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‘Black Identity Extremists’ Report Is FBI’s COINTELPRO 2.0 | Video Worth Watching

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From the NOW THIS YouTube page:

Decades ago, the FBI targeted Black activists who were fighting for equality — now, this sad chapter of history is repeating itself.

A 2017 report identified “black identity extremists” as a threat to law enforcement. Critics say this report is eerily similar to the FBI’s counter intelligence program, a.k.a. COINTELPRO, which was established in the 50’s by J. Edgar Hoover to specifically target African-Americans who were fighting for justice and equality, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and many members of the Black Panther Party.

  [Read more…]

San Diego in National Spotlight: Failure to Prohibit Section 8 Discrimination Hurts Homeless Veterans

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By Parisa Ijadi-Maghsoodi / UrbDeZine

Achieving Housing Choice and Mobility in the Voucher Program: Recommendations for the Administration is in the latest edition of the American Bar Association Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law (Vol. 27-1).

The article recognizes the Housing Choice Voucher Program as vital to helping homeless individuals and low-income families’ overcome barriers to housing stability and a powerful tool to deconcentrate poverty and decrease racial segregation in our nation’s communities.  While acknowledging the program’s potential to improve individual lives, families, and communities, the article discusses the program’s failure to meet its housing and community goals:

Tenants with a voucher disproportionately live in low-rent, racially segregated neighborhoods. In fact, almost a quarter million children in the voucher program live in neighborhoods of extreme poverty. Many voucher families are unable to obtain rental housing outside of areas of poverty and, in some cases, fail to lease up at all.   [Read more…]

60 House Democrats Launch Medicare for All Caucus

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By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams

Adding to the rapidly growing wave of support for Medicare for All at the grassroots and on Capitol Hill, more than 60 House Democrats are forming an official Medicare for All Caucus with the goal of closely examining specific policy components of single-payer and seriously discussing the steps necessary to implement it in the United States.

“This is a sea change from just four or five years ago and people are more likely to see healthcare as a right,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) told ViceNews, which first reported on the formation of the caucus on Wednesday.

Jayapal joined Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), National Nurses United (NNU), and other progressive groups to officially launch the caucus with an announcement Thursday morning. While just over 60 Democrats will be part of the caucus on day one, that number is expected to grow quickly over the next several weeks.
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The Invasion of North American GMO Corn and the Price of Resistance | Seeds of Rebellion, Part II

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In Part 1, we met Armando, the Schools for Chiapas coordinator of the effort to restore the ancient Mayan system of sustainable food forests in the regions of Chiapas, Mexico, in consultation with Zapatista educators. In Part Two we explore the mortal threat posed by NAFTA and the heroic resistance to the attempts to culturally, and at times physically, exterminate the First Peoples of southern Mexico.

The mortal threat posed by U.S. corn to the people who first domesticated it is not the cheapness of Midwestern maize but its bio-engineered genetic uniformity. According to a 2017 study by scientists from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), GMO corn from north of the border has infiltrated up to 90 percent of corn tortillas and 82 percent of all corn based products throughout Mexico.

Wind riding GMO corn pollen contaminates non GMO fields with ease leading to a loss of genetic diversity that makes any living system less resilient and at greater risk for catastrophic plagues. And the myriad creatures who live in the rivers and streams that absorb run off from nearby GMO fields when the rains come? Collateral damage, whose numbers and health can only be guessed at.

Super weeds are already appearing in GMO fields in the U.S., descendants of hardy survivors who passed their immunity to Roundup weed killer onto future generations. Loathe to listen to any messages coming from lifeforms not   [Read more…]

A Tiny Home Update: “The New American Dream” in Progress

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By Orlando Barahona

Politics are the Ultimate Porn: The Art of Political Science is about a distilled and formulaic perversion of The People’s ideals: Politicians and bureaucrats do not provide what we want; they teach us how to desire it. Public officials’ speeches and a charismatic delivery do not guide my direction in assembling a business and housing plan for San Diego because they do not offer clarity in describing the steps to achieve its presentation and success.

A very important North County housing summit is about to be hosted in Escondido, California on July 19th, 2018 by the San Diego North Economic Development Council in conjunction with the Housing You Matters Coalition. When I reached the Coalition’s Facebook page I was told all the speakers were booked and thus my revised business and housing plan could not fit in for this event. That is understandable, but not ideal for me, after I have updated and refined my first plan, published here in 2016. Find out more on the event’s page here. I wasn’t offered the possibility to present the plan at any other time.   [Read more…]

Building Trust With Police is Like Trying to Assemble a Jigsaw Puzzle

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“Trust is the Issue” was one of our rallying cries at the City Council’s Rules Committee meeting Wednesday.

And the committee came through, voting 3-2 to pass the idea of creating a Commission on Police Practices on to the full Council.

That sounds hopeful to me but trying to build trust with the police in San Diego, for communities of color, has been like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. One with too many pieces – due to years of bad history.

My own history with the San Diego police goes back to when I arrived in town in 1962, my first Sunday here, shooting hoops with some guys at Mountain View Park until a few cops barge in on our fun: “Looking for some burglars.”   [Read more…]

Ocean Beach’s Future Likely to Be Decided on Monday, July 16

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It is a truth that is staggering. And it is not hyperbole.

The future of Ocean Beach very likely will be decided this coming Monday, July 16, when the San Diego City Council votes on regulating short term vacation rentals.

This will be their 4th major hearing on these type of rentals, often called mini-hotels – having failed over 3 years to set policy. Up for discussion is Mayor Faulconer’s proposed “compromise” and all he and the short term platform companies like Airbnb need is 5 votes.

If Faulconer’s plan passes in total or in substance – the future of this community has been decided   [Read more…]

SB 237 Threatens Community Choice Energy

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By Laura Sisk-Hackworth

SB 237, authored by California State Senator Hertzberg (D-18), threatens to increase the use of fossil fuels in California by undercutting Community Choice Energy (CCE) programs. The bill would allow businesses to circumvent CCE providers and buy electricity directly from suppliers. These suppliers would be subject to the state’s required minimum on renewable content of the electricity – whereas CCEs consistently exceed those minimums. Therefore, this bill would reduce the use of renewables, hurt renewable energy job growth, and likely bankrupt all current CCEs. This bill would effectively end existing CCE programs and halt their future expansion throughout California.   [Read more…]

Zapatista Food Forests | Seeds of Rebellion, Part I

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“If the Malanga is split at the top, or tears easily, it’s poisonous.” Seizing the tip in his hands, Armando tried to rip the leaf along its central axis. Three feet long and nearly two feet across the translucent green leaf lives up to the plant’s alternate name, elephant ear. “This is a good one. If you cut the root into thin strips you can boil or fry them. Malanga is rich in potassium and provides three times the nourishment of the potato; and it tastes better.”

We’re inside the Schools for Chiapas building in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, walking through the experimental heart of a project that’s recreating the Mayan perennial food forests destroyed by enslavement in Spanish encomiendas (roughly equivalent to plantations in the U.S. South) and “development”. Jointly sponsored by Schools for Chiapas and educators from Morelia, one of five autonomous zones, or caracoles, run by the Zapatistas, the food forest project seeks out ancient earth-based wisdom by using the latest technology to connect with farmers, herbalists and healers all over the world.

[Updated 2108-07-18]   [Read more…]

Short Term Vacation Rentals: Discussion Continues on San Diego Mayor’s Flawed Plan

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In Sunday, July 8th’s San Diego Union-Tribune Op-Ed page, discussion on short-term vacation rentals fairly monopolized the opinion section as representatives of the hotel industry, Councilwoman Barbara Bry and the head of the Mission Beach Town Council all hashed it out.

The op-ed pieces were responding to Mayor Faulconer’s recent “compromise” proposal to resolve one of the most contentious issues currently roiling San Diego – what to do about the short term rentals.

In their piece entitled, “Neighborhoods, Jobs Must Be Protected“, Katherine Lugar and Lynn Mohrfeld – both CEOs of hotel industry associations – at first came out swinging against STVRs and appeared to be right-on:   [Read more…]

U.N. Breastfeeding Resolution Opposed by Trump Administration’s Corporate Shills

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“What happened was tantamount to blackmail, with the U.S. holding the world hostage and trying to overturn nearly 40 years of consensus on the best way to protect infant and young child health.”

By Julia Conley / Common Dreams

International delegates to the United Nation’s World Health Assembly looked on at the group’s recent meeting, as U.S. representatives appeared to put the interests of the $70 billion baby food industry ahead of those of parents and children—and pressured other countries to do the same.

The New York Times reported Sunday that American officials, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, attempted to strongarm Ecuadorean delegates out of introducing a resolution to encourage and support breastfeeding and urge governments to restrict misleading marketing claims about baby formula.   [Read more…]

City Charter Amendment Would Provide Rigorous Oversight of Police by Independent Commission

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By Andrea St. Julian

Community trust in law enforcement is key to legitimate and effective policing. Right now, San Diegans have an opportunity to increase the community’s trust in its Police Department through an amendment to the San Diego City Charter. The amendment will eliminate the Community Review Board on Police Practices (CRB) that currently handles certain complaints against the police and replace it with an independent and more powerful commission.

In the city of San Diego, complaints filed against police officers are investigated by the Police Department through Internal Affairs. The Department provides some of those complaints to the CRB for review. The CRB’s review process consists of looking over the investigation conducted by Internal Affairs.
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