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The Food Waste Fiasco: You Have to See It to Believe It

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By Rob Greenfield

You may have already heard a few appalling facts about food waste but just in case you haven’t, here are a few tidbits of information to catch you up on the issue.

-We throw away 165 billion dollars worth of food per year in America. That’s more than the budgets for America’s national parks, public libraries, federal prisons, veteran’s health care, the FBI, and the FDA combined.

-About 50 million of our 317 million Americans are food insecure yet we produce enough food to feed over 500 million Americans.

-To create just the amount of food that ends up in the landfills we waste enough water to meet the domestic water needs of every American citizen.

Even with these mind-blowing statistics you probably still need to see it to believe it. That is where I come in.   [Read more…]

Working Tech for Good Causes and Loving It Every Day

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By Oliver James

I threw away a $100k+ a year career for my community. I live in City Heights, San Diego, California and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. And this is why I did it.

Let’s rewind a bit back to 2010. I was working for a marketing company providing design and marketing services to the financial industry. I was making around $65k a year and life was good (or so it seemed).

Don’t get me wrong $65,000 a year was great. But I wasn’t really, truly happy.   [Read more…]

Trailblazing Effort Needed on San Diego Climate Action Plans

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By Jeffrey Meyer

With the recent release of a new United Nations report on the global impact of climate change, we are given still another chilling warning that we are facing catastrophe unless we accelerate efforts to confront this crisis.

The release of this report comes on the heels of a court decision rejecting the San Diego County climate action plan and the ongoing development of this state-mandated plan by the City of San Diego. It raises the stakes for everyone and compels us to reach higher and dig deeper for community solutions to this crisis.

The warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an urgent signal for our city and county officials to not only meet state laws on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but to explore higher standards.   [Read more…]

Veterans For Peace Give Out 2,300th Sleeping Bag Set in Downtown San Diego

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By Gil Field

Veteran members, associate members, and friends and supporters of the San Diego Veterans For Peace, Chapter #91 are proud to announce that in October 2014 the 2300th sleeping bag set was given out to the homeless in downtown San Diego!

It is through the generous on-going financial contributions of friends and the general public that our Compassion Campaign is able to indefinitely continue this humane life-saving program.

In December 2010 the San Diego chapter of the national Veterans For Peace organization began the “Compassion Campaign” — an outreach effort to help displaced homeless veterans. Ignited by conversations with many homeless veterans on the street in downtown San Diego, the chapter membership determined that the lives of homeless veterans and non-veterans downtown could improve significantly if given basic equipment – like a sleeping bag, as many were sleeping rough on hard pavement each night with only a light blanket, their jacket, or nothing.   [Read more…]

I Wanted to Write an Anti-War Poem, But…

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By Emmanuel Ortiz

Ever since the war started,
One year ago today,
I have wanted to write an anti-war poem.
For each of the last 365 days
I have been trying to write
To voice my opinion
In opposition to this war.

But nothing has come out.

After five days of watching
And not watching
Bombs fall on Iraq
I thought I had it
When some white boy
During a soccer game
Told me to “go back to Baghdad”
And as my fists found his temples
In retaliation for the bombs that were obliterating theirs
I remember thinking to myself
Amidst the slow-motion home-movie haze
“This will make a great poem”
A poem about
How he mistook
Mesoamerica for Mesopotamia
Borinken for Babylon.
And why Baghdad
Instead of Brasilia, Beijing, Beirut, Bogotá, Bombay,
Even Bi-racialville U.S.A.   [Read more…]

Learning About Counter-Recruitment With Project YANO (Youth And Non-Military Opportunities)

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By Jesus Mendez-Carbajal / Draft NOtices

In the past nine months as Project YANO’s 2013-2014 student intern, I have learned an immense amount of information about U.S. militarism, its far reach, and counter-recruitment. I have been directly impacted on multiple levels.

I have grown mentally through the knowledge I have gained and also personally through the interactions and relationships I have built with youth, advisors, teachers, mentors, and Project YANO supporters, volunteers and board members.

I have had the pleasure of working with students who look like me, engaging low-income youth of color who have stories and backgrounds similar to my own.   [Read more…]

La Jolla Shores Sundown

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By Karen Kenyon

You are rolled up in your blanket now,
perhaps 40 feet feet from my car
olive brown, army-colored,
here by the peaceful Pacific
tree-willow blue,
Paler near us, darker
near the horizon.

It’s almost time for the green flash,
but you don’t care. …
  [Read more…]

Please Don’t Thank Me For My Service

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Veterans Day, Any Year

By Hal V. J. Muskat

I’ve dreamt my name is on The Wall in Washington, DC.

And, right now, I’m thinking That Wall; I’m recalling also trips to the Armory with my dad, an officer in the National Guard. I’m thinking of my uncle, a WWII and Korean vet who just celebrated his 94th birthday. I’m thinking of those two hundred names and faces I can’t remember, eighteen and nineteen year old kids from my Basic Training company, KIA long before their 20th birthdays. I’ve seen their names on that wall while looking for my own.

Every time I hear, “Thank-you for serving!” I want to reply, “Fuck You!” But, I usually ask, “For What are you thanking me? Shooting old people and children or NOT shooting them?”   [Read more…]

Reclaim Armistice Day and Honor the Real Heroes

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 By Arnold “Skip” Oliver

More than a few veterans, Veterans For Peace among them, are troubled by the way Americans observe Veterans’ Day on November 11th. It was originally called Armistice Day, and established by Congress in 1926 to “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations, (and later) a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.” For years, many churches rang their bells on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – the time that the guns fell silent on the Western Front by which time 16 million had died.

To put it bluntly, in 1954 Armistice Day was hijacked by a militaristic congress, and today few Americans understand the original purpose of the occasion, or even remember it. The message of peace seeking has vanished. Now known as Veterans’ Day, it has devolved into a hyper-nationalistic worship ceremony for war and the putatively valiant warriors who wage it.   [Read more…]

Remembering the Looks in their Eyes

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By Dana Levy

I was drafted into the US Army in 1966 and my (our) country seems to have been at war ever since. I was sent to Germany after my training in Basic and AIT as a soldier and order taker because my next older brother (drafted 2 months ahead of me) was in Korea.  The benevolent country of the USA wouldn’t send two brothers to a war zone at the same time back then.

We (this includes us all) don’t have such a policy any more and it is every man–whether young or old– for himself, not to mention the many women involved now. My supposition is that the new policy stems from the fact that we now have an all volunteer military. I only did two years in the service to my country and it is still constantly always right under the surface of my thoughts and actions.
  [Read more…]

San Diego Community Speaks Out Against Police Brutality

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Don’t Shoot: Show Love to Take Place in Barrio Logan  

By Nepantla Collective

In light of an ongoing epidemic of police brutality, both locally and around the globe, where targets are predominantly impoverished, marginalized and/or people of color, the Nepantla Collective will be hosting a one-day event in Barrio Logan, entitled “Don’t Shoot: Show Love”. This event will take place on Saturday, November 8, 2014 from 3pm to 10pm in in Barrio Logan’s Barrio Arts District.

Monica Hernandez of the Nepantla Collective breaks down why they decided to organize the events and why Barrio Logan was chosen as the venue:

A few years back, my best friend was severely brutalized and beaten by SDPD. Granted he had been rightfully stopped for a traffic violation & had drank a few beers that evening, but by no means did that warrant the excessive force that left his entire body severely bruised. He could barely walk for days, but what hurt me more than to see him in such physical pain, was the look in his eyes that reflected a loss of dignity, which had been brutally stripped from his soul that day.

It was the same look my brother had when he was released from incarceration after being arrested at a student protest. My brother had been charged with assault and battery of a police officer, when in fact it was them (about 3 – 4 officers) who had kicked and broken one of my brother’s ribs. Fortunately we had video footage of the incident and after over a year in court, the Superior Court of Alameda County not only dismissed all charges but also granted a factual finding of innocence.

  [Read more…]

Friendship Park and Boundary Monument 258

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By Barbara Zaragoza / The South Bay Compass

Inside Border Field State Park you can find the center of the immigration issue. On the American side, each Saturday and Sunday Friendship Park is open to the public from 10am to 2pm.

A gated area heavily monitored by Border Patrol,Friendship Park has a binational garden and thick mesh beyond which you can see Boundary Monument #258 on the Mexican side.

This park is where activist groups come to protest the ever increasing construction of fencing at the U.S.-Mexico border.Border Angels often comes here to bring awareness to the number of immigrants who have died trying to cross to the United States. Protestant Minister John Fanestil provides bi-national religious services on Sundays. Dan Watman has created a binational garden and also hosts events such as binational poetry readings. You can also find out what’s happening at Friendship Park through caring volunteers who run the website FriendshipPark.org.   [Read more…]

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