San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Time for Reflection and Action: Reflections on the My Lai Massacre

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Jack Doxey / San Diego Veterans For Peace, Hugh Thompson Memorial Chapter

March 16th 2017 marks the 49th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre that occurred in Vietnam. To say that it was a sad day in the history of our country is a gross understatement. Our United States military systematically slaughtered over 500 Vietnamese women, children, infants and old men in the tiny village of My Lai.

Our country’s attention span is short; and revisiting old wounds, as we all know, can be painful. The result is that this event has been relegated to the “dust bin” of history. Nevertheless, I beseech our government and every American citizen to not forget, and learn from the events that unfolded 49 years ago. One obvious lesson is that war is not the answer.   [Read more…]

Indivisible Provides Another Glimpse into Duncan Hunter’s Delusions

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Plus: A Few Thoughts About the State of the Resistance

The good folks at Indivisible have released a four and half minute video from Congressman Duncan Hunter’s Ramona town hall meeting over the weekend.

In it, the East County’s Republican Representative lays out the world in Washington as he sees it, condemning the thousands of “seditious Obama folks” who’ve infiltrated the Justice Department, the FBI, and the intelligence community.

You have to give it to Duncan, Jr. His arrogance is only exceeded by his ignorance, as he took a break from his “…very busy two months making America great again” to speak with the common folk this past weekend.   [Read more…]

Jewish Family Service and Dreams for Change: Doing Good Deeds Together

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Here in “America’s Finest City”, the weather is nice year round while rentals are very high, and many families live paycheck to paycheck. This situation is also the reason why there are so many homeless people in San Diego and worse yet- homeless families.

However, two very mensch organizations have paired up to help: Dreams for Change and Jewish Family Service. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of JFS, so this non-profit has been serving the community for a long time with its various programs that strive to help others by empowering individuals and families, sponsoring and supporting refugees, and fostering community connection and engagement. JFS’s mission is to build a stronger, healthier, and more resilient San Diego.   [Read more…]

Long Delays in Bringing Detained Immigrants, Asylum Seekers Before Judges

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ACLU Files Class Action Lawsuit Against DHS: Thousands Are Incarcerated For Months In Remote Facilities Waiting To See A Judge

Cheryl Alethia Phelps / ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties

Every day, immigration agencies incarcerate tens of thousands of longtime U.S. residents, victims of persecution, and others in remote detention centers, ripped from their families and without access to legal support. None are serving time for a crime – and no judge has determined that there is probable cause to detain them – yet they are held in these deplorable detention facilities while they pursue legal avenues to remain in the U.S.

In San Diego and Imperial Counties, these detainees can languish for months before they are brought before a judge just to begin their case and learn for the first time why they are being incarcerated, what they can do to help present their case, or whether they can take steps to seek their release and get back to their loved ones.   [Read more…]

Container Ships Burn Dirtiest Fuel: the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Could Change That

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Globalization’s Dirty Little Secret

One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars. Globalization and the offshoring of American jobs is directly responsible not only for good paying jobs leaving the US, but also for massive amounts of pollution put into the environment leading to increased global warming. These mammoth machines guzzle fuel at a rate of 16 tons per hour — equivalent to nearly 400 tons a day. They consume 86% of the oil exported from Saudi Arabia. So not only would bringing these jobs back home bolster the middle class and decrease the economic divide between the 99% and the 1%, but it would also forestall climate change.

Confidential data from the maritime industry shows that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760 million cars. In addition to getting fossil fuel burning cars off the road, we need to be concerned about getting container ships off the seas.   [Read more…]

Restaurant Review: Pepe’s in Ocean Beach

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It’s been many years since I ate at “Pepe’s.” I do not even think that I was doing restaurant reviews at that time, and I have been doing reviews for almost 8 years. When Irene called and suggested that we get together for lunch I knew just where to go. And I am certainly glad that we went there.

We were early; just a little bit past 11:00am, and there was one other diner in the restaurant. We were greeted by “Ed/Pepe” with a smile and exuberance that had us feeling good before we ever sat down. He quickly explained the “special lunch menu” to us; told us we could sit where we wanted to sit, and he would make us some garlic bread. Irene asked if it was possible to have just plain bread without the garlic and he said it was not a problem. True to his word, when he came back with the bread one half of the basket had garlic bread; the other was plain.   [Read more…]

County Employees Seek Community Input in Labor Talks

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This week (Wednesday, March 15), unions and community groups will appear before the County Board of Supervisors to urge them to begin negotiations on a new labor agreement.

What would normally be a matter of negotiating pay and benefits for 10,000 San Diego County employees has become another front in the battle for social justice, thanks to a strategy called ‘bargaining for the common good’ adopted by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local 221.

The SEIU has invited representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Policy Initiatives, the Community Advocacy Network and other groups to join them at the bargaining table and participate in negotiations.   [Read more…]

The Man Who Skipped Breakfast and Found a World of Love

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Charlie Chatman woke up one morning saying to himself, as he had for so many mornings, for eternities: “Lord, give me the strength to put up with these damn peckerwoods one more day.”

The only thing he cared about in his godforsaken life, on a Hawkinsville, Georgia sharecropping plantation, was breakfast, whatever it happened to be, cornbread and scraps of pork, a potato or two, a cup of milk (maybe) – or some stolen boiled corn that the pigs were fed.

Anything to sustain his body and spirit to stand up against the insults to his humanity he had to put up with each day. What kept him alive each day were his daydreams, simple imaginings: sleeping in a nice bed, walking leisurely down a country road, meeting Gabriel on Judgment Day.   [Read more…]

‘Ides of Trump’ Action Aims to Send More Mail Than White House Can Ignore

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By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

A new movement is aiming to mail at least 1 million postcards to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, March 15—historically dubbed “the Ides of March” and known as the day Julius Caesar was assassinated—to show “the man, the media, and the politicians how vast our numbers are…to make it irrefutable that the president’s claim of wide support is a farce.”

“He may draw a big crowd with empty promises, but the crowd of those that oppose his agenda is exponentially larger. And we will show up to protest, to vote, and to be heard. Again and again and again,” the group, which calls itself the Ides of Trump, explained on its website and Facebook page.   [Read more…]

Internal White House Analysis of Trumpcare: Even Worse Than CBO Predicted

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70% of those who gained insurance through the ACA will lose their insurance in the first year….

By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

The Trump White House, in an effort to double-check the ugly numbers coming from the Congressional Budget Office, ran their own analysis to determine the results of the new healthcare bill. And just as they suspected, the CBO is wrong … because it’s worse.

The executive branch analysis forecast that 26 million people would lose coverage over the next decade, versus the 24 million CBO estimates. The White House has made efforts to discredit the forecasts from the nonpartisan CBO.   [Read more…]

Town Halls a la San Diego: Darrell Issa Deflects, Duncan Hunter Sings Off Key

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As town halls in San Diego featuring Representatives Darrell Issa, Duncan Hunter and Susan Davis drew big crowds and garnered national attention, the American Civil Liberties Union rolled out the inaugural event of People Power, with more than 2,200 events in cities coast-to-coast.

Women from all over the region at City College, supporters of Planned Parenthood in Vista, and Muslim youth at UCSD all participated in events responding to the policies and proclamations of the Trump administration. People in North Park filled out protest postcards to mail to the administration, a union local hosted a panel discussing the future of local activism, and health care advocates gathered in Mission Valley to discuss a path forward to a single payer system in California.

And the Huffington Post published what could be the ultimate cautionary tale for activists, pulling together threads about a social media disinformation campaign aimed at promoting divisions during the 2016 presidential campaign. San Diego activist John Mattes’ efforts to uncover the truth about the conspiracy news stories spread through Facebook pages seemingly favorable to candidate Bernie Sanders start off the story.

  [Read more…]

The “Freedom Cities” Campaign: Resistance Through Progress at the Local Level

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By Ronald Newman / Speak Freely ACLU

On Saturday night, people at more than 2,200 events around the nation tuned in for the inaugural event of People Power, a new platform harnessing nationwide grassroots resistance to the Trump administration’s assault on our Constitution and our values. At the event, we announced “Freedom Cities,” a campaign that provides a concrete plan for the People Power team to play offense in cities and towns across the country.   [Read more…]

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