Category: California

Following up on our first foray into the wonders of Google Art Project, we once again stroll a gallery of…

Editor: Hugh Moore is the Chair of the San Diego Green Party.

An Open Letter to the California Democratic Party:

By Hugh Moore, RN, / June 13, 2011

I’m a registered nurse who works in a hospital that serves the disenfranchised and sees every day the damage that the lack of a healthcare system causes. So when I heard that the California Democratic Party had added the principle of healthcare as a right rather than an option of all people I was ecstatic.

by Lucas O’Connor / Two Cathedrals

The first draft of state redistricting maps were released and approved [June 10th]. There will still be revisions, but this should be relatively close to what we’re dealing with. Flash analysis, roughly based on current numbering and roughly South to North.

From the United Farm Workers

Our vital bill, the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act (SB 104) has passed the CA Senate and Assembly and will shortly go to Governor Jerry Brown.

The United Farm Workers has won solid laws to protect California farm workers who provide more than half of our nation’s produce. But with over 400,000 field workers migrating among 80,000 farms, these laws have not and cannot be enforced by the state of California.

Part 2 : The Stage Is Set for Revolution

Editor: This is the second part in a series about the history of Mexico written for gringos, and it was written in 1979-80. (Come inside for the link to Part 1.)

The liberal reform movement in Mexico during the middle of the 19th century was lead by Benito Juarez, the first and only Indian to gain the Presidency of Mexico. The reformers wished to dismantle the old semi-feudal economic structure, where the masses of peasants worked on large estates. But the conservative forces of society, the Church, large rancho owners, merchants, militarists, and opportunists who wanted to re-establish the Crown, violently resisted Juarez’s reform efforts.

By Laurie Macrae, MLS

May 25th, Capitol Action Day in Sacramento, saw a thousand members of the disability community, in-home health care workers and family members massed before the capitol trying to get the attention of state legislators who have put their survival on the chopping block.

It rained steadily as people, many in wheel chairs, many being assisted by care workers and many family groups moved about the pavilion and the various organization tables, gathering information and communicating with their regional counterparts. All day individuals and groups trooped in to the capitol building to meet with legislators.

Editor: This short history of Mexico was written for gringos because gringos are not taught anything about the real history of our close neighbor to the south in our classrooms. And this account stops at the Revoluccion.

Most North Americans don’t know too much of the history of our southern neighbor, even though our nation has been deeply involved in its internal affairs. This involvement over the last 150 years has led to the domination of Mexico’s economy by North American capitalists. To understand this relationship, and to understand why undocumented workers migrate north, we must trace Mexico’s history …

Editor: Here are several reports from local San Diego media on this issue.

Grocery Workers Get Support From Other Union Members

Union leaders say the Vons, Ralph’s and Albertson’s stores are trying to gut the worker’s health care plans, shifting up to 80 percent of the cost to the workers. The grocery chains say they’re are making a fair offer that gives workers access to excellent coverage. The AFL CIO Labor Council’s 190,000 members pledged to honor a possible strike.

By Dave Maass / CityBeat / May 30, 2011

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station suffered yet another accident this weekend when a mechanical failure resulted in the release of 75 gallons of sulfuric acid, according to a spill report (pdf) filed with the U.S. National Response Center.

Less than a week after dodging the end of the world as we know it, Californians were met with the news that Grover Norquist, the hatchet-man of the hard right, had come to Sacramento and was roaming the hallways of the Capitol reminding Republican legislators (all but a handful of whom had signed his notorious pledge to never raise taxes) that bad things would happen if they reconsidered. Norquist, who conservative pundit Tucker Carlson once called “a mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep . . . the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home,” is a darkly looming figure. As Drake Bennett recently pointed out in Business Week…

By Larry Gerston, Ph.D. / NBC San Diego /May 27, 2011

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold a cap on the number of California prisoners complicates the already cloudy California budget picture.

Under the terms of the decision, California must release 36,000 prisoners within five years because current overcrowded conditions constitute violation of the Eighth Amendment guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

Supreme Court Calls BS on California’s 3 Decades of “Law and Order”

by Robert Cruickshank / Calitics / May 23, 2011

I suppose someone should write about [Monday’]s 5-4 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Plata, where the court ruled that California must release 33,000 prisoners to relieve overcrowding in state prisons. So I’ll take a shot at it.