Economy

Stickin’ With the Union

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

By Rev. David L. Ostendorf

I grew up in a baby boomer family with union roots as deep as prairie grass. When my father and his brothers left the farm in the ‘30s, organized labor provided them good, life-long jobs that propelled their families into the middle class and offered opportunities they had never dreamed of. After thirty years as a local and national union leader, my father left the shop floor to serve as an International Representative of the American Flint Glass Workers Union for his last fifteen years. He was a union organizer through and through, and union blood runs thick in my veins.

The past thirty years of corporate dominance and… Read more

Immigration

DHS Accused of Racial Profiling

Written by Cloee Cooper

It has been over six years since Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) was founded. Since its inception, they have caused enough harm for national research groups to accuse ICE of racial profiling. The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity of UC Berkeley recently released a report entitled “The C.A.P. Effect Racial Profiling in the ICE Criminal Alien Program”. For those who work within immigration, the deplorable actions of ICE do not have to be proven in a research document. However, the recent report lends credibility to critiques of ICE – both in terms of its history of human rights violations and in terms of the implementation of programs such as 287 (g)… Read more

Culture

Can We Talk? (About race)

Written by Guest Blogger

by James Johnson

“Don’t you ever talk that way to me. NEVER!” Said the Captain (Hits Luke with blackjack knocking him down the hill.) “NEVER! (pause) “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” said Cool Hand Luke.

Character A:  “Subprime mortgages were aimed at People of Color.”
Character B:  “There you go playing the race card.”
Character A: “When you look at the facts its race based. ”
Character B:   “So you are saying the policies were racist.”
Character A:  “You said it not me.”

We’ve reached a point where we’re actually talking about race here in the United States. But we’re not having a dialogue. Instead of talking… Read more

International

Crosspost: Protesting the G-20 Summit

Written by Cloee Cooper

The article below by Christopher Moraff, reporter of In These Times, details the recent protest of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh where over 1,000 demonstrators were met with hundreds of police in riot gear.

PITTSBURGH—On September 24 and 25, thousands of activists from around the world gathered in Pittsburgh, Pa., to protest the G-20 meeting bringing together leaders of the “Group of Twenty” nations, which together account for about 85 percent of the world economy.

The City of Pittsburgh had prepared for the worst. Authorities trucked in thousands of police reserves from across Pennsylvania, and members of the U.S. Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and the National Guard were all in attendance. In most parts

… Read more

International

Crosspost: French Police Bulldoze Immigrant Camp

Written by Cloee Cooper

The article below “French police bulldoze immigrant camp near Calais” by Nicolas Garriga of Associated Press details the destruction of an immigrant camp in France known as ‘The Jungle’.  Does it not freakishly resemble Neill Blomkamp’s film, District 9?

By NICOLAS GARRIGA (AP)

CALAIS, France — French police razed a squalid camp used by illegal immigrants in scrubland near the English Channel port of Calais on Tuesday, using backhoes and buzz saws to clear away the precarious dwellings of a fragile population, mostly Afghan minors, who were led away stunned and sometimes sobbing.

The destruction of the site — known as “the Jungle” — ends the migrants’ dreams of a new life across the

… Read more

“Organic Means Respecting Workers’ Rights”

Written by Katie Bezrouch

On Labor day Ronnie Cummings, the co-founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), wrote an open letter to John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods Market (WFM). The letter is a response to WFM’s threat to sue the OCA for violating their “intellectual property rights.” This unwarranted claim is undoubtedly a knee-jerk reaction to a petition circulated by the OCA titled: “Tell Whole Foods and UNFI: Organic Means Respecting Workers’ Rights.”

Instead of acknowledging the bogus claim, Cummings decided to take the higher ground and give WFM a chance to redeem itself. In the beginning of the letter, Cummings is quick to point out that “A number of our members, as well… Read more

Culture

Can You Avoid Segregation? New website shows you how

Written by Stephen Piggott

Staff at the Center for New Community recently discovered a new website dealing with the issue of segregation. Understandingprejudice.org has been in existence since 2002, but it recently added a very informative section called, “Can You Avoid Segregation?”. According to the “About Me” section, the website’s purpose is to “offer educational resources and information on prejudice, discrimination, multiculturalism, and diversity, with the ultimate goal of reducing the level of intolerance and bias in contemporary society.” Maintained by Scott Plous of the Social Psychology Network and professor at Wesleyan University, the new segment on segregation is based on the belief “that when students and others understand the dynamics of segregation, they will be… Read more

Immigration

Of Waves and Walls: Climate Change and Structural Racism

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

In his provocative new book Ultimatum, set in the U.S. in the 2030s, British author Matthew Glass writes that Europe’s low-intensity, climate-related warfare in Africa “…is also a racial war, and the countries prosecuting it are becoming increasingly xenophobic.” Within Glass’ disturbing story of a future environmental and nuclear cataclysm, this observation stands out: climate change and structural racism are inherently inter-related.

Rising seas, drought and other dramatic climate disasters will force migrations of millions of peoples of color. The response of receiving and resettlement nations to their arrival (and survival) will—given the restrictions already imposed by predominantly white nations on immigrants—constitute an extraordinary challenge. As waves of people are forced from… Read more

News

Insurance Premiums Rising . . . Again

Written by Jessica Acee

This past week world-renowned TV show Scooby-Doo celebrated its 40th anniversary.  As anyone who grew up with Scooby and the Gang knows, this curious, goofy dog and his four friends are famous for exposing otherworldly ghosts and monsters as nothing more than flesh and blood crooks.

Scooby and the Gang have yet to venture into politics, but I’m sure they’d be as curious as I am about why insurance premiums continue to rise faster than both the costs of health care and inflation. The average cost of a family policy now exceeds $13,000 a year, having doubled over the last decade, according to the new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit… Read more

Immigration

“Amor de Lejos”

Written by Guest Blogger

By Andrew Grant-Thomas

Last September in Chicago I saw a play called “Amor de Lejos,” which is Spanish for “love from afar.” It was performed by a theater company of high school students and offered a few short, but vivid slices from the grueling lives of day laborers from Mexico and Central America living and working in Chicago.

Watching it was one of the most moving and provocative experiences I’ve had in some time. Not simply because the performances themselves were so wonderful. Not just because these 14, 15, and 16 year-old students had conceived, researched and written the play themselves. And not even only because the real stories the students told were so compelling.… Read more