Social Justice Blog

As expected, Roger & Me‘s Michael Moore has a thing or two to say about Obama’s firing of GM’s head honcho, including this gut reaction: “Did Obama really fire the chairman of General Motors? The wealthiest and most powerful corporation of the 20th century? Can he do that? Really? Well, damn! What else can he […]

USCRI has launched a “Stand with a Refugee” campaign to raise awareness about the 17 million refugees who have fled war and persecution around the world. Their team tells us that “As the Obama Administration plans to implement a new foreign policy, we are trying to build a coalition of informed people who care about […]

Our friends over at Echoing Green, the organization devoted to scouting and funding new talent in the social entrepreneurship realm, have launched a cool, new t-shirt design contest, using Crowdspring as their platform.The winning t-shirt will be sold on Echoing Green’s website, and the money will go toward supporting their “core programmatic model of identifying […]

Everyone is talking about the SXSW Festival, coming up next week in Austin. It is, after all, the place Twitter launched two years ago, and a Mecca for the digerati.So how do social justice and SXSW intersect? Here’s a look:Plutopia 2009: Co-founded by Worldchanging and The Futures Lab, Plutopia uses music, art and performance to […]

From afterdowningstreet.org: “A huge and spirited rally demanding ‘Climate Justice,’ was held in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2009. This video reflects some of the crowd scenes from that event; interviews with activists Anne Havemann of Chesapeake Climate Action; and Kate Lally of Baltimore’s Rising Tide; and a speech from Washington, D.C. Council Member, the […]

While I was watching President Obama speak last night, I was struck by the thought that his speech was likely being broadcast on UStream, Twittered about, clips posted to Facebook and the like.This morning, I came across a great post from the PopTech blog about the use of social media tools by citizen journalists to […]

This is the kind of corporate social responsibility that’s great to see — technology answering a pressing social need. Vodafone has teamed up with the United Nations and the Rockerfeller Foundation’s mHealth Alliance to connect the use of mobile phones to healthcare in the developing world.mHealth Alliance uses the technology to provide virtual doctors to […]

“Of the 14,400 candidates, 4,000 of them were women. Originally the Iraqi Constitution, responding to the demand of women, called for a 25 percent quota for women. Without explanation, the Electoral Commission interpreted the law to mean that this percentage is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, women stepped forward. Their courage is awe-inspiring.”-Madeleine Kunin-Kunin, the former governor […]

On the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Wall Street Journal profiles five Iranians and their disparate views on the upcoming presidential election in their country.All under 36 (more than 70 percent of Iran’s 70 million people are), each faces a crossroads. To quote the article, “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hard-line regime has put pressure […]

Over at In These Times, Christopher Weber explores the development of green jobs and asks such questions as: “Will these jobs be as plentiful–and as worker-friendly–as the new administration and environmentalists would have us believe? And can green businesses really create opportunities for workers given the current economic crisis?”Good news for Christopher and others in […]

If you haven’t already succumbed to the addictive micro-blogging site, Twitter, like I have, nor dismissed it as a time and energy wasting medium, you’ll be pleased, as I was, to see its founders endorsing it as a platform with democratic aims.Founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams recently cited the “tweets” that first reported the […]

Now that Tom Daschle and his funny red glasses have been jettisoned from consideration for the Obama administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services position, a logical replacement seems to be the passionate former Vermont governor (and physician) Howard Dean. In fact, the Facebook group “Appoint Howard Dean to HHS” has, as of this writing, […]

Should the Obama administration prosecute the Bush administration for violating up to 269 national and international laws (you know little things like torture, wiretapping and “extraordinary rendition”)? Amy Goodman’s new article in the San Francisco Chronicle investigates the possibilities and wonders whether Obama’s claims of an “open government” will usher in an era of accountability […]

Now that Barack Obama has been sworn in and the transition away from George W. Bush’s rule is complete, whitehouse.gov also got a makeover. You can read the new administration’s agenda, check out his briefing room (which includes a blog, news on appoinments and exective orders), and of course learn about the history of the […]

Something I do every MLK Day is read Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” Below is an excerpt. To read the entire letter, please click here.Also note that today at 12PM, CNN will air the “I Have a Dream” speech in its 17-minute entirety. Not to be missed.“Human progress never rolls in on wheels […]