Culture

That's Not Fair! Straight couple denied health insurance…

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Last night as we helped our friends at Design Action Collective celebrate their many years of successfully empowering justice movements (including being the art designers for Tikkun Magazine for a long while), we met a young man who told us a stunning tale. He had tried to get his wife onto his health insurance plan and the company turned them down. Why? Because they weren’t legally married. He and the woman he loved had decided that marriage equality was an important enough justice issue that until their GLBTQ friends could get legally married, they wouldn’t.

General News

Muslims and Jews: Unequal Under the Law?

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by Jewish Voice for Peace Members Amirah Mizrahi, Antonia House, and Emily Ratner
When Jewish Voice for Peace disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s keynote speech at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual general meeting last November in New Orleans, we were met with hisses, boos, verbal harassment and even physical attacks from other members of the audience. But criminal charges were never so much as mentioned. Yet just weeks ago, students who interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech at UC Irvine in February 2010 were convicted of two misdemeanors for their participation in the protests. See if you can spot the difference between these two protests:

In both protests, each person who stood up to bring attention to the Israeli Occupation and other violations of international law committed by the Israeli government acted non-violently, and cooperated fully with security personnel and the police. So why were we not arrested, charged and tried while the Irvine 11 were?

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

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.

ESRA

Corporations Are Not People! Let's Work Together to Amend the Constitution after Citizens United

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Why is the left so weak in this country and the right so strong? There are many reasons for our sad situation, but one of the most important is the monetary advantage held by the right. This is a difficult problem to solve, but one vitally important piece of the solution has to be passing a constitutional amendment to undo the Citizens United decision. Corporations should not be able to pour unlimited money into elections and call it free speech. Corporations are not people, they should not have free speech rights, and money is not speech!

Education

Solidarity, Not Solitary: 6,600 Prisoners Across California Participate in Hunger Strike

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Across California, 6,600 prisoners have joined in the hunger strike that began July 1 with prisoners held in security housing units, a sanitary term for solitary confinement, inside Pelican Bay State Prison refusing food and issuing demands that include adequate food and nutrition, an end to group punishment and abuse, as well as compliance with the 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons recommendations on ending solitary confinement practices. On the outside, demonstrators and coalitions have shown their solidarity with the prisoners through rallies in various cities, online petitions and calls to action. So far, the California Department of Corrections and “Rehabilitation” (CDCR) has refused to negotiate or show any signs of addressing prisoners’ demands. I wrote about the start of the Pelican Bay Prison hunger strike in a July 2 posting;in the meantime, solidarity with prisoners has expanded both inside and outside the prison. There are ways to get involved and express solidarity: call the CDCR or your elected officials and urge them to honor the prisoners’ demands.

Education

Solidarity with Pelican Bay Prisoners is Just a Click and a Prayer Away

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Across California, 6,600 prisoners have participated in the hunger strike begun on July 1 at Pelican Bay State prison’s security housing unit or solitary confinement. On July 1st, 43 prisoners inside California Pelican Bay State Prison’s security housing unit (or SHU, a fancy name to get those of us not in prison to think it is something other than solitary confinement and all that entails) began a hunger strike against torture and for self-determination and liberation. Solidarity with prisoners who are organizing themselves for justice is just a click away. Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, a San Francisco Bay Area coalition of grassroots organizations “committed to amplyifing the voices of and supporting the prisoners,” has a blog and I suggest you check out like I did by clicking here. It’s day two and at the same time as these 43 prisoners refuse food in participate in this hunger strike at Pelican Bay, 2.3 million people are in similar conditions, marginalized in solitary confinement and isolating conditions within an already hidden and dehumanizing system.

Gender and Sexuality

Is the New York Marriage Decision Really a "Mixed Blessing"? Some Thoughts on Domestic Partnerships and Civil Unions

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In a well-received Op/Ed piece in the New York Times, Columbia law professor, Katherine M. Franke explains why she considers the New York marriage decision a “mixed blessing.” Why does she say that? First, Franke is concerned that the decision to allow same-sex couples access to civil marriage in New York will most likely lead to the elimination of domestic partnership status. She sees this as unfortunate because having domestic partnership as an option provides “greater freedom than can be found in the one-size-fits-all rules of marriage.” Second, Franke does not think people should be “forced” to get married in order to access their partners’ health insurance and other benefits.

Politics & Society

Call Your Senators: Protect Hungry People in the Debt Ceiling Bill

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The White House and congressional leaders are in final negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the U.S. government can pay its current obligations. Yet in order to secure enough votes to raise the debt ceiling, some members of Congress are withholding their vote unless dramatic cuts are made to federal spending–including devastating and long-term cuts to programs for hungry and poor people. Every deficit-reduction package of the last 30 years–under Republican and Democratic leaders–has exempted key programs for hungry and poor people from cuts. We must protect these programs now.