Culture

One Moment or Many: The Wall Street Occupation

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Now in its eleventh day, there has only just begun to be reports and discussion about the occupation of Wall Street in mainstream media. The reasons are related not to the organizational efforts of the occupiers or their lack of conviction or numbers, but to the relationship between our channels of information, our business and corporate sector and our politically empowered. This begs the question of if instead of Wall Street, the occupiers were gathered in Tehran or Sana, would the news of their demands and challenge of the status quo be included in our mainstream news headlines? The answer is yes. Although the American media did not create the protests or uprisings that comprised The Arab Spring, their attention to the social unrest in the Middle East undoubtedly stoked the determination and numbers of those participating in the protests that irrevocably changed the social and political landscape of the region.

Education

Who Can't Afford Community College?

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What Kind of Person Can’t Afford Community College? I’m going to begin this blog like a Cassandra, but end it more positively. No one needs another blog entirely dedicated to how awful things are. So here’s the bad part:
I was talking with some moms recently and one, disparaging an acquaintance who was saving up to attend a two-year college, asked with an incredulous laugh, “What kind of a person can’t afford community college?” The remark sent a chill through my bones.

General News

Where's the Humanity? Troy Davis & the Radical Right

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[UPDATE – On Monday 9/19/11, the clemency board denied Davis a stay. The NAACP is launching a last resort petition to urge the DA to ask the Judge to withdraw the death warrant]
The state of Georgia may take the life of an innocent man on Wednesday. For nearly two decades, Troy Anthony Davis has sat on Death Row for the 1989 shooting of off-duty White police officer Mark MacPhail. Though Davis has maintained his innocence for two decades and built a compelling case for his freedom, he has exhausted the appeals process and is now scheduled to die. The Georgia Board of Paroles and Pardons has the power to grant him clemency and spare his life.

Politics & Society

The GOP and Keynes

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Last night’s GOP debate evoked a range of responses in me, from disbelief to revulsion. It was not only the content, but also the form and style of the lineup, the glowing white teeth and slick hair, the token woman and token black man, the cartoonish smiles, the obviously strained civility and the embarrassing pandering of each to distinguish him or herself from the others. I was particularly horrified by the advance applause of the audience when Perry was asked what he thought of the fact that during his tenure as Governor, Texas had executed more people than any other state. Before Perry had a chance to answer, the audience erupted into wild applause! Perry then went on with great pride to explain his commitment to capital punishment.

Politics & Society

We Can No Longer Wait On Change: Come Protest October 6th

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by Udi Pladott

On October 6th, 2011, ten years after the United States invaded Afghanistan, and as the 2012 federal budget goes into effect with its brutal austerity measures, I will join thousands of people who will converge on Freedom Plaza, just a few blocks away from the White House in Washington, DC. We will mount a deliberate, prolonged, nonviolent protest. We will congregate there because we have no other choice. On sundown on our second day there, I will begin my Yom Kippur fast, only this time it will mean so much more to me than it has before. I am an Israeli American.

Empathy

Economic Dislocation

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I recently sold my home. It was the first home to sell in my neighborhood in 6 months. Now my realtor tells me there are amazing deals on the market, homes that are selling for 200,000 or 300,000 less than they were a couple of years ago. She tells me that virtually all the houses on the market are foreclosures and that great deals are available. It’s not quite as bad as she describes but the housing report for July shows that just over 26% of homes sold in the Bay Area were foreclosures and that nearly 20% of all the homes sold were underwater.

General News

Opposition to Gambling: From Right to Left

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When I was a little girl, my mother made me return my school-issued raffle tickets to my third-grade teacher and tell her my parents don’t believe in gambling. It was a hard thing to do at the time, but I believe it built character. It also left me with a deep-seated opposition to legalized gambling. While I am not as absolutist about it as my mother, I just do not believe that it is right to look to gambling as a way to solve our social problems, whether it is school funding or a lack of jobs. I have a lot of strong beliefs.

Politics & Society

The Danger of Dismantling Israel's Protest Tent Cities

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On Wednesday in Holon – a city situated just south of Tel Aviv – municipality inspectors arrived at a protest tent encampment in the Jesse Cohen neighborhood. There, they informed protesters that a demolition order had been issued, and that residents had 24 hours to break down the camp and vacate the premises. The response? Enraged, many protesters refused the order, with some taking out their intense frustration by burning tires and furniture in the street and blocking traffic. Protesters burn tires in Holon.

Culture

“We Are One” Worker’s Rights Rally—What Can We Learn From Religious Leaders About Solidarity?

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by Dylan Kaufman-Obstler
“The Church traditionally in the past has been disconnected from the community,” Rev. David Kiteley with the Pastors of Oakland tells me. “We have been taking care of ‘spiritual matters’ and we need to broaden what spiritual matters means… If we isolate ourselves in our religious communities, we are really of no value to society.” We are at the “We Are One” Workers Rights Rally that was held in Downtown Oakland on Friday, July 22, to demand the better treatment of workers and a more fair economy. I am witnessing the event through the lens of this question: how do we bring a sense of solidarity and mutual support to our activism?

Healing Israel/Palestine

As Netanyahu Panics, an Opportunity Emerges in Israel

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The largest protest in Israel’s history overwhelmed the senses on Saturday evening, with over 300,000 citizens – spanning nearly all ages and political affiliations – swarming the country’s streets and squares, the throngs largely united around a host of economic issues. To put this number in perspective, approximately 4 percent of the country’s population took to the streets, which in the United States would equal approximately 12 million. Such numbers clearly have unnerved Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his cabinet. The first response heard from the prime minister’s camp in the wake of the protests was to downplay the numbers, to deny that those counting heads had done an accurate job. Netanyahu’s initial response was not only tone deaf, its reflexiveness revealed just how concerning the protests have become to Israel’s governing class, for downplaying the force of the protests that occurred on Saturday is akin to standing in a burning building and downplaying how hot it is.