METRO EVENT | Beverly Baker Moore says ‘party like it’s 1969’ at Thorne’s 69th Birthday Bash, Aug. 1, at Maria’s in Austin.
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
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The Central American refugees are 21st century descendants of imperialism
The popular narratives about the horrific migration ignore the history of U.S.-inspired violence in the region and the economic devastation caused by neoliberal economic policies.
A Guatemalan family crossing the border from Mexico. Photo by Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images.
A military coup in Honduras
On Sunday, June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup, ousting duly elected President Manuel Zelaya from power. Almost immediately leaders of Western Hemisphere nations condemned the actions taken in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. For example, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) asserted that the days of military coups as a mechanism of the transfer of power were over in Latin America.
President Obama said on the following day that “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections…. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don’t want to go back to a dark past.”
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METRO | Melanie Scruggs : Charges of ‘environmental racism’ in Houston
Houston’s Office of Sustainability is squirming over accusations raised by a recent article in ‘Grist’ and by local environmentalists.
Demonstrators from Zero Waste Houston at Houston City Hall.
HOUSTON — Brentin Mock’s recent article for Grist covering the controversy around the City of Houston’s “One Bin for All” proposal, which calls for replacing curbside recycling with unproven and threatening waste technologies, has City officials squirming. The headline alone cuts straight to the core of the issue: “Houston’s one-bin-to-rule-them-all recycling plan smells a little like racism.”
I gave some background on the proposal in a Rag Blog Metro article and our coalition Zero Waste Houston has issued a report on it. On July 10, the City accepted five bids from companies that would receive tax incentives to build the new waste facility that environmentalists and environmental justice advocates say threaten the environment and people of color.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog
Tagged City of Houston, Environmental Activists, Houston, Melanie Scruggs, Metro, One Bin for All, Rag Bloggers, Recycling, Waste Disposal, Zero Waste
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PODCAST | Best-selling author Jeff Sharlet and his father, political scientist Robert Sharlet
Jeff Sharlet, Molly Prize-winning journalist and author of ‘The Family,’ and scholar/author Bob Sharlet, join Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio.
Best-selling author and journalist Jeff Sharlet.
Award-winning journalist Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, and his father, political scientist and author Robert Sharlet, are featured on our Rag Radio podcast (see player below). It’s the first time the two have been interviewed together.
Robert Sharlet and Jeff Sharlet are collaborating on a memoir of Robert’s late brother, also named Jeff Sharlet, a Vietnam veteran who was a leader of the GI resistance against the war. Sharlet died in 1969 of kidney cancer thought to have been caused by exposure to Agent Purple while he was in Vietnam.
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Israel bombs Gaza civilians. Again.
In 2008-2009, Israel virtually crushed the tiny territory and its 1.7 million inhabitants, killing 1,400 Palestinians, while losing only 10 Israeli soldiers.
Israeli border officer fires a tear-gas canister at Palestinians protesting an Israeli missile strike on Gaza in 2008. Photo by Muhammed Muheisen / AP.
Once again, Israel has found a pretext to viciously bomb Gaza. The UN wants the bombing to end, deploring that 80% of the 200 Palestinians who have been killed so far have been civilian women, children, and men.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing settler government, claims Israel acted in “self-defense” after three Israeli young men were allegdedly murdered by Hamas, the elected government in Gaza. He then declared Hamas launched an unprovoked rocket barrage. Israel therefore had no choice.
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Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Gaza, Israel-Gaza Conflict, Israeli Occupation, Jack A. Smith, Middle East, Palestine, Rag Bloggers
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VERSE | Beyond Borders
Image from Jornada del Día Mundial del Agua 2010.
On the edge of memory
The slogan echoes
“El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam”
U.S. weapons for
Right-wing death squads
Yield peasant massacres
And refugees
In recent memory
President Zelaya of Honduras
Kidnapped and removed from office
The State Department
Careful not to say “coup”
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Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Alice Embree, Central America, Detroit, Immigration Crisis, Poetry, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Foreign Policy, Verse, Water Privatization
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How U.S. policies helped create the current immigration crisis
Six reasons why U.S. trade and immigration policies — not ‘lax immigration enforcement’ — have caused migration from Central America.
Young people from immigrant youth groups protest outside the Oakland Federal Building against the detention and deportation of young migrants and families on the U.S. border, and especially against President Obama’s decision to increase border enforcement and deport them more quickly. Photos by David Bacon.
David Bacon will be Thorne Dreyer‘s guest on Rag Radio Friday, July 18, 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live here. They will discuss the border immigration crisis and its causes, especially the role played by U.S. policies. For more about Rag Radio, including additional outlets and times, and links to earlier podcasts, go here.
The mass migration of children from Central America has been at the center of a political firestorm over the past few weeks. The mainstream media has run dozens of stories blaming families, especially mothers, for sending or bringing their children north from Central America.
The president himself lectured them, as though they were simply bad parents. “Do not send your children to the borders,” Obama said last week. “If they do make it, they’ll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it.”
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Posted in RagBlog
Tagged Border Crisis, Border Security, CAFTA, Central America, David Bacon, Immigration, Mexican Border, NAFTA, Rag Bloggers, Trade Policies
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METRO | Beverly Baker Moore : Old and in the way in Austin
This article is a casual investigation of available cheap digs for seniors in Austin.
Lyons Gardens Senior Housing in Austin. Photos by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.
AUSTIN — As the saying goes, getting old ain’t for sissies, especially in a delusion-ridden society that pretends aging doesn’t even happen. We all want to use our senior years for spending time with people we like and doing stuff we want, not worrying about how to pay for food and shelter. Unfortunately, political and economic realities force many of us into doing just that.
It is reported that the Austin area’s senior population (about 34,000 at present) is the third fastest growing one in the country. Austin is also reported to have the largest “pre-senior” population (55-64 years) in the country, so this so-called “silver tsunami” hasn’t crested.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog
Tagged Affordable Housing, Austin Community, Austin Growth, Beverly Baker Moore, Metro, Rag Bloggers, Senior Citizens, Senior Services
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The age of compromises and the compromises
of age
Chastened by her exhausting persecution as First Lady, HRC apparently decided as a member of Congress to go along to get along.
Recent Yale law grad Hillary Clinton testifies in 1974 as a member of the impeachment inquiry staff during the Watergate Scandal.
Once upon a time, Hillary Rodham, the 1969 Wellesley valedictorian, studied the organizing tactics of Saul Alinsky and backed Eugene McCarthy’s presidential run. At commencement, she spoke of a conservative strain in New Left protests that harked back to old values and ideals, and she dared to challenge the United States senator who preceded her on the podium.
Were she still among us, that passionate young woman would surely oppose the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) for the U.S. presidency.
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Posted in RagBlog
Tagged 2016 Elections, Electoral politics, Hillary Clinton, James McEnteer, Political Compromise, Pragmatism, Rag Bloggers
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METRO | Beverly Baker Moore with hints on finding affordable digs: ‘Old and in the way in Austin.’
Posted in RagBlurb
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Black oak down
I never imagined that I could outlive this hundreds-of-years-old grandfather oak. It felt like the loss of a family member from another generation.
A loud, crashing sound startles my young farmhand Emily Danler awake in the dark of the night. She camps out in order to start picking berries at sunup. My dog, inside, barks. After a physically demanding day farming, I sleep through it all.
Looking down the boysenberry field to the bottom of Kokopelli Farm the next morning, tears come to my eyes. The tall, old black oak had split right down the middle of its deep, wide trunk. I would never again see its crimson leaves announcing the beginning of Spring.
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METRO EVENT | Alice Embree : Defending Palestinian rights
Interfaith group protests Israel’s ongoing ‘reign of terror’ in the West Bank and Gaza and the murder of Palestinian civilians.
Image from Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights.
Event: Protest against Israeli Reign of Terror in Gaza
Place: Texas State Capitol
Address: 11th St. and Congress Ave.
When: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
Place: Texas State Capitol
Address: 11th St. and Congress Ave.
When: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.
AUSTIN — The Austin Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights (ICPR) has called for a demonstration to demand an end to “Israel’s ongoing reign of terror in Gaza and the West Bank” and the murder of Palestinian civilians.
The demonstration, which will take place Wednesday, July 9, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., is part of a worldwide protest marking the 10-year anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s Separation Wall, located within the West Bank and in and around Jerusalem, violates international law.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog
Tagged Alice Embree, Metro, Palestinian Rights, Public Protest, Rag Bloggers
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