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  • David Bacon: The Human Face of Budget Cuts

    Today’s post is from David Bacon, author of Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. Bacon spent thirty years as a labor organizer and immigrant rights activist. His articles appear in The Nation, American Prospect, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and he hosts a weekly radio show on KPFA-FM in Berkeley, California. This post also appeared on Truthout.

    Bacon OAKLAND, CA — Cesar Cota was the first in his family to attend college. "Now it's hard to achieve my dream," he says, "because the state put higher fees on us, and cut services and classes." Cota, a student at LA City College, was encouraged by the internship program of the LA College Faculty Guild to describe the human cost of budget cuts in he community college system.

    David Robinson, who's worked since he was 14, hoped he'd get automotive mechanic training, and a good job at the end of it. "But by cutting these programs and raising fees," he says, "you're cutting opportunity for a lot of people who need it."

    Another endangered student is Tina Vinaja, a mother of three teenagers whose husband took a weekend job to help pay her tuition hikes. Monica Mejia, a single mom, wants to get out of the low-wage trap. "Without community college," she says, "I'll end up getting paid minimum wage. I can't afford the fee hikes. I can barely make ends meet now."

    LA City College even suspended its sports programs for a year. The school had a legendary basketball program that gave low-income students a pathway out of poverty. JaQay Carlyle says City College basketball sent him to UC Davis and on to law school.

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  • Howard Zinn’s The People Speak Premieres on the History Channel this weekend

    Embedded below is a CBS story about the film, based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, which premieres this Sunday on the History Channel. If it doesn’t appear, view the video on YouTube.

  • Mary Frances Berry: Obama’s Nobel Lecture

    Yesterday, President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. We turned for comment on the President's lecture to Mary Frances Berry, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Berry is the co-editor (with former Clinton speechwriter Josh Gottheimer) of a forthcoming Beacon Press book about the speeches of Barack Obama. 

    The Nobel Lecture was an admixture of persuasive rhetoric and soaring phrases, reminiscent of the campaign, and the more staid, measured cadences of his speeches during the presidency. At the beginning, he gave the usual nod to New England antislavery minister Theodore Parker, as quoted by Martin Luther King, to bending history toward justice. As befits a war President, about half the speech was about war. Even more space was devoted to war, if one counts the peace discussion, which was mostly about avoiding the need for war.

    The president, further rid himself of any need to apologize for accepting the Peace prize while accelerating War, by noting that Norway is one of the nations engaged in Afghanistan.

    There were many obvious shadings and omissions. He directly embraced the protestors in Iran and fighters for human rights around the world. Darfur and Congo received a mention but the humanitarian crises proceed as severely there or more than when he was inaugurated. Also, his praise for political participation ignored the United States support for the coup and ejection of a democratically elected president in Honduras, which makes one wonder whether to expect coups elsewhere in Latin America.

    Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech December 10, 2009 (Part 1 of 4)

    Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech December 10, 2009 (Part 2 of 4)

    Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech December 10, 2009 (Part 3 of 4)

    Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Speech December 10, 2009 (Part 4 of 4)

  • Bill Gates, Sr. and Chuck Collins: The Estate Tax: Recycling Economic Opportunity

    Today's post is from Bill Gates, Sr. is a retired Seattle attorney and author of Showing Up for Life, and Chuck Collins, co-founder of Wealth for the Common Good. They are co-authors of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes. This piece was originally syndicated on Minuteman Media.

    Book cover for Wealth and Our CommonwealthA century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt expressed alarm about the dangerous concentration of wealth and power in the U.S., and called on the incoming 60th Congress to establish a federal estate tax on large fortunes. Its primary objective, Roosevelt said, “should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of those swollen fortunes which it is certainly of no benefit to this country to perpetuate."

    One hundred years later, after a 12-year assault, the federal estate tax is here to stay. The anti-tax organizations and wealthy families that spent millions in lobbying funds to avoid paying billions in taxes have conceded they don't have the congressional votes to abolish the tax. But that doesn't mean they'll stop trying to erode it.

    In fact, Congress must act in the next month to discourage a year of mysterious deaths in affluent households and prevent further deterioration of the nation's fiscal situation. Bush-era tax cuts suspended the estate tax in its entirety for the year 2010, creating a bizarre incentive for wealthy people to prematurely die. Then, in 2011, the estate tax reverts back to its 2001 rules. A one-year patch is needed– if not permanent reform– to avert this fiscally and morally problematic scenario.

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  • Link Roundup: The King Legacy, Social Lives Online, Geoffrey Canada on 60 Minutes

    Publishers Weekly highlights The King Legacy series, a new partnership between Beacon Press and the estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. The series launches next month with the publication of Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story and Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community. You can read more about the series on the Beacon Press website.

    The Austin Chronicle profiles S. Craig Watkins and talks about his new book, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social-Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future.

    "A great irony of life on the computer screen," Watkins writes in his introduction, "is the fact that we usually go online alone but often with the intent of communicating with other people. Among the teens and young adults that we talk to, time spent in front of a computer screen is rarely, if ever, considered time spent alone." Social media, Watkins asserts, is an interim mode of communication and a means to coordinate future face-to-face interactions, not a substitute for human interaction, as was argued in the past.

    Which reminds me… become a fan of Beacon Press on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, okay?

    Mr. 20 Prospect, a resident of the Rust-Belt town of Batavia, New York, found a lot to relate to in Hollowing Out the Middle, as he has seen his own hometown decline over the years. His post about the history of Batavia is accompanied by a series of enlightening photos. 

    If you are one of the small town Diaspora who left never to return, or someone who left but boomeranged back, it is a very revealing read. Not only do they highlight the demographic, and economic trends effecting rural America, they also catch the subtle undercurrents of class that play a large role in determining the opportunities and futures of the young inhabitants.  At times it is also a painful book, pointing out the paradoxes that exist, and how small towns have hastened their own demise, by investing so much of their limited resources in developing their “best and brightest” and encouraging them to leave the community behind. The result is what Patrick Deneen has called the “strip mining” of young adults from rural areas, to feed the coastal, and Midwestern, urban population centers.

    Absolutely fantastic profile of Harlem Children's Zone President Geoffrey Canada on 60 Minutes this past weekend. If you missed it, you should watch it here. We're all very excited about the forthcoming graphic adaptation of his memoir, Fist Stick Knife Gun. Watch this space for updates. 

  • Steven I. Apfelbaum: Introducing Winter at Stone Prairie Farm

    Today's post is from Steven I. Apfelbaum, author of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm. Apfelbaum is founder, president, and senior ecologist of the firm Applied Ecological Services, known for its international science-based ecological design and restoration work. He lives in Juda, Wisconsin, on Stone Prairie Farm. Read all of Apfelbaum's dispatches from Stone Prairie Farm here. 

    APFELBAUM-NaturesSecondChance

    It seems but a few evenings ago when the soft calming chirp of crickets gave measure to the warm breeze. That was early September. Now, in late November, only strong, cold winds blow across Stone Prairie Farm. And the crickets are burrowed in for winter and silent.

    In the prairie, summer's gently swaying mass of vegetation is now being shaken and snapped back and forth by the wind. That green, growing plant life is replaced by columns of reddish tan prairie grasses that loom skyward ten to fifteen feet. Sounds are like that of a giant threshing machine; the swishing of grass stems beating against others, with each breath of the wind.

    Every year around this time, I wonder where summer went. Why is it almost winter again, seemingly so soon? I haven't harvested honey, and the garden beds still need their warming blanket of straw mulch. Remaining crops also need harvest.

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  • Carole Joffe: Personal Tragedies and Public Cruelties: Speaking Out Against the Stupak-Pitts Amendment

    Today's post is from Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us. Joffe is professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis and a researcher at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California-San Francisco, and she contributes to the blog at RHrealitycheck.org.

    Joffe"Well, it looks like the reinforcements have arrived!" a beaming Diane DeGette, congresswoman from Colorado, and a key leader of the abortion rights forces in Congress, recently told a spirited crowd overflowing a Senate auditorium. The prochoice movement was admittedly caught off-guard by the last minute passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House health care bill, a measure which would have the effect of massively restricting abortion coverage by insurance plans, even private ones (links to pdf).

    But now a rejuvenated movement got its act together and brought approximately 1000 supporters to Capitol Hill for a day of serious lobbying.

    The day was full of fiery speeches by legislators and advocates, and visits to thank supportive politicians and to educate/cajole undecided ones. The preponderance of younger women (and some men) in the crowd was deeply heartening to the old-timers. Like many political gatherings at moments of heightened stakes, the event had an almost festive air, as veterans of past campaigns greeted each other, and as strangers from the same states quickly bonded and formed groups to lobby their state's representatives together.

    For this correspondent, however, the most moving and significant part of the day was my conversation with three women who had later abortions. They were introduced to me by staff from the National Abortion Federation. All three women– Dana, Christie, and Mary– had experienced much wanted pregnancies that took nightmarish turns. Dana found out at 28 weeks of pregnancy that the brain of her baby (and for women carrying much desired pregnancies, "baby" rather than "fetus" is the term typically used) was missing the crucial band of tissue that connected the right and left hemispheres (agenesis of the corpus callosum in medical terms). This and other brain-related anomalies meant that her child, if carried to term, would suffer repeated seizures, and be unable to suck, swallow, feed, walk, talk, or know his or her environment. Dana and her husband saw no alternative to having an abortion– for the sake of her two year old son, for the sake of their marriage– but most of all for the baby they already called "Lil W." "When I felt him kick before the diagnosis, I thought 'great'! When I felt him kick after I got the diagnosis, I knew he was having seizures."

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  • Mark Hyman: Hard Knocks and Youth Sports in The Blind Side

    Today's post is from Mark Hyman, author of Until It Hurts: America's Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids. Hyman is a sports writer for BusinessWeek and numerous other publications. He blogs at http://youthsportsparents.blogspot.com.

    Book cover for Until it Hurts by Mark HymanI live in Baltimore. So does Michael Oher.

    Oher isn't that difficult to spot. Not at 6-foot-4 and 309 pounds. But, apparently, the place I am least likely to see him around town is at the neighborhood Cineplex going to see "The Blind Side," the movie about his remarkable rise from the mean streets of Memphis to stardom in the National Football League. Oher doesn't seem that interested. He passed on the gala premier in New York a few weeks back, thus missing a chance to hob nob with the movie's stars Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. A few days ago, when the Baltimore Sun asked, he still hadn't seen the film.

    I can appreciate Oher's ambivalence. At least, I think I can. On the one hand, his life is a testament to the power of resolve, love and, above all, serendipity. I'm amazed by it. And after three decades as a sports journalist, I thought I was just about amaze-proof.

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  • Eboo Patel Awarded the 2010 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion

    Book cover for Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel Eboo Patel, founder and
    executive director of Interfaith Youth Core,
    won the 2010 Louisville Grawemeyer award
    in religion for his autobiography, Acts of Faith: The
    Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation    .
    He was selected from among 67 nominations worldwide.

    Patel's
    organization, based in Chicago,
    encourages young people of different religions to perform community service,
    explore common values and build bridges among diverse faiths. The organization
    is now active on about 75 college campuses.

    "Religious
    extremists all over the world are harnessing adolescent angst for their own
    ends," said Susan Garrett, a religion professor who directs the award.
    "Patel urges us to take advantage of the short window of time in a young
    person's life to teach the universal values of cooperation, compassion and
    mercy."

    Patel was born in India
    to a Muslim family and immigrated to Chicago
    as a child. As a teenager, he struggled with what he saw as a lack of religious
    pluralism in America.
    His experiences prompted him to launch a movement to build interfaith cooperation
    by inspiring college students to champion the cause.

    He formed
    Interfaith Youth Core in 1998.

    A Rhodes
    Scholar, he is now a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on
    Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Religious Advisory Committee of
    the Council on Foreign Relations. In October, U.S. News & World Report
    named him one of America's
    Best Leaders in 2009.

    The
    Grawemeyer Awards are five annual $200,000 prizes given in the fields of music,
    political science, psychology, education, and religion. They were founded by H.
    Charles Grawemeyer to help make the world a better place. The University of Louisville
    and Louisville Presbyterian Seminary jointly award the religion prize.

    Read more
    about the award and see winners in other categories at its website: www.grawemeyer.org.

    Related Articles

    Louisville Courier-Journal: Efforts to bridge religious divide among youths earns man Grawemeyer award

    Chicago Tribune: Eboo Patel is a man of interfaith

    Recent posts by Eboo Patel on Beacon Broadside

    The
    Murderer at Fort Hood
    I'm writing from Toronto, where last night I
    gave a plenary address on Muslim-Jewish cooperation to the Biennial conference
    of the Union for Reform Judaism. Backstage
    after the address, my friend Rabbi David Saperstein gave me a grim look and
    said, "The shooter had a Muslim name." Read
    more    .

    Interfaith Solidarity During Ramadan
    Brian McLaren, the great Christian writer and activist, called me up a few
    weeks ago with a remarkable request: Would I be his fasting partner during
    Ramadan? He explained to me that there was a long-held Christian tradition of
    fasting, although it is not practiced much in contemporary Christian
    communities. Brian's goal was to live more fully into that Christian tradition
    during Ramadan, while also feeling solidarity with Muslim communities. Read
    more    .

  • David Chura: Mentally Ill Inmates in a Crazy Prison System

    Today’s post is from David Chura, author of I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup. Chura has worked with at-risk teenagers for forty years. His writing has appeared in the New York Times and multiple literary journals and anthologies, and he is a frequent lecturer and advisor on incarcerated youth.

    Book Cover for I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like MineIn March 2007, the nonprofit Disability Law Center sued the state of Massachusetts over its treatment of hundreds of mentally ill inmates. Prisoners with emotional problems who are unruly in some way are kept in 23 hour solitary confinement, which, according to a November 10 Boston Globe article, has “led to self-mutilations, swallowing of razor blades, and numerous suicides.”    

    In response to these grave concerns the Patrick administration, in an out-of-court negotiation, proposed building special treatment units for mentally disturbed inmates. Now, that proposal is off the table; citing the budget crisis, those units will not be built. So it’s back to court in an effort to force the state to give its incarcerated citizens their constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

    Massachusetts isn’t alone in facing the problem of caring for mentally ill inmates. Every state has had to confront this growing trend which started in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1980s, when the system of large state psychiatric hospitals was shut down even though, as Oliver Sacks states in his bittersweet eulogy to these former mental hospitals (“The Lost Virtues of the Asylum” New York Review of Books, 9-24-2009), it was obvious that these closings created “as many problems as they solved.” Communities weren’t prepared, and still aren’t prepared, to absorb and meet the needs of what he calls “sidewalk psychotics.”

    With these closings, along with the current “tough on crime” policies, it shouldn’t surprise anyone, then, that these same people– alone, unsupported, often self-medicated with drugs and alcohol– increasingly end up behind bars, despite the fact that jails aren’t set up to help people deal with emotional problems, problems that confuse their judgments and impel them to destructive actions

    No doubt these are hard choices in hard economic times for any state. Yet, once again, as municipalities struggle to come up with innovative ways to deal with the money crunch, the one formula that never gets recalibrated is that the people with the greatest need and the least resources take the biggest hit. 

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