deportation in the next two years. Bowing to Fox News and rightwing intimidation, CBS, NBC, and ABC did not televise Obama's speech from the East Room of the White House.

Chavez said she met Obama when he came to California to dedicate a monument to Cesar Chavez several years ago. She asked Obama, then, if he would take action to defend the rights of undocumented workers. Obama answered that yes, he would.

"Today, President Obama kept his promise to me and to the American people," Chavez said in a MoveOn petition expressing support for Obama's actions. The president took these steps despite threats from the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill to close down the federal government or even impeach him on specious grounds that he has exceeded his constitutional authority. Every president in the past half century including Republicans has issued executive rders to deal with issues of immigration when Congress failed, or refused to act.

Ms. Chavez thanked Obama for coming to the defense of "the immigrants who toil in our fields, make beds, clean rooms, cook meals, work on construction and manufacturing and care for our young and elderly." She added, "I've known the farm workers all my life. Like other immigrants, they take jobs most Americans won't accept and under conditions most other Americans won't tolerate. Big parts of our economy can't survive without immigrants."

Obama announced that undocumented workers who have been in the U.S. for at least five years and have no criminal records can apply for work permits without fear of deportation. He said he will also authorize issuance of permits to the parents of children who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents and will not deport "dreamers," or children and youth who were brought to the U.S. "illegally" as children or youth. Many of these "dreamers" have braved threats of deportation to enroll in high schools and colleges despite the risk of deportation.

Obama spoke of Astrid Silva, a 26-year old Mexican-American woman now working on her third college degree in Las Vegas. He was scheduled to fly to Las Vegas today to meet with Silva and other leaders of the "dreamer" movement. When Astrid Silva was brought to the U.S. at age four, "her only possessions were a cross, her doll, and the frilly dress she had on," Obama said. Dreamers, he added, are as American as Malia and Sasha, he said, referring to his teenage daughters. Does it make any sense to deport these youth who sacrifice and struggle for an education or a job? They do not come to the U.S. looking for a "free ride or an easy life," he said. "They come here to work, to study, and serve in our military and above all, to contribute to America's success."

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S. hailed Obama's speech. "Tonight, the president made the long awaited decision to provide relief from deportation to up to five million people includibg the parents of children who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents."

Describing it as a victory for the mass movements that have been pushing for immigration reform for many years but ignoring that it was still only a first step, she said, nevertheless, "This is a victory for millions of American families and workers, a victory for our country and....for common sense."

Obama's executive order will bolster the economy and the rights of workers---both immigrant and native born---by preventing "bad employers from pitting undocumented workers against U.S. citizen workers." Preserving this system of splitting the work force---citizen vs, immigrant---is a source of enormous profits and one of the main reasons corporate rightwing Republicans seek to preserve the status quo in the immigration system. Needless to say, it is the fact that preserving the status quo has enabled rightwingers to use immigration as an election issue. Whipping up anti-immigrant hysteria has long been used to help elect rightwing lawmakers in many states.

Photo: Serafin Bahena (left) celebrates with others at Centro Civico Mexicano in Salt Lake City after Obama's nationally televised address Thursday night. | Rick Bowmer/AP

Making new victims out of revictimization

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 10:46:00 +0000

It is now possible in American law, under the cover of "victim relief," to create new victims by depriving them of their freedom of speech.

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, House Bill HB2533 and Senate Bill SB508, the Revictimization Relief Act, was passed in mid-October, fast-tracked to the governor's desk, and signed into law by Governor Tom Corbett on Oct. 21 (as of the beginning of next year he will be ex-governor). This new law would silence all Pennsylvania prisoners if, by exercising their right to free speech, they allegedly cause "mental anguish to their victims."

The international Call to Action opposing this new legislation, signed by numerous civil rights organizations and leaders, recounts the history of the law. "This legislation emerged as a politically charged response on the part of the Fraternal Order of Police and its political allies, because they failed to stop Pennsylvania prisoner and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from delivering his Oct. 5, 2014, commencement address at Goddard College in Vermont, from where Abu-Jamal earned his B.A. in 1996 while on death row. Students at Goddard collectively chose Abu-Jamal as their commencement speaker and the administration supported the invitation. In this case, this law would deny the school the right to hear from its alum, Abu-Jamal."

Mumia Abu-Jamal delivered his address by video.

The Call adds that "the law affords virtually unlimited discretion to district attorneys and the attorney general to silence prisoner speech...[and] targets both prisoners' speech and supporters who sponsor that speech." Legislators, and the governor, have claimed powers that would be extremely difficult for citizens to challenge and check.

How should "victim relief" be achieved? "By just verdict and the extension of due process to all parties involved," says the Call. In a climate where large numbers of people are imprisoned, many of them poor and people of color, what redress is left to reverse wrongful convictions and harsh sentences except to freely exercise constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech?

Indeed, could the current debate over mass incarceration have been engaged without prisoners themselves "exposing systemic violations of their rights in the courts?" From now on, might a prisoner speak out about conditions behind the prison walls and be subject to a retaliatory civil suit?

The new Pennsylvania law not only attempts to block Abu-Jamal's free speech, but that of all prisoners in Pennsylvania on the hypothesis that "someone" could be hurt and offended by a prisoner's voice or words heard in public. The law is tantamount to locking people up and tossing the key into the Schuylkill River.

The First Amendment exists not just to protect speech we agree with, but also that which might offend and challenge us. This is the legal morass into which the Pennsylvania legislators and governor have stepped. The issue also has resonance in the current national wave of laws and policies mandating that teachers and professors post "warnings" that certain courses, or certain units, might be offensive to some students. Better alert those vulnerable high school sophomores that the biology teacher might try to explain evolution - or worse, the human reproductive system! Or that the college prof in Middle East Studies might care to say something about the illegality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank!

The Call denounces "the increasingly ominous display of rogue state power in Pennsylvania." The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has taken up the challenge to the law.

Among the signers of the Call to Action Against the Silencing of Constitutionally Protected Prisoner Speech in Pennsylvania are several defense groups for Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as his literary agent Frances Goldin, the Prison Action Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, Cornel West, and the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5.

On Nov. 16, the National Writers Union UAW Local 1981 passed a resolution to sign the Call to Action at its National Executive Board meeting held in New York City. "The National Writers Union believes in the right of all people and members of all communities, especially those that are oppressed, including prisoners, to practice journalism and to write and express themselves in their own words, in addition to having their stories told by outsiders."

Affirming "the free flow of information in society," the NWU resolution also points out that Mumia Abu-Jamal "was invited to become an honorary member of the National Writers Union in 1995 when the state of Pennsylvania first tried to put him to death, and has since received the support of the union over the years as an exemplary broadcast journalist and author who tells the truth about the prison-industrial complex from behind the walls."

Eric A. Gordon is a member of the National Writers Union.

Photo: AP

AFL-CIO backs President Obama’s action on immigration

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 10:00:00 +0000

The AFL-CIO's president, Richard Trumka, issued the following statement this afternoon in support of President Obama's anticipated action on immigration tonight:

Today is an important step toward rational and humane enforcement of immigration law. On behalf of America's workers, we applaud the Administration's willingness to act. We have been calling upon the White House to halt unnecessary deportations since Spring 2013 because our broken immigration system is an invitation for employer manipulation and abuse, and U.S.-born workers as well as immigrant workers are paying the price.

By extending relief and work authorization to an estimated four million people, the Obama Administration will help prevent unscrupulous employers from using unprotected workers to drive down wages and conditions for all workers in our country. Although this fix will be temporary, it will allow millions of people to live and work without fear, and afford them the status to assert their rights on the job.

The Administration is operating within its authority to advance the moral and economic interests of our country, and while we stand ready to defend this program, we must also be clear that it is only a first step. Unfortunately, more than half of those who currently lack legal protections will remain vulnerable to wage theft, retaliation, and other forms of exploitation.

In addition, we are concerned by the President's concession to corporate demands for even greater access to temporary visas that will allow the continued suppression of wages in the tech sector. We will actively engage in the rulemaking process to ensure that new workers will be hired based on real labor market need and afforded full rights and protections.

But this announcement does move us forward - progress that is attributable to the courage and determination of immigrants who rallied, petitioned, fasted and blocked streets to make it happen. Implementation of the executive action should begin immediately, before further delays open the door for legislative obstruction. Starting tomorrow, the administration should focus enforcement attention on high level targets, stop the community raids and leave workers, grandmothers, and schoolchildren in peace.

Going forward, we renew our call for comprehensive reform that provides a path to citizenship and real protections for workers. We will continue to stand with all workers, regardless of status, to ensure that their voices are heard and their rights are protected. Working together, we know that we will ultimately achieve a more just immigration system that promotes shared prosperity and respects the dignity of all workers.

Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0

Democrat Bera beats Republican Ose in close California race

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 13:58:00 +0000

Further showing that California's election results ran counter to the national trend Nov. 4, U.S. Rep. Ami Bera, has emerged the winner in a sharply-contested race against Republican challenger and former U.S. Rep. Doug Ose. The final tally in a northern California district evenly split between Democrats and Republicans was 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent. The contest was the last to be decided among several close California races.

Right after the election, Bera appeared to be trailing Ose by more than 3,000 votes. But on Nov. 19, with nearly all ballots counted, he led by over 1,400.

The contest was the most expensive congressional race in the country. Of $19.6 million in overall spending, nearly $13.5 million came from outside groups.

Among Ose's backers was Karl Rove's far right political action committee. Ose, a commercial real estate developer, reportedly loaned his campaign over $1.5 million.

Bera, a physician, is the only Indian-American in Congress. Two years ago, he beat Republican Rep. Dan Lungren, a signer of Grover Norquist's no-new-taxes pledge who was labeled a climate change denier by the League of Conservation Voters.

In his first term, Bera emphasized working across the aisle with Republicans when possible, sometimes taking positions differing from those of the Democratic Party leadership. At the same time, he wholeheartedly backed the Affordable Care Act, pledging to work for improvements and sharply attacking Ose for promising to repeal it.

California's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives will now consist of 39 Democrats and 14 Republicans - a gain of one seat for the Democrats. Both senators are Democrats; neither was up for election in 2014.

Photo: Winner Rep. Ami Bera. Rich Pedroncelli/AP

Some say “too late,” others see hope in Ferguson Commission

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 12:18:00 +0000

FERGUSON, Mo. - Tuesday afternoon, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced the formation of a 16-member Ferguson Commission. While some in the community here see the move as "too little, too late" others see it as cause for some hope.

Executive Order 14-15 states that the purpose of the commission is to study the, "social and economic conditions that impede progress, equality, and safety in the St. Louis region" in response to "the unrest and public discourse set in motion by the events of Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri."

Mark Esters, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, recognizes the Ferguson Commission as an attempt by Gov. Nixon to reach out to the community, but "whether or not he will do anything about it [the findings of the commission] is another thing entirely."

The governor had been widely criticized after the killing of Michael Brown for being too slow to act and for not firmly supporting the democratic right of people in the community to voice their protests.

Esters spoke frankly when asked his opinion about the recent actions of the Governor's office: "He is acting too late. These things have been going on throughout his term. It took a police officer killing an unarmed black teenager for him to do anything."

Many of the issues underlying the frustration of people in Ferguson and in surrounding towns have been problematic throughout the governor's term. The police practice of levying exhorbitant fines and issuing warrants for minor traffic offenses, for example, has been a source of public anger for years. Those policies, in particular, along with others, have made it next to impossible for black people to become part of the police and other public services.

There has also been anger over the governor's failure to name a special prosecutor in the case, leaving the prosecutorial work to Robert McCullogh, the district attorney who many believe had more than enough cause but failed to file charges against the police officer who killed Brown. McCullogh decided, instead, to go the route of a dragged-out grand jury process.

CBTU was one of the first labor organizations to stand with the Ferguson community and demand justice. Over the past three months, unions like CWA and SEIU have also committed themselves to the fight in Ferguson against institutional racism and police violence. CBTU remains committed to the struggle in Ferguson because, as Esters explains, "our core interests are economic justice for minority communities and social justice for those communities left out of the political process."

Like Esters, Rev. Teresa Danieley's reaction to Gov. Nixon's Ferguson Commission is deeply nuanced. The rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, Danieley quickly cuts to the core: "There is no state entity that is going to solve racial and economic injustice; that is something the people must do." She does see the commission as an opportunity for people, "to build relationships across the divides of race, gender, and age." She is hopeful that if the commission successfully mends those divides that "perhaps that can be a model for other communities."

The formation of the Ferguson Commission follows Nixon's decision to mobilize the National Guard on Monday. While the streets of Ferguson have been comparatively quiet as of late, the declaration of a state of emergency as a "precaution" in case of "expanded unrest" echoes the provocative police crackdowns on peaceful protesters that defined the first days of the struggle for justice in Ferguson.

When asked about this development, Esters says "the community feels like it is too early considering the protests have been peaceful." Esters, his voice bright with derision, says calling in the National Guard, "tells me that militarizing the community is his [Nixon's] best response."

Rev. Danieley, on the other hand, finds some hope in the Governor's declaration of a state of emergency thanks to the number of people who are contacting his office and asking him to assign a special prosecutor, something well within his power to do in a state of emergency. As a person of faith, Teresa Danieley prays for Ferguson, "I pray for deep and meaningful peace: not a peace of convenience, but peace because justice has been achieved."

Photo: Ferguson Commission is to grapple, among other things, with the underlying causes of the problems in Ferguson, including the overreaction to peaceful protesters by the police. Jeff Roberson/AP

SEIU’S Henry urges Obama to let undocumented adults stay

Thu, 20 Nov 2014 11:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - Service Employees president Mary Kay Henry joined 15 other faith, community and similar leaders in urging President Obama to let an estimated five to six million undocumented adults stay in the U.S. And the letter urged Congress to approve comprehensive immigration reform, too.

Obama plans an executive order to let the adults stay, building on his prior order to let the Dreamers - two million undocumented youth who are now in college or the military - stay in the country. But he's hitting huge opposition from congressional Republicans. They warn that, having won a majority in both houses of Congress, that such an order would poison relations on every issue for the next two years. Obama may issue the order on Nov. 20.

Obama has promised pro-worker, pro-immigrant and Latino groups that he would decide on the status of the undocumented before the end of this year, because Congress won't act. GOP House leaders have killed a bipartisan Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill.

The AFL-CIO also demands that Obama act. It launched an online petition to push him to do so. Immigration reform, by bringing the undocumented workers out of the shadows and under U.S. labor law, would lessen their exploitation, the fed says.

Reform would also lessen the ability of venal, vicious employers of using the threat of hiring the undocumented to replace native workers to force native workers into lower living standards - and to abandon organizing drives.

"This is not about politics, it's about people. This is about families who have long made America their home," Henry said as the group published its letter. "We encourage President Obama to act now on immigration relief for millions because it's the right thing to do. It's time for Congress to follow suit and stop playing games with the lives of millions of families mothers and fathers, children, hard-working people and students."

The letter also chides congressional leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, for letting politics stand in the way of comprehensive immigration reform. The reform bill includes a 13-year torturous path to eventual legalization for the undocumented people.

"It is time to end these political games around immigration reform. The plight of immigrant families is a moral crisis that you all must address. It's time for moral imperatives and common sense to prevail over partisanship and ideology," the letter says.

Months of meetings with congressional and administration officials and a fast on the national Mall produced no action, the writers said. "The vast majority of Americans - Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - want our broken system fixed. Thus far, Congress has refused to act, ignoring the will of the people and needless devastation wrought on families and communities. A vote to fix the immigration system would pass in a bi-partisan way if brought to the floor of the House and given a fair chance."

Photo: AP

Michigan election results underline need to energize voters

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Republicans won a sweeping victory in Michigan on November 4. Governor Rick Snyder was reelected by a margin of 51-47 percent over Democrat Mark Schauer. They strengthened their hold on the state legislature by picking up 4 seats in the House of Representatives to increase their margin over the Democrats to 61-47 and one seat in the Senate where their margin will be 27-11. In the Congressional races, Republicans won nine of fourteen seats to maintain their edge. Republican-backed candidates also won two out of three state Supreme Court races and will have a continued majority there.

The lone bright spots for Democrats were the election of Rep. Gary Peters in the race for the U.S. Senate and the election of Democrats to all but one of the open seats on the State Board of Education and on the Boards of the three major state universities. Despite a massive get-out-the-vote effort on the part of Democrats, labor and their allies in the people's movements, Republicans will continue to have a lock on state government for at least the next two years. They can be expected to continue to promote the pro-business, anti-labor and anti-abortion agenda that resulted in the passage of right-to-work legislation, tax cuts for business, tax increases for homeowners, the working poor and seniors and restrictions on access to abortions during the current legislative cycle.

Some observers are speculating that the election outcome indicates that Michigan, a state that President Obama won in 2008 and 2012 is becoming a red state. A closer look, however, provides evidence to the contrary.

In the governor's race, Mark Schauer faced an uphill battle from the beginning despite strong ties to labor and a progressive record. No incumbent Michigan governor has been defeated since 1990. The former congressman was a virtual unknown to most Michigan voters at the outset of the campaign. He promised to fight to repeal right to work and tax increases on seniors, homeowners and the working poor but offered little in the way of specifics. He was outspent by Snyder by 2-1 not counting the millions in "dark" money spent by the Republicans' wealthy backers. He was also faced with the challenge of increasing voter turnout, which has been problematic for Democrats in midterm elections in recent years.

While overall the overall turnout of registered voters was down in comparison with the last midterm election in 2010 (45 percent-42 percent), the number of registered Democrats who voted actually increased statewide as the following figures (in millions) indicate:

2010

1.9 Snyder (R)

1.3 Bernero (D)

3.2 million total

2014

1.6 Snyder (R)

1.5 Schauer (D)

3.1 million total

While Republican turnout was down, the increase in Democratic turnout fell far short of what was needed to win. Voter turnout in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit was down by 10,000 voters compared to 2010 some of which may be attributable to the continued decline in the city's population. Some question whether Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who worked closely with Snyder on the Detroit bankruptcy and may have gubernatorial aspirations of his own, did all he could to bolster the turnout for Mark Schauer.

Snyder's role in the Detroit bankruptcy proceedings was likely a factor as well. His actions played well with suburban and outstate voters including independents. These voters are more likely to attribute Detroit's financial difficulties to corruption and alleged mismanagement than to decades of massive disinvestment in the city by the auto industry, discriminatory real estate and lending practices and the state's failure to make good on its revenue sharing commitments to the city. Further, Snyder, despite his pro-business, anti-labor agenda, has a moderate veneer, especially in comparison with tea party types in the state legislature, which also appealed to independent voters who went for him by a 2-1 margin.

Republican gerrymandering of legislative districts played a significant role in the election outcome. They used their control of the state legislature following the 2010 census to rig the playing field in their favor. Consider these statistics:

Democrats won 51.2 percent of the total vote in state house races yet won only 43 percent of the seats. Republicans, with 48.8 percent of the vote, won 57 percent of the seats.
Likewise, in the state Senate races, Democrats won 49.3 percent of the total vote but won only 29 percent of the seats. Republicans, with 50.7 percent of the total, won 71 percent of the seats.
In the races for U.S. Congress, Democrats won 49.1 percent of total votes cast but picked up only 5 of 14 seats (36 percent). Republicans, with 47.6 percent of the vote, won the other nine (64 percent).

If districts were drawn fairly, based on the vote totals above, Democrats would have a slight edge in the House, Republicans a slight edge in the Senate and the Congressional seats would be split between the two parties. Gerrymandering is a major form of disenfranchisement as the figures above indicate. It's another reason many voters are cynical and apathetic.

In fact, the big story continues to be voter apathy. Nearly 6 in 10 registered Michigan voters (58 percent) stayed home (an even larger percentage sat it out if you consider that not all those eligible are registered to vote). Clearly, large numbers of working people are alienated from the electoral process. The reasons are many and complex.

Capitalist free market ideology promotes consumerism and individualism at the expense of social solidarity. It encourages us to see ourselves as consumers rather than citizens with civic responsibilities. Many see elections as rigged in favor of the rich and powerful. The Citizens United decision and its impact only serves to confirm their sense that ordinary citizens have little influence in our government. The drop in union membership here in Michigan is yet another crucial factor in the decline in social solidarity. Union membership, which stood at 26 percent here in 1989, fell to 16 percent in 2013.

If labor and its allies are to be successful in developing strategies to counter these trends and increase voter turnout, we need to take a deeper look at the sources of alienation and stop dismissing non-voters as simply disinterested and unaware of their true interests. In fact, their choice may be a rational response based on their experience with the electoral process. Further, we need to address the issue of gerrymandering. A ballot initiative to create a bi-partisan or non-partisan redistricting commission similar to those that exist in 21 other states is worthy of consideration.

Photo: Gary peters (right), the U.S. Senate Democratic candidate in Michigan, who, unlike many other Dems, was not afraid to campaign with the president, won his election. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Keystone XL heads to Senate for vote

Tue, 18 Nov 2014 15:31:00 +0000

Legislation approving the controversial Keystone XL pipeline has received 45 votes by Republicans in the Senate, with another 14 from Democrats, meaning the bill needs only one more to find its way to President Obama's desk. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she "feels very comfortable" with the bill's chances for Senate approval; meanwhile, this is causing nothing but panic for environmentalists and indigenous people, including South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who are calling Congressional approval of the project "an act of war."

Many activists fighting against Keystone are expecting - or hoping - that if the bill does get its 60 votes, Obama will simply veto it anyway. The President said during a news conference on Nov. 15 in Yangon, Burma that he didn't want Congress to interfere in the State Department's ongoing consideration of the project, leading many to believe that he will, in fact, dismiss the bill. "Understand what the [Keystone XL] project is," Obama clarified. "It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else."

The Senate was hoping to get their 60^th vote from Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, but he said today that he would vote against it, remarking, "Congress is not - nor should it be - in the business of legislating the approval or disapproval of a construction project." King's response must leave hopefuls in the Senate wondering whether they will able to secure their final vote.

As it passes through U.S. land, however, it will endanger everything in its path. And according to Rosebud Sioux president Cyril Scott, it will violate the U.S. government's responsibility to request approval from his tribe for a project that crosses Sioux territory. "Did I declare war on the Keystone pipeline?" said Scott. "Hell yeah, I did. They will not cross our treaty lands." He said he would be arriving in D.C. today, where he plans to "rattle the doors" and point out that the pipeline will cross the Ogallala Aquifer, one of North America's largest fresh water sources. He said he will "talk to every senator and anybody else who will talk to me. I will tell them, 'it's not a matter of if the pipeline will contaminate the aquifer, but when.'"

"The U.S. government does not consult us," he added, underscoring the fact that all of his tribe's concerns regarding this matter have been brought to the Department of Interior and the Department of State - and promptly ignored. "We have a sovereign nation. We have our own constitution and laws here. But they violated my people's treaty rights once again." In the coming weeks, Scott will help convene a meeting of all tribes that are part of the Great Sioux Nation, in order to discuss how best to combat Keystone XL, especially if President Obama opts to approve the bill. "When I was elected, I said I would protect [the tribe]. I have that obligation not only as president, but as a warrior of the tribe."

Though Republicans and some Democrats continue to tout the project as a jobs creator, many labor unions believe this is a misguided and destructive bill. Five unions in particular - National Nurses United (NNU), SEIU Health Care Workers Local 1199, the Amalgamated Transit Union, New York State Nurses Association, and National Domestic Workers Alliance - have released a joint statement regarding the legislation, in which they state, "We are opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline. If fully constructed, it will bring dirty tar sands oil through the U.S. and to the global oil market at a time when we should be drawing the line against the most carbon polluting fossil fuel in order to protect public health, defend the rights of farmers, ranchers, and native communities, and avoid out of control levels of global warming and climate instability.

"Climate change is wreaking havoc," and "Keystone XL's tar sands oil, with its thick, dirty, corrosive properties, poses a clear and present danger to public health. Federal policy should be guided by the precautionary principle and must uphold public health and safety above all else." The unions add, "we are for jobs," but remind people that the pipeline's "job numbers claimed by the oil industry and its backers in Congress are not based on sound research." Instead, "many thousands of jobs can be created in energy conservation, upgrading the grid, maintaining and expanding public transportation - jobs that help us reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve energy efficiency."

In its final environmental assessment of the pipeline, the State Department noted in the Jan. 2014 report that it would not significantly worsen greenhouse gas emissions. For many, this is a moot point; such a statement does not address the core concern that anti-Keystone groups share, which is that the project is an accident - or even a series of accidents - waiting to happen, and both indigenous people and sensitive ecosystems will pay the price.

At this year's unprecedented People's Climate March in New York City, many activists braced themselves for the likelihood that the pipeline bill would get congressional approval. The bill's chances, of course, were only strengthened by the recent Republican takeover of the Senate. At the march, Rosebud Sioux tribe member Shane Red Hawk told the People's World, "Once they start building this pipeline, that's it. This is going to hit us and hurt us on many levels."

"This is an atrocity against all humans," Cyril Scott declared. If the pipeline contaminates their local water sources, he said, "We can't drink. We can't grow crops. Where are we going to get our water? Congress? We have so much to lose here."

Photo: AP