Grassroots Newswire

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT- Domestic Workers United ** Posted February, 2012. This is a revised version of a previous announcement ** Job title: Development Director Term: Full-time with at least 1-year commitment Salary: ,000-,000, plus benefits Application deadline: Open until Filled Background: Around the world, domestic workers are building a powerful movement for change, breaking the silence of a previously invisible workforce, and making the fundamental demand that all work be treated with justice and dignity. Domestic workers are winning important victories, including the 2011 passage of the ILO Convention on the Rights of Domestic Workers, state-level Domestic Workers’ Bills of Rights, and shifts in national labor law. While the movement addresses the legacy of slavery and the devaluation of women’s work, it simultaneously builds a new culture that highlights the interconnectedness of many movements, and that places deep value on networks of care and mutual...

The House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs is continuing to hear testimony on H216 an act relating to federally assisted affordable housing.

Todays testimony started with what the administration thought about this bill. What I heard was that the administration doesn't like this bill and won't support it for several reasons and believes that it will be challenged in court if passed. Committtee members asked if anything in this bill is salvageable and was told I dont know. When asked if this can't be done what is going to be in place of it and will there be state policy to cover it? The answer was that preservation of this housing is a priority to the administration and we have to rely on the owners to do what is right. Basically because of the contracts signed 20 to 40 years ago the owners want to be able to sell their properties by what was said in them.

Questions about lack of affordable housing being connected with a lack of employees for businesses and where will solutions come from were asked. The committee was told that state and federal resources are not there. Meaning there is no money for it." So, no increased resources means more homelessness" said one committee menber. "Probably",was the answer.

Other testimony about section 8 vouchers, property tax benefits being out, terms of sale being made public, and once again that the federal government is not giving any money added to the already disheartening conversation.

Once again tropical storm Irene was brought up as a reason for not having the money to do any more.

Another testimony gave support to this bill and gave instances of 12 other states who have similar bills like this and not sure that this bill would even be challenged or that the state would be sued.

The last testimony was a representative of a current owner of subsidized housing in Burlington who's contract will be up soon. Issues were that there were parts of this bill that were changed and that was good but issues like notice to residents, longer process for sale,and fees are a sticking point. This testimony ended with a statement that all need to work together to overcome and come up with creative ways to make this happen.

Please contact me if you would like more details.

 

Today, members of the Student Worker Alliance, together with Occupy AU and other campus groups, staged two flashmobs in the School of International Service building at 10:10 and in front of the Mary Graydon Center on the main quad at 1:00. After the 1:00 action, around 35 students marched to the provost’s office to deliver a letter and petition with over 250 signatures.

Adjuncts at American University are organizing into a union in order to protect their rights on campus. Right now, they earn as low as $2000 per three-credit course they teach, receive little to no benefits and are not treated respectfully. They have no offices and are not included in university governance structures.

However, the University has taken steps in order to stop the adjuncts from exercising their democratic rights and forming a union. They have spent hundreds of thousands of student tuition dollars to hire a notorious anti-union law firm and have been sending anti-union memoranda and flyers to adjuncts on campus and at their homes. While they claim that the faculty senate can be adapted to include the adjuncts, we know that the issues that adjuncts are facing can only be solved with a collective bargaining agreement between their union and the university.

Last Tuesday, students delivered a letter and copies of the student petition to every department head and the deans of the 5 schools. We want to send a strong message to the university that we are not okay with them using our tuition money to stifle the democratic right to organize and to continue to violate our professor’s human rights.

 

 

Republicans moving today to eliminate transit from federal funding

Urgent: Call to Action! 

• Today the House Ways & Means (Tax) Committee will markup the House version of the federal transportation reauthorization (known as H.R. 3864, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Financing Act of 2012”)

• The proposed changes would end the dedicated portion of the federal gas tax that currently funds public transit (known as the Mass Transit Account) and instead create a new account (known as the Alternative Transportation Account)—this would effectively “zero out” mass transit from the federal transportation bill.

• This would mean federal funds for mass transit would now come from the General Fund of the federal budget – instead of the federal gas tax – effectively putting all federal funding for transit at risk and subject to the annual federal budget process

Call your member of the Ways and Means Committee.  The California representatives are:

• Congressman Pete Stark (Alameda, CA): (510) 494-1388; (202) 225-5065
• Congressman Wally Herger phone (Chico, CA): (202) 225-3076
• Congressman Devin Nunes (Fresno, CA): 202-225-2523
• Congressman Mike Thompson (Napa, CA): (202) 225-3311

Talking Points:

• Demand that they reject the proposal to zero-out mass transit funding from the federal surface transportation act
• Demand that they reject the proposal to expand offshore oil and gas drilling to fund federal transportation
• Tell them that we to dedicate 80% for mass transit and 20% to maintain road infrastructure to meet the transit and economic justice needs of our communities and address the climate crisis

As you are reading this email the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee is in last minute negotiations, debating a proposal that would cut out all transit funding from the federal surface transportation act. Popularly known as the highway bill for it’s terribly auto centered funding formula, the bill gives 20% the over $300 billion legislation to mass transit and 80% to highways, freeways and roads.

Today’s proposal would dedicate 100% for roads and 0% for transit putting the transit “burden” on the General Fund. 90% of systems have cut bus service and raised fares over the past two years, to add insult to injury, the Right Wing in DC is threatening to devastate millions of bus riders even further by zeroing out mass transit from federal transportation legislation.

Call your Congressional representative right now and demand that they reject this pro highway and anti-transit proposal that could wipe out entire transit systems throughout the country!

The Labor/Community Strategy Center is leading this national campaign.  Read more here.

 

Looking for a place to learn belly dancing well SWU is exited to announce that we will be hosting Zombie Bazaar Belly Dancing Thursdays 6:30 - 8pm Mondays 7-8 pm in our Movement Gallery. Make time come on down and learn a thing or two about belly dancing.



here's a taste of Zombie Bazaar dancing:

La Bruja




Big Trouble



el facebook:
www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Zombie-Bazaar-Belly-Dance/119654644809194

On the even of August 5, 2011, during the pinnacle banquet of the National Jobs with Justice conference, student guestworkers who had traveled from all over the world only to work in a plant in Hershey, Pennsylvania made a pitch for solidarity.  Like the Verizon workers who were about to go on strike the very next day, these workers too were planning to take courageous action.

They certainly had high expectations.  And why shouldn’t they have?  Just before they got on stage, workers with the National Guestworkers Alliance from a previous campaign against Signal had just been there claiming victory against the company and a reunion with their families.  So, the 30 that had come stood up and told a story about how they each paid $3,000-$6,000 to come to the U.S. this summer for what they thought would be a cultural exchange program through the State Department’s J-1 visa. Instead, they found themselves packing chocolates at the Hershey’s plant in deeply exploitative conditions. After automatic weekly deductions for rent in company housing and other expenses, they net between $40 and $140 per week for 40 hours of work.

One

Continue reading Victory at Hersheys!

Last night the Senate Health and Welfare and the House Health Committee held a public hearing to hear from Employers on H.559, the administration’s bill to implement what is called for in ACT 48.

While it was exciting to hear from employers that came and testified in favor of the bill, opponents of the bill had organized to have a number of employers there to testify against certain components of the bill that in our judgment if adopted might keep us from fully implementing ACT 48.

The majority of the comments were focused on the section of H.559 that relates to Exchanges. The federal Affordable Care Act calls for each state to set up a health care exchange. The Healthcare is a Human Right campaign sees the exchange as a diversion that slows us down from achieving the goals of our campaign. We have to accept.

Our state administration,has assured us that they are designing the Exchange in such a way as to ensure our getting to the goals laid out in ACT 48 as fast as possible.
The ACA calls for enrolling people who are in a small group market by January 2014. Until 2016, the federal government is allowing the states to decide if their small group market should be defined as employers with 50 and under or 100 and under.

The administration recommends that the legislature define the small market group as all employers with 100 or less so that they can be enrolled by the January 2014 deadline. Our Healthcare campaign agrees with the administration on this for the more people in the exchange, the more chance it has to succeed and the faster we can move to making healthcare a public good.

This was one of the major issues that employers and representatives from several regional Chambers of Commerce, the Association of Vermont Grocers and the Ethan Allen Institute, focused their remarks on. They urged that the small group market be defined as 50 and under. They want as few people in. and they want enrollment to be done as slowly as possible.

Another point that was stressed over and over was the need to have bronze plans (these are plans with high deductibles). The employers testified that the majority of employers are moving to these, and stated that they are needed in order for HRA’S and HSA’S to work. Our Healthcare Campaign has said over and over that deductible and co-pays keep people from getting the healthcare that they need and we have and will continue to advocate for a system without co-pays and deductibles and one that is decoupled from employers

The third point that was made by these employers has to do with offering insurance outside of the exchange. This was offered as an amendment last session and we strongly opposed and it was defeated. It is again being offered as an amendment this year and we must continue to oppose.

Just days after delivering more than one million signatures to force a recall election on anti-worker Governor Scott Walker, the Wisconsin AFL-CIO has announced a statewide "Reclaim Wisconsin Tour."

Dear Friends,

We are contacting you today to ask for your immediate support.

Jesus Navarro, a recently laid off Pacific Steel Worker, was denied a Kidney Transplant by UC San Francisco Medical Center citing his undocumented status. He had insurance, a donor who is his wife, and was next on the waiting list. Since the story broke (at the bottom of the email), organizations and concerned and outraged individuals have come forward to support Mr. Navarro and his family.

On behalf of ACUDIR (Alameda County United in Defense of Immigrant Rights) and the Pacific Steel Worker Committee,  we are asking you to: Take a stand for justice and demand that UCSF Immediately provide the Kidney Transplant Treatment and all Subsequent Necessary Care to Jesus Navarro, and to Stop Using Immigration Status as a Basis for Denying Care to Any Patient. His life and the lives of hundreds depend on this.

We are sending the letter to UCSF tomorrow at Noon and would like your signatures no later than 11am. Please email your organizational and/or individual sign on to cinthya@cjjc.org

Thanks for your support.

Cinthya

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Letter

To:

Susan Desmond-Hellmann, Chancellor

Reece Fawley, executive director of transplantation

University of California at San Francisco

Sherry Lansing, Chair

University of California Board of Regents

 

We Demand that UCSF Immediately Provide Transplant Treatment and all Subsequent Necessary Care to Jesus Navarro, and to Stop Using Immigration Status as a Basis for Denying Care to Any Patient

TWe, the undersigned, express our outrage that UCSF has used the immigration status of Jesus Navarro to deny him transplant services needed to save his life, and for which he is clearly eligible.  This is a basic violation of his human rights, essentially condemning him to die because of his immigration status.

People have a right to medical care, regardless of immigration status.  It is unacceptable to our community that you deny care on this basis, especially because the death of Mr. Navarro is a likely consequence of it. Your actions violate international human rights law, and the sanctuary policy and other measures passed by the city of San Francisco, in which your center is located, which call for human rights and equality of treatment for all people, regardless of immigration status.

Our community, which supports the UC system through the taxes we pay, stands for equality and human rights for all people who live here, regardless of immigration status.  You are a public institution, and we hold you accountable to our community for this outrageous action.

We demand that you immediately provide the necessary transplant needed by Mr. Navarro.  Because your actions have inexcusably delayed his treatment, and as a result, he may lose his medical insurance during the time of recovery, we further demand that you provide all follow-up care and needed medicine, regardless of whether the cost is covered by medical insurance.

We further demand that you make a public statement that you will no longer ask any patient about their immigration status, that you will no longer deny care based on immigration status, and that you will take affirmative steps to ensure that all patients at UCSF are treated equally without regard to their nationality or immigration status.

Signed

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Article

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_19854392

No kidney transplant for dying East Bay dad who is illegal immigrant By Hannah Dreier
Contra Costa Times Posted:   01/30/2012 04:15:22 PM PST Updated:   01/31/2012 07:12:41 AM PST
Immigration status complicates transplant Jesus Navarro, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, dons a surgical mask to prevent infection while connecting to a machine to start his daily home dialysis treatment, Monday, Jan. 9, 2012, in Oakland, Calif. (D. Ross Cameron/Staff)

• Without a new kidney, Jesus Navarro will die.

The Oakland man has a willing donor and private insurance to pay for the transplant. But he faces what may be an insurmountable hurdle in the race to save his life: He is an illegal immigrant.

Administrators at UC San Francisco Medical Center are refusing to transplant a kidney from Navarro's wife, saying there is no guarantee he will receive adequate follow-up care, given his uncertain status.

Their decision is a stark illustration of the tension between health care and immigration policies in the state and underscores the difficult role medical professionals play in trying to save the lives of undocumented residents.

Though no data are available, anecdotal evidence suggests clinics sometimes perform organ transplants on illegal immigrants, especially when the patients are young. In one high-profile case, UCLA Medical Center gave an undocumented woman three liver transplants before she turned 21.

But health administrators also reject patients because of their immigration status, though that usually happens when the patients lack insurance. Bellevue Hospital in New York attracted attention last year when it refused to transplant a kidney between brothers because they could not pay for the operation.

It is the kind of ethical gray area that hospitals hate, said University of Pennsylvania bioethics professor Arthur Caplan.

"It puts the doctors in a very awkward and torn position," he said. "You come into this trying to do good and find yourself stuck in the middle of a fight about immigration."

Immigrant advocates and some scholars say it is wrong for hospitals to withhold health care from the seriously ill, no matter their legal status.

But proponents of tougher border enforcement -- and those fighting to contain ballooning health care costs -- fear that providing such services could lure more undocumented immigrants.

Navarro, 35, never thought his survival would hinge on his immigration status. He has had private insurance through Berkeley's Pacific Steel foundry for 14 years.

When his kidneys began to shut down eight years ago, he continued to work full time. Each evening, he would cleanse his blood of lethal toxins using a home dialysis machine.

But the soft-spoken metalworker has been growing sicker. Life expectancy for dialysis patients hovers around six years.

This spring, the family got a call from UCSF's transplant center: Navarro had reached the top of the waitlist.

"We were so happy," recalled his wife, who went with him for the final work-up.

But in their final consultation before the surgery, Navarro says doctors discovered his immigration status and called off the operation.

"I started crying and crying and crying," said his wife, who asked that her name be withheld because she is also in the country illegally. She offered her own kidney -- and was a match -- but administrators again said no.

UCSF declined to comment on Navarro's case, but Executive Director of Transplantation Reece Fawley said in a statement that the clinic evaluates all patients for socioeconomic stability.

"UCSF's policy for financial clearance requires candidates to present evidence of adequate and stable insurance coverage or other financial sources necessary to sustain follow-up care long after transplant surgery," she said. "Immigration status is among many factors taken into consideration."

Navarro was caught up in an immigration audit and lost his foundry job earlier this month. His private insurance continues for now, and he is trying to extend it. But he may well end up on the state's Medi-Cal program.

That would deepen Navarro's dilemma. While Medi-Cal will cover his daily dialysis -- which now costs $17,000 a month -- because of his illegal status, it will not pay for the immunosuppressive drugs that ward off organ rejection. The drugs cost $20,000 annually. Medi-Cal also won't pay for organ transplants for illegal immigrants.

The hospital won't perform the transplant without a guarantee that the drugs and accompanying treatment will be paid for.

Some bioethicists say the hospital should have performed the surgery because Navarro would not be taking resources away from other patients or putting his wife at serious risk.

After all, many legal residents fail to follow their post-surgical plan.

"Why was this patient denied the opportunity to comply?" asked Santa Clara University bioethics professor Margaret McLean.

Other experts suggest that the possibility of saving a life should outweigh concerns about follow-up care.

"He has the organ -- the critical resource -- if he can get it transplanted," said University of Southern California bioethics professor Michael Shapiro. "That's a serious chance at life."

But critics say that providing any long-term care to illegal immigrants is irresponsible and discourages home countries from investing in an adequate health system.

"You just cannot provide care for illegal aliens without getting into uncompensated care," said Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

Navarro says his chief concern is finding a new job, not the quest to save his life. But he also worries for his family and takes anti-anxiety pills to sleep.

If transplant doctors working with illegal immigrants are in a bind, so are the Navarros.

"We don't know what to do," said Navarro's wife, watching her husband chase after their 3-year-old daughter. "It's like we're on a ledge -- we can't go here or there."

Contact Hannah Dreier at 510-262-2787. Follow her at Twitter.com/hannahdreier

Increased regulation on the horizon
The nonprofit group that manages the nation's organ transplant system is considering increasing its oversight of transplants to noncitizens.
The United Network for Organ Sharing currently does not limit the percentage of organs that clinics can transplant to immigrants. That is partly because nonresidents donate more organs than they receive.
Over a 20-year period, illegal immigrants donated 2.5 percent of organs and received fewer than 1 percent, according to a 2008 study published by the American Medical Association.
The network reserves the right to audit the rare clinic that gives more than 5 percent of organs to nonresident patients. The concern is that a transplant center might start bringing in wealthy "transplant tourists" from other countries to make money.
"Regardless of our policy, it is always the decision of any transplant center," said network spokesman Joel Newman.
The organization is considering a new rule that would require clinics to provide detailed accounts of the immigrants they serve and allow the organization to review all nonresident transplants.
The goal would be to distinguish patients traveling to the United States for a transplant from those noncitizens who live in the country and thus are more likely to donate organs to U.S. citizens.
-- Hannah Dreier

The House of Representatives is considering a vote on HR 1173, a bill that would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The CLASS Act was designed to be a voluntary insurance program to help Americans pay for long term care, and it was passed in 2009 as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Congress needs to hear from all of us today because they plan to vote on the bill as soon as tomorrow. If you haven’t already, please CLICK HERE to find the phone number for your Member of the House of Representatives and tell her/him:

1. The CLASS Act should not be repealed.
2. Repealing CLASS ignores the needs of millions of Americans with disabilities and seniors who need long term services and supports to maintain their independence and dignity.
3. Repealing CLASS ignores the needs of the direct care workforce for quality jobs.

Click here to let us know that you have told your representative to oppose repeal of the CLASS Act. If you have called already — thank you — please share this email with friends and invite them to call their representative so that we can protect the

Continue reading TAKE ACTION: Don’t repeal CLASS Act!

The fight begins— Following a string of “right to work” or anti-working class state initiatives that pushed through in Wisconsin and Ohio (which would be later overturned in Ohio), the Verizon Wireless contract negotiations began.  Both CWA leadership and community supporters alike knew this fight wouldn’t be an easy one.  The surprise element in this campaign has been Verizon’s obvious attempt to cripple the union by rolling back on 20 years worth of benefits won by the CWA and send a message to both employees and other corporations: profits are more valuable than people.

As this was the tone set by the Verizon corporation going into negotiations, and we soon realized that the game was changed completely for the workers bargaining. At that same time, what felt like it sprouted from out of thin air, Occupy Wall Street began, igniting simultaneous occupations all over the country from Oakland to DC.  With that a new base of people that had just as much to lose from this particular contract negotiation, as it embodied – and still does – the fight of the 1% vs. the 99%.

During the 2 week strike in August, unions, faith leaders, occupiers, students and the community

Continue reading A Verigreedy campaign

Many participants of the Occupy/99% Movement in Albuquerque decided to identify themselves as (un)Occupy Albuquerque as an acknowledgement of the colonial history of New Mexico and the perspectives of the indigenous communities who live here.  They were making a powerful statement that New Mexico has been occupied by various imperialist forces for hundreds of years. The name change and the ideas behind it were major points of contention, as can be expected of any decision that would affect a large movement of people, and they influenced major conversations on race, class, and privilege within the broader Occupy Movement.

Occupy Talks: Indigenous Perspectives on the Occupy Movement  was a discussion organized in Toronto, Ontario on January 23rd, and the topics they covered reflect on many of the discussions happening in New Mexico.  Featured speakers Tom B.K. Goldtooth, Clayton Thomas-Muller and Leanne Simpson provide historical and cultural context to the discussions happening amongst Occupy and (un)Occupy groups everywhere, including in New Mexico.

The Indigenous Environmental Network’s Clayton Thomas-Muller does a nice job of outlining some of the racial and cultural clashes that occur in a movement as large as the nation-wide (and beyond) Occupy Movement:

“This Occupy Movement, if not handled correctly, had the potential to set up a scenario where a lot of our social movements, existing social movements that have beeng gaining a lot of power lately through good, resilient leadership from local, frontline communities supported by hardcore solidarity movements that are rooted in anti-colonial, anti-racist, anti-oppression frameworks… and I said I’m afraid that if we don’t find a way to deal with this huge influx of activists, of radicalized, recently radicalized people who, for the most part, have never been exposed to social movements, who, for the most part, have no idea about the history of the Civil Rights Movement, or Black Panthers, or Red Power, or the American Indian Movement, or even more contemporary stuff that’s been happening. You know, if we dont have a solid group, like a whole army of anti-racist trainers to deal with these people, all of our people are gonna experience a whole [lot] of lateral violence. Because these people don’t know how to check their white privilege at the door.”

“And then the emails started coming… the emails started coming in from Denver, from Oakland, from LA, from Santa Fe, from Albuquerque, you know, from the Southeast US, from Miami, from DC , from New York City about crazy [stuff] that was happening that was… just people who were not educated, had no experience organizing in a people’s assembly, using a mic check system, all these different things that- basically, in every single city there were crews that were predominately white dudes who were dominating and not allowing women of color, indigenous women and everybody else the space that we have become accustomed to in our own spaces. And not recognizing the importance of having, if we’re gonna truly challenge the power and create systemic change, of why it’s so important for communities to speak for themselves, of why it’s so important for lifting up and elevating the most disproportionately affected by all these problems we face to the forefront of the movement. …[A]nd why it’s so important that people with privilege, whether it’s male privilege, or racial privilege, or privilege of being older, or privilege of being hella rich, of taking a step back. Why that’s so important.”

The Occupy Movement is a reaction to the current state of politics and economics in the United States, but many of the participants and organizers involved bring their own unique perspectives, influenced by cultural and geographic background. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a writer, activist, and scholar who has worked with Indigenous communities and organizations across Canada and internationally on environmental and political issues. Leanne offers her perspective from North of the Border, and provides historical context that helps to crystalize the “indigenous perspective”:

“Our children have been stolen from us and sent to residential schools, day schools, and a child welfare system, and now into an education system that refuses to acknowledge our cultures, our knowledge, our histories, and our indigenous experiences. And then, of course, there’s the Indian Act which until 1951 made our ceremonies illegal, made it illegal for us to hire a lawyer, made it illegal for us to leave the rez without permission of the Indian Agent, and made it illegal for us to organize. The Indian Act still controls virtually every decision and every aspect of our lives from birth to the grave. It is a continuous system of control over indigenous people.”

Tom B.K. Goldtooth, the Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, analyzes the Occupy Movement while also highlighting the power of any movement that challenges systems of power, such as government and banking entities:

“The whole economic construct has been based upon this- the taking of land. The taking of land as well as defining, not only land, but people as property rights. Slavery. Another main demand from the occupy movement, that came forward from the American Indian Movement in Denver was to support and endorse the rights of indigenous peoples. To the international right of self-determination.”

“When they say the system is broken- how many of you beleive the system is broken? My view from the shore is that it was made to be this way. And IEN [Indigenous Environmental Network] supports the necessity for civil society for peoples, our grassroots people of the world. Our popular movements to reclaim the democracy, despite however long that’s gonna take and whatever process that’s gonna be.”

Here are the videos from the evening, as well as bios of the speakers:

Thanks Giving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtV5kzkkbxA&feature=related

Opening Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWNHtE9ewM&feature=related

John Trudel Opening Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6mTWuC9o_E&feature=share

Leanne Simpson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvRgx5uyQs&feature=related

Clayton Thomas-Muller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKIJAsOCiM

Tom Goldtooth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFWnD5UhbhY&feature=related

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a writer, activist, and scholar of Michi Saagiik Nishnaabeg ancestry and is a band member of Alderville First Nation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba, is an Adjunct Professor in Indigenous Studies at Trent University and an instructor at the Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge, Athabasca University. She has also lectured at Ryerson University, the University of Victoria, the University of Manitoba, and the University of Winnipeg. Leanne has worked with Indigenous communities and organizations across Canada and internationally over the past 15 years on environmental, governance and political issues. She has published three edited volumes including Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence and Protection of Indigenous Nations (2008, Arbeiter Ring), and This is An Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Barricades (with Kiera Ladner, 2010, Arbeiter Ring). Leanne has published over thirty scholarly articles and raised over one million dollars for community-based research projects over her career. She has written fiction and non-fiction pieces for Now Magazine, Spirit Magazine, the Globe and Mail, Anishinabek News, the Link, and Canadian Art Magazine.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. With his roots in the inner city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Clayton began his work as a community organizer, working with Aboriginal youth. Over the years Clayton’s work has taken him to five continents across our Mother Earth. Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Clayton is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive movement for energy and climate justice. He serves on the board of the Global Justice Ecology Project and Canadian based Raven Trust. Recognized by Utne Magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 activists in the United States and as a “Climate Hero 2009” by Yes Magazine, Clayton is the Tar Sands Campaign Director for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He works across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against the sprawling infrastructure that includes pipelines, refineries and extraction associated with the tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial project in the history of mankind.

Tom B.K. Goldtooth is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), headquartered at Bemidji, Minnesota. A social change activist within the Native American community for over 30 years, he has become an environmental and economic justice leader, locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. Tom co-produced an award winning documentary film, Drumbeat For Mother Earth, which addresses the affects of bio-accumulative chemicals on indigenous peoples, and is active with many environmental and social justice organizations besides IEN. Tom is a policy advisor on environmental protection, climate mitigation, and adaptation. Tom co-authored the REDD Booklet on the risks of REDD within indigenous territories and a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change — the indigenous caucus within the UNFCCC.

Sponsors were: Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian Labour Congress, CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy Ryerson University, Environmental Justice Toronto

So-called "right-to-work" legislation has absolutely nothing to do with helping anyone find a job or keep their job. Rather, "right to work" is a cleverly deceptive label for an attack on unions.

Hakim Bellamy Photographed by Justin Thor Simenson

Last week, Media Literacy Project (MLP) attended the Second Annual Anti-Racism Day at the New Mexico State Legislature. Having served on the planning committee for this day of action, convened by the New Mexico Health Equity Working Group and the Deconstructing Racism Group, MLP had a chance to reflect on the anti-racism aspects of our work. Recently, we have been protecting the cyber frontier from corporate colonization through our opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), both in Congress.

Racism often frames the environment in which the most horrific human rights abuses occur. The human right to communication is certainly threatened by SOPA and PIPA, making freedom of speech the dominant argument in these debates currently happening in the U.S. House and Senate, respectively.

However, these companion bills that were initially supported by a majority of the New Mexico Congressional Delegation have a more acute impact on communities of color. With Anti-Racism Day fresh in our minds, we must at least acknowledge the disparity of that impact on our communities.

The intentionally deceptive use of language by supporters of SOPA and PIPA is something that disproportionately impacts people of color and therefore, disproportionately impacts New Mexico. The good news is that this deceptive language is not lost on folks who work in the fields of media justice and creative arts.

The idea that the SOPA and PIPA legislation was designed out of some altruistic concern of Congress to protect “the starving artist” is an utterly absurd frame. Yet, this is the frame that they have been using, with some success, to get artists to support protecting intellectual property at the expense of freedom.

The reality is that the content owners, not the content creators, are the ones lobbying this legislation through Congress. As an organization whose work is reliant upon content created by cultural workers and artists in the Southwest, we want to see the fair use and fair compensation of our partners and collaborators protected.

At the same time, we know that the most innovative and democratic model for communication and artistic distribution ever created is the Internet. The Internet is a threat to the corporate model of gatekeeping content, communication and culture for profit. Much like the artists that work in your community, the artists we work with are more likely to make a living from their art because of the Internet, not in spite of it.

Rarely are these artists in the economic stratosphere of “1%ers” who have to concern themselves with how the Internet is cutting into their movie, television or music profits. As an artist, I suspect that for artists of color approximately 99 percent of us fall into the former category.

It is not the content creators who stand to see a windfall of profit if SOPA and PIPA become law; it is the content owners who want to make sure that they remain the middle man between the artist and the audience. In the scope of anti-racism theory, the economics of this dynamic can best be explained with a plantation analogy. The plantation gets the harvest of the artist for next to nothing, and then keeps all the market profit.

However, the corporate owners have been faced with a revolt. Their attempt to put a noose around the Internet has been met with great opposition. Their attempts to control the market and bully us into giving up our freedom, is failing. Community artists figured out that working for themselves could provide much more creative and economic freedom than slaving for the owners, and have been doing so since the advent of the digital revolution in the 1980s.

Essentially, the Internet has emancipated poor people (read: artists) and communities of color from having their talent, their issues and their culture ignored or marginalized as not universal enough or not profitable enough.

So as we all apply this idea of anti-racism to the work that we do, please consider how difficult it would be for us to do the work of bringing people of all colors together without being able to share our culture freely? How would we realize the anti-racist world we seek without being able to communicate our songs, our images and our stories? Where else might we share our languages, our traditions, and our truth?

It was the Internet that gave consumer advocates, web experts and media justice advocates the power to stop SOPA and PIPA from seeing a vote. That power to catalyze change is precisely the quality of the Internet that proponents of this legislation seek to eliminate.  We ask that you write your Congressperson and Senators and tell them to leave the Internet open and free…with media and justice for all.

 

Hakim Bellamy is the Strategic Communications Director at Media Literacy Project

Written by Ida Vishkaee Eskamani – College Democrats at University of Central Florida

In 1997, Florida’s legislature created a scholarship program called Bright Futures. It was a program that allowed high school seniors with high academic merit to earn a scholarship for any public university in the state of Florida. Based on Georgia’s successful HOPE scholarship, this program would be paid for by the Florida Lottery, and based merit on GPA as well as standardized test scores. Bright Futures was divided into three types of scholarships, designed for three different types of students. There was one created for those high school seniors’ pursuing vocational degrees, one for the “B” students, and another for the “A” students. The “B” students earned a 75% scholarship for university, 100% for community college. The “A” students were granted a 100% scholarship for any public university.

I was one of those “A” students.

Growing up, I knew the importance of a college education. Immigrants, my parents moved from Iran and met here in the United States. While working two jobs with three young kids, my father

Continue reading Bright Futures or Student Debt?

Act now to confront corporate power!

This week, in over one hundred cities and towns, thousands will launch a series of actions building towards the Shareholder Spring, delivering letters to the executives of the corporations in this country most responsible for undermining our democracy, crashing our economy, poisoning our environment and widening the gap between rich and poor.

By coming together around a joint strategy to confront corporate power, this effort could shape the 2012 electoral debates.  The negative roles unregulated corporate power has on our economy and our elections would be front and center of the national conversation.  In races nationwide candidates would have to decide which side they are on:  Corporations, the structures of the 1%, or the rest of us.

Committing to such a broad-based effort to further expand the space opened by Occupy will create new possibilities for each of our campaigns.  In isolation our campaigns on jobs and worker rights, revenue, banking, health care, immigrant justice, and the environment are not big enough.  But together, we have the potential to shift the political landscape that all of us operate in.

We are

Continue reading Joint Effort Launched to Confront Corporate Power

Story Type:  Blog Story Author:  Colin Rajah Story Publisher:  Migrants Rights International (MRI)

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We are thrilled to be hosting Olga Reyes in Portland on Saturday, February 4th, 5pm at 1131 SE Oak St. PCASC is co-sponsoring this event with Voz, AFSC, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Oregon Peace Institute.

Free – donations welcome

Bio:
Olga Reyes Salazar comes from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, in Mexico. Her sister, Josefina Reyes, was a prominent activist for human rights and demilitarization in Juarez until she was murdered January 3, 2010, after one of her sons had been jailed and another murdered. In February 2011, Olga’s sister, brother, and sister-in-law were abducted, and subsequently found killed. Olga’s mother Sara issued a remarkable appeal to the kidnappers of her children in February, just before the family house was burned down.

Since the killing of her two siblings and sister-in-law in February, Olgahas participated in the two “caravans of consolation” led by poet Javier Sicilia, that traveled from central Mexico to the U.S. border in June and to Chiapas and the Guatemala border in September.

Olga brings a powerful testimony of the human costs of the drug war, militarism and gun trafficking, and of the growing movement to forge a different path in Mexico and the United States.

DATE: January 27, 2012

TO: Robin Lunge, Director of Health Reform

FROM: Vermont Workers’ Center - Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign

CC: Anya Rader-Wallack, Dr. Karen Hein, Con Hogan, Albert Gobeille, Dr. Allan Ramsay, Georgia Maheras, Mark Larson, Sen. Claire Ayer, Rep. Michael Fisher,

SUBJECT: Statement on the Green Mountain Care financing and benefits debate

Vermont’s universal healthcare law, Act 48, requires that the people of our state have opportunities to participate in the many decisions that must be made as we transition to Green Mountain Care. Importantly, the law foresees a public planning process to develop a financing mechanism for the new universal system and to agree on the healthcare services (or “benefits”) Vermonters will be able to receive.

Since last November, the Shumlin Administration has held a number of so-called “listening sessions” on the financing question, and it is now preparing similar sessions to discuss the issue of healthcare “benefits.” Both financing and “benefits” are critical questions in the transition process, and it is important that the people of Vermont are fully engaged in this discussion. It is equally important that everyone is clear on what these questions entail and that the Administration shows sufficient leadership to address growing confusion and concerns.

Participants in the financing listening sessions have been forced to sift through many new “principles” for financing, introduced by the Administration (such as “non-disruption”, “economic pressures”, “elasticity of demand”). They were also asked to discuss health benefits and cost containment measures, which are not financing issues. These problems with the format and content of the listening sessions have caused unnecessary confusion. Act 48 states clearly that the new healthcare system should be paid for in an equitable way. The principle of equity requires that Vermonters contribute to the system based on their ability to pay and receive the care they need. Therefore, the discussion should return to the simple question at hand: What is the most equitable way of financing a universal healthcare system? We call on the Shumlin Administration to address this question now, and to commit to using the most equitable financing mechanism to replace the unfair insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses that Vermonters are currently struggling to pay.

The Administration also has an obligation to clarify that the financing discussion is not about how much the new system will cost and how much we can save, but rather about the way in which we will pay. We already have sufficient evidence that the premiums and fees Vermonters pay now are higher than the funding needed for the new system. The money is already there – this is not the issue at hand. Instead, the financing discussion must be about identifying a new and equitable way to finance the system. In the future, the money for health care should no longer come from our individual pockets, but from a shared pot that allows for equitable contributions by residents and businesses based on their ability to pay.

This is the right time for the Administration to state publicly that the revenue for the new universal system will be raised equitably, as required by Act 48, and to provide an outline of the most equitable mechanism for doing so. Addressing this issue now would also serve as an appropriate response to the growing demand, formally expressed in an amendment to Act 48 introduced by Senator Brook, for an earlier release of the financing plans for Green Mountain Care, before the January 2013 date required by the current law.

Once the Administration confirms its principled approach to financing, it will be more straightforward to approach the “benefits” debate from the same principled perspective. Currently the question of “benefits” in Green Mountain Care is mixed up with a discussion of insurance coverage benefits in the Exchange, the marketplace that will precede the universal, publicly financed health system. But healthcare services in a universal system are provided on a different basis from benefits packages that are sold as part of insurance coverage plans.

A universal healthcare system is guided by the principles of protecting people’s health and enabling access to all medically necessary care. The limitations of an insurance market system, in which policyholders bet against sickness by buying specified “benefits packages,” no longer apply. A universal healthcare system puts people’s health first and invests public money into keeping our population healthy. We welcome the Administration’s recent statements affirming the importance of prioritizing the health of our population. People need healthcare throughout their lives; neither the prevention nor the treatment of illnesses is an unexpected occurrence against which we can insure ourselves. We must reject the old model of denying care to those who cannot afford the best “benefits package” or cannot pay their co-pays, and instead set up democratic processes that can guide the difficult decisions about how to allocate funds. We call on the Shumlin Administration to lead the emerging “benefits” discussion by shifting the focus from insurance benefit packages to people’s health needs. The upcoming “benefits” listening sessions should be designed as conversations about health needs and about new ways of allocating resources to maximize Vermonters’ health.

If the Administration is serious about moving toward a universal healthcare system and treating healthcare as a human right, then the “benefits” discussion must start with people’s health needs and their ability to get comprehensive, appropriate care, as stated in Act 48. Rather than developing benefits packages and cost-sharing requirements that artificially restrict access to care, healthcare resources should be allocated based on needs, in a way that does the most good for Vermonters’ health. Most countries with a universal healthcare system provide comprehensive care (usually including preventive and public health services, primary care, ambulatory and inpatient specialist care, prescription pharmaceuticals, mental health care, dental care, rehabilitation, home care and nursing home care) without defining a specific package. By focusing on keeping people healthy, these countries achieve better health outcomes, greater savings and more equity in access to care than the United States. Vermont now has an opportunity to show that we can make it happen here too. We can put people’s health first by building a universal healthcare system that is paid for in an equitable way and that ensures Vermonters get the care they need.

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