Inequality

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 5, 2008
3:01 PM

CONTACT: Campaign for Americas Future
Toby Chaudhuri, (p) 202-955-5665, chaudhuri@ourfuture.org
Anne Thomspon, (p) 202-955-5665, athompson@ourfuture.org

New Jobless Numbers Push Misery Index Up to 11.7 Percent

Borosage: 'Misery Is Felt at the Gas Pump and the Grocery Store”'

WASHINGTON - September 5 - The misery index hit the worst level since May 1991, according to a new analysis released today by the Campaign for America's Future. New jobless numbers jumped to a 5-year high of 6.1 percent, pushing the misery index to 11.7 percent. The index hit double digits in June 2008 for the first time since 1993.

"Honest people who work hard for a living are struggling to make ends meet," said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. "The misery is felt at the gas pump and the grocery store and it's getting worse, not better."

###

Posted in Economy/Trade, Inequality

Labor Day: Little to Celebrate for US Latinos

UNITED NATIONS - A vast majority of Latino workers in the United States are forced to work for long hours and low wages with no health care or any other benefits, says a new study published this week.

The report, entitled, "Labor Day 2008: A Snapshot of the Latino Workforce," shows that most Latinos are employed in occupations that frequently fall short on critical indicators of job quality, including employer-based health and retirement plans.

Posted in Immigrant Rights, Inequality

Indians’ Water Rights Give Hope for Better Health

GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY, Ariz. - More than a hundred years ago, the Gila River, siphoned off by farmers upstream, all but dried up here in the parched flats south of Phoenix, plunging an Indian community that had depended on it for centuries of farming into starvation and poverty.

Posted in civil rights, Environment, Human Rights, Inequality, Water

Barack Obama: The Reality Show

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Patricia Moran, a longtime reader who articulated what millions of people were feeling the morning after Barack Obama became the official presidential standard bearer of his party:

"When I was 16," Pat's e-mail read, "I used to work before school in a small restaurant where my stepmother worked. One morning, early, two black people and their child came in and tried to sit down and order breakfast.

Posted in Politics, Inequality

Listen Up! America’s Families Demand Action

In McAllen, Texas, Martha Sanchez doesn't dare drink the water that runs out of the tap, for fear of getting sick. In Augusta, Georgia, Sunny Johnson, a single mother of two, thinks that working full-time as a certified nursing assistant should earn her a wage that puts her above the poverty line. (It doesn't.) In San Francisco, California, Cathleen Muhammad wants justice and good health for her children, who appear to have been made seriously ill by exposure to asbestos from a nearby construction site.

Posted in Activism, Inequality

Three Years After Hurricane Katrina, Homelessness Looms

"That's President Bush hugging me. See how tightly he's hugging me?" It was the chilly end of 2006 in Baker, Louisiana, when Lena Beard asked me this, proudly waving a newspaper clipping my direction as we talked in her still-temporary home. The fading photo, taken the same day the mother of two took refuge on a mattress in a church after Hurricane Katrina, had served as proof after the levees burst that she was going to be okay. "I'm a veteran who has served my country and put my life on the line.

Posted in civil rights, Inequality

Surging in Afghanistan: Too Much, Too Late?

Despite George W.

Posted in Human Rights, War/Empire, Afghanistan, Inequality, Women's Rights

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 29, 2008
10:18 AM

CONTACT: National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)
Taylor Materio 202-662-1530 x.227
taylor@nlihc.org

Statement of the Katrina Housing Group on the Third Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

WASHINGTON - August 29 - Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast of the United States causing the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes and the displacement of millions of people, a severe affordable housing crisis continues in the Gulf Coast states. Let us hope that Tropical Storm Gustav does not develop into a storm that causes further harm to the people of the Gulf Coast.

###

Posted in civil rights, Human Rights, Inequality

Israel Must Rein in Settler Movement, Protect Palestinian Children

SOUTH HEBRON HILLS, West Bank - I left my home in the United States to spend the summer in the West Bank, where I was attacked by Israeli settlers late last month. As a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, I went to the South Hebron Hills to help keep young Palestinian children safe from Israeli settlers intent on hurting Palestinians. Armed only with a video camera, it was my job to escort the children back and forth from school and summer camp.

Posted in Activism, civil rights, Human Rights, War/Empire, Inequality, Israel/Palestine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 28, 2008
3:30 PM

CONTACT: Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020;
or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Martin Luther King: 'Our Only Hope...'

WASHINGTON - August 28 - Sen. Barack Obama speaks at Invesco Field in Denver to accept the Democratic Party presidential nomination tonight, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the National March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

Here are excerpts from King's sermon "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence" at the Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated:

###

Posted in Activism, civil liberties, Politics, War/Empire, Inequality