How Higher Education Favors the Rich--Great Infographic

Via: onlineschools.org

Runners against genocide

On Monday, eight teenagers from Wichita's East High school began a 1,300 mile relay run to Washington D.C. to raise awareness about genocide. Each teen will run half a marathon (13 miles) each and everyday.

The runners hope to raise $100,000 for the Genocide Intervention Network's civilian protection program. They've already raised $16,000.

They've got a facebook page here.

Report by a local TV station here or watch a video here.

Gallup poll shows support for re-dstribution

A new Gallup poll shows strong public support for re-distributing incomes,
April 25, 2008

Many Americans OK With Increasing Taxes on Rich
Most say upper-income households pay too little in taxes

by Frank Newport

PRINCETON, NJ -- Slightly over half of Americans believe the government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich.

The percentage holding this view, similar to that found in Gallup polling last year, is up from 1998 and in particular is higher than was found in a Roper poll conducted for Fortune Magazine back in 1939. Although the methods and sampling of polling done in the 1930s may differ significantly from those of today, the rough comparison suggests that Americans appear to have become even more "redistributionist" in their views than they were at the tail end of the Depression.Other recent Gallup Poll questions underscore the finding that Americans are generally open to the idea of some type of effort to distribute wealth more evenly.

Asked if the distribution of money and wealth in this country is fair or if they need to be distributed more evenly, about two-thirds of Americans agree with the latter response. This is up slightly from last year and, by two points, is the highest "more evenly distributed" response to this question that Gallup has found over the eight times it has been asked since 1984.

The reference to public opinio in 1939 is intresting. From the 1930s until the mid-1970s, there was a long-term trend for the working- and middle-classes to share in prosperity. Income and wealth became more even distributed. Since the 1980s, there has been an opposite trend towards greater inequality. More and more the benefits of economic growth are going only to the very rich, while the vast majority are stuck on a treadmill or losing ground. The increase in two-earner households and the over-utilization of credit have masked this reality. But apparently, the mask is off.

Changing tax policy is one component of reversing this trend. But there are some other essential parts. Making it easier for workers to form unions and reversing the disastrous trade policies are two other essential tools towards creating economic justice.

KC Conference on Immigration and Racism

There's an interesting conference next Saturday in Kansas City.

Saturday March 8 9 am- 4 pm
Cristo Rey School 211 West Linwood Kansas City Missouri

Learn the truth about immigration and the rise of groups that target immigrants and people of color and practice the politics of division. Hear ideas on how to fix our broken immigration system and how to stop the hate spread by the Minutemen and FAIR.

Download a flyer
Para un volante en español

Plenaries .
Voices of KC Immigrants
Strategizing & Framing
How to Get Involved

Bilingual Workshop Who’s Stealing Whose Job?

Workshops In Spanish

Your Workplace Rights
Your Immigration Rights

Workshops (selected)

Why Don’t They Just Get Legal?
The Political Climate That Discourages Inclusion
Retreat from Civil Rights
How To Get Involved
The Minutemen & FAIR
Youth Activism & Civil Rights
Immigration Wedge Politics
Immigration History

Cost: $15 or $5 low income Donations needed Lunch included

Spanish translation
Children welcome
Register ! Call 816-235-1470 Email: ancelj@umkc.edu


Sponsors: All Souls Immigration Taskforce, American Immigration Lawyers Association, Cristo Rey School, Cross Border Network, Institute for Labor Studies, Interfaith Worker Justice, Latino Civil Rights Task Force, Missouri Immigrant & Refugee Advocates, New Sanctuary Movement, Sons and Daughters of Immigrants, Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Hype and Hope about murder

Jill Leovy,a reporter for the LA Times, has a very intresting article in SALON--"Don't Believe the Hype about murder." She examines the extraordinarily high murde rates affecting young black males, but says that much of the conventional wisdom about gangs, teenage mothers, etc. making the problem much worse thanin the past is just plaing wrong.

The real story of black male homicide is that the historic disproportion between black and white death rates is shrinking, and it has been -- albeit unevenly -- for a long time.

The disproportion between white and black death rates reaches back deep into American history. Historians Roger Lane and Eric Monkkonen, for example, both found markedly higher homicide rates among blacks in analyzing data from 19th century American cities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventon began keeping statistics for blacks as a separate group only in 1950. The agency's count shows that homicide death rates for black men then were 28 percent higher than in 2003 and 12 times the white male rate. Spikes in these rates came in the early 1970s, around 1980, and again in the recession years of the early 1990s. Each spike was roughly as high as the last. But running through these spikes is a gradual long-term trend of lower rates and racial convergence.

This suggests we need to take another look at the widespread assumptions that urban violence is the byproduct of modern street gangs, single-parent black families, crack cocaine and the proliferation of handguns. These things matter. But so do deeper and more enduring factors. The reality is that blacks in 1976 were almost twice as likely to die from homicide as blacks in 2004, and the disparity between black and white rates was 20 percent higher than today.

She concludes with this observation:

History suggests that we should be wary of any claims about some unprecedented spiral into nihilism in the inner city, since such claims are perennial. History suggests that it is worth asking questions different from the ones we have been asking, and that we should take the longer view.

Manager--convicted of homicide-- sentenced to teach safety class

Via the AFL-CIO NOW blog

Jordan at Confined Space has the story: Brent H. Weidman, former head of the Far West Water and Sewer Co., was convicted of two counts of negligent homicide in the 2001 deaths of two workers who were suffocated by toxic sewage gases while working on an underground sewer tank in Mesa Del Sol, Ariz. In addition to probation and a $250-a-month fine, poor Weidman got sentenced to 840 hours of teaching safety classes for the Arizona Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Yuma.