Social Justice in the Cities: Freedom

Social Justice in the Cities: Freedom: Freedom, it’s an idea that many are fighting for in Egypt and the Middle East . It’s an idea and practice that most Americans take for gran...

Freedom

Freedom, it’s an idea that many are fighting for in Egypt and the Middle East. It’s an idea and practice that most Americans take for granted. After all, we declared our freedom from the tyranny of the English king way back in 1776. Later in 1787 Americans created their own set of laws which “guaranteed” those freedoms. But Freedom isn’t free, and it isn’t always equal. When the Constitution of the United States of America was originally drafted the only people for whom freedom was guaranteed were white men. Women and African American (then called Negroes) were considered property.

From 1878 to 1920 Women fought for equal rights under the law for themselves. Women didn’t have the right to vote, get a divorce, serve on a jury, receive equal pay for work, or work at any job they wanted. Women were considered at best second class citizens with few or no rights. The primary goal of the National Woman Suffrage Association and its leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton was to achieve voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution. It began a dialogue that continues to this day about women’s rights. Later, Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others form the American Woman Suffrage Association. This group focuses exclusively on gaining voting rights for women through amendments to individual state constitutions. Eventually, in 1920 42 years after the National Woman Suffrage Association and its leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton brought attention to women’s rights did the United States finally pass the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. The same year the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women.

Japanese Americans had their freedoms taken away by their own government after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On February 19, 1942, FDR signed executive order 9066 to “relocate” Japanese Americans into Internment Camps for their own “safety.” There they stayed until 1946 when the last camp closed. Many young Japanese American boys became soldiers and fought for a country which imprisoned their families. For many, the last time they saw their families was from the other side of a barbed wire fence.

For African Americans the struggle for freedom took even longer. It began on January 1, 1863 when President Lincoln signed The Emancipation proclamation stating that African Americans were no longer slaves.  However, they still did not enjoy the same freedoms as the whites. They couldn’t vote, own property, sit and enjoy a meal and sit anywhere they liked, get an education anywhere except a “negro school” and the list goes on. In 1964 The Civil Rights Act was passed into law granting freedoms to all Americans regardless or race, creed, color or gender.

American which is held up as the example of Freedom took a long time and a lot of blood shed even with non-violent protests to grant freedoms to all it citizens. We’re still not done now LGT groups fight for freedoms we take for granted. Only recently were they granted the right to serve openly in the military. They still don’t have the freedom to legally marry who they love. A hetero sexual person enjoys the freedom to get married to one person, have their marriage annulled or get a divorce and remarry another person, as many times as they like as long as it’s not more than one person at a time.  A homosexual/transgender person can’t get legally married even once. We still have a ways to go before we grant all individuals the right to the freedom of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We still have the freedom to fight for these causes without fear for our lives from the military. I wonder will the Middle East take after America and grant its people their freedom or will America take after the Middle East and deny more freedoms to more of its people?

 Read more: Women's Rights Movement in the U.S.: Timeline of Events (1848-1920) — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womenstimeline1.html#ixzz1fsjPRwkp

VOTE

VOTE

By Barbara Burgess

We Vote for facebook pages

We vote for TV shows

We vote for movies

We vote for actors and actresses

We vote for just about anything.

Election Day comes and we . . .

Do everything but VOTE.

Laura's thoughts on Labor Day

I was musing today, Labor Day that in 1974 I was among 4,000 nurses that went on strike for 3 weeks in northern california against Kaiser and other bay area hospitals. We went on strike for patient care issues among them, to require that ICU"s and CCU require that nurses have certification to work in intensive care units including CPR Certificates and ability to read EKG monitor .
Today,  there is discussion regarding how bad unions are , and why we need public employee unions, service worker unions, police and fire unions and teacher unions.
I pose this question to the public: do you want to go back to l969 when I cared for 48 patients at a Veterans Hospital on night shift ? I was the only nurse, I was not CPR certified and I did not know how to read an EKG for my 48 cardiac patients. I did know how to use the defibrillator paddles in case a patient coded and I used them more than once on night shift.

Uber Rich Get Tax Breaks while The Working Class Get Taxed up the arse

“ The possession of power inevitably spoils the free use of reason. ”
— Immanuel Kant
Congress and the President seem to have spoiled their free use of reason. The latest example of this is their unwillingness to tax the uber-rich. They're afraid the uber-rich will stop investing. According to a Warren Buffett Article in the New York Times I read, he and his super rich friends fully expect to be taxed and are tired of Congress coddling them. But I leave that for you to read on your own except to say thank you to Warren Buffett for "coming out of the closet" so to speak on taxing the super rich. Let's blow the lid though on who some of these "super rich are." I'm not talking about the investment bankers Warren Buffett refers to, I'm talking about "celebrities" or "reality stars."  Kim Kardasian just made 12.9 MILLION DOLLARS for her wedding. Not spent mind you, made.  Her manager/mom sold exclusive broadcasting rights to the network where she and her family have their own reality shows (yes shows plural) and the photo rights to a magazine. That's not including the crap she got from her "friends" for wedding presents on a list that totalled more than $2million in merchandise. Meanwhile, she makes $40,000 an episode for her part on the reality show. This is more than the  yearly salary of a beginning teacher! As one comedian on Chelsea Lately said "She made more in a single day then I'll ever make in my lifetime." That's true for most of us. According to a Forbes Magaize Article on Highest Paid celebrity couples Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z made $72 million over the past year. Brangelina's annual income was $50 million this past year. If Warren Buffett's estimate of the percentage he paid in income tax is true of these celebrities and others like them then they pay less than 18% in income taxes. Sadly we contribute to that income based on buying magazines with their likeness, googling them, watching entertainment programs, buying tabloids and "reputable" magazines with their likeness, going to see their movies, watching their reality shows. Is it any wonder our society knows more about Lady Gaga than who their Congressional leaders are? My advice, tell your favorite celebrities to encourage Congress to tax them more and their fans less. Then find out who you're congressional leaders are, and since you probably know the town in which at least one celebrity has a home find out who their congressional leaders are and e-mail, write, call, fax communicate with our leaders that you're "fightin' mad" and to start texting these uber rich and leave the rest of us alone!

Politics and Being Good Shepherds

Ezekiel 34:10. 0 shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the

sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable

for my flock.  We elected the President and members of Congress with the idea they would be good shepherds for “We the People." Somewhere between being elected and being in office, Congress and the President seem to have lost touch with being good shepherds.

Not a surprise after all, as Luke 16:2,10,13 states: “And he called him and said to him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward. He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous in much. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Our shepherds in Congress and the White House have not been good stewards recently. Shepherding "we the people" has been mired by partisan politics and worries about the upcoming 2012 elections. Then again how can Congress or the President truly be one of “We the People” when the Congressional starting salary in 2007 was $97,500 and they get their own health care for free for the rest of their lives? Is it any wonder they don't want to raise taxes on those who make over $100,000 a year? Then you add for the president, you're own mansion, bodyguards for life, armored limousine, private 747, your own helicopter, all paid for by the tax payers.  Singer/Songwriter John Stewart once wrote "It's time to tell the children that it's not about the rings that we put upon the fingers of the man who would be king." What if President Obama and the members of Congress had to live as one of “we the people:”

·       What if they had to live on $1000 a month in Social Security?

·       What if when they do not do their jobs (i.e. pass a balanced budget, decrease costs, increase taxes on the wealthy) they're fired without benefits and have to file for unemployment.

·        What if their employer cut out their healthcare benefits and instead they had to pay for individual plans at almost $300 a month if they can get it with their pre-existing medical conditions. When 55 is the average age of Congress.

·       What if they were teachers in a classroom trying to create lesson plans that comply with district, state and federal No Child Left Behind while dealing with the school having no money for any supplies?

LBJ and FDR tried to be good stewards for the country during the course of 2 very difficult wars. They put the country’s interests ahead of their own interests. Perhaps President Obama and the Congress could take a few lessons on being good shepherds from FDR & LBJ and three former presidents and a former White House staffer.

As Former President Gerald Ford said “I was in the House of Representative for 25 ½ years and I disagreed with the occupant of the White House whether he was Democrat or Republican. I used to say ‘How can he be so autocratic, so dictatorial why doesn’t he understand that the Congress is doing the right thing. Well, when I moved from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other end and occupied the oval office my perspective changed significantly and then I would look down at the congress and say ‘what are those people doing over there? How can they be so irresponsible?’ ”

As former President Jimmy Carter said “The fear of failure by the President or his staff is one of the deterring factors in making courageous decisions and if you take a chance and fail there’s no doubt it’s a deleterious effect on your popularity but if you take and chance and succeed it’s very good. It’s always a danger you have to take. One of the things that any top leader needs is to have people whom you trust that will actually tell you the brutal truth even if it’s contrary to what your desires and beliefs may be.”  So it seems they are faced with the preverbal double edged sword. In other words Mr. President and Congress “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” You cannot serve your own self interests and partisan politics and still serve “We the people” who elected you.

David Gergen White House Advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton provides us with a great definition of being a good shepherd for the country. Gergen gives the example of Harry Truman’s decision to desegregate the military in 1948 against counsel from his advisors “He was a model of saying ‘let’s put the country first and we’ll worry about the election later.”

Author's note: for more information on Congressional benefits go to: http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30631.pdf