Social Justice Blog

“There sure is a lot to protest these days: college costs too much, the dollar buys too little, we’re stuck in two wars we can’t seem to win, and the Baby Boomer Generation is also leaving it to younger generations to figure out how to fix our energy policy, Social Security, and America’s image problem [...]

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, state representatives and concerned citizens gathered last Friday to celebrate the Vermont launch of Project Porchlight, an energy-saving initiative that started in Canada a few years ago. So far, Canadian volunteers have delivered more than 1.15 million free CFLs in their neighborhoods, saving more than $40 million in energy costs and [...]

“It’s difficult to imagine the courage it takes to go against a huge corporation. Worse, an oil giant like Chevron. But Pablo Fajardo Mendoza and Luis Yanza are not afraid: They are convinced Ecuador and its people deserve a clean Amazon, and their conviction has led them to the final stages of what could be [...]

Design 21, an organization that sponsors design competitions for social good, is hosting a cool contest — designing a campaign for Millennium Promise. They are asking people to design a new media campaign that makes people aware of the Millennium Development Goals, which, when fulfilled by a set date of 2015 will help end poverty [...]

For the nearly 50,000 refugees that came to the United States in 2007 (and the thousands that came before that), making it here is only the beginning of a long, hard, journey. The Association of Africans Living in Vermont is helping its 1,500-plus members make it here in the long run with innovative programming.The challenge [...]

Echoing Green is a neat organization that “invests in and supports outstanding emerging social entrepreneurs to launch new organizations that deliver bold, high-impact solutions.” They offer a two-year fellowship program to help a group of “visionaries develop new solutions to society’s most difficult problems.”This year’s slate of finalists promise some great problem-solving and good to [...]

Upon the fortieth anniversary of the May ’68 student protests in the streets of Paris, Patrice de Beer, former London and Washington correspondent for Le Monde, explores France’s politics of memory and finds the French caught between remembrance and forgetting. An interesting point with particular resonance: “Julie Coudry, the (possibly departing) president of the Confederation [...]

It’s Earth Day’s 38th birthday…so get out there and celebrate, or at least consider doing one thing to benefit the environment on April 22. Here’s Identity Theory’s Top Ten things to do on Earth Day:1. Shake Some Action. Find out what you can do in your own city, town or neighborhood. Visit Earth Day Network, [...]

“For years now, I’ve grimaced when I see polls showing the persistent downward slope of public trust in the American news media. This Wednesday night, I could hardly blame that public.”-Jerry Lanson, Professor of Journalism-Emerson College professor Jerry Lanson reacts to Wednesday night’s presidential debate in “A Pathetic Round of ‘Gotcha’ Questioning,” and wonders:“Someone might [...]

“Imagine if every week a televised roll call memorialized Iraq’s civilian casualties with individual portraits. If this were possible, we would witness, in full, the staggering human costs of Iraq’s occupation on a personal level. The politics of history dictate who is remembered and who is not, and most countries prefer to honor only their [...]

Find out what the Dalai Lama and Tibet’s Prime Minister in exile have to say about this year’s Summer Olympics in China. Read the New York Times article “Dalai Lama Show Support for Games” and Good Magazine’s “Remember Tibet?”.

“On April 1, in a wave of defiance, truck drivers began taking the strongest form of action they can take: inaction. Faced with $4-per-gallon diesel fuel, they slowed down, shut down and started honking. On the New Jersey Turnpike, a convoy of trucks stretching ‘as far as the eye can see,’ according to a turnpike [...]

Check out SuperFund365.org, a web site with daily updates about places where Americans live at risk to exposure to dangerous toxins, sites that Superfund, a “federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency, was created to clean-up. The [...]

Listen in to Democracy Now! for a special one-hour feature on Dr. King’s life and legacy, forty years after his assassination. The segment features Rev. Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Dr. Vincent Harding (who wrote King’s major antiwar speech, “Beyond Vietnam”), Taylor Rogers, Charles Cabbage, Jerry Williams, Judge D’Army Bailey — all friends, colleagues, and activists [...]

Zinn’s latest book, A People’s History of American Empire, hit on April 1. According to TomDispatch.com, “It’s a gem and…represents a surprise breakthrough into cartoon format. It’s a rollicking graphic history, illustrated by cartoonist Mike Konopacki, that takes us from the Indian Wars to the Iraqi “frontier” (with some striking autobiographical asides from Zinn’s own [...]

In college, I was fortunate to take a class with one of the foremost experts on public policy, Theodore Lowi. What I remember most about Lowi, and the class, is a chapter from his book, The End of Liberalism, that focused on redistricting, rebuilding and rezoning in American cities, namely Chicago, and the adverse affect [...]

“There are lots of ways to rig an election, and it sure helps to be the incumbent if you’re planning on doing so,” writes Ethan Zuckerman over at WorldChanging.net. He’s talking about the elections in Zimbabwe, slated for March 29. In 2005, the country’s parliamentary elections were largely derided for serious human rights abuses (check [...]

John McCain debates himself on Iraq. George W. approves.

Above is the full video of Rev. Wright’s speech in which he shouts “God Damn America” after listing violent racial injustices. His thesis is that God is constant and governments change and that often times the American government has gotten it wrong (segregation, slavery, internment camps, etc.). And there’s the “America’s chickens are coming home [...]

Currently 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water. World Water Day 2008 – this March 22 – is a time to take action and help solve this problem. Please visit WorldWaterDay.org and WorldWaterDay.net to find out how to get involved in one of the marches in NYC, LA and Seattle (you can also join [...]

Please elect this man.

The images captured in the New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau blog speak for themselves.

Today, Senator Barack Obama delivered a major speech on race relations, tackling what many deem “the biggest test of his presidential campaign and political career.” Obama renewed his call for generational change and national unity this morning and addressed race relations at length. The speech also addressed Reverend Wright’s sermons about America following 9/11. An [...]

Gunfire and violence are filling the streets of Tibet this morning, following on the heels of protests that started on Monday. Many reports are labeling the protests as the most serious challenges to Chinese government authority in nearly two decades. What’s happening and why? “It was evident to most observers – including the State Department [...]

Melissa Farley, author of Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections, and Victor Malarek, author of The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade, have a great Op-Ed piece published in the New York Times today in regards to Eliot Spitzer’s involvement with a prostitution ring. They ask:“What do we know about the woman [...]

Amidst the news of the continuing battle for the Democratic nomination, and the shocking end to Eliot Spitzer’s political career, President Bush vetoed an intelligence authorization bill which would have prevented the CIA and other US agents from using waterboarding, sexual humiliation, dogs and other techniques that amount to torture and ill-treatment. Click here for [...]

We’ve been spending a lot of time at ObamaIsWinning, a fun, informative site about Obama’s campaign that features a nice collection of often-hilarious videos and a blog:http://obamaiswinning.com/

Just voted here in Vermont! Today, a total of 370 pledged delegates are at stake in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont. To find out more about what’s going on around the country today, check out some of these links:Read about the races in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.Listen to what people [...]

Over at The Daily Kos, a discussion of the FISA debacle:Are you comfortable with allowing unlimited, warrantless electronic surveillance and datamining of the communications of all Americans and indeed the entire world on the say-so of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and/or David Addington, with no possibility that they will ever agree to answer any [...]

Here’s a fun mashup of Hillary Clinton’s hypocritical “Shame on You” blowup:And, it turns out Dick Cheney knows how to press “delete”: When Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald wanted to find out what was going on inside Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the prosecutor in the CIA leak probe made a logical move. He dropped a [...]