COMMUNITY THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10
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ROUNDUP OF COMMUNITY ACTIVISM, Oct. 10
** REPRESSION? ORGANIZE!
The Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee has seen a doubling of membership in the last year. They have seen 10 million hits on their web site from people looking for alternative information on arab american rights. http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=1163
** A USA STASI?
Civil liberties groups are protesting Attorney General John Ashcroft gutting restrictions on the FBI's spying on domestic religious and political organizations. Send a free fax at http://www.aclu.org/action/spy107.html to your Congressperson to oppose a domestic secret police spying on legal nonprofit groups.
** OPPOSE THE WAR
The Friends Committee on National Legislation has a page set up to help you contact Congressional reps to oppose the Iraq War. See http://www.fcnl.org/act_lam_current/lam103_02.htm
** TAKE ACTION AGAINST HATE CRIMES
The Japanese American Citizenship League has a site at http://capwiz.com/jacl/issues/alert/?alertid=603561 to send a message to your Congressperson to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on hate crimes legislation in the House. The legislation would add real or perceived sexual orientation, gender and disability to current federal hate crimes law. Despite having 206 House cosponsors and 51 Senate cosponsors, the House leadership won't allow a vote.
** A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR IMMIGRANT CHILDREN
MALDEF is celebrating the signing of California legislation AB540 to qualify the children of undocumented immigrants for in-state tuition as state colleges and universities. See details at http://www.maldef.org/news/latest/ab540.cfm.
** QUALIFIED PRAISE FOR VOTING REFORM BILL
The NAACP has praised the compromise bill approved by House-Senate negotiators to upgrade voting machines, regularize voting lists, and require that voters be allowed to cast provisional ballots in cases of dispute. They criticized provisions requiring photo IDs for those registering by mail for fear of its use for voter intimidation, but said the overall bill was a step in the right direction. http://www.naacp.org/news/releases/electionreform100402.shtml
** PAPERS FOR WORKING IMMIGRANTS
A new coalition of over 400 groups, Reward Work!, delivered a million postcards to Capitol Hill in support of legislation to legalize working immigrants without legal status. Sign the postcard online at http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/rewardwork. See more about the coalition at http://www.rewardwork.com/
** EXPANDING UNINSURED
Families USA highlights that the Census Bureau is releasing figures showing that not only have those without health insurance expanded this year, but that they underestimated the numbers of uninsured last year. http://www.familiesusa.org/930censusdatarelease.htm
** BANKING DISCRIMINATION
ACORN has released a study documenting increased racial and income disparities in the mortgage lending market. http://www.acorn.org/reporter_pub/index.php
ACORN is also urging people to call their national representatives to ask them to oppose the bankruptcy bill moving towards a final vote.
** SUPPORT VIEQUES
Despite a promise by Bush that the US navy would leave Vieques, Puerto Rico by next year, there is little apparent preparation by the government to do so. Send a message at http://congress.nw.dc.us/nprc/mail/compose/ to the President to move the navy out by May 2003. Join a New York City walkathon in support of Vieques on October 26. http://www.forusa.org/Programs/puertorico/Vieques_walk4peace.html
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NEWS AND VIEWS from NathanNewman.org October 10
ABOUT TIME! DEM LEADERS WANT SEC HEAD'S HEAD
Gephardt and Daschle finally called on Bush to fire Harvey Pitt, industry's stooge at the SEC. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/10/09/nationa l1227EDT0602.DTL
The final straw was Pitt's withdrawing of the nomination of the proposed head of the new accounting industry oversight board under corporate pressure from-- the accounting industry of course:
Pitt is "giving the accounting industry a veto over who will head
the new board," Daschle said at a news conference on Social
Security. "This is exactly the kind of abuse the new board was
created to prevent."
To be fair Daschle and some other Dems had earlier this year called for Pitt's resignation, but the fact that this has not been a continual public campaign of the Democrats reflects their lack of a clear strategy to highlight Bush's corporate malfeasance. Pitt should be the national poster child for Bush's enthrallment to the corps, yet most Americans don't know his name. Evidence of the most basic failure by the Dems this year.
---------------- TRUTH SQUAD ON SS PRIVATIZERS
Go to Sign the Pledge at http://www.signthepledge.org/ for info exposing the politician-hypocrites running away from their records advocating social security privatization, including key Senate nominees Wayne Allard of CO, John Thune of SD and Jim Talent of MO.
-------------------- GROUND ZERO OPPOSES WAR
If this war on Iraq is being fought to avenge and prevent a repeat of 911, maybe the country and world should pay attention that the voters of Ground Zero oppose the war on Iraq. See http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/25427p-24059c.html
The rally against the war held this past weekend was called Not In Our Name, a sentiment born last fall when New Yorkers, leaving flowers at the makeshift memorials to the dead that sprung up around the city, would also leave notes saying "our pain is not a cry for war."
New Yorkers have suffered terribly from 911, but because of that, they are even more attuned to the suffering of other civilians that flows from war. Many had more mixed feelings about the intervention in Afghanistan which had clear connections to 911, but a "preemptive war" in Iraq that will lead to the probable deaths of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, seems not justice, but an act that will merely multiply the pain and injustice they themselves have suffered.
And despite the GOP rubbing their hands that the war would bring Jews over to the conservative side of the aisle, Jews and specifically New York Jews have been far more mixed in their support of intervention, with large numbers sticking to their traditional dovishness. ----
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