Art and life seamlessly merged a few weeks ago at Border X Brewery in Barrio Logan. It was the site of a launch party for Emmy award winning filmmaker Paul Espinosa’s latest project, a full length documentary about San Diego activist and musician Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez. It was a career milestone for both Espinosa, who is probably best known in San Diego for his critically acclaimed production of The Lemon Grove Incident and Chunky whose music has been a voice for social justice for over thirty years. [Read more…]
From Coal to Climate: the Evolution of an Activist
By Mark Hughes / SanDiego350
So, here is a question: what’s about as likely as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly jointly admitting they’ve been wrong and dedicating their lives and fortunes to fighting sexism, racism, white supremacy, homophobia, and misogyny?
Answer: that a guy like me would end up volunteering for a grassroots, climate action group.
I grew up in Kansas, famous for Dorothy, sunflowers, and reliably voting against your best interest. I remember my father vehemently wishing he could vote against Ted Kennedy. My mother railing against the Equal Rights Amendment, saying she liked having men open doors for her. Umm, I guess chivalry was banned in the bill’s text somewhere? Both of them mourning angrily after Carter was elected that the country was ruined. Ruined! [Read more…]
Dr. Bronner’s Announces Resignation from the Organic Trade Association
Continues Focus on Minimum Wage, Cannabis Reform and Animal Welfare Ballot Measures
Dr. Bronner’s, North America’s leading natural brand of soap and organic body care products, has resigned from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), citing the association’s betrayal of the consumer-led GMO labeling movement, and general drift away from the core principles that drive the organic movement.
Following the resignation, [ Vista, California based] Dr. Bronner’s has pledged to instead use its organizational resources to help power consumer, farmer and industry organizations that more authentically and courageously represent the vision of regenerative organic agriculture, versus the disaster of soil destroying industrial agriculture. [Read more…]
Chargers Stadium Ballot Measure C — As In Chutzpa
There are two items on the ballot for City of San Diego voters related in some fashion to the construction of a place for the local NFL franchise to play.
Measure C, backed by the San Diego Chargers ownership, is an effort to get a stadium/convention center built. The group’s committee is a cash machine, taking in tens of thousands of dollars (nearly) daily, all from the same source.
Measure D is primarily backed by interests with investments in nearby properties, namely the Moores family. For monetary reasons, it’s just about dead in the water. D is on the ballot, but the money spigot was turned off May 3. [Read more…]
American Consumption Shouldn’t Keep Economy Afloat
This is Part 2 of Buddhist Economics: Economics As If People Mattered.
The Buddhist approach is that consumption is merely a means to human well-being. The aim should be to attain a maximum of well-being with a minimum of consumption. It would also be considered salutary to produce much of what is needed for human well-being by one’s own hands rather than being a total participant in the cash economy. This is anathema to capitalist economists and bankers who thrive on interest from bank loans in order that consumers can purchase more stuff on borrowed money and go into more debt.
Without debt based economics, Wall Street would be out of business and GDP would be lowered because GDP only measures cash transactions not self-subsistent production. Consumption represents 70% of US GDP. Western economics considers consumption to be the end all of economic activity. Buddhist economics considers economic activity to be that which is necessary for liberation of the spirit and for the provision of the right amount of goods and services without gorging on them. [Read more…]
Peninsula Planners Juggle Minutes, Agendas and 30-Foot Height Limit
By Geoff Page / OB Rag
The Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) held its regular monthly meeting Thursday, September 15, 2016, at the Point Loma/Hervey Branch Library. There was a crowded agenda and one of the topics having to do with the 30-foot Coastal Height Limit generated a great deal of interest.
With 14 of the fifteen board members present, the meeting began and ended at the normal times, and initially meeting seemed to be well attended – but as the night proceeded, it appeared that most in the audience were there to represent the projects being voted on. [Read more…]
Honorably Discharged then Dishonorably Deported
Campaign Announced In Response to Crisis of Deported Veterans
By Joe Armenta
The injustice faced by hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. military veterans who are being and have been deported was the focus of a campaign announced yesterday by a broad coalition of leaders including representatives of the veterans community, elected officials, business, labor and immigrant reform communities.
The coalition pledged to drive change for currently deported veterans and those who are facing deportation. Marine Corps veteran and former California Assemblymember Nathan Fletcher has agreed to serve as Chair of the group and stated the following, “If you were willing to give your life for your country, your country should be willing to give you citizenship.” [Read more…]
Measure B – Ballot Box Planning at its Worst
Lilac Hills Ranch Developer Goes for an End Run Around Community Groups
If you’re buying the arguments proponents of Measure B are peddling, I have a bridge to sell you.
Measure B is a clear cut case of a developer doing an end-run around years of community input into planning. Voters in El Cajon and Chula Vista are being asked to decide on a North County project they only know of through ads with fallacious arguments. (Ask the people in Barrio Logan how they feel about that concept.)
For starters, there is no low-income housing in this plan. Unless a starting purchase price of $300,000 is considered low-income friendly. And the greenest thing about this development is the cash being passed around to support it. [Read more…]
An Insider’s Story About Scams at Wells Fargo Bank & Ashford University
By Anon / OB Rag
You’ve seen the new recently regarding for-profit education scandals (Corinthian, ITT Tech) and Wells Fargo sales scandal. The following is my account of my employment experiences at two San Diego companies: Ashford University and Wells Fargo.
I have always wanted to help people financially and help them achieve success in their endeavors. I assumed my good intentions would eventually lead me to actually helping people financially. How naïve and wrong I was. [Read more…]
Junior Trump and the Skittles of Doom
By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos
On Monday evening, Junior Trump demonstrated once again how he has inherited all of his father’s deep respect for diversity and understanding of complex issues.
Uh huh. Syrian refugees undergo the most intense vetting process of any group arriving in the United States. You might even call it … extreme. But there’s a bigger issue with Junior’s Skittle comparison. This kind of “poison candy” argument can be, and has been, used to defend racism against any group. [Read more…]
Does SANDAG’s ‘Measure A’ Amount to Bold Action on Climate Change?
Of all the local measures on the ballot, none has split local Democrats, labor, and environmental groups more than Measure A. It proposes to fund transportation and open space projects throughout San Diego County over the next 40 years via a half-cent sales tax increase. Questions about its environmental and social consequences have been raised.
The plan, crafted by the staff of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), will raise $18 billion over its lifetime, with $4.3 billion doled out to local communities for upgrades and repairs.
Just about everybody agrees that work on local and regional infrastructure needs to continue. It’s how we get there that’s causing disagreement. [Read more…]
From Mission to Microchip: An Interview with California Labor Historian Fred Glass. Part 1
In my Labor Day column , I gave a shout out to Fred Glass’s seminal new labor history of California, From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement. As Glass notes in his introduction, his history of working people in the Golden State is much broader than a narrow chronicle of unions:
California labor history doesn’t begin and end with union membership. Forming and maintaining unions is one part of a broader story, repeated countless times–in coastal seaports, the Central Valley farms, the southern oilfields, and the Sierra foothills, in financial high-rises and bungalow classrooms—of workers journeys from isolation and powerlessness to community, strength, and hope. Their toolbox contains unions, to be sure, but also lawsuits, legislation, election campaigns, community murals, songs, demonstrations, and a mountain of dedication by ordinary people to shared ideas of fairness and social justice.
To learn more about this story and what about it is most important, I am pleased to present the first installment of my three-part interview with Fred Glass, author, teacher, union member, and long-time Communications Director for the California Federation of Teachers.
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