A foreigner
carried the tattered flag
slung roadside
to her house in Europe
where it pledges allegiance
to a mirror in her bedroom
A wish
whirling within each star
for the country
fallen into its own shadow [Read more…]
A foreigner
carried the tattered flag
slung roadside
to her house in Europe
where it pledges allegiance
to a mirror in her bedroom
A wish
whirling within each star
for the country
fallen into its own shadow [Read more…]
This week’s edition of Looking Back at the Week features articles, commentaries, columns, toons, and other work by San Diego Free Press regulars, irregulars, columnists, at-large contributors, and sourced writers on: Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, more Trump, even more Trump, and lots of other grassroots news & progressive views from San Diego’s friendly, neighborhood, all volunteer, slightly funky, community news site. [Read more…]
by Will Falk
The fading roar of an ATV engine leaves silence in its wake. Birds, offended by the intrusion, refuse to sing. Grasshoppers stop their dance to consider their safety. Even the reliable mountain breeze hides. And, with the tidings of violence borne by the sounds of explosion in the engine’s combustion, I know I cannot blame them.
Only the September Utah sun is unbothered. The heat, originating so far away, is oblivious. The last rain fell weeks ago and the dust antagonizes the lump forming in my throat. My co-workers at the Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District Trails Maintenance Department have dropped me off with a water bottle, work gloves, and an ancient, wood-handled rake that leaves half-inch splinters in my hand when I’m not careful.
I’ll be paid $12 an hour today to rake gravel and leaves from a freshly cut trail in the Wasatch Mountains high above Park City, Utah. My co-workers won’t be back for 6 hours. This is the same job I did yesterday and the day before, and I know now, from experience, that each stroke only pulls more gravel into the space my rake passes over. I watch a boulder watching me and wonder if he recalls Sisyphus, too. I wonder if I could move that boulder and push him up the hill. I wonder if the effort might provide some distraction. [Read more…]
In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kṻbler-Ross described five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the wee hours of the morning on November 9, I entered Stage One.
When I had gone to bed the night before, I remained hopeful, but harbored a gnawing dread that Trump could actually win. That week’s Saturday Night Live skit of an election night party with true believer Democrats, captured how I felt.
Shortly after midnight I woke up to check the latest news on my iPad. I couldn’t believe what I saw. There had to be a terrible mistake. By sunrise my brief encounter with denial had turned to anger. If I were 30 years younger I would have joined protesters in the streets. [Read more…]
by Doug Porter
While mainstream politicians and institutions may be playing ‘wait and see,’ we at San Diego Free Press believe the rest of us have but one choice: resistance.
On Fridays from now on, I’ll be dedicating this space to promoting activism in the Time of Trump. My sources will be social media listings, press releases, and you.
A bit of confusion in the coming months is to be expected. Lots of people feel motivated to make their voices heard. In cases where there are competing but similar events or campaigns of the progressive persuasion, I’ll do my best to list everything. [Read more…]
by Anna Daniels
Time to rip off the mantle of economic populism that Trump has wrapped himself in and expose what’s beneath it. It doesn’t bode well for those who thought pulling the lever for Trump meant that their Social Security and Medicare are safe.
While Donald Trump is busy Making America Great Again, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is more than willing to take care of the policy making, starting with privatizing Medicare.
Let that sink in for a moment. Paul Ryan will propose legislation to privatize Medicare. Starting March of 2017. [Read more…]
The interminable failure of government to marshal all available resources, brainpower, imagination, and resolution of spirit, to finally solve Flint, Michigan’s contaminated water problem, stands, in relief, as a giant scarlet letter branded on the breast of America. One only needs to supplant the shame-evoking, blood-curdling, familiar image of the red “A” for “adulteress” with an even uglier, ignoble, black “R,” for racist. (And, perhaps, to emphasize this continuing environmental nightmare’s classist features, add an accompanying money-green polo-shirt-emblem-sized “c”.)
Buried in the press cycle of post-election hype, hysteria and dashed-and-undashed hopes around the country, is the fact that, last Thursday, a judge in Michigan – that’s right, in Michigan, not in some underdeveloped country like Rwanda, Somalia, or Ethiopia – ordered the State of Michigan and the City of Flint to immediately start home delivery of four cases of bottled water per resident of Flint, every single week, for the foreseeable future. [Read more…]
Before the elections, Imperial Beach residents received unsigned election fliers in their mailboxes. The fliers asked people to join “Rebel Alliances” and contained debunked conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton. Vincent Farnsworth at the San Diego Reader reported here.
Residents and employees at the U.S.-Mexican border feel jittery after Trump’s election, especially since Mexico is the U.S.’s third largest trade partner. What’s more, calls for “Build a Wall” baffle some of us because — here’s what Border Field State Park looks like today. [Read more…]
by Source
By now everyone knows that Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States and will begin to serve his term in January 2017. No matter who is president, everyone living in the U.S. has certain basic rights under the U.S. Constitution. Undocumented immigrants have these rights, too. It is important that we all assert and protect our basic rights.
If you find you have to deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other law enforcement officers at home, on the street, or anywhere else, remember that you have the rights described in this factsheet. The factsheet also provides suggestions for what you should do to assert your rights. [Read more…]
On Wednesday, November 16th, upwards of 500 San Diego high school and college students staged walk-outs at their campuses in protests against the election of Donald Trump. They marched and blocked intersections, and then converged from their different schools in downtown San Diego.
Around 10 am, the first demonstration began near San Diego City College, and by 11:15 the crowd – mostly from San Diego High School and the College had swelled to 300 to 500 people, according to police and participant estimates, and they marched onto Park Avenue and other streets. Reportedly, the march was planned by students at City College with spreading including Wednesday morning via social media.
After taking over a few intersections, the demonstrators marched to the area of Horton Plaza and the federal building in downtown San Diego. [Read more…]
by Doug Porter
In recent days the richest man in Congress has sent three fundraising appeals to supporters claiming that an election he’s likely won is being compromised by ‘liberals’ with ‘illegal votes.’
Representative Darrell Issa has apparently survived a challenge from Doug Applegate, though his margin of victory is much smaller than he’s used to. Recent reports from voter registrars in San Diego and Orange Counties indicate the incumbent he has a 2% (4000+ votes) lead. There are still ballots to be counted, but it’s rare for a lead of this size to change with late returns.
Issa, who was known as the House ‘Mini-Trump’ until he volunteered to advise Hillary Clinton late in the campaign when he thought she was winning, wants to gin up the fear. He’s inferring the disproven/fake news account currently being consumed on social media saying 3 million ‘illegals’ were allowed is a threat to his incumbency. [Read more…]
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