YoungVoteTheYoungVoteTheYoungVoteTheYou

Police Brutality: Not over and still overtly racist and homophobic.

Via NowPublic:

In Feburary of this year police offers at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Memphis,TN were caught on camera beating a transgender woman by the name of Duanna Johnson. Johnson was hancuffed at the time and was severely beaten and called names while being detained by police. Duanna Johnson spoke to news stations inMemphis several times stating that the beating was a hate crime and that she had plans to sue the Memphis Police Department. It has been reported that just recently Ms. Johnson had gone forth with her plans to sue the city, but before her case could be heard she met her fate. Duanna Johnson was found dead November 9, 2008 a few blocks from her home. She was shot in the head execution style. Rumors of police affiliation with Ms. Johnson's murder are ripping through Memphis. Some believe that Ms. Johnson was sought out and killed due to her reporting of the beating and the fact that those reports cost two Memphis police officers their jobs. Ms. Johnson's lawyer, Murray Wells says that those accusations are just heresay, but the federal lawsuit against the Memphis Police Department will move forward.

This is so incredibly sickening. It is a culminated representation of the last eight years of the failure of the Bush administration to ensure GLBTQ and just anyone who doesn't conform to a gender to...well...live. I do hope their some sort of protest outside this hellhole of a jailhouse.

Protest Paterson's draconian budget and FOR THE FAIR SHARE TAX REFORM ACT

Come out today 4-6pm in front of the West Building at Hunter College, 695 Park Ave, to protest that David Paterson's ridunkulous idea of a budget that will award banking corporations and steal money from workers and students. But when they say cut back WE SAY FIGHT BACK.
link to the facebook invite here.

Student Occupy Universidad de Barcelona as police forcibly remove them

The ITS reports that yesterday, March 18th, students at the Universidad de Barcelona were violently evicted from a university building which they had occupied for 118 days.
Mo got this description of the event (Check the link for the video after the quote):

This morning the Mossos D'Esquadra (catalonian police) have entered the historical building in the University of Barcelona, the rectorate, to evict it violently. they have charged brutally against people that were peacefully concentrating in front of the building.
This morning, between 5:30 and 5:45 12 police vans have arrived, they have evicted the occupied rectorate by force and making use of violence.
Outside the building people have made a peaceful concentration, students, professors, workers in the university, media and citizens.
Police have charged brutally against all these people, turning the centre of Barcelona into a police state. It seems that there have been 17 people arrested and more than 100 people injured.
The assembly of the occupied rectorate has always had the will of dialogue and debate. The rectorate and political institutions have proved that this will is answered with repression and the most brutal physical violence. We are astonished, indignant and hurt. They hace entered by force in a space that was a place for resistance and critical thinking. the rector and politicians are the repressors that have applied to franquist politics.
Ramirez, Moreso, Palmada, Huguet, Saura: they are all to blame.
The rectors have decided to start repression.

There's a video link and, although I have no idea what anyone is saying, the video makes it clear just how brutal the police force was. I mean, SHIT, you're talking multiple officers swinging multiple clubs at individual protesters.

Vote for your favorite Teach For American project

Ralph Lauren (of all the companies in the world) is having some sort of a contest whereby a project chosen by vote from among other, somewhat comparable projects wins $25,000. By reading the summaries of each project I can tell that each is pretty revolutionary in their own right and that each have the expressed or implied goal of reclaiming power for young people from society.  I am partial to Transform America, which is being officially backed by Take Back NYU. their summary reads accordingly:

Through Transform America, Chester Asher (New York City Corps ’03) aims to empower youth to make significant change in their communities by getting them more engaged in advocacy and policy. Transform America’s approach is to create Youth Councils throughout New York City, made up of a group of middle and high school students who meet to identify issues of importance and directly affect change in their communities. Youth Councils are run out of city council members’ offices, enabling participants to witness the way political change is made. Youth Councils conduct research about issues that affect their communities and draft policy recommendations. These recommendations are made to the city council as well as to school administrations, providing a direct youth voice and allowing youth to have influence in decisions that affect their lives and communities.

Regardless of what I think, just click the link, choose what you will, and take the vote.

“Weekend Edition Saturday, NPR, According to a new Vatican study, Roman Catholic men and women sin differently. The study was based on confessions taken by Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar. The results were supported by the Catholic Church.” 

Father Jim Martin shares his thoughts about the study, explaining that for men, top sins were lust, gluttony and sloth. Women were most guilty of pride, envy and anger. He wraps it all up by saying, “This study actually makes sense, as much as we don’t want to generalize about the sexes, but, you know, I don’t want to argue with a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.”

Why is this the least surprising thing I’ve heard all month? Because, like, DUH! WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS AND MEN ARE FROM MARS! Women, at their worst are gossipy, jealous little loose cannons! Men are inherently unfaithful and (especially around super bowl season) are prone to eating a ton of BBQ wings (gluttony) and then falling asleep before mowing the lawn (sloth!). Women are (naturally) jealous that their husbands are cheating on them, so they gossip about it all day on the phone.

But seriously. The Catholic church is obsessed with the gender dichotomy and insisting men and women are naturally different.

I could go on forever about this, but I wont. REAL studies have indicated again and again that very few “differences” exist between men and women. Instead, gender roles are created differently in different cultures according to different rules and ideas and scripts, etc etc etc. Women are not born jealous. Men are not born cheaters. The next time you see a 4 week old infant wearing a blue jumpsuit with a dump truck embroidered on the chest, ask yourself, is that 4 week old particularly fond of dump trucks? It shouldn’t be too shocking to know that parents dress their babies far before the babies can express an interest in dump trucks, or other stereotypically gendered items. Parents, caregivers, teachers, media, friends, and countless other sources reinforce and punish behavior and help keep gender roles in check—sometimes it is subtle, sometimes its not.

Studies on childhood development indicate that children go through several stages of categorizing things around them to make sense of the world. Gender schemas serve to make sense of "correct" and "incorrect" behavior for males and females. Little boys shouldn’t wear dresses, little girls shouldn’t have short hair and play with action figures. These schemas can be reinforced/taught by parents (“how silly! Boys don’t wear nail polish!”). Gender schemas can also be corrected by parents/caregivers (“of course girls can play with trucks!”). Studies on gender schemas and child development are endless

Sexual Education: "Our results are better"

Cross-posted on Amplify:

Wednesday morning in the Rayburn Congressional Office Building on Capitol Hill, hundreds of abstinence-only supporters gathered to prepare for their annual lobby day. With their programs exposed as failures by independent studies, a budget crisis, and new leadership in Washington, they know that their funding is in serious jeopardy.

So, what do you do when faced with this kind of dilemma?

Rebrand!

Sitting amongst their crowd Wednesday, the talking point repeatedly drilled into the young lobbyists’ heads was that their programs aren’t just about not having sex. Oh, no… they are actually “holistic approaches” to promote “healthy lifestyle choices”.

Really? Has the social conservative fringe gone New Age on us?

No. No they haven’t. But in the face of the devastating evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs have been a failure with a $1.5 billion price tag, desperation is called for. The order of the day was to rebrand themselves, while fudging as many facts as they can.

After the morning round of Congressional meetings, The Heritage Foundation hosted a lunch with speakers, including some House members and staff. Longtime abstinence-only defender Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation spoke, giving the standard false talking points of the movement.



His most blatant falsehood is that “0%” of comprehensive sex education programs talk about abstinence. This stems from “research” done by the Administration of Children and Families under the Bush Administration in 2007. However, “research” and “science” are not exactly the strong suit of Rector or Bush, as Rector was off by roughly 100% on this one.

This study was thoroughly debunked by ETR Associates in 2007, as they found that ACF merely studied curricula by doing word counts of “abstinence” and “condom”. If they had looked a little deeper and actually “read the content” of the comprehensive sex education programs, they would have found that they are full of advise and strategies on how to delay sexual activity and choose not to have sex, stressing that this is the safest behavior. The limited use of the word “abstinence” stems from studies that have shown this word to turn off students and instead used language that produced better results. Yes, some programs actually care about “results” more than reinforcing their own social conservative ideology. And our results are better.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good smear, right?

Another falsehood he pushed was that “0%” of unintended pregnancies could have been prevented if they had access to or knowledge about contraceptives. Literally… zero. Why? Because they all wanted to have babies. One might say that he pulled this stat out of his “Rector”, so to speak.

Rector also railed against the liberal media “hiding” the facts from the public, as they will only share studies done by those non-partisan, egghead professional scientists pointing out that abstinence-only programs simply don’t work. Why? Because the media is “controlled by the promiscuity lobby”. This was a common theme among the speakers, that the liberal media and MTV are “telling you to have sex” and “think that pre-marital sex is OK… but it’s not!” The very fact that television would allow a Trojan condom ad to air that showed men who don’t wear condoms as pigs, was bemoaned - “is this what has come of our country? Is this America?” Yes, adults can actually engage in safe consensual sex… the horror.

Rector and his colleagues dismissing independent studies showing the failure of abstinence-only education is nothing new. When the damning Mathematica report was released in 2007, Rector let their true colors come out on an Abstinence Clearinghouse conference call to discuss damage control. He laid out a strategy to spin this report to the media, saying “The other spin I think is very important is not [program] effectiveness, but rather the values that are being taught”, further stating that whether or not these programs work is a “bogus issue”.

This lies at both the core of the abstinence-only movement, and their strategy as they move ahead. “Independent studies” by “non-partisan scientists” are to be ignored at all cost. Instead, they focus on the inherent “morality” of their cause, and the “deviant nature” of those who would dare give young people a comprehensive, realistic, science-based approach to sex ed. According to Rector:

“abstinence sex ed is in harmony with the human heart. Comprehensive sex ed is not in harmony with the human heart” And those comprehensive sex ed programs?
“It’s like Hugh Heffner and a school nurse got together and made a plan for your life” Former Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) elaborated, dismissing the “scientists on the Hill” and saying that “folks at places like Planned Parenthood demean you for having values!” He revealed the main force behind these programs by saying that instead of asking God to bless America, “America should bless God”. Because God hates condoms, I presume.

Several spoke about the deeply traumatic experience of being taught in high school health class how to put a banana on a condom (horrors!), and comprehensive sex education was derided sarcastically for teaching that “sexuality is a natural part of life”.

However much faith that these folks have in their superior “values”, they at least were bright enough to know that stressing the “results” of their programs was now a total loser. That’s why everyone made sure to shift their talking points away from it, repeatedly saying that their programs are not just about telling young people not to have sex. No, instead they were now “holistic”. They were really about telling kids not to smoke, drink, do drugs or fight. So what if their programs don’t decrease teen births or STI rates, at least they’re telling kids not to do heroin, right? What, you want to take away our funding and turn the kids into junkies?

The “holistic” spin is of course laughable, but that didn’t stop them from trying to frame ab-only as the truly “comprehensive” sex ed. Kisa Smith of the Heritage Foundation claimed that comprehensive sex ed “treat kids like animals” and assumes that “they can’t think for themselves”. Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA) claimed that the ab-only movement is “fighting for young people’s rights.”

This is, of course, Orwellian rhetoric. It is the abstinence-only movement that insults the intelligence of young people, claiming that they can’t have all of the information they need about safe sex, because they’ll all go have wild crazy sex if they have it. It is the abstinence-only movement that is continually trying to deny young people the right to all of the information they need to protect themselves. In reality, kids are smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time, and if you respect them enough to give all the information they need, they’ll be much better off.

Following their next round of Congressional visits, they held a concert of sorts in front of the Russell Senate Building, full of raps and Christian rock songs about abstinence (including one speaker claiming that if a girl is not a virgin, she doesn’t deserve to have a nice engagement ring). As I was enjoying the concert, National Abstinence Education Association president Valerie Huber saw me and made a bee line to me. She recognized my face and wanted to tell me that my blogs are not “fair”.

I wasn’t going to mention it, but since she’s throwing darts about “fairness”, I feel obliged to mention that this is the same Valerie Huber who was suspended from her position as a supervisor of Ohio’s Department of Health abstinence-only program after being found guilty of ethics violations. She attempted to secure a state contract for a company that she was involved in, and was caught red-handed. So I won’t take any lectures from her about “fairness”, as I consider exposing the failures of the abstinence-only movement as totally “fair” to the taxpayers that have been subsidizing programs like hers’ over the past decade.

Wednesday, the progressive blogosphere and youth sexual health advocates stepped up to the plate and answered our call to flood Congress with thousands of letters, countering the abstinence-only lobbyists. It couldn’t hurt to end their work week with some more, so if you haven’t yet, please send your Congressperson this letter asking them to, at long last, defund these ineffective and harmful abstinence-only programs. We have them scared and on the ropes, so let’s not miss out on this great opportunity.

We Love You Eric Schneiderman

Cross-posted from CUNY DisOrientation Guide, March 3rd 2009:

On Tuesday, Eric Schneiderman introduced legislation in the New York State Senate which would raise more than $6 billion in new revenue by slightly increasing taxes on the wealthiest 5% of New Yorkers (those that make over $250,000).

"Over the last 30 years, New York has reduced income tax rates on the wealthiest New Yorkers by more than 50%, and has replaced this lost revenue by implementing more regressive taxes and fees that disproportionately impact low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Currently, the richest 1% of New Yorkers pay 6.5% of their total income in state and local taxes, while the poorest 20% of New Yorkers pay 12.6% of their income."

The bill would increase and create new income tax brackets:
8.25% on incomes over $250,000.
8.97% on incomes over $500,000.
10.35 on incomes over $1 million.

Such a proposal would not only cut the state budget gap in half but take one small step towards reducing the extremely regressive income tax system that is rampant throughout the United States.

Additionally, such a tax program would mean that the proposed cuts to CUNY could be dramatically reduced.

Click here to watch a video of Eric discussing his legislation.

NYPD Fail

Last night, Tuesday March 10th at 11pm, NYPD swarmed and barricaded the entrance to NYU's Kimmel Center on Washington Square, which, last month, was the scene of the mass protest against NYU Administration's refusal to make transparent their profits and expenditures. Apparently NYU got a tip that there would be another protest or some sort of "hooligan-ry." They sent in 50 police officers and 30 police cars as a precaution. :cough:Gestapo:cough:
But SURPRISE! No one was there. Seriously though, there was no protest/hooligan-ry. lolerskates. We ought to do that every night!
Washington Square News has up to the minute coverage of Take Back NYU.

SUNY Call-Out for the March 25th Statewide Actions Against Paterson's Budget

Governor Paterson's criminal budget is scheduled for proposal on April 1st (God, I hope it's one big April Fool's Day joke).  Whilst taking away essential funding from essential health care and housing programs, Paterson also plans on raising SUNY and CUNY tuition and using the money generated to backfill the NY state deficit caused by Wall Street. Please check in to find out the DL on when and where protests will be happening this month, and they WILL be happening this month.
That said, SUNY students are mobilizing. They've created a wiki that shall serve as a forum for social justice movements.
Here's a greeting from the wiki and a SUNY call to action:

Hello all!

Welcome to the SUNY Social Justice Network. Thank you all for making the first SUNY Social Justice Conference in November the success that it was. First off, we'd like to apologize for being out of touch for so long! The conference was to be a starting point from which we would continue to build upon the collective momentum achieved over those three days, and the events of the past months have demonstrated how incredibly important that remains.

Since the conference, The New School, Hampshire College, the University of Rochester, and NYU have all staged student occupations of campus space, demanding accountability and transparency from their institutions and waging powerful divestment campaigns. Students in New York are refusing to be silent, and we are finding more power and more voice each day in the face of compliant administrations and complicit government actors. These uprisings in New York come alongside international grassroots movements, from the riots in Greece and throughout EuropeUniversity of Edinburgh students who have occupied campus space in solidarity with Palestine, the first Zapatista festival of dignified rage in Mexico, the people who have taken to the streets worldwide to protest the horrors in Gaza, and so many others. And although global capitalism has long been a crisis for most of the world, its inherently unsustainable
 nature is becoming clearer each day to those who are realizing they have the power to fight it.

This network can serve as a way to bring together the huge amount of energy, power, and inspiration present in New York right now. We believe that this can be achieved through the new format of sunysocialjustice.org, a wiki page that we claim as an autonomous internet space where we can share and coordinate our projects, events, news, ideas, actions, inspirations, thoughts, words, media, resources, etc! Although of course not limited to SUNY or CUNY students, "public" higher education in New York is clearly under attack and needs to be confronted through a coalition of these state schools. On the wiki site, CUNY and SUNY students can find their college or university and update their pages with current projects, news, calls to action, etc.

The Binghamton University link on the wiki site may give folks an idea of what sorts of possible content to include. This wiki site is open to everyone, and anyone can update it at any time (please see the how-to section at the bottom of the page if you are unfamiliar with the site). If your school is not listed, please still post news, updates, etc. regarding the student struggle! There is an "allies" section on the site, and anyone can add any categories they see fit. CUNY students: we SUNY students want to engage in dialogue about your social forum and current strategies! Students who have organized successful occupations or aspire to keep this movement alive: please share your stories and inspiration! In the same vein of the student occupations, this is OUR space to collectively create another educational model.

Although we hope that people will be inspired to utilize the wiki page, information can also be spread using the SUNY Social Justice Network Google Group. Please add your e-mail to the group, at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network.

Let's keep each other updated on our movement! Through these mediums, it is our hope that students throughout the state will be able to communicate and coordinate more effectively to build real social change.


MARCH 25th: Student Strike Against the Budget & Tuition Hikes!

On March 25th, a week before Paterson’s budget will be finalized, the SUNY Social Justice Network is calling for a STATEWIDE STUDENT STRIKE against Governor Paterson’s budget plan, which puts an unfair burden on students and working people to close the state deficit. Governor Paterson’s plan reflects a cycle of appropriating wealth from those who can least afford it to pay for the mistakes of Wall Street. Why should we cut education and health-care to send more wealth up the chain? Paterson’s budget will only be defeated by sustained grassroots action, in which SUNY and CUNY students must play a vital role. Coordinated statewide actions will send a clear message to those in power that the solution should not come at the expense of public education, health-care and vital social services. On March 25th, ditch your desks, skip class and organize actions on your campus!

On March 25th, we need to turn out in numbers on our campuses to demand:

-- Full funding for health care
-- Affordable public education
-- A Fair Share Tax where the richest New Yorkers pay an appropriate tax rate
-- No tuition increases for SUNY & CUNY

To get involved with the coordination of this statewide day of action, join the google group at http://groups.google.com/group/suny-social-justice-network and check back often at www.sunysocialjustice.org

In solidarity,
The SUNY Social Justice Network at Binghamton University

More information on the tuition hikes:

While SUNY students are being asked to pay more for their education, Governor Paterson is proposing massive budget cuts to education and health care in order to decrease the state deficit. Rather than increasing the tax rates of the 3.2% of the wealthiest New Yorkers (who currently pay the same rate as everyone else), SUNY tuition has been increased by $620 (in-state) and $2,260 (out of state) for the 2009-2010 academic year. Tuition is set to continue increasing each year until 2013, when the plan will be re-evaluated. Under the Fair Share Tax Reform Act which has been introduced in the New York State Senate (fairsharereform.com), slight increases in tax rates for the very rich (those making $250,000+/year) could "generate 6 billion dollars of revenue for the state". Tax the rich, not our education!

For more, visit www.fightthecuts.org
against police repression and neoliberalism, the -Emily

WHAT IS BROOKLYN COLLEGE DOING TO ADDRESS THE ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICALCRISES?

A conversation on

WORKER COOPS,

GREEN JOBS, and

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,

WITH PROFESSORS SARU JAYARAMAN (POLSCI) AND MICHAEL MENSER (PHILOSOPHY)

  March 10th, 2009
12:15-2pm
Room 4145 BOYLAN HALL

Sponsored by Students for Global Justice and the Philosophy Society

Saru Jayaraman is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 1992 she founded Women and Youth Supporting Each Other (W.Y.S.E.), a national women of color leadership organization. At the Workplace Project, she created The Alliance for Justice, to organize Latina/o custodial, factory, and restaurant workers for workplace justice. Most recently, with displaced workers the World Trade Center, she founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York (ROC-NY), which has organized restaurant workers to win campaigns against high-profile exploitative restaurants, launch a cooperative restaurant, COLORS, and initiate the country’s first national restaurant workers’ association. As a Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, Ms. Jayaraman published The New Urban Immigrant Workforce in 2005.

 

Dr. Michael Menser is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College and is a member of the Executive Board of Environmental Studies at BC, the Center for the Study of Place, Culture, and Politics at the CUNY Grad Center, and the US Solidarity Economy Network.  His research is on participatory democracy and environmentalism and has been active in the World Social Forum movements.  He received his Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2002. More at: http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/philo/Menser.htm