Posts tagged with 'white house'
Weekly Mulch: What’s Missing from the New Clean Energy Agenda?
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Nuclear power, biofuels, clean coal: These are the Obama administration’s answers to climate change. The 2011 budget, released this week, promised new loans for the construction of nuclear power plants, and on Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), White House, and other departments detailed steps to encourage ethanol and clean coal production.
These initiatives may garner support from conservatives, but their ascendancy comes at a price. Support for renewable fuel sources, like wind and solar, has dwindled. President Barack Obama did encourage Senate Democrats to pass a climate change bill, but some moderates are bucking the cap-and-trade provisions that could tamp down carbon emissions. Those moderates are pushing for legislation that leaves carbon caps out entirely. (more…)
Weekly Mulch: Can the Green Agenda Progress Without Van Jones?
By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger
Green jobs czar and racial justice advocate Van Jones resigned from his position as environmental adviser to the White House over Labor Day weekend. Many believe that Jones’ departure is a significant setback in environmental policy, racial equity, and another reminder that pundits can destroy credibility with very little ammunition in today’s political climate. Fox News host Glenn Beck and several Republican Congressmen criticized Jones for “controversial” past activism and called for him to step down. Jones was particularly smeared for signing a petition that requested more information on the 9/11 attacks and a derogatory comment toward Republicans, both of which he apologized for publicly.
Jones’ commitment to a sustainable environment and a green economy was especially influential on progressive youth. Kristina Rizga of Wiretap explains that Jones’ vision really resonated with young people from marginalized communities and encouraged them to get involved. Additionally, Jones played a key role in ensuring that underprivileged Americans reaped the benefits of clean energy investments and green jobs training initiatives in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“Jones—the first African-American to write a best-selling environmental book—helped inspire these hard-to-reach communities. It’s hard to think of another individual on the Hill who spent as much time talking and listening to disenfranchised youth,” Rizga writes.
But would Jones still have his job if the Obama administration had stood up for him? In a strong piece for The Nation, John Nichols argues that Obama succumbed to the media, and “in so doing, allowed Glenn Beck to define the administration.” Jones signified that Obama was dedicated to green jobs and protecting the environment. Without Jones, however, those objectives may never be realized.
“This won’t make the Obama presidency stronger; nor will it position the president to work more effectively with Congress on issues such as health care reform – let alone “green jobs” initiatives,” says Nichols.
Air America’s Beau Friedlander calls Jones’ resignation an example of “mutually assured distraction;” another attempt for partisans to take down their opponents’ point man over a non-issue. This infantile and baseless behavior shifts lawmakers attention away from important issues at hand, such as the climate change bill, economic recovery and health care reform. Friedlander characterizes Van Jones as someone who is “100% committed to creating the conditions for an improvement in society. He is dedicated to progress, and solution-oriented activism. He is a team player. He knows how to follow the leader, and how to be the leader.”
While many see his departure as a deep loss, Don Hazen of AlterNet has “5 Reasons Why Van Jones and Progressives are Better Off with Jones Out of the White House.” First, Jones was an unsung hero for the environment and progressive activism. Now, he is a household name, and has increased his visibility and influence. Second, Hazen argues that Jones’ position limited his scope of influence. By stepping down, Jones was rescued from obscurity. Third, Jones can now help lead and shape the progressive movement. Fourth, Jones is now free to express his views and speak the truth, something he was criticized for while in the White House. And lastly, Jones can now provide real vision, explain his ideas and mobilize people to curb climate change. Ultimately, Jones’ fame will outshine any controversy or scandal. Hazen remains confident that this situation will only make Jones a stronger and more effective leader.
Finally, to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks today, President Obama called for a national day of service on major legislative issues. Wiretap’s Jamilah King notes that environmental organizations like Green for All and Green the Block are sponsoring events that promote green jobs and climate justice.
The message is clear: Van Jones’ resignation will not intimidate us from working towards important environmental endeavors. We must use this “opportunity to reinvigorate the movement toward equitable and economically sustainable green jobs.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment and is free to reprint. Visit Sustain.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on the environment and sustainability, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health, and immigration issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net, Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.newsladder.net.
This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.
Weekly Immigration Wire: DIY Immigration Reform
By Nezua, TMC Mediawire Blogger
Many immigration reform activists feel stymied and frustrated by the Obama Administration’s approach to immigration. Because the administration has not clearly denounced the racially-based violence and sentiment fueled by groups like FAIR and pundits like Lou Dobbs, it appears to be ignoring the individuals in need and siding with the powerful players, like the detention industry, or grossly negligent lawmen like Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
So what can an advocate, activist, or even a conscientious citizen do to make a difference during this period of government inaction? Have hope and take action yourself! As Eric Ward of Alternet writes in “Seven Days to Beat Anti-Immigrant Bigotry,” “You can take a bite out of bigotry in less than five minutes a day!”
Ward’s essay helps replace a potentially overwhelming sense of frustration with concrete, attainable and clearly defined actions. He put it together because a friend wrote him in sheer frustration, and asked him what she could do—without having a whole lot of time on her hands. She works 60 hours a week as a florist, but was determined nonetheless: “I don’t want these bigots to have the last word.”
The Washington Independent’s Daphne Eviatar reports that 521 different civil rights and advocacy groups sent a letter urging the President to “immediately terminate” the infamous 287(g) program, which deputizes local police to carry out federal immigration duties. The program is currently being investigated by the Department of Justice for racial profiling and civil rights violations. This is great news! As we reported in the August 20th Wire, only a few voices were speaking out against postponing immigration reform. Now there are many.
RaceWire reports on the coalition of “immigrant, racial justice and civil rights advocacy groups” that have signed on to the letter, and describes the 287(g) program as a “disturbing hallmark of the Bush administration’s law-and-order approach.” Michelle Chen describes ground zero for 287(g)’s implementation—Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at the helm—as a “warzone.”
The letter is a “gauntlet” and a “long overdue test” for the Obama adminstration. Activists and advocates need a sign, Chen writes, that the White House is serious about immigration reform, and not just further incarceration and penalty.
Advocacy groups aren’t the only ones uniting in this struggle, as Alternet makes clear in “Asian Americans Mobilize for Immigration Reform.” Something is different about this moment. “For the first time in the nation’s history,” writes Vivian Po, “Asian American and Pacific Islander [API] groups came together this week to call for comprehensive immigration reform.”
While immigration is often focused on Latinos, “Asian Americans also want to activate their network and become involved,” said Tuyet Duong, senior staff attorney of Asian American Justice Center (AAJC). The campaign used new media such as text-messaging campaigns and Asian American blogs, attracting many younger voters. “This week’s series of collective actions is the beginning of a larger movement for immigration reform,” say API immigrant rights groups.
Last week’s Wire touched on the overlap between health care and immigration reform. One in three Latinos are uninsured, as New America Media’s Odette Keeley reports. Keeley speaks with Pilar Marrero, Political Editor for La Opinion about “the scapegoating of undocumented immigrants during the health care [debate]” and “the possible ramifications of these attacks on the debate for immigration reform.” Of special note are some practical tips for those who have undocumented family members and experience a medical emergency.
While we are discussing physical injury and the uninsured, we should dwell on “The Dark Side of Dairies,” at High Country News. It may as well have been titled “Got Justice?” Rebecca Clarren reports on an immigrant worker who was kicked by a cow while at work, and now has a steel plate in his face. “Gustavo,” a husband and father of three, is afraid to use his own name, but gives a first hand account of the dangers and dark side of helping the U.S. dairy system move.
Unprotected and invisible, the majority of the Western United States’ nearly 50,000 dairy workers are undocumented. But even though workers are killed by “tractor accidents, suffocated by falling hay bales, crushed by charging cows and bulls and asphyxiated by gases from manure lagoons and corn silage,” as Marc Schenker, director of the Western Center for Agricultural Safety and Health puts it, “If you’re undocumented, you won’t complain.”
How can a nation profit and subsist upon the efforts of workers who suffer like this? It’s a skewed, postcolonialist view that lets one group of people profit off the pain of others.
And the U.S. isn’t alone. The American Prospect’s “Chicken Little Goes to Europe” clearly delineates that frame of mind. Stephen Holmes offers a rejoinder to the fears some in Europe have about the growing Muslim population within their borders. The fearmongering there mirrors anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. Simply replace “Muslim” with “Mexican.” Scapegoating immigrants who change the culture to which they contribute is not a new phenomenon. Neither, however, is the ability to rise above these base reflexes and give voice and action to our better natures.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration and is free to reprint. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.
Weekly Immigration Wire: Silence Strengthens Opposition
By Nezua, TMC Mediawire Blogger
President Obama is citing the Healthcare debate as a reason for postponing immigration reform until 2010. But in the interim, the White House is laying the groundwork for an enforcement agenda by expanding programs such as 287(g), Secure Communities and e-Verify, amidst a growing matrix of detention centers. Anti-immigration factions are taking advantage of the lull in legislative action to push their own agenda.
The Progressive takes the unequivocal stand that “President Obama is wrong to postpone immigration reform.” Author Ed Morales makes it clear that while healthcare and economic issues are “understandably urgent,” the choice to delay reform “de-prioritizes” people who have paid their taxes but have not been given a path to citizenship.
The problem is, immigration reform and healthcare reform are inextricably connected. WireTap cites a central tenant of healthcare reform’s “artificially amplified ‘public’ opposition” to immigration, as reported by the Los Angeles Times: It’s “the notion that ‘Congress would give illegal immigrants health insurance at taxpayer expense.’”
Is the racially charged core of this “chameleon colored outrage” being purposefully left out of the general dialogue? The ugly facts are that a “third of all ‘Hispanics’ in the U.S., almost half of the undocumented, and a fifth of African Americans” lack health insurance today. And yet, only “one in eight whites” lack health care.
After all, “Not all immigrants are alike.” New America Media’s David Hayes-Bautista compares the experiences of two immigrants named Jean-Claude and Juan Carlos. Hayes-Bautista effectively illustrates the Good Immigrant/Bad Immigrant paradigm and asks “Why do some immigrants move quickly and swiftly up the educational and professional ladder, while others appear to remain stymied at the bottom?” Ultimately, “both segments of immigrants deserve to be included in the future healthcare system that their presence will help to fund.”
But some clearly don’t think with such a progressive bent, as the New Mexico Independent reports. Instead of trying to bring greater truth to the entire discussion, anti-immigrant factions are “using [healthcare reform] to whip up fear and anger toward immigrants,” unsurprisingly claiming that they are “a costly and burdensome drain on any taxpayer-supported U.S. health care system.”
At a Portsmouth, New Hampshire town hall where the crowd awaited the President’s arrival, one “white-bearded protestor” suggested murder as a solution for “illegals.” (Video via the Young Turks)
Judging from the agitated protestor’s words, he, like others, views immigration through a fearful zero sum scarcity model in which one person’s well-being equals another person’s loss. There are better ways to approach this issue. New America Media reports on a more enlightened approach being employed in New Mexico. The Las Cruces-based Colonias Development Council (CDC), along with other community groups, recently held a series of meetings that discussed “living and working conditions in underdeveloped border-area communities,” but filtered the conversation “through the lens of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations back in 1948.” Such a lens introduces not just political concerns, but concerns related to the “guarantees of healthcare, education, employment, and housing” as human rights.
Migrants, like those of the CDC, are exploring the truly progressive ideas that proclaim all humans deserving of certain rights. And when the White House takes immigration reform off the radar with one hand and clamps down punitively with the other, it sends a signal to companies like Yum! brands, which are implementing illegal policies. In These Times‘ Robin Peterson tells the story of a very unhappy KFC workforce where “No Match” letters have resulted in many lost jobs. No Match letters were introduced by the Bush administration. The idea is that your employer sends your Social Security number to a database, which returns a “match” that indicates valid citizenship. “No match” equals no citizenship, and usually, no job. However, a judge ruled shortly after the legislation’s introduction, that it was illegal to fire a person over an “unmatched” return.
“Time’s up,” writes Michelle Chen of RaceWire. While the President has made some “overtures” toward immigration reform, the White House has “generally adhered to the status quo set by the Bush administration.” Not all involved are feeling so patient: “Faced with the news that immigration reform may have to wait until 2010, some organizations say their patience has run out.” The Mexican American Political Association, for one, has called for direct action to make clear the urgent necessity for leadership on this issue:
We are taking the brunt of the attacks and suffering the immediate consequences of this misguided policy, therefore, our call is urgent to take to the streets on September 5th, the Labor Day weekend, and October 12th, not to ask but demand that President Obama stop the attacks on immigrants and that he fulfill his promise of immigration reform, that which we heard during the presidential campaign, but has recently been forgotten.
Increasingly, the White House appears to be backing away from its promises to important constituencies. The administration’s inaction plays out with very real results on the ground, including increased tension, anxiety, and violence against immigrant communities. As we are a nation of immigrants, the effects of ignoring this pressing issue are widespread and will only grow worse in time.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration and is free to reprint. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.