Posted in Children, Feminism, Human Rights, Humanism, Indigenous, Justice, LGBT, Politics, War, tagged Aryan Nations, Community, John Day, Racism on February 26, 2010| Leave a Comment »
John Day, Oregon had their first of two, town hall meetings, this morning, over the Aryan Nations intent to begin a compound in their town. If you weren’t able to see the live feed, but can watch video on your computer, click the UStream link HERE.
A second meeting will be held tonight. Check HERE for info.
Posted in Feminism, Human Rights, Humanism, Indigenous, Justice, Politics, War, tagged Aryan Nations, Hwy 395, John Day, OR, Racism on February 25, 2010| 2 Comments »
Prisons, asylums, pedophiles, crooks, other felons who have completed “rehabilitation” (Whatever that might mean these days.) halfway houses, shelters: proximity to all these can change a home’s value.
I have a home. I have thought about what it might mean if someone with a criminal past takes up residence nearby. Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but confronted with the idea of these folks next door, I am undisturbed. People who have completed their sentence should be entitled to reenter the public stream. If I learned that some of these folks were still more dangerous than my other neighbors, I would become alert, but I would jump to the arguments of improper rehabilitation, inadequate understanding of the nature of human behavior, like that in pedophiles, poverty, pain, inadequate upbringing and subsequent failure of personal accountability. However, under the existing law they were entitled to try and begin anew. Rather, existing law should be rewritten to better address failures of rehabilitation, and rehabilitation, itself, should be changed.
I have great difficulty however, with the idea of a group of people moving into my neighborhood who are unrepentantly dedicated to the twin propositions of hatred and separatism. Since I choose to embrace the diversity of humanity, and I am a woman, I am a co-habitator and enemy of such groups; worthy therefore, of shooting, or maybe worse, since the bullet may have more value than me. It’s a personal conundrum, that the price of diversity means enmity, and that I would choose restriction for those who would shoot me as some form of first amendment rights, but have not yet done so. This is how I feel, and I am unable to reconcile it.
Consider then, Oregon, one of my favorite places, the home of relatives, and my husband’s childhood. Now, it is true that Eastern and Southern Oregon tends to the more conservative side. There are, as well, there are other rightist themes about. WorldNetDaily is alive and well in Roseburg. As a nest for right wing rabid bats, certain areas have found themselves over the years to be dripping in guano. Yet, it is no small thing when an Idaho Chapter of the Aryan Nations announces their intent to locate to John Day, Oregon.
From the perspective of a Californian, I also don’t like the idea that in a national emergency, Highway 395, the main backdoor road riding the spine of California and dipping into Reno, could be subject to the bottleneck of survivalist separatist antics of a racist group like the Aryan Nations. It smacks of the bad side of the TV series “Jericho”.
So though I have avoided it, finally today, I joined Facebook. HERE is why.
Don’t let this happen, John Day!!! John Day is too beautiful a place to drip in guano.
Posted in Congress, Feminism, Human Rights, Humanism, Justice, Politics, tagged Black History Month, Civil Rights, Height, Jealous, Morial, Nummi, Obama, Sharpton, SPLC, Unemployment on February 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »
February is Black History Month.
What does it mean to you?
There are well-known established sheroes and heroes of all sorts and stripes that might deserve mention in this month. However, I want to discuss the month from a slightly different angle.
One of the events likely to occur under rightist governments, such as the previous one we just endured, is the erosion of children’s rights. Right-sided governments are more likely to work under the premise that children’s rights are those of the parents, rather than the children themselves. One example is the constant struggle over whether to allow young people the right to privacy in their visits to doctors and their personal health choices.
We are the keepers of the largest prisoner base in the world. As is prevalent elsewhere in other age groups, minority children are still more likely to suffer the brunt of unequal treatment. In this light, The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) took particular hopeful note in January of President Obama’s stated intention over increased enforcement in his State of the Union Address.
01/28/2010
It’s Time to Step Up Enforcement of Children’s Rights
By Richard Cohen
[After a drastic decline in civil rights enforcement by the U.S. Justice Department over much of the past decade, President Obama’s declaration during last night’s State of the Union Address that his administration is “once again prosecuting civil rights violations” is a promising sign…]
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/its-time-to-step-up-enforcement-of-childrens-rights
We will have to wait and see whether the SPLC’s hope is fulfilled. In any event, one my heroes for the month would include the folks at SPLC.
A recent event on a different subject deserves scrutiny. As expected, the unemployment numbers, for the Nation as whole, in January looked better than previous months at 9.7%. I doubt this number truly represents the actually unemployed, since January, as will March, represented merely an end to those folks whose unemployment simply ran out. This is one of the great scams perpetrated by the cycling of employment funds, as people are dropped off the employment dole.
The DOL’s Economic News Release, dated Feb. 5, 2010 contains this tidbit:
[..In January, the number of persons unemployed due to job loss decreased by 378,000 to 9.3 million. Nearly all of this decline occurred among permanent
job losers. (See table A-11.)
The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of long-term unemployed has risen by 5.0 million. (See table A-12.)…]
Upon review of Table A-11 one learns:
[…Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in January, up from 734,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million people marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities…]
That means the number of discouraged workers is up by 366,000 people or 33% from a year ago. Since the long term unemployed is also trending up, and they are the next to be changed to discouraged workers and chopped off the unemployment figures, unless Congress acts, two things are likely to happen. The unemployment figures will get better shortly and most of these people will still not have found jobs.
While several other groups are higher (Black 16-19 ears old of both sexes was 43.8%!), for Black American men, January’s seasonally adjusted rate was 19.7%. The Root says “Despair has become Banal”, in their article on Black unemployment.
Today, I saw a commenter on another blog asking why there is no “White History Month”. Although, the commenter was attempting to be flip, it is a fair question from another viewpoint.
Wiki says:
[.. Some African radical/nationalist groups, including the Nation of Islam, have criticized Black History Month. Some critics, including actor Morgan Freeman, contend that Black History Month is irrelevant because it has degenerated into a shallow ritual.[6] He says that it serves to undermine the contention that black history “is” American history.[7]..]
We all need rituals and traditions. The comfort us and are shorthand touchstones for our memories and self-awareness. They remind us of the struggles we have endured and sacrifices we have made. They provide us with aspirational models of humanity. However, they can also lull us into somnambulism over our current position. So I think that Black History Month is a commemoration that can still raise our consciousness. As a shorthand symbol for a few well-known people, also can prevent our growth.
Out of the history of the Civil War, the movement of Black Americans into the industrial cities that first offered employment as a consequence of the industrial age, and then the world wars, stratifies Black Americans today in those same cities: Chicago, Oakland, Richmond, Detroit, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc. When we gave up our own industry to cheap land, cheap and unorganized labor, non existent safety and health standard of other countries, and greed, we did something else. We left that labor pool behind with the hazardous waste of non-modernized factories. This is just as, right on schedule, after a twenty-year depreciation valuation ends, Toyota is now doing with NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA. Another 20 years and Texas will weep for her squandered land as well.
We are not there yet. I agree that Black History is American History. I also agree with President Obama’s premise that regions SHOULD be targeted to reduce unemployment. However, this CANNOT be the only thrust. Does he really mean that little sop over being a president for ALL the people meant that he could not push for employment from a civil rights perspective? I think it showed real fear on his part.
This statement simply does not track with the recent health bill that included line items galore toward insuring that minorities, tribes, veterans and women got dispensation in the package. This is a bill he would have signed and continues to promote in some version.
Black history is being made right now. History in the making is murky and often unclear. However, here are my employment sheros and heroes for the month: Al Sharpton, Benjamin Jealous, Marc Morial, and Dorothy Height, who even though the snow prevented her attendance, had the right message to deliver to this meeting.
I hope Congress will listen to them when the time comes, as well. Civil rights is an ongoing “becoming” backed by those who are willing to demand it.
Posted in Feminism, Human Rights, Humanism, Politics, women, tagged Education, History, No Child Left Behind, Zinn on February 10, 2010| 3 Comments »
“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Frederick Douglass
(From the People’s History website)
Last week when Hubbie and I were out scrounging for items to put into a little shop we have begun, we ran across a copy of Howard Zinn’s time honored book, “A People’s History of the United States 1942-present”. As everyone knows, Zinn died last month at the age of 87.
He was a member of the “Lost Generation”. Though some are now attributing that term to the young of the current day, affected by our current economic crisis, the term was first used by to Gertrude Stein via her mechanic, and usually referred to those born in the wake of WWI.
Perhaps, only those souls remaining of that period can really understand it, but imagine what it meant growing up then. First, families were traumatized in WWI, with many who made it home broken and bent, then, the loss of financial stability and so much more of the Depression, and then the growing certainty that you were born just in time to die in WWII. So many of the writers of this period echo this kind of angst and pain, from Steinbeck to Hemingway to Wolfe.
From unfolding European events to: suffrage for women, the tent cities, and the lynchings, and the forced labor of African Americans in the aftermath of the Mississippi Flood, to the Dustbowl, hatred of the Japanese Americans on the West Coast, and the effects of Prohibition, mobsters and the FBI, the period lasted only 24 years. Even as international actors strutted their way toward the hurricane that would be WWII, it was yet, most assuredly, a period in which there was plenty of focus on the struggles of the common woman and man.
So much was experienced in a direct and visceral way by the Lost Generation. Perhaps it was a natural thing then that, as a common man himself, Howard Zinn, would develop the historical viewpoint that he did.
I thought Ralph Nader had the best idea for his commemoration. That is, we should remember him by organizing.
In deference to Ralph, however, I think too many of us don’t even know who Howard Zinn was. We must pass this knowledge forward. Knowledge is one of the critical elements of organizing. History that is not taught, is lost. Education lacking the People’s History is not full education. Read or reread, Zinn’s books. Visit the links Ralph provided in his blog:
Posted in Climate, Communications, Feminism, Health and Food, Human Rights, Humanism, Justice, Men's Rights, Nature, Politics, War, Women's Rights, tagged Ban Ki-moon, China, Cop15, Copenhagen, Global Warming, Green, India, Obama on December 18, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Revised 4:33 PM, PST
“Mitigation. Transparency. Financing.”
Politico says agreement of a sort has been reached at Cop15. Read their article. It sounds like everyone is going to go home to lick her/his wounds and figure out what to do next. Phrases like “a visibly angry Obama”, “no binding agreement”, “leaving before the last vote (Obama)” and “funds to poor countries remain on the table only as long as the Chinese submit to monitoring”, all lend credence to the idea that none of this is a done deal and a lot of posturing all around was needed. I suppose after eight years of Bushco, the refined US position was a pretty big change to take in for China and India.
POLITICO Breaking News:
—————————————————–
The U.S. China, India and South Africa have reached a “meaningful” climate change deal that sets a cap on worldwide temperature increases, according to administration officials.
For more information…http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30794.html
Ban Ki-moon’s entreaty for nations to get it together and commit, have common sense and move forward, I think, reflects in all of us.
The bottom line was introduced by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It has found “that to stave off the worst effects of climate change, industrialized countries must slash emissions by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, and that global emissions must be halved by 2050”.
Both China and India have been deeply and increasingly involved with trade negotiations in Africa for some time. If you think how our trade with Mexico has worked, you will understand the similarity; cheaper goods, fewer laws in place to protect environment and people, and cheaper labor. In particular, raw goods are wanted. As an example, China only has a little over 14% arable land, having lost one fifth to desertification, and a population of around 1.39 billion, as opposed to the United States with 18% arable land, and a population of a little under 308 million. At first glance, India seems in better shape with arable land of around 50%, however they live with yearly losses due to monsoons. Also, they have a population of just under 1.67 billion. One thing all three have in common is very large coal reserves, increasing the temptation to assign value to it’s use.
An interesting comparison of international environmental treaties signed and ratified by these three or any other countries can be found in the CIA World Fact Book. This is the list as of December 18th, 2009. The Fact Book is updated regularly and these may change as countries work toward further agreement.
Posted in Children, Climate, Communications, Feminism, Finance, Human Rights, Justice, Men's Rights, Nature, Politics, War, Women's Rights, tagged Clinton, Copenhagen, Global Warming, Green, GreenHouse Emissions, Nelson, Obama, Pelosi on December 17, 2009| 2 Comments »
Politico has a lot to say about Cop15 today:
By GLENN THRUSH | 12/17/09 7:20 AM EST
Updated: 12/17/09 10:23 AM EST
[COPENHAGEN — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton threw a climate change Hail Mary on Thursday in hopes of salvaging the Copenhagen talks from collapse – pledging U.S. participation in a multinational fund to provide poor nations with a $100 billion a year by 2020. This is considerably more than the 10 billion originally promised, though not as much as some would like the US to commit….]
Since, however, President Obama is still planning to show up at the Conference on the 18th, we are all hopeful that she is again paving the way for one of his triumphant entrances.
Just in case you weren’t sure we had enough USAns rampaging through Copenhagen, Nancy Pelosi took 20 house members with various interests in Science, there on Thursday. Should I hazard a guess that this is the contingent of House members that will be expected to support the 100 billion pledge Clinton promised, to poor countries to keep from drowning when their islands disappear? Sub Saharan Africans, too are in the process of drowning in an ocean of sand, as skyrocketing maternal mortality rates, starvation, coastal fishing loss, and loss of water are enveloped by desperate and futile wars.
The consensus is that 90% of the new emissions will come from poor and developing countries, not China and the USA. We already reached close to our “full” capacity at production of airborne water and landborne garbage.
In counterpoint, certain senators, including one Ben Nelson, of recent abortion news fame, think that even though the US has been THE leading polluter, and therefore one of the MAIN causes of warming, the poor countries ought to just fix it themselves. After all, we are having such a difficult time at home, they ought to just give us a break. Can you believe this?
“They’ve got to come up with their own,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). “We’re not asking them for money, as far as I know.”
Why aren’t they suing us? Careful guys, your caste mentality is showing.
Finally, Dipnote sends a lovely factoid. Did you know that traditional cook stoves, per unit, are the considered the worst polluters in the world?
And who usually winds up slaving over them?
Posted in Children, Feminism, Health Care, Human Rights, Humanism, Justice, Politics, tagged H.R. 3590, US Senate on December 17, 2009| Leave a Comment »
Part 6 of the continuing saga of H. R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Today, one motion to table was agreed to by a vote of 56 yeas, 41 nays and 3 not voting.:
Question:
On the Motion to Table (Motion to Table Hutchison Motion to Commit H.R. 3590 to the Committee on Finance )
There are now FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR submitted amendments. Less the 15 amendments that have been dispensed; that leaves FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE amendments to go.
Posted in Climate, Human Rights, Humanism, Nature, Politics, tagged Climate Change, Copenhagen, UN on December 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »
If you are on something faster than dial-up, the 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark has a live feed HERE, as presented by the US State Dept. Even if you are on dial up, the link is worth visiting, because it contains the agenda of the conference, running between December 7th and 18th. The list of issues is impressive, there is a summary of each below, and there are many .pdf documents available for download at this site. Today’s agenda in Copenhagen time is:
Posted in Children, Human Rights, Humanism, Justice, LGBT, Men's Rights, Politics, War, Women's Rights, tagged Amnesty International, Clinton, Georgetown, SOS on December 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »
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Grab and Keel 