December 21,
2012, Issue #187
HUDSON VALLEY
ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
jacdon@earthlink.net,
P.O. Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561
http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/
———————
CONTENTS:
1. WHAT'S BEHIND AMERICA’S GUN VIOLENCE?
2. POSTSCRIPT TO NEWTOWN
3. ANOTHER THREAT TO SOCIAL SECURITY
4. UNSUCCESSFUL CLIMATE SUMMIT IN DOHA
5. DEVASTATING REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
6. FRACKING THREATENS FARMS AND FOOD SAFETY
7. U.S./ISRAEL LOSE TWICE IN UN
8. ONCE AGAIN, UN BLASTS EMBARGO OF CUBA
9. PANETTA: AFGHAN WAR TO CONTINUE FOR YEARS
10. ONE-FIFTH OF
U.S. ADULTS HAVE NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
11. THE
EXPLOITATION OF DOMESTIC WORKERS
12. NEXT STEPS
FOR GAY MARRIAGE
13. U.S. CUTS
FUNDS FOR YOUNG ADULTS
14. VOTERS
FOUGHT BALLOT SUPPRESSION
—————————
1. WHAT'S BEHIND
AMERICA’S GUN VIOLENCE?
By Jack A.
Smith, Activist Newsletter editor
There is more
than the act of one individual involved in the mass gun killings that take
place in America— the most recent being the massacre of 20 young children and
six school workers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Dec.
14.
The main
culprit, of course, is the late killer, Adam Lanza, 20, who hours earlier shot
his own mother (victim 27) with one of
her four legal guns, who then used the weapons to kill the children. He appears
to be mentally disturbed though the police so far are saying little.
But such events
occur within a broader context of shared responsibility for the unparalleled
number of mass and individual shooting deaths that occur in the United States
every year. The political system and politicians are part of the problem, as is
the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun lobbies, federal, state and
local governments, and America’s long history of violence. Each has played an
indirect role in Newtown’s heartbreaking events.
The American
political system traditionally has refused to strengthen absurdly deficient
federal and state restrictions on the possession of various types of arms. The
country’s plethora of irresponsible politicians have made it possible for
criminals, the mentally ill, and those who are unfit to possess weapons for
other reasons to legally accumulate private arsenals.
In recent
decades— despite the fact that last year there were over 11,000 murders by
firearms in the U.S. and another 20,000 gun deaths from suicide and accidents,
not to mention many more wounded and self-injured — a majority of American
politicians exhibited little interest in toughening gun ownership regulations.
Over 40,000
Americans died from gun violence during the four years of President Obama’s
first term and he hasn’t taken action.
This year alone there were mass murders in a movie theater in Colorado
July 20, another at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin Aug. 5, and another at a
manufacturer in Minneapolis on Sept. 27, and the White House and Congress did
nothing but wring their hands.
Neither the risk
averse Obama nor his Democratic Party — particularly during this election year
—were willing to tangle with the gun lobbies and that portion of the electorate
opposed to virtually any restrictions on gun ownership.
This seems to
have changed, at least temporarily, in the aftermath of the brutality at the
Connecticut elementary school. President Obama was moved to tears in announcing
the deaths of 6- and 7- year old children in Newtown, and said, finally, he
would take swift but as yet undefined action to tighten gun laws. He assigned
Vice President Biden the task of gathering specific legislative suggestions and
reporting back in a month.
The New York
Times, long an advocate of gun control, noted that Biden was given “a month to
complete a job that he could have finished that afternoon…. The ways to do this
are well known because the nation has grappled with gun massacres many times
before. It is Congress that hasn’t…. If Mr. Obama is serious, he already knows
what to do.”
Given the
intense national sorrow following the slaughter of children it seems certain
some legislation will pass, though it may be relatively weak. Most Democratic
politicians tend to support stronger gun laws and favored Obama’s turnabout,
but conservative Democrats in Congress are often opposed. While some Republican
politicians indicated they might now entertain certain reforms, the great
majority opposes any new laws that might “infringe” on gun rights, including a
possible ban on assault weapons and large size magazines for cartridges.
Right wing
legislators oppose compulsory gun licenses for all buyers and owners and reject
requiring background checks on all buyers. At present state laws vary on
licenses, and gun purchases at trade shows and private sales (about 40% of
buys) are not subject to background inquiries or licenses.
Interestingly
80% of the American people want gun owners to secure police permits, and nearly
90% would require background checks on all gun sales — and that was before the
Newtown tragedy, which clearly has won converts to the cause of greater
safeguards — but such bills may not pass Congress.
The first
important gun act in modern history was the 1934 National Firearms Act when
Franklyn D. Roosevelt was president. The issue of gun ownership restrictions
became a major issue again in the 1960s after the assassinations of President
John F. Kennedy (1963), and Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy (1968), and
the urban uprisings and oppositional movements of the era. Lyndon B. Johnson was president at the time
and he was a staunch advocate of gun control.
Johnson
introduced several measures that did not pass. In 1968, he told Congress: “In
the name of sanity... in the name of safety and in the name of an aroused
nation, give America the gun-control law it needs." It soon passed the Gun
Control Act in October 1968, but heavy opposition from conservatives and the
NRA eliminated several of Johnson’s stronger proposals such as registering guns
and licensing owners. (LBJ was the last center-left Democratic president, but
his positive accomplishments were obscured by the unjust war against Vietnam.)
The next period
of reform was in the 1990s after a mass shooting. President Bill Clinton fought
for and won two important but watered down gun control laws. Nothing worth
mention in this regard took place during George W. Bush’s eight years and
Obama’s four years.
In addition to
the political system those indirectly responsible for the murders include the
National Rifle Association (4 million members) and other gun owner or industry
lobbies such as the Gun Owners of America (300,000 members), which sports an
executive director, Larry Pratt, who commented hours after the school killings:
“Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands.
Federal and state laws combined to insure that no teacher, no administrator, no
adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy
underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones.”
The NRA didn’t
go so far as to publicly suggest teachers should carry guns but on Dec. 21 it
recommend that all American schools should be protected by armed guards. Two
days earlier it was reported that the NRA “has registered an average of 8,000
new members a day since the tragedy, an NRA source told Fox News. While this
broadly aligns with trends seen after similar incidents in the past, the surge
in membership this time is said to dwarf past trends.” At the same time gun
sales are reported surging after the school killings because of the prospect of
more stringent laws in future.
In an editorial
Dec. 21, titled “National Rifle (Selling) Association,” the New York Times
pointed out: “The association presents itself as a grass-roots organization,
but it has become increasingly clear in recent years that it represents gun
makers. Its chief aim has been to help their businesses by increasing the
spread of firearms throughout American society.” In return, the newspaper
continued, the gun industry makes hefty contributions to the NRA.
Well-funded and
supported gun lobbies greatly influence the politicians through lobbying and
the threat of uncompromising electoral opposition. In order to fulfill its
function as the propaganda instrument of the firearms owners and industry, the
NRA argues disingenuously that the slightest regulation will eventually lead to
banning of all guns for civilians, including those for home defense, hunting and
target shooting.
A large
percentage of the population appears to believe the dire forecasts of the NRA
and others and opposed efforts strengthen gun laws. They will fight against
substantial reforms, believing a Constitutional amendment provides them the
right to convert society into a modern version of the Wild West, where we can
“stand our ground” with bullets when we feel “threatened,” even by an unarmed
individual. Such was the case last February when Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old
African American, was accosted and slain by George Zimmerman in Sanford, FL.
In regard to the
Constitution, Zack Beauchamp wrote Dec. 14 in AlterNet: “The Second Amendment
prohibits strict gun control. While the Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller
that bans on handgun ownership were unconstitutional, the ruling gives the
state and federal governments a great deal of latitude to regulate that gun
ownership as they choose. As the U.S. Second Court of Appeals put it in a
recent ruling upholding a New York regulation, ‘The state’s ability to regulate
firearms and, for that matter, conduct, is qualitatively different in public
than in the home. Heller reinforces this view. In striking D.C.’s handgun ban,
the Court stressed that banning usable handguns in the home is a ‘policy choice‘
that is ‘off the table,’ but that a variety of other regulatory options remain
available, including categorical bans on firearm possession in certain public
locations.”
The federal
government, too, must assume responsibility for creating a national culture of
guns and violence that leads to continuing mass murders and individual
killings. Gun murders averaged over 30 a day last year. For every 100,000
residents, the U.S. averages five murders. In England it’s 1.2 murders; in
Japan it’s 0.5. In the U.S. during the last 30 years, Mother Jones magazine
informed its readers July 30, there “have been at least 62 mass murders carried
out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states
from Massachusetts to Hawaii.”
The U.S., working
with the arms industry, is the biggest seller of weapons worldwide, mostly to
foreign militaries. It also entertains the greatest military arms budget in
global history. And by its glorification of the military and of war Washington
has contributed mightily to the sense that we are a gun-slinging people, at
home as well as abroad, on Main St. USA as well as al Rasheed St. Baghdad.
Americans are by far the best armed civilians in the world.
The U.S. is the
most violent country of all the advanced industrialized nations in the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. From hundreds of years
of slavery, to the displacement and annihilation of the original peoples in
order to seize the entire continent, to modern day aggressive wars, regime changes,
and occupations overseas, “violence is as American as cherry pie,” as H. Rap
Brown once reminded us.
State and local
governments must assume responsibility as well for contributing toward a
violent and gun-surfeited society. Considerable moves toward militarizing the
police have taken place in recent decades as a result of the exaggerated drug
wars and hyped-up terrorism wars. In the 20 years leading up to 2007 (the
latest figures), special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams have increased 1,500
percent. Police brutality is a frequent
reality, particularly for people of color — mostly, but not exclusively, in
urban areas, and at political, worker and popular protests.
We’ve handed our
police departments a huge array of violent instruments that are, to say the
least, disproportionate to most situations. Here is some of their equipment:
For elite SWAT
teams in their Darth Vader uniforms: submachine guns, automatic carbines or
rifles, semiautomatic combat shotguns, sniper rifles, gas, smoke and flashbang
grenades. For regular police: handguns, concealable off-duty handguns, shotguns
and/or semiautomatic rifles, tactical batons, nightsticks, electroshock guns
(Tasers), mace pepper spray, tear-gas. beanbag shotgun rounds, body armor, and
loud noise devices. Beginning to arrive: aerial surveillance drones, soon to be
widespread and weaponized.
In combination —
weak gun laws and a compliant political system fearful of powerful lobbies; a
national history of violence, militarism, and frequent aggressive wars against
smaller nations; and the gradual militarization of police— these are factors
that have significantly helped create the gun culture in the United
States.
Secondarily, a
great many mentally ill Americans who are not rich do not receive proper psychiatric
treatment. Our prisons are repositories
for large numbers of such people because there are so few residential treatment
centers. In a number of states, disturbed people may enter gun shops or trade
shows and purchase weapons.
Other social
factors include the widespread violence of movies, television programs, and
murderous computer “games,” especially for the young. Our profit-hungry mass media even make money
glorifying the “walking dead,” and vampires.
It’s time to
change all of this, of course, but it’s not on the immediate horizon. Some gun
control reforms, however, have a chance to be enacted in the next few years.
Obviously, every
gun owner should have a license; every buyer should be subject to a fair
background check; every weapon should be registered; assault weapons and large
magazines need to be banned and there should be a buy-back of all existing
military-style guns, as was done successfully in Australia. In general,
carrying loaded, concealed handguns on the streets, much less efforts to allow
them in schools, sporting events, and bars, should be prohibited in most cases.
The American
people are not seeking to place impossible obstacles in the way of gun
ownership. They want tighter regulation and licensing, not banning all guns
except for those possessed by the military and the police.
There’s another
factor as well, though usually not discussed. Political systems can go bad in
conditions of economic and social crisis, and when a wealthy ruling class
senses a threat to its privileges, a form of police state neofascism becomes a
possibility. In such a case an armed citizenry is positioned to defend
democracy and change the government — a right contained in the Declaration of Independence.
There are a
number of good gun control groups in the U.S., such as the well-known Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, but they are small with not much clout. It’s
time for those who seek gun control to unify in action on this issue and
organize mass political and electoral activism for as long as it takes to
reduce gun violence in America.
————————
2. POSTSCRIPT TO
NEWTOWN
By the Activist Newsletter
The murder of 20
children and six adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School has provoked a
national outcry, as well it should. Virtually all of us will agree with these
lines from an editorial in the New York Times the day after the shooting in
Newtown: “There is no crime greater than violence against children, no sorrow
greater than that of a parent who has lost a child, especially in this horrible
way.”
Of course, it is
good to remember this in terms of all children, not just our own or those of
our nationality or ethnicity, which brings to mind so many such tragedies for
so many children throughout the world:
According to the
UN, a half-million children, many even younger than the child victims of
Newtown, died as a result of Washington’s 1990-2003 sanctions against Iraq.
They mostly expired from hunger and disease. We don’t have the child death
figures from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but we do have some about the
Vietnam War from various online sources:
1. Ten percent
of the child population of North Vietnam was killed, mainly by U.S. bombers.
Another 400,000 to 500,000 suffered birth defects because of the U.S. Agent
Orange defoliation campaign, which was really a form of chemical warfare.
Untold thousands of kids continue to die to this day from accidentally
detonating unexploded American land mines.
2. According to
U.S. estimates (the Pepper Report) there have been 250,000 children killed,
750,000 wounded and invalided for life in a South Vietnam of 14,000,000 inhabitants.
The great majority was killed by U.S. bombers, which decimated (allied) South
Vietnam in efforts to destroy the liberation army and its millions of southern
supporters. More than 10,000 sorties by Strategic Air Command B-52s were
carried out over South and North Vietnam, each plane capable of dropping over
30 tons of bombs
3. On Sept. 27,
1967, at 7:30 a.m., the day after classes reopened following the summer recess,
while the children were happily bent over their first lessons, four U.S. jets,
swooping in from the sea, fired rockets and dropped four CBUS (about 2,400
pellet bombs) on the elementary schools of Ha Fu (Thanh Hoa province, North
Vietnam) killing 33 pupils from eight to 12 years old and wounding 30 more,
including two teachers.
As we mourn the
deaths of the innocent children of Newtown, it would be a humane gesture to
save a tear for all the other children whose lives were cut short by acts of
mass murder.
—————————
3. ANOTHER
THREAT TO SOCIAL SECURITY
By Steven Sloan and Seung Min
Kim
(Salon, Dec. 18)
— After weeks of gleefully watching Republicans struggle to find their footing
in fiscal cliff talks it’s time for the Democrats to do some painful
soul-searching of their own.
President Barack
Obama’s latest offer to congressional Republicans crosses lines that Democrats
have long portrayed as untouchable. The provision causing the most heartburn
for Democrats on Capitol Hill is one that would change the way inflation is
measured to ultimately reduce payments to Social Security beneficiaries.
Obama floated
the so-called “chained consumer price index” idea to House Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) last year during their failed negotiations over raising the debt
ceiling. But by including it in his fiscal cliff offer, Obama is guaranteeing
that if and when a deal comes together, it’s almost certain to include the
provision. [At these same earlier talks Obama put Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid “on the table” for negotiation and the offer still stands — Activist
Newsletter.]
It would force
Democrats — who have spent decades building their reputation as the protectors
of Social Security and entitlement programs — into a difficult vote. And their
support for a fiscal cliff package will be crucial to offset Republicans who
might oppose any deal that raises tax rates, an area where Boehner has moved
closer to Obama in recent days.
[From the
Activist Newsletter: As of Dec. 20 the two party deficit talks broke down due
to ruthless intransigence by far right members of the House — but they will
resume. In any event the fear of the American economy falling off a “fiscal
cliff,” propagated by both parties, is a gross exaggeration. In the end, the
middle class, working class and the poor will pay the greatest price in social
service cutbacks and other measures and the rich and superrich will suffer the
equivalent of a one-hour delay on the expressway enroute to their next bank
deposit.]
The White House
dispatched Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors to Capitol Hill Dec. 18 to
explain the proposal to House and Senate Democrats and try to assuage their
concerns. Still, multiple lawmakers expressed deep concern about the direction
of negotiations with less than two weeks left before Washington plunges off the
fiscal cliff.
“This should be
off the table,” a visibly frustrated Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) told
reporters. “I hope that offer … will be reconsidered.” Sen. Sherrod Brown
(D-Ohio) was more blunt, calling the chained CPI proposal “terrible.” He said
the existing inflation calculation was already insufficient. “I don’t think the
CPI now captures health care costs of retirees,” Brown said. “It’s more
connected to people in their work lives with a different set of needs.”
New York Rep.
Charles Rangel, a senior Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee,
called the chained CPI measure a “very, very bad idea.” “It doesn’t save us
much money, and it’s going to cause financial heartbreak,” he told POLITICO.
The White House
estimates that the new inflation calculation would save $130 billion over 10
years. Most of those savings would probably occur in later years.
AARP, the
nation’s largest lobbying organization on behalf of seniors, also urged
Congress and the White House to nix the CPI change. “This dramatic benefit cut
would push thousands more into poverty and result in increased economic
hardship for those trying desperately to keep up with rising prices,” Nancy
LeaMond, executive vice president of AARP’s State and National Group, said in a
statement.
According to a
Reuters dispatch Dec. 18: As a way to
appease Democrats who have argued that chained-CPI will hurt those who rely on
the retirement benefits the most, the White House has proposed protecting
"vulnerable populations," such as the oldest beneficiaries.
Those protections
appeared to satisfy House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who said she could
sell Obama's plan to Democrats in the House. "Democrats will stay with the
president, maybe not every single one of them," she told MSNBC television.
But other groups
- including liberal lawmakers, the powerful lobby group for seniors AARP and
the AFL-CIO labor federation — were upset. "The last thing you want to do
is cut Social Security benefits," said Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, an
independent socialist who votes with Democrats.
—————————
4. UNSUCCESSFUL
CLIMATE SUMMIT IN DOHA
By Stephen Leahy
DOHA, Qatar
(IPS) – The two-week United Nations climate talks in Doha ended Dec. 9 without
increased cuts in fossil fuel emissions and without financial commitments
between 2013 and 2015.
“This an
incredibly weak deal,” said Samantha Smith representing the Climate Action
Network, a coalition of more than 700 civil society organizations worldwide.
“Governments
came here with no mandate for action,” Smith said in a press conference moments after the meeting known as COP 18 was
over. The 195 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
did approve a complex package called “The Doha Climate Gateway.”
The Doha Gateway
creates a second phase of the expiring Kyoto Protocol to cut fossil fuel
emissions by industrialized nations from 2013 to 2020 but does not set new
targets. There is also no financial support to help poor countries adapt to
impacts of climate change — only agreement for more meetings in 2013. Talks will
also begin next year to create a mechanism to assess damages and costs for
countries suffering losses from climate change.
Finally, the
Doha Climate Gateway has an agreed outline for two years of negotiations on a
new global climate treaty that would go into legal force in 2020. This will
replace the Kyoto treaty adopted 15 years ago (and which the U.S. refused to
join).
Rich countries
came to the climate talks intent on delaying needed action on climate change
for another three years and on details of the anticipated new global treaty.
This delay will be extraordinarily expensive and risky. Every year that fossil
fuel emissions fail to decline adds to the cost and reduces the odds that a
global temperature rise can be kept below two degrees Centigrade — the maximum
increase acceptable, says the UN.
Summing up the
conference, Christina Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, said what
was lacking is a real commitment to reduce global emissions. “What needs to
change most is political will,” Figueres told IPS.
The Nov. 26-Dec.
9 conference did nothing to cut emissions that have the potential of
generating a world temperature increase
of 4 degrees Celsius [7.2 degrees Fahrenheit] by the end of the century — an estimate put forward
just before the conference by the World Bank. The meeting also offered little
in terms of finance to help poor countries cope with climate change, Smith
said.
Smith singled
out the U.S. and Canada for blocking progress on keys issues. Canada was one of
the worst, she said. While profiting from its massive oil sands operations, it
was “super-obstructive on finance.”
“The fossil fuel
industry won,” said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ director of
strategy and policy, who has attended nearly every one of these climate
negotiations over the past 18 years. “The science is clear that four-fifths of
known fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground but we continue to burn them
like there is no tomorrow.” He also suggested that “Doha became more of a trade
fair…. Negotiators protected the interests of corporations and not the needs of
people.”
Meyer, along
with representatives from many of the civil society organizations, blamed the
U.S. for blocking proposals for greater emissions cuts. Washington negotiators
did acknowledge poor countries were suffering costly damages and losses due to
climate change, but refused to commit money to assist them.
“Science says
emissions need to peak in 2015,” said Kumi Naidoo, executive director of
Greenpeace International, at the final plenary. “Doha is a betrayal of people
living with impacts now. And it is a sellout of our children and
grandchildren’s future.”
Industrialized
countries promised to put $100 billion a year into a Green Climate Fund by
2020. To bridge the gap till then, developing nations asked for $60 billion in
total by 2015. Britain, Germany and few other countries promised to contribute
six billion dollars but this is not binding. Under the Doha Climate Gateway,
countries agreed to further talks on finance in 2013.
The loss and
damage debate was among the most intense during closed meetings, featuring the
U.S pitted against island states like the Philippines that are badly impacted
by stronger cyclones and sea level rise. The U.S. delegates blocked all references
that implied compensation or liability, admitting they feared a political
backlash at home, according to an anonymous source.
“Loss and damage
is huge issue for Central America. We are highly vulnerable to the impacts of
climate change,” said Mónica López Baltodano, of Centro Humboldt Nicaragua, an
environmental NGO. “Honduras and Nicaragua are the number one and number three
most vulnerable countries in the world according to the Climate Risk Index,”
Baltodano told Tierramérica here in Doha.
Developing
countries wanted a new institution and framework to deal with loss and damage,
but the U.S. was opposed. The compromise was for a “new mechanism” to be
created next year.
A new second
phase of the Kyoto Protocol was agreed to run from 2013 to 2020. Getting this
second phase is considered very important by developing countries because it
has hard-won legal terms that commit countries to making cuts as well as
methods for measuring and verifying emission levels.
However, only
the European Union, Australia and a few other countries are involved,
representing just 12% of global emissions. The U.S. has never participated,
while Canada and Japan have opted out of the second phase.
None of those in
the second Kyoto phase increased their emission cuts pledges. They did agree to
a mandatory review of their reduction targets in 2014. Rich countries outside
of Kyoto promised to make comparable cuts but offered nothing new here in Doha.
“The COP process
is very disappointing,” said Baltodano, who has attended two previous ones.
“It’s very clear that countries’ economic interests dominate the negotiations.
Countries are mainly influenced by the corporate sector and civil society has
very little interaction or influence there, she said. “There is a huge space we
don’t reach.”
—————————
5. DEVASTATING
REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
By the World Bank
The world is
barreling down a path to heat up by 4 degrees Celsius [7.2 degrees Fahrenheit]
by the end of the century if the global community fails to act on climate
change. Inaction will trigger a cascade of cataclysmic changes that include
extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks and a sea-level rise affecting
hundreds of millions of people, according to a new scientific report released
Nov. 18 that was commissioned by the World Bank.
All regions of
the world would suffer – some more than others – but the report finds that the
poor will suffer the most.
“Turn Down the
Heat,” a snapshot of the latest climate science prepared for the World Bank by
the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Climate Analytics,
says that the world is on a path to a 4 degree Celsius warmer world by end of
this century and current greenhouse gas emissions pledges will not reduce this
by much.
“A 4 degree
Celsius warmer world can, and must be, avoided,” said World Bank Group
President Jim Yong Kim. “We need to hold warming below 2 degrees…. Lack of
action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a
completely different world than we are living in today. Climate change is one
of the single biggest challenges facing development, and we need to assume the
moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations, especially
the poorest.” [Many environmentalists maintain that a 2°C increase will cause considerable damage
and call for much lower targets.]
The report says
that the 4°C scenarios are potentially devastating: the inundation of coastal
cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher
hunger and malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions
wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics;
substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased intensity
of tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral
reef systems.
"The Earth
system's responses to climate change appear to be non-linear," points out
PIK Director, John Schellnhuber. "If we venture far beyond the 2 degrees
guardrail, towards the 4 degrees line, the risk of crossing tipping points
rises sharply. The only way to avoid this is to break the business-as-usual
pattern of production and consumption."
The report
notes, however, that a 4°C world is not inevitable and that with sustained
policy action warming can still be held below 2°C, which is the goal adopted by
the international community and one that already brings some serious damages
and risks to the environment and human populations. “The world must tackle the
problem of climate change more aggressively,” Kim said. “Greater adaptation and
mitigation efforts are essential and solutions exist. We need a global response
equal to the scale of the climate problem, a response that puts us on a new
path of climate smart development and shared prosperity. But time is very short.”
“Turn Down The
Heat” summarizes a range of the direct and indirect climatic consequences under
the current global path for greenhouse gas emissions. Key findings include:
•Extreme heat
waves, that without global warming would be expected to occur once in several
hundred years, will be experienced during almost all summer months in many
regions. The effects would not be evenly
distributed. The largest warming would be expected to occur over land and
range from 4° C to 10° C. Increases of
6° C or more in average monthly summer temperatures would be expected in the
Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East and parts of the United States.
•Sea level-rise
by 0.5 to 1 meter [a meter is 39.4 inches] by 2100 is likely, with higher
levels also possible. Some of the most highly vulnerable cities are located in
Mozambique, Madagascar, Mexico, Venezuela, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the
Philippines and Vietnam.
•The most
vulnerable regions are in the tropics, sub-tropics and towards the poles, where
multiple impacts are likely to come together.
•Agriculture,
water resources, human health, biodiversity and ecosystem services are likely
to be severely impacted. This could lead
to large-scale displacement of populations and consequences for human security
and economic and trade systems.
•Many small
islands may not be able to sustain their populations.
The report
states that the science is unequivocal that humans are the cause of global
warming, and major changes are already being observed. The global mean
temperature has continued to increase and is now about 0.8°C above
pre-industrial levels.
While a global
warming of 0.8°C may not seem large, the report notes that many climate change
impacts have already started to emerge, and the shift from 0.8°C to 2.0°C
warming or beyond will pose much larger challenges. But a global mean temperature increase of 4°C
approaches the known historic level of change for the planet, which harks back
to the last ice age when much of central Europe and the northern United States
were covered with kilometers of ice and global mean temperatures were about
4.5°C to 7°C lower. And this
contemporary human-induced climate change, the report notes, is occurring over
a century, not millennia.
—————————
6. FRACKING
THREATENS FARMS AND FOOD SAFETY
By Susie Cagle
Some of our most
fertile land for growing food also happens to be fertile land for blasting out
tons of shale gas. You might guess who’s already winning this battle.
The Dec. 17
Nation magazine reports on the effects of fracking pollution on America’s
farms, focusing on North Dakota cattle farmer Jackie Schilke, who farms atop
Bakken Shale.
After fracking
began at 32 sites within a couple miles of her ranch, Schilke’s cattle started
dropping dead and Schilke herself started suffering from poor health. Ambient
air testing found high levels of a bunch of nasty chemical compounds associated
with fracking, and with cancer and birth defects.
“State health
and agriculture officials acknowledged Schilke’s air and water tests but told
her she had nothing to worry about. Her doctors, however, diagnosed her with
neurotoxic damage and constricted airways. “I realized that this place is
killing me and my cattle,” Schilke says. She began using inhalers and a
nebulizer, switched to bottled water, and quit eating her own beef and the
vegetables from her garden. (Schilke sells her cattle only to buyers who will
finish raising them outside the shale area, where she presumes that any
chemical contamination will clear after a few months.) “My health improved,”
Schilke says, “but I thought, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing to this land?’”
Around the
country, farmland near fracking sites is being contaminated and livestock are
getting sick and dying.
“In Louisiana,
seventeen cows died after an hour’s exposure to spilled fracking fluid. (Most
likely cause of death: respiratory failure.) In north central Pennsylvania, 140
cattle were exposed to fracking wastewater when an impoundment was breached.
Approximately 70 cows died; the remainder produced eleven calves, of which only
three survived. In western Pennsylvania, an overflowing waste pit sent fracking
chemicals into a pond and a pasture where pregnant cows grazed: half their
calves were born dead. The following year’s animal births were sexually skewed,
with ten females and two males, instead of the usual 50-50 or 60-40 split.
As natural-gas
drilling operations move into the Northeast, where there’s a high concentration
of organic farms and local-focused eaters, expect to see more conflicts between
farmers and frackers. Big questions lie behind those sad images of dead baby
cows: How “cheap” is natural gas that costs lives? And is energy independence
more important to us than food independence?
—Susie Cagle
writes and draws news for Grist, where this was published Nov. 29.
—————————
7. U.S./ISRAEL
LOSE TWICE IN UN
By the Activist Newsletter
The UN General
Assembly has delivered two major defeats to Israel in recent weeks. The
governments of the U.S. and Israel are furious.
On Nov. 29, UN
member states voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions to advance Palestine’s status
from a non-member “observer entity” to non-member “observer state.” Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas brought the statehood issue to the world body arguing
that a “yes” vote was the “last chance to save the two-state solution.”
On Dec. 3 the
General Assembly voted 174-6 with 6 abstentions to insist nuclear-armed Israel
join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. To do so would oblige the right wing
Netanyahu regime to permit the International Atomic Energy Agency to periodically inspect Israel’s nuclear
arsenal to determine if it is in compliance with treaty obligations. (The six
“no” voters were the U.S., Israel,
Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.)
Had these votes
been taken in the more powerful Security Council they would have failed due to
a veto by the Obama Administration. So far Washington has vetoed over 40
resolutions critical of Israel’s actions toward the Palestinians and its
neighbors. At other times the simple threat of an American veto was sufficient
to quash efforts to condemn Israel for what amounted to war crimes.
In presenting
his resolution Abbas adopted a moderate tone: “We did not come here seeking to
delegitimize a state established years ago, and that is Israel. Rather we came
to affirm the legitimacy of a state that must now achieve its independence and
that is Palestine.” He also declared that
“the moment has come for the world to say clearly: enough of aggression,
enough of settlements and occupation.”
The General
Assembly recognizes Palestine as a UN observer state, which is an important
accomplishment, but it is not a state in fact. Netanyahu and his ultra-right
coalition partners are determined to torpedo the possibility of conducting
honest negotiations leading to two separate states. At the moment there is one
Jewish State (as it describes itself) with a generally unequal minority of
Palestinian citizens, and two attached Palestinian colonies or reservations —
the West Bank and Gaza.
The designation
“UN non-member observer state” left Washington fuming and Tel Aviv apoplectic
and vengeful.
“Today’s
unfortunate and counterproductive resolution places further obstacles in the
path for peace,” commented American Ambassador Susan Rice. Netanyahu charged:
“This is a meaningless resolution that won’t change anything on the ground.” He
then repeated the excuse that a Palestinian state is impossible until Israel’s
security is ensured — a circumstance that may never materialize as long as the
country is controlled by far right, right and center right governments devoted
to exacerbating the insecurities of the people.
Although the
matter wasn’t publicly addressed, perhaps the main U.S.-Israeli objection to
the ruling is that as an “observer state” the Palestinians will have standing
with the International Criminal Court. As such it will be possible to launch
legal proceedings against Israel for various infractions including war crimes
under international law.
As usual after
any affront (such as the UN vote), the Israeli government retaliated. Just
after the observer state vote, the New York Times reported:
“Israel is
moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area
east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has
long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The action would limit
access to the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem
Secretary of State
Clinton, in a Washington speech after Israel’s settlement announcement,
declared that “These activities set back the cause of a negotiated peace.” At
the same time she criticized the UN vote on Palestine’s observer state status
and said: “America has Israel’s back, and this month we proved it again.”
The Palestinian
state in question represents 22% of the original Palestinian land in 1948. It
consists of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Israel occupied these lands
during the 1967 war and continues to do so in grave violation of international
law. Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza several years ago but through
violence and various control mechanisms the tiny territory is a virtual prison.
Continual building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and now practically
separating this land from East Jerusalem makes a mockery of the two-state
“solution” to which the Israeli government theoretically subscribes.
The General
Assembly’s chastisement of Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons and delivery
systems came a few days later. It is an open secret that Israel possesses about
200 such weapons, but does not admit to having any. Backed by the U.S. it has
refused to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and brushed aside
the UN new vote.
The nuclear
resolution also included support for a conference to ban nuclear weapons from
the Middle East. According to the Associated Press: “All the Arab nations and
Iran had planned to attend the conference in mid-December in Helsinki, Finland,
but the United States announced on Nov. 23 that it wouldn’t take place, citing
political turmoil in the region and Iran’s defiant stance on nonproliferation.
Iran and some Arab nations countered that the real reason for the cancellation
was Israel’s refusal to attend.”
The U.S. opposes
the call for a nuclear–free Middle East because it wants Israel to continue
functioning as its nuclear surrogate in the Middle East. Possession of the
ultimate weapon also makes Israel the
military superpower of the entire region, a designation at thundering odds with
its continual pose as an insecure, vulnerable state.
President Obama,
backed forcefully by Netanyahu, has imposed ever-increasing economic and trade
sanctions on Iran because it allegedly seeks to build a nuclear weapon — a
charge refuted by U.S intelligence agencies which state Iran gave up any
nuclear ambitions several years ago. The Tehran government denies it is making
a bomb and there is no proof to substantiate the U.S.-Israeli claims.
Ironically, Iran
is a member of the NPT, allows periodic inspections by the International Atomic
Energy Agency, and has been calling for
a ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East for years.
Washington could
eliminate the “danger” of an Iranian weapon by supporting a regional ban —
which is backed by the entire Arab League as well as Iran. But the real point
is regime change in Iran. The nuclear issue provides a justification for killer
sanctions and threats of war — actions intended to create sufficient economic
and social crises to topple the government and perhaps create such havoc a
pro-American or neutral regime might take over.
All of this
could end — the plight of the Palestinian people, the harmful sanctions against
Iran and its people, nuclear weapons in the Middle East, the invasions and
forced changes in regime— if the American people finally bring to power a
peace-minded and non-imperialist progressive or left president and party. Until
then, what you see (and what is concealed or fabricated for public consumption)
is what you get.
J.A.S.
—————————
8. ONCE AGAIN,
UN BLASTS EMBARGO OF CUBA
By Reuters
The UN General
Assembly urged the U.S. to lift its five-decade-old trade embargo against Cuba
on Dec.11 — for the 21st time. The vote was overwhelming, with 188 nations including
most of Washington's closest allies supporting the embargo resolution, a result
virtually unchanged from last year.
Israel, heavily
dependent on Washington’s subsidies and UN vetoes of resolutions critical of
its treatment of the Palestinians, and the tiny Pacific state of Palau, were
the only two countries that supported the United States in opposing the
non-binding resolution in the 193-nation assembly. The Pacific states of the
Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained.
Havana's Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodriguez told the assembly that Cuba had high hopes for
President Obama when he was first elected in 2008 and welcomed his calls for
change. But he said the result had been disappointing.
"The
reality is that the last four years have been characterized by the persistent
tightening of the embargo," he said. "There is no legitimate or moral
reason to maintain this embargo that is anchored in the Cold War.
—————————
9. PANETTA:
AFGHAN WAR TO CONTINUE FOR YEARS
By John Glaser
Despite more
than a decade of war and at least four years of the current administration’s
strategies in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda militants continue to make inroads in the
war-torn country, according to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
“Although we
clearly have had an impact on [al-Qaeda's] presence in Afghanistan, the fact is
that they continue to show up,” Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon Nov. 29.
In response to
this admitted failure of U.S. military policy, the Washington is aiming to
continue implementing all of the failed policies that have so far led to the
disastrous quagmire in Afghanistan.
The same day
Panetta spoke, the Senate voted 62-33 in favor of an accelerated withdrawal of
U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Eleven Republicans joined the majority. The
amendment —which still retained the Dec. 31, 2014, deadline —was non-binding
and doesn’t specify what schedule troops should follow.
Despite claims
from the Obama Administration that the U.S. would be ending the war and
withdrawing in 2014, the State Department is now in intensified talks with
Kabul to set an agreement that will govern the presence of at least 10,000 U.S.
troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, perhaps until 2024.
Fighting a core
group of al-Qaeda militants is “going to be the fundamental thrust of the (counter-terrorism)
effort” beyond 2014, Panetta said, in order to prevent them from
re-establishing a safe haven in Afghanistan.
But Afghanistan
was always useless to al-Qaeda, except insofar as it drew America into a long
and costly war, in an attempt to repeat the defeat of the Soviets. Geographical
safe-havens are less and less useful for non-state actors to actually carry out
attacks.
A U.S. defense
official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, estimated there were
still only about 100 al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. Why 100 al-Qaeda
militants require an ongoing occupation and nation-building project with over
10,000 troops is baffling to most.
So long as U.S.
troops remain in Afghanistan, a costly insurgency will continue to be waged by
militant groups. Pulling out of the failed war, as well as the many other
countries the U.S. empire currently occupies, will do more to eliminate the
relatively puny terrorist threat than any reduction in troops presence.
The New York
Times recently published a remarkable article [1] talking openly about some
basic facts that it typically ignores completely: • al-Qaeda is primarily
motivated by America’s “unqualified support for Israel and the rulers of the
Persian Gulf states,” as well as U.S. militarism in the region; • al-Qaeda and
affiliated terrorist threats are not nearly as big a danger as Washington would
have us believe.
While “jihadists
of various kinds,” the article says, “are flourishing in Africa and the Middle
East,” Americans are notably misled regarding the actual threat they pose.
“Most of the
newer jihadist groups have local agendas, and very few aspire to strike
directly at the United States as Osama bin Laden’s core network did. They may
interfere with American interests around the world — as in Syria, where the
presence of militant Islamists among the rebels fighting the government of
Bashar al-Assad has inhibited American efforts to support the uprising. But
that is a far cry from terrorist plots aimed at the United States itself.”
Importantly, the
article says that unfortunately, “most of the political realities that inspired
Bin Laden’s organization are still in place,” like unqualified support for
Israel, propping up Arab dictatorships, and bombing various countries in the
region on a near daily basis.
— From
Antiwar.com, Nov. 27
—————————
10. ONE-FIFTH OF
U.S. ADULTS HAVE NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
By The Pew Forum
The number of
Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid
pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are
religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research
Center polling.
In the last five
years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15% to 19.6% of all
U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described
atheists and agnostics (nearly 6% of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33
million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14%).
This large and
growing group of Americans is less religious than the public at large on many
conventional measures, including frequency of attendance at religious services
and the degree of importance they attach to religion in their lives.
However, a new
survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life,
conducted jointly with the PBS television program Religion & Ethics News
Weekly, finds that many of the country’s 46 million unaffiliated adults are
religious or spiritual in some way. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God
(68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the
earth (58%), while more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not
“religious” (37%), and one-in-five (21%) say they pray every day. In addition,
most religiously unaffiliated Americans think that churches and other religious
institutions benefit society by strengthening community bonds and aiding the
poor.
With few
exceptions, though, the unaffiliated say they are not looking for a religion
that would be right for them. Overwhelmingly, they think that religious
organizations are too concerned with money and power, too focused on rules and
too involved in politics.
The growth in
the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans – sometimes called the rise of
the “nones” – is largely driven by generational replacement, the gradual
supplanting of older generations by newer ones. A third of adults under 30 have
no religious affiliation (32%), compared with just one-in-ten who are 65 and
older (9%). And young adults today are much more likely to be unaffiliated than
previous generations were at a similar stage in their lives.
In a related global
study by the Pew Research Center released Dec. 18 the results showed that one
of every six people worldwide — 16% — profess no religious affiliation.
—
The full 60-page
pdf text of the earlier America-only study, released in October, is at
http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/Unaffiliated/NonesOnTheRise-full.pdf
—————————
11. THE
EXPLOITATION OF DOMESTIC WORKERS
By Julianne Hing
Domestic workers
in the U.S. are low paid and have few rights. As in the rest of the world, a
domestic worker’s race and immigration status influence her pay scale and
working conditions.
Undocumented
domestic workers are paid roughly 20%
less than their U.S.-citizen counterparts, according to a groundbreaking
new report offering the first national look at domestic workers’ world—one
where unforgiving work, a high incidence of abuse and differential pay
depending on race is the standard. More than 2,000 nannies, house cleaners and
caregivers in 14 U.S. cities were surveyed for the study, released Nov. 27 by
the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Domestic work is
treated as women’s work—94% are women. Domestic workers earn 23% less than their state’s minimum wage. But
within the industry, U.S.-born and U.S.-citizen nannies, caregivers and housecleaners
make roughly a dollar more an hour than their counterparts who have legal
status, and around two dollars more an hour than undocumented domestic workers.
The median hourly wage for U.S.-citizen domestic workers is $12 an hour, but is
$10 an hour for those who are undocumented.
According to
Democracy now, “nearly a quarter of U.S. domestic workers are paid less than
the state minimum wage. The survey found particularly dire rates for live-in
workers, who make a median hourly wage of $6.15. Domestic workers receive
almost no benefits, with only 4% getting employer-provided insurance. Many also
reported being forced to silently endure verbal and even physical abuse out of
fear of being fired or reported to immigration authorities if they complained.”
Undocumented
domestic workers are more likely than workers with legal status or citizenship
to report being assigned work beyond their job descriptions. They’re also more
likely to be required to do “heavy, strenuous” work, get injured on the job,
and then have to work while injured. Some 77%
of undocumented domestic workers reported working while sick, injured or
in pain, compared to 66% of all domestic
workers surveyed, and just 56 of U.S.-born domestic workers. Those who are
foreign-born make up 46% of the domestic
worker workforce.
The study found
that white domestic workers tend to make more than workers color, who make up
54% of the domestic workers workforce. The median wage for white caregivers is
$12 an hour, compared with the $10 an hour that black and Latino caregivers
make, and the $8.33 an hour that Asian caregivers earn. In one exception, black
nannies tend to out earn white nannies, making $12.71 an hour, compared with
the $12.55 that white nannies earn.
The women in
charge of caring for a family’s most precious members are uniquely vulnerable
to exploitation and abuse themselves. “In the context of the absence of labor
and employment protections, and the radically decentralized and intimate nature
of the work, these combined demographic characteristics render the workforce
vulnerable to the low wages, absence of benefits, hazardous environments, and
abuses of power that too often typify domestic work,” the report says.
Federal and most
states’ minimum wage laws don’t cover domestic workers, who are also generally
uncovered by workers’ compensation laws, unemployment insurance or federal
protection from discrimination. Precisely because of the unregulated,
individualized and isolated nature of domestic work, public policy plays an
important role in protecting these workers’ rights. The report calls for basic
protections—state policy that includes domestic workers in minimum wage laws;
domestic workers’ access to state and federal overtime pay; and a right to meal
breaks, rest days, and at least five hours of uninterrupted sleep for live-in
domestic workers.
— From
Colorlines.com 11-27-12
—————————
12. NEXT STEPS
FOR GAY MARRIAGE
By Edward-Isaac Dovere, Emily Schultheis, and Juana Summers
Gay activists
are preparing to quickly use the momentum from this year’s election to try to
legalize marriage in at least seven new states and force Congress and the
president to make major changes in discrimination laws.
Advocates have
identified Oregon, Rhode Island, Delaware, Minnesota, Colorado, Hawaii and New
Jersey as states where they believe that as early as 2014 they’ll see gay
marriage legalized through ballot measures, court decisions or state
legislative action.
And the U.S.
Supreme Court is set to decide soon whether to consider legalizing gay
marriage.
The Court will
decide which cases they’ll hear in what’s expected to be a landmark decision.
There are several options: five separate Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
challenges that could be rolled together, the constitutional challenge to California’s
Proposition 8 and the case challenging Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s attempt to
stop gay couples from receiving domestic partnership benefits.
Meanwhile,
activists are aiming to quickly use the momentum from this year’s election to
boost marriage legalization efforts in at least seven new states and force
Congress and the president to make major changes in discrimination laws.
They sense a
major change from this year’s election victories — which included successful
gay marriage referendums in Maine, Maryland and Washington state, the defeat of
a Minnesota ban, the first successful retention of an Iowa Supreme Court judge
who favors gay marriage, the election of Tammy Baldwin as the first openly gay
senator, the election of two new gay House members and the reelection of the
president widely praised by advocates as the most pro-gay rights ever.
Together,
there’s clear proof that opponents to gay marriage and gay rights have lost
support, said Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin.
“Now that they’re
on the defensive on all fronts and we’re on the offensive on all fronts, we’ve
got to take this momentum and turn it into our next victories,” said Griffin,
whose organization has already prepared a four-page “post-election agenda” memo
detailing an administrative, legislative and personnel agenda. “At times like
this, you can’t slow down. You’ve got to double down.”
Inspired by
post-election conversations in Congress on immigration reform, gay leaders
believe there’s hope on passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, as well
as succeeding in getting President Obama’s signature on a long-sought executive
order to ban discrimination among government contractors. Changes in military
benefits, tax measures and health care provisions are also in their sights.
Leaders see the
election results as a sign of quickly impending symbolic victories like
increased judicial appointments, as well as the first openly gay Cabinet
secretary and ambassador to a G-8 nation. They’re hoping as well for
substantive changes on taxes and workplace protections, but those issues are
more arcane and change the government’s relationship to the private sector….
Meanwhile,
advocates are looking at putting a gay marriage referendum on the ballot in
Oregon in 2014. But given the cost involved in any referendum effort, they’d
prefer to go either the route of state-level court decisions in Rhode Island,
Illinois, Delaware and Hawaii, where they’re optimistic about judicial
opinions. Some have their eyes on Nevada as well.
They believe
there’s a path paved for legalizing marriage in Colorado given state election
results in 2012, where there’s a legislative civil union ban in place but
Democrats just won the House, and in Minnesota, where voters both defeated a
gay marriage ban and took control of both chambers of the legislature.
Then there’s the
bigger reach: gathering enough legislators’ votes to overturn Gov. Chris
Christie’s February veto of the gay marriage bill in New Jersey.
They’re
continuing to organize and fundraise, and to convince private companies to file
amicus briefs under the thinking that they should favor a single national
standard for what’s recognized as marriage and what isn’t.
They’ve
carefully managed their relationship with the White House — while they’re always
pushing for more action, they’ve done so while still heaping praise on the
pro-gay rights record of a president who’s often proven prickly when interest
groups have attacked him for falling short. Even after all the money and
support the gay community put toward Obama’s reelection, they’re not pushing
for immediate payback….
— This article
was excerpted from the Nov. 20 issue of Politico
—————————
13. U.S. CUTS
FUNDS FOR YOUNG ADULTS
[Following is an
excerpt from the executive summary of a new study on “how the looming budget
battle threatens the American Dream” for young adults titled: “A Fight for the
Future: Education, Job Training, and the
Fiscal Showdown.” It is the product of the Young Invincibles and the National
Priorities Project.]
Over the last
decade, funding for education in the U.S. fell as a share of total public
spending. Meanwhile, rising tuition pushes college out of reach for
millions of young people. Education is fundamentally connected to jobs, which is
currently the top priority for most Americans. Yet, the federal government has
also cut major training programs for
disadvantaged youth at the same time that the Great Recession wiped out an
estimated 2.7 million jobs held by young adults. Together these factors have
created a perfect storm of reduced opportunity for America’s young people.
Young
Invincibles and National Priorities Project compared major federal investments
in young adults to the economic challenges facing the next generation.
Researchers have analyzed investments in children under age 18, but very few
have studied programs targeted at young adults. We focus on education and
training because, more than any other category, they shape individual economic
opportunity and our country’s future economic competitiveness. Our findings are
disturbing:
• The federal
government currently spends more
annually on the war in Afghanistan ($109 billion) than on education $67.6
billion. As states made deep cuts to education funding in recent years, federal
education funding barely held steady, and the
nation’s young adults fell from 1st to 12th globally in educational attainment.
• The federal
government cut $1 billion from job training for disadvantaged youth over the
past decade. Currently, underfunded training programs reach fewer than 5% of
the 6.7 million disconnected youth, i.e., those not connected to work or school
who are most in need of help.
• Reduced
investment in job training for young adults affects young people of color
disproportionately, as they are more likely to be eligible for assistance.
While the unemployment rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 is 16 %— more than
twice the national average — the unemployment rate is 17 %for Latino youth and
26.7 % for African American youth.
• Looming
automatic budget cuts, known as “sequestration,” will cost thousands of youth
jobs in 2013. AmeriCorps, which has already sustained cuts in recent years,
creates 80,000 youth jobs a year — though in 2011 it received a record 582,000
applications. Cuts from sequestration could pull nearly $40 million dollars
from the program in 2013, in addition to reducing funding for nearly every
other education and training program.
These facts make
it clear: further cuts to youth services would be disastrous for young adults
and hinder economic growth. Though we
face fiscal challenges, cutting
investment in our nation’s future will not bring this country prosperity. In
fact, we already invest far too little
in higher education, training, and job experience for the next generation. It is no surprise that
nearly half of young adults fear that they will end up less well off than their
parents. Investment in young people should be expanded, while continued
disinvestment will push the American Dream further from reach.
— This important
12-page report pdf is at:
—————————
14. VOTERS
FOUGHT BALLOT SUPPRESSION
Tova Wang, Demos
The right to
vote is just that — a fundamental right which is the cornerstone of American
democracy. In the 2012 election, that sacred value was challenged in a way we
have not seen in a couple of generations, perhaps since the civil and voting
rights movements of the 1960s. Some powerful people tried to deny this right;
legislatures in many states decided that the freedom to vote should be
restricted, and they erected many unnecessary and discriminatory barriers to
registration and voting.
The measures
taken were so blatant and widespread that they served to energize coalitions of
citizens to fight for voting rights harder than ever, and made many voters more
determined to vote and have their vote count. The U.S. Department of Justice
was compelled to intervene through its powers under Section 5 of the Voting
Rights Act, because the laws enacted in several covered states were clearly
discriminatory in purpose and/or effect. State and federal courts also struck
down or delayed many of the worst of these laws. And where identification laws
did come into effect, some were made more flexible and less of a burden on
voters after having gone through Department of Justice and court review….
As will be
discussed below, the measures to make voting harder for eligible Americans took
many forms. Most of them were instigated by Republican dominated state
legislatures which in 2010 and 2011 passed laws that would disproportionately
exclude certain groups from the voting process, particularly African Americans,
youth and Latinos. It was for obvious reasons: African Americans, Latinos and
young people tend to vote for Democrats. And in 2008 these three groups came
out in record numbers. So the vote suppression efforts were, unfortunately,
focused on demographic groups that historically have been targeted in efforts to
restrict voting rights.
The new laws and
procedures included strict photo identification and proof of citizenship laws;
rules making it harder for former felons to regain their voting rights; laws
making voter registration more difficult; pre-election purges of eligible
voters; cutbacks on early voting which predictably resulted in unacceptably
long lines at the polls; and misuse and manipulation of rules around
provisional ballots. Other problems that arose included challenges to voters’
right to vote by organizations connected to or empowered by True the Vote;
disregard by state election officials of legal requirements to provide language
assistance at the polls; and efforts by groups and individuals to intimidate
and mislead voters about voting procedures. There were also new, unanticipated
challenges on the East Coast as a result of the damage wrought by Hurricane
Sandy.
In the end,
however, many of the attempts at voter exclusion went just too far, and
backfired on those who would seek to make disenfranchisement an election
strategy. Given the strong turnout of the very groups that were targeted, it
seems that the American voters were ready to take on this challenge. African
Americans matched their record turnout of 2008 and were 13 percent of the electorate.
Latinos raised their share -- they were 10 percent of the electorate this year,
up from 9 percent in 2008. For all the talk of youth disengagement, the
proportion of the electorate under 30 went from 18 to 19 percent. Indeed, just
as significant a sign that the tide has turned is the fact that a ballot
amendment that would have made photo identification a requirement to vote went
down to defeat in Minnesota. At one time the polls showed 80 percent support
for the measure. But a strong grassroots
campaign to educate the public about the measure turned the tide. As noted in
one press report, “volunteers made contact with more than 1.5 million voters
over the past four months to explain the costs, complications and consequences
of the amendment.” The success of this campaign may be the strongest indicator
yet of public opinion turning against these efforts to put up unnecessary red
tape around the voting process.
The pushback
against vote suppression laws was facilitated by the efforts before Election
Day of a coalition of pro-voter organizations and citizens who came together
and fought back on efforts to exclude Americans from voting. Restrictive photo
ID requirements were blocked by the Department of Justice and/or the courts in
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin, and vetoed by governors in
Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Extreme
restrictions on voter registration drives were permanently blocked by the
courts in Florida. Cutbacks to early voting were reversed in Ohio. Finally, an Arizona law that required
documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote was blocked by the courts.
Moreover, the
threats made by True the Vote and its allied organizations to challenge
peoples’ rights at the polls turned out to be more bark than bite. Demos and
other groups worked to put a spotlight on their misguided and possibly illegal
intentions, and relatively few of these threats materialized.
Nonetheless,
there was plenty of disenfranchisement and possible exclusion in the 2012
election that will help point us in a new direction going forward: enacting
election reforms that expand access to the ballot and create a more inclusive
democracy. These measures include Same Day Registration and other reforms to
modernize our voter registration system; expansion of early voting to avoid
long lines on Election Day; laws to prevent unfounded challenges and other
forms of voter harassment and intimidation and greater efforts to ensure
Americans who are not proficient in English can exercise their right to vote….
—To continue
reading this longer article, go to
http://www.demos.org/publication/2012-election-lessons-learned-how-voters-stood-against-suppression-id-and-intimidation
—Tova Andrea
Wang is the author of the 2012 book “The Politics of Voter Suppression:
Defending and Expanding Americans’ Right to Vote” (Cornell University Press).
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