IAC petition demands Justice Department investigation of racial profiling in U.S.

From the International Action Center:

Stand in Solidarity with Prof. Gates! Say NO to Racism!

Stop Racial Profiling and Police Brutality!

Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Was Right!

The Cambridge Cops Must Apologize!

Youth Need Jobs & Schools – Not Jails!

Demand a Justice Department Investigation
of Racial Profiling Across the US

Sign the Online Petition here. Let President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Massachusetts Governor Patrick, Cambridge Mayor Simmons, the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Police Commissioner Haas, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Congressional Leaders and members of the media know you stand against racism with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and you want the Obama administration to launch a national investigation into racial profiling and police brutality NOW!
http://www.bailoutpeople.org/gatespetition.shtml (text of online petition)

[continued here]

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Justice, justice

Why the discussion about Prof. Gates’ arrest should NOT just go away

In this photo taken by a neighbor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. is arrested on July 16 at his home in Cambridge, Mass. (Associated Press)

Anyone naive enough to believe the hype, that the election of Barack Obama as president meant that we were now living in a “post-racial” society, should have received a rude but absolutely necessary awakening following the July 16 incident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in which a white police officer arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in his own home for “disturbing the peace.”  Not that there haven’t been many, many publicized incidents (and exponentially more unpublicized incidents) of governmental racism since Obama’s election.  But it isn’t the arrest of Professor Gates that should take the blinders off, it’s the public discussion that has followed, and most of all it is what that discussion says about white people and our ability to tolerate an honest discussion of race and racism.

And no, I’m not even talking about the knuckle-draggers who are using the incident to trot out their confederate flags  and their overtly racist tripe – the language that songwriter Charlie King once magnificently called “speaking to the living in the language of the dead.”  Heck, I’m not even talking about the milder garden variety racism that is simply incapable of understanding why the arrest of Professor Gates (in his own home, after he had produced identification showing that it WAS his own home, and when it was absolutely certain that there was no crime being committed) was a racist act by a white police officer.

Because what the public discussion of Professor Gates’ arrest really shows is the extent to which we – that is, white liberals and progressives – are afraid and unwilling to talk about the reality and the extent of race and racism in America.  Or maybe to put it another way, the discussion shows that we are all about opposing right-wing nutjobs like Patrick Buchanan when they say that “this country was built by white men,” but how quickly we run for cover when there are accusations of racism against “good” white people.

So most well-intentioned people I know felt that Professor Gates had been treated unfairly and were willing to say so . . . right up until  they started to hear about how the arresting officer was also a “diversity trainer” for the Cambridge Police Department who was purportedly well-liked and respected by police officers of color within his department.  And when Barack Obama pulled back from his previous statement that the Cambridge police had acted “stupidly,” an awful lot of us  turned and ran for cover.

From my observations, I think this full-scale retreat has mostly taken two forms.  First, there are those whites who are now saying that Professor Gates was arrested because “both he and the police overreacted.”  Second, there are those who have reacted to the shift in the discussion by dismissing the event itself as “silly” and demanding that we all “stop talking about it.”  So I want to take a closer look at both of these responses and discuss what our excuses say about our role in white racism in American society.

“Professor Gates and the police officer both overreacted.”

I suppose I could start by pointing out that “a plague on both your houses” is the oldest chestnut in a long and sad legacy of white liberals refusing to acknowledge racism and its power.  But this would be a book rather than a blog post if I tried to discuss the many times this excuse not to engage has manifested itself in American social history.  So I’ll try to stay focused on the Professor Gates incident, and what it means right here and now.

This incident was a confrontation between a private citizen, a person who allegedly possesses all the rights and privileges set out in the Bill of Rights, and an armed representative of the government.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that citizens must be polite to representatives of the government or face arrest.  In fact, just the opposite.  The police are only allowed to arrest people for the commission of crimes.  Being angry with a police officer, yelling at him, and even cussing him out are not crimes.  Most certainly these acts are not crimes within the confines of your own home, but there is strong precedent that even in public expressions of contempt for police officers do not constitute criminal behavior.  Consider this quote from a 1987 federal court of appeals decision in which it was determined that a police officer exceeded his authority by arresting someone who had “flipped the bird” at him:

“no matter how peculiar, abrasive, unruly or distasteful a person’s conduct may be, it cannot justify a police stop unless it suggests that some specific crime has been, or is about to be, committed.” [The court] also ruled, “We cannot condone Duran’s conduct; it was boorish, crass and, initially at least, unjustified. Our hard-working law enforcement officers surely deserve better treatment from members of the public. But disgraceful as Duran’s behavior may have been, it was not illegal; criticism of the police is not a crime.”

The important thing about the Gates case, and the reason that the explanation “they both overreacted” is utterly inadequate is that this was not a dispute between two neighbors, or even between two parties to a fender-bender. One of the parties to this dispute had a club, a gun, and handcuffs – and the authority to use them. Private citizens have the right to overreact. Police officers do not.

This ought to be rudimentary for white people. Plainly liberals and progressives are prepared to scream at cops and call them nazis for violating our First Amendment right to protest the war in Iraq in a public park. We should be able to recognize the significance of protecting Professor Gates’ right to be angry and to raise his voice against a police officer who he believed to be disrespecting him in his own home. To refuse to actively defend Gates’ rights in this situation is to all but acknowledge and accept the existence of two systems of law: one for whites and one for people of color.

“The Gates incident is silly . . . we should all stop talking about it.”

The assumption behind this second type of white liberal response is that this particular incident is not important enough to warrant a serious discussion about racism. Events of the last few days reveal the root of this belief. Initially, when we saw this as an incident involving a saintly Harvard professor who happened to be black and a white police officer, we were all outraged. Only when we looked closer, things got “complicated.”

Complicated because Professor Gates did not lie down on his floor like a modern-day Gandhi and allow himself to be dragged away in an act of passive resistance. Complicated because he may have yelled something at the police officer about “your mama,” one of those things that make white people cringe because, after all, did anyone ever hear of Martin Luther King, Jr. talking about someone’s mama?

And also complicated because it turned out that the Cambridge police officer was not a secret klan member or Pat Buchanan in military drag. In fact, he teaches “diversity” within his department and is generally well-regarded by his fellow officers, including those who are people of color.

And, finally, complicated because Barack Obama backed off his earlier statement about the incident and resorted to – you guessed it – “both sides overreacted.”

In the real world, these are not complications, they are simply facts. Racially motivated attacks do happen to perfectly nice people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some of those people do conduct themselves like saints. But racism also happens to someone who is pissed off because he just got home in the middle of the night only to find that he can’t get into his house, when chances are all he wants to do is go to sleep. It happens to someone who is angry and irritated and fed up. It happens to someone who cannot control his temper. And that doesn’t mean that what happened isn’t racism.

Perhaps even more importantly, a white person can say or do something racist even if he happens to be, generally, a nice person, a champion of diversity, and maybe even 364 days out of the year a model of tolerance and respect. That doesn’t stop his actions on that 365th day from being racist. People who know me know that I have acknowledged saying and doing racist things in the past…and the likelihood that despite my best efforts I will probably say or do something racist in the future. When that happens, I have a choice: I can deny responsibility or I can take responsibility. I can defend or I can apologize.

But to too many of us, this is a complication that we just can’t stand to look at. Because if a “good” white police officer (and I’m not saying that he is, just that this is the excuse being given for letting him off the hook) can say or do something racist and have to be held accountable . . . then I guess we all do. And sad to say, too many of us just aren’t ready for that yet. We’re not ready to be held accountable, to stop defending, to apologize, to learn.

That’s the number one reason why it is wrong, wrong, wrong to say that the Gates incident should be forgotten or put to one side. People of color don’t have a choice about when they experience racism. We white people should not give ourselves a choice about when to fight it.

Filed under: Fighting oppression

Executives, highly compensated employees make one-third of ALL WAGES PAID in the U.S.

It’s the kind of figure that should be a serious reality check to every progressive who talks about “the middle class” and every liberal who worries that taxing the rich would be unfair . . . and for the rest of us it should remind us of just how deep the divide between haves and have-nots in the U.S. really is. Here’s a quote from the Wall Street Journal:

Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available. The compensation numbers don’t include incentive stock options, unexercised stock options, unvested restricted stock units and certain benefits.

The pay of employees who receive more than the Social Security wage base — now $106,800 — increased by 78%, or nearly $1 trillion, over the past decade, exceeding the 61% increase for other workers, according to the analysis. In the five years ending in 2007, earnings for American workers rose 24%, half the 48% gain for the top-paid. The result: The top-paid represent 33% of the total, up from 28% in 2002.

That’s right…that’s one third of all paid compensation but NOT including stock options, a figure that would likely inflate the 33% figure.

The article goes on to explain how this rise in the percentage of wealth earned above the social security ceiling wage will lead to further underfunding of social security and cause the collapse of the existing social security system four years earlier than previously projected.

So it’s not just that the rich are getting richer…or even that everyone else is getting poorer…but that the rising wages of top wage earners are actually damaging the system that pays subsistence-level benefits for working people when they are no longer able to work.

Filed under: Economic crisis, They're Not Like Us

Anti-war movement should stop making easy choices, start making right ones

The already weakened anti-war movement in the U.S. has reacted with confusion to some recent developments in the U.S. war on the peoples of the Middle East.  In case there was any doubt, though, recent events show that the movement cannot view the situation in the various countries of the region independently of each other.

Moreover, it’s high time that some movement leaders stopped making the easy choices and started making the right choices.  The easy – but false – victory for Obama’s fake “withdrawal” of U.S. troops from Iraq, egging on the drumbeats for a U.S. war against Iran, sitting silently while U.S. and NATO forces become mired in a hopeless occupation of Afghanistan . . . these all reflect a movement leadership that is more concerned with currying favor in Washington than in stopping the ruthless and bloody U.S. war machine.

The following analysis from Workers World doesn’t offer easy solutions or paint regional complexities in black-and-white.  It tells the truth about the real issue: the U.S. role in the region.  And it concludes by calling on activists and organizations to stay focused on the task in front of us, which is not to decide who should rule in Iran but to force our government to take its boot off the neck of the people of the Middle East.

Anti-war movement debates Iran, the Middle East and U.S. wars

By John Catalinotto

Published Jul 20, 2009 9:30 PM

The conflict in Iran that opened up with the June presidential elections there has had an impact on the progressive and anti-imperialist movement worldwide, including in the United States. Misunderstanding the events has created some confusion in anti-war ranks. This is especially dangerous after Vice President Joe Biden on July 5 gave a virtual green light to an Israeli attack on Iran. The anti-war movement must stay alert to protest any move in that direction.

When very large crowds of people took to the streets in Tehran on June 15 to protest the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it appeared that this was an authentic popular movement, even if its strongest base was in the more affluent parts of the city.

Young people and women apparently were playing a large role in the protests. Some of the demands were for women’s rights and other democratic rights that were constrained by the religious political leadership of Iran’s revolution. It was easy for Western secular progressives to identify with the protests.

But some big questions remained.

If the protests were progressive, why did all the imperialist politicians in Europe and the United States and their corporate media take the sides of the opposition? This is especially strange since the key players in the opposition, the candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were themselves identified with the regime in the past. At the time, U.S. sources even charged Mousavi with responsibility for overseeing the 1983 blast in Lebanon that killed over 200 U.S. Marines, since he was Iran’s premier then.

Rafsanjani, who is one of the richest people in Iran, is associated with increased privatization of industry and banking and with opening friendlier relations with U.S. imperialism. This would necessarily include cutting back on support for the Hamas and Hezbollah liberation movements and perhaps for Syria, and increasing cooperation with the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. How would privatization and cooperation with the U.S. increase democratic rights inside Iran?

A serious consideration of these questions must include an examination of U.S. imperialism’s goals regarding the entire Middle East and Central Asia. The George W. Bush administration used the 9/11 attack as a pretext to justify U.S. military aggression in the entire region—although the real goal was to conquer its world-important energy resources. A look at the news in the second week of July shows that this basic strategy remains in place.

U.S. troops still in Iraq

Some deceptive headlines gave the false impression that U.S. troops essentially withdrew from Iraq on June 30. Yet 134,000 troops remain in the country. They pulled out of 142 posts that were inside Iraqi cities, turning these posts over to Iraqi troops, but remain in 320 other posts around Iraq.

In some cases, rather than moving, the U.S. and Iraqi forces simply redefined the city boundaries, leaving the troops where they were. Such was the case with the U.S. Army’s Forward Operating Base Falcon, which used to be located inside Baghdad. Now, with a new boundary drawn, the 3,000 U.S. troops there are “outside” the city limits.

U.S. troops and higher paid mercenaries are expanding and improving their rural bases and even building new ones. Even if the Obama administration sticks to the announced timetable, at least 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq until at least the end of 2011. A war-spending bill the Democrat-controlled Congress just passed pours another $100 billion into the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. (Information from the website of Iraq expert Dahr Jamail—dahrjamailiraq.com)

Washington escalates war on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, U.S. troop levels have already grown to 57,000 and are set to rise to 68,000 during the year. According to McClatchy News Service, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said July 13 “that when he gives his assessment to the Obama administration next month of what is needed to defeat the Taliban, he won’t be deterred by administration statements that he cannot have more U.S. troops.”

Britain, too, has escalated its presence in Afghanistan, with the result that 15 British troops died in the two weeks ending July 13. The Afghan occupation is nominally under NATO command. European leaders have ignored popular anti-war sentiment to send troops to the Afghan front, basing their appeal on President Obama’s reviving U.S. popularity in Europe after Bush brought its ratings to an all-time low.

Support for the war is waning quickly as the casualties mount, in Britain as well as in the rest of Europe and Canada.

Even the New York Times has had to admit that the increased troop strength and military activity in Afghanistan, with an increase in civilian casualties, is helping recruiting by the Taliban and other resistance forces. (July 3)

Along with Afghanistan is increased U.S. intervention in Pakistan. Both drones and planes are sent to bomb and rocket alleged “insurgent” targets, while the Pentagon pushes the Pakistani regime to send its army into border areas. Both activities have increased civilian deaths and created millions of refugees inside Pakistan. They have also increased recruiting by opposition forces, some allied with the Afghan resistance.

U.S. policies in Palestine

Washington’s policy toward Palestine has been to continue support for the Israeli state, despite Israel’s refusal to even stop new settlements in the occupied West Bank and its brutal blockade of the Gaza territory. It is based on U.S. strategic interests in the region, which involve relying on the Israeli state as a weapon against any liberation movement or sovereign government in the region.

The U.S.-based media attacked the Iranian elections as fraudulent. But remember that in Palestine, Washington and Israel refused to recognize what they knew were honest elections that made Hamas the leading party in 2006. Since then the U.S.-Israeli alliance has used force and withheld aid to try to drive Hamas from office.

Washington hasn’t altered its basic policy of occupation and control since the replacement of the neo-con regime fronted by Bush. So it’s consistent with their past misdeeds that the corporate media and all imperialist politicians—at least in North America and Europe—have targeted the Iranian government over the elections and have praised the opposition demonstrations.

Whatever the motive of the protesters themselves in Tehran, the imperialists’ motive is to eliminate Iranian sovereignty and reverse the 1979 revolution.

N.E.D.-funded group calls anti-Iran protest

A group in the U.S. calling itself United 4 Iran has called for protests on July 25 targeting the Iranian government. It says this is in sympathy with the youth and women involved in opposition demonstrations there. The anti-imperialist Stop War on Iran group, in response, issued a statement exposing the connections of United 4 Iran with funding groups closely associated with U.S. foreign policy—like the National Endowment for Democracy—and argues against any support for these protests.

“U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s new public threat against Iran underlines the dangers of a new war in the Middle East and the desperate need for political clarity within the anti-war movement concerning Iran,” the SWOI statement begins.

“With his July 5 comments on ABC’s This Week, Biden opened the door to a military attack when he said that the U.S. would not stand in the way of an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, calling such an attack Israel’s ‘sovereign right.’”

SWOI notes that some anti-war organizations have endorsed the United 4 Iran action, including United for Peace and Justice, and “urges them and other honest anti-war forces to reconsider their endorsement of the anti-Iran actions.”

SWOI urges everyone instead to “come out AGAINST current U.S. wars and the threats of a new war on the following week in a National Day of Coordinated Actions on Saturday, Aug. 1.” To read the full statement and/or to participate, see stopwaroniran.org.

E-mail: jcat@workers.org

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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Filed under: International solidarity, Must read

Advocates’ statement condemning expansion of anti-immigrant DHS 287(g) programs

There are areas where Barack Obama’s changes in personnel and policy have yielded some positive results for working people and poor people in the U.S.  And there are other areas where the president has not lived up to his promise.  Immigration is definitely one of those, in spite of the discussion about his plans for “comprehensive immigration reform.”  Recently, the administration approved the expansion of 287(g) programs in the U.S.  These are agreements with local law enforcement allowing them to enforce federal immigration law – a disastrous recipe to encourage the worst kinds of racial profiling and abuses.

Following is a recent statement issued by groups that have worked on immigrant rights issues, discussing the 287(g) expansion:

ADVOCATES ISSUE STATEMENT CONDEMNING OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S

EXPANSION OF DHS’S FAILED 287(g) PROGRAM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 2009

Media Contacts:

Adela de la Torre, Communication Specialist, National Immigration Law Center, 213.674.2832 (office), 213.400.7822 (cell)

Andrea Black, Coordinator, Detention Watch Network, 202-393-1044 ext. 227 (office), 520-240-3726 (cell)

Judith Greene, Director, Justice Strategies, 718-857-3316, jgreene@justicestrategies.net

Civil rights and community groups across the country denounce Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano’s plans to expand the highly criticized 287(g) program to eleven new jurisdictions around the country.  The program, authorized in 1996 and widely implemented under the Bush Administration, relinquishes, with no meaningful oversight, immigration enforcement power to local law enforcement and corrections agencies.

Since its inception the program has drawn sharp criticism from federal officials, law enforcement, advocates and local community groups.  A February 2009 report by Justice Strategies, a nonpartisan research firm, found widespread use of pretextual traffic stops, racially motivated questioning, and unconstitutional searches and seizures by local law enforcement agencies granted 287(g) powers.  Justice Strategies recommended the program be suspended.  “We found evidence that growth of the 287(g) program has been driven more by racial animus than by concerns about public safety.  The expansion of this deeply flawed program cannot be justified before a thorough test of corrective actions shows solid proof that they have been effective,” reports Judy Greene, Director of Justice Strategies. A March 2009 Government Accountability Agency (GAO) report, criticized DHS for insufficient oversight of the controversial program.

Also in March, the United States Department of Justice launched an investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, to determine whether Arpaio is using his 287(g) power to target Latinos and Spanish-speaking people.  In Davidson County, Tennessee, the Sheriff’s Office has used its 287(g) power to apprehend undocumented immigrants driving to work, standing at day labor sites, or while fishing off piers. One pregnant woman—charged with driving without a license—was forced to give birth while shackled to her bed during labor. Preliminary data indicate that in some jurisdictions the majority of individuals arrested under 287(g) are accused of public nuisance or traffic offenses: driving without a seatbelt, driving without a license, broken taillights, and similar offences.  Such a pattern of arrests suggest that local sheriff’s deputies are improperly using their 287(g) powers to rid their counties of immigrants, by making pretextual arrests that are then used to forcefully deport people. “We need only look at the example of Maricopa County to understand the devastating effects the increased 287(g) program will have on our communities,” said Chris Newman, Legal Programs Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.  “The Obama administration must recognize that the 287(g) program is predatory and ripe for corruption and profiling that will harm community stability and safety for everyone.”

The Police Foundation, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Major Chiefs Association have expressed concerns that deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce civil federal immigration law undermine the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities, overburdens cities’ already reduced resources, and leaves cities vulnerable to civil liability claims.  “When victims and witnesses of crime are afraid to contact police for fear of being jailed or deported, public safety suffers,” said Marielena Hincapie, Executive Director, National Immigration Law Center.

Napolitano’s July 10 announcement that DHS has granted 11 new jurisdictions 287(g) powers stunned advocates who had been expecting a major overhaul of – or end to – this failed program.  “DHS is fully aware that the abusive misuse of the 287(g) program by its current slate of agencies has rendered it not only ineffective, but dangerous to community safety.   It is surprising Napolitano did not simply shut this program down.  Expanding this failed program is not in line with the reform the administration has promised,” said Andrea Black, Coordinator of the Detention Watch Network.

Signatory Organizations:

A Better Way Foundation, New Haven, CT

All of Us or None, San Francisco, CA

Border Action Network, Tucson, AZ

Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY

Center for Media Justice, Oakland, CA

Detention Watch Network, Washington, DC

Families for Freedom, New York, NY

Florida Immigrant Coalition, Miami, FL

Grassroots Leadership, Austin, Texas

Homies Unidos, Los Angeles, CA

Immigrant Defense Project, New York, NY

Immigrant Justice Network

Immigration Law Clinic, UC Davis School of Law, Davis, CA

Immigrant Legal Resource Center, San Francisco, CA

Judson Memorial Church, New York, NY

Justice Strategies, New York, NY

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, San Francisco, CA

Main Street Project, Minneapolis, MN

Media Action Grassroots Network, Oakland, CA

National Day Laborer Organizing Network

National Immigration Law Center, Los Angeles, CA

National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Boston, MA

Partnership for Safety and Justice, Portland, Oregon

Project Rethink

Southern Center for Human Rights, Atlanta, GA

Filed under: Immigrant rights

Viva Palestina!

Historic humanitarian aid caravan passes through the Rafah gate into Gaza. Photo: www.vivapalestina-us.org

History-making aid for Palestine reaches Gaza

July 15—The largest humanitarian aid convoy in history to travel from the U.S. to Palestine succeeded in crossing the Rafah border into Gaza late today. After days of delay, the 218-person contingent of activists, buoyed by telegrams, emails and protests from many parts of the world, was finally allowed to pass into the besieged Palestinian enclave with more than $1 million in wheelchairs, walkers and medical supplies for the people of Gaza.

A genocidal attack on Gaza in December and January, on top of a two-year Israeli siege and blockade of the area, prompted British Member of Parliament George Galloway to organize the Viva Palestina caravans as a way to provide essential aid to a people under occupation who have been denied the most basic necessities of life.

The fact that this caravan hails from the U.S. gives it added resonance, as Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. government aid in the world. And Israel uses U.S. weapons and missiles against the Palestinian people on a daily basis.

The delegation received a heroes’ welcome from the people of Gaza. Its members include Galloway, New York City Council Member Charles Barron and former U.S. Congressperson Cynthia McKinney, who was imprisoned just a few weeks earlier by Israeli forces for attempting to bring aid into Gaza by sea with the Free Gaza Movement. Also participating are representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Cuba Coalition, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), International Action Center, the Answer Coalition, International Socialist Organization and Workers World Party.

—Information from John Parker in Gaza

Filed under: Fighting oppression, International solidarity

(Doctor) Ron Paul says healthcare not a right

Some misguided liberals and progressives have supported Ron Paul in his presidential bid and in his efforts to rally Americans for “freedom.” I have pointed out before that Ron Paul’s notion of freedom is one that should be repulsive to most Americans since some of his most active allies in the last year have included white supremacists, libertarians who oppose minimum wage laws, workplace safety laws, and environmental protection laws.

But if you’re a Ron Paul supporter and you didn’t get it before you ought to get it now. Ron Paul, himself a wealthy doctor, is also against Obama’s health care reform bill and has stated his reasons quite openly:

As far as the Texas Congressman is concerned, healthcare is not a right. “I don’t have a right to medical care,” he emphatically states. In his view, the constitution only guarantees citizens “life, liberty and (the right to) keep the fruits of my labor.”

Don’t have the right to healthcare? I guess when you’re wealthy enough to never have to worry about going without it, those words trip off the tongue quite easily. For the rest of us, securing our right not to be made homeless or bankrupt because we had the misfortune to have a serious illness or injury is definitely a part of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Filed under: Economic crisis

Comments on the Sotomayor confirmation hearings and what is not being said

Thank you to Zachary Wolfe at the People’s Law Blog for his analysis of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings and the elephant in the room: ideology.  I have argued strongly in favor of Sotomayor’s confirmation because breaking down the racial, ethnic and gender barriers in institutions such as the Supreme Court is an important task.  But that is a very different thing than the liberal supposition that Sotomayor will decide things “the right way” because of her gender and ethnicity (or even her working class background).  Zach points out that while notions of “neutrality” and “following the law” are illusions, so are superficial assumptions about the way in which a person’s background will affect their worldview.

So as important as it is to challenge the glass ceiling that keeps significant numbers of people of color off of the highest courts in the U.S. (both state and federal), much more is needed to truly change the direction of the court system to serve the interests of working people and the oppressed.  Mumia Abu-Jamal commented on this in an article in which he cited the use of “lay judges” – ordinary working people who participate in judicial panels alongside professional judges – in Cuba.

But we might also ask the question no one dares ask: Why do we have a Supreme Court made up of people appointed for life by millionaire presidents and “confirmed” by the infamous millionaires’ club that is the U.S. senate? Why aren’t judges democratically elected by the people whose lives their rulings will affect?

Filed under: Justice, justice

Tisane owner calls the cops on Ned Coll

I’ll admit it.  Private person that I am, I don’t particularly like being panhandled at a restaurant’s outdoor seating area . . . on the other hand, the streets belong to everyone and I really don’t like businesses owners that act like the sidewalk is their private property…or like the cops are their personal bouncers.  So I’m with Ned Coll on this one:

Activist Ned Coll Arrested After Tiff At Tisane

By DAVID OWENS

The Hartford Courant

July 16, 2009

HARTFORD —

Ned Coll, the activist and sometime presidential candidate, was arrested about 11 p.m. Tuesday after getting into a dispute with the manager of Tisane, a Farmington Avenue restaurant. Police said Coll was a patron at Tisane when a panhandler who frequents the area walked by. Coll gave the woman some money, then began to speak with her. The manager of Tisane asked the woman to move along, police said. Coll became upset with the manager, and the situation escalated to the point that restaurant staff called police. Coll, 69, who lives in Hartford’s West End and has a home in Barkhamsted, was charged with second-degree breach of peace and first-degree criminal trespass. He was released on a written promise to appear in court today in Hartford. Coll said Tuesday afternoon that the woman approached him. “This lady came up to me, and she was poor, and I helped her,” Coll said. “This guy cuts in and says ‘don’t give her any money.’ That’s where I got ticked. It’s not his business if I’m helping somebody.” Coll, who founded an anti-poverty agency called the Revitalization Corps, said restaurant staff then attacked him and dragged him out. Jack Terry, the general manager at Tisane Euro Asian Cafe, said the panhandler has been an ongoing problem at the restaurant and has been arrested before. He said the restaurant’s assistant manager was escorting the panhandler off the restaurant’s property when “Mr. Coll began screaming at him, calling him a Nazi and eventually spit on him.” So restaurant staff decided to call police. Coll was arrested after he refused to leave the restaurant, police and. “I called the guy a Nazi,” Coll said. “I didn’t spit on that guy. That’s an outrageous lie.” Coll said he scraped his elbow while being removed from the restaurant.

Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant //

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Whose streets?

EPI: “Millions of workers will benefit from the minimum wage increase”

On July 24, the federal minimum wage goes up to $7.25 an hour (still less than Connecticut’s $8.00 an hour minimum wage). From the Economic Policy Institute:

From the perspective of individual and family incomes, the upcoming hike, while a welcome step in the right direction, will still leave the country’s lowest-paid workers earning a salary at or below the poverty line.

An individual earning $7.25 an hour in a standard 2,000-hour work year would earn an annual income of $14,500-still slightly below the 2009 federal poverty level of $14,570 for a family of two. EPI’s family budget calculator, moreover, shows that families in many regions of the country require significantly more than those federal poverty guidelines suggest, just to get by.

Critics often counter that most minimum wage jobs are held by middle-class teenagers working part-time jobs to earn spending money rather than to put food on the table. But the data offer a different picture. EPI economist Heidi Shierholz finds that more than three-quarters of the workers who will be affected by the wage hike are 20 years old or older and more than half live in a family where the total family income is less than $35,000.

Filed under: Economic crisis