San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

Corporate Welfare and the Minimum Wage

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By Joslyn Stevens / Common Dreams

The arguments against raising the minimum wage are bullshit. The majority of Americans including conservatives support an increase yet congress continues to drag its feet on doing right by the people they claim to serve.  The conservative “pull-yourself up-by your-bootstraps” mentality has become an acceptable excuse to justify kicking people when they’re down.

The greedy and elitist attitudes of CEO’s and bankers have created a culture of entitlement in this country in which stealing from others less powerful is the best way to get to the top regardless of the social cost.

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009  despite cost of living increases and the fact that Americans are being forced to get by on less pay, food stamps, unemployment, savings etc. Every resource the working poor needs to stay afloat or get ahead is gone or disappearing.   [Read more…]

Following the Money Wasted on the Balboa Park Centennial

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By David Lundin

“Follow the money, and you will find your story.”

That was the advice Woodward and Bernstein received from Deep Throat, the source that gave the Washington Post a leg up during the Watergate scandal that ultimately forced the resignation of a president. Time has done nothing to diminish the wisdom of that wise counsel.

The structural and funding flaws of Balboa Park Celebration, Inc. [BPCI”] that contributed to failure have been presented previously.

However, even these foundational flaws could have been overcome by a smart, creative, motivated, ethical and honest board.   [Read more…]

Increasing San Diego’s Minimum Wage: If You’re Not at the Table, You’re on the Menu

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By Doug Porter

The ‘Improving Wages and Working Conditions’ measure is set to be introduced at the City Council Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations (EDIR) Committee on Monday morning. In addition to calling for an increase in the minimum wage, the proposed initiative would also guarantee workers up to five earned sick days.

While serving as iMayor, Councilman Todd Gloria made a bold pledge to get a measure before the voters that would raise local minimum wages. He’s now softened that pledge a bit making it clear that the actual amount of any increase is negotiable. And the opening negotiating position for the Chamber of Commerce (and their as yet silent allies) is: Zero.

While advocates and opponents of increasing the minimum wage each have studies that purport to back up their claims, there can be no doubt about the realities that the value of dollars earned by low wage workers has decreased and the unsustainability of trying to eke out a living on the lower end of the payscale in San Diego.   [Read more…]

There is Still Time to Enroll in Covered California Health Insurance in San Diego

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By Staff

The March 31st enrollment deadline for health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is approaching. The state of California is handling the insurance exchange and enrollment through Covered California. According to the state’s enrollment statistics in February, San Diego has already surpassed its target, reaching 105% of its goal by the end of December.

That doesn’t mean that everyone who is eligible has enrolled. Kaiser Permanente is hosting two events in San Diego, one on Saturday March 22 and the other on Saturday March 29 to assist people who want to enroll.   [Read more…]

Protect 28th Street Canyon Coalition Launches Petition to Oppose Development

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By Staff

Neighborhood opposition to SDPB Holdings LLC’s interest in residential development at the corner of Granada Avenue and Fir Street in South Park continues to grow with a petition drive to protect the 28th Street Canyon. Residents question the wisdom of continuing development on the canyon, claiming that it will have a negative impact on a sensitive canyon habitat, cut off access to a popular dog park and hiking trail and obscure views.   [Read more…]

WILDCOAST Staff and San Diego’s Uptown Rotary Club on Oaxaca’s Coast

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Bi-national effort to preserve sea turtle habitat and protect mangrove ecosystems

By Staff

Last month members of the San Diego Uptown Rotary Club joined with WILDCOAST staff in a volunteer effort to preserve some of the world’s most important sea turtle nesting beaches along Oaxaca, Mexico’s coast. Their goal was to promote awareness of the ecological significance of the areas they visited to residents and visitors. They participated in the cleanups of the beaches and tidal lagoons which are essential to the health of the ocean and the life it supports.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: The Battle for Mule Hill

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By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Surrounded
by houses malls
the ghosts of Mule Hill
pinned down by charging Interstate
under fire from lancing nine irons
shooting 18 holes

  [Read more…]

Sunshine Week: It’s Not About the Weather in San Diego

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By Doug Porter

Sunshine Week is not another tourism promotion for San Diego. It’s about open government. The public’s right to know. And if there’s one place in the country that could use more of this type of sunshine, it’s San Diego.

America’s Finest City, as boosters are wont to call it, has a sordid history of corrupt mayors, underhanded deals blessed by city hall, and failed civic leadership. As in past decades, local apologists would like to have us believe this is all old news or, at worst, ending with the removal of the most recent ex-Mayor-who-can-not-be-named.

Today we’ll take a look at recent events connected with more open governance on the local scene, or at least the illusion thereof. Yesterday (Tuesday, March 18th)  included two seemingly contradictory events that speak to the popular notion of keeping the activities of government accessible to those of us who ultimately pay for it.   [Read more…]

Hundreds of Tribal Representatives Join Huge Rally to Oppose Fracking

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“We’re here to stop fracking and the rape of Mother Earth. Water is the life blood of Mother Earth.” 

By Dan Bacher 

Hundreds of indigenous people from California and across the country gathered with a crowd of over 4000 activists at the State Capitol in Sacramento on March 15 to send a clear message to Governor Jerry Brown: ban fracking, an environmentally destructive oil extraction practice that pollutes groundwater, rivers and the oceans. 

The large Tribal contingent included members of the Miwok, Maidu, Winnemem Wintu, Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Ohlone, Pit River, Cahto, Round Valley, Pomo and Chumash Nations and other Tribes from throughout the state, as well as members of the Dakota, Lakota Sioux, indigenous communities, native organizations and activists in the Idle No More Movement and Klamath Justice Coalitions. Many Tribal representatives emphasized the direct connection between fracking and the Shasta Dam raise and the Governor’s peripheral tunnels plan, which will provide water for fracking. 

“We should call the Governor ‘Westlands’ Brown,” said Chook Chook Hillman, a member of the Karuk Tribe and the Klamath Justice Coalition, a group that has organized many direct action protests to remove the Klamath dams, halt the violation of tribal gathering rights under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas,” and to stop the Westlands Water District legal attempt to raid Trinity River water.    [Read more…]

Get Real: End Patriarchy

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What is reality?

The reality for women in this country is horrifying. 1 in 4 of them will be raped in their lifetimes. Every day, three to four women are killed by their partners. Every 15 minutes, a woman is beaten.

The reality for women in San Diego is even more horrifying when you consider the sexual violence being perpetrated by the SDPD. The reality for a woman in San Diego is that she must worry what kind of an officer might show up when she requests assistance.   [Read more…]

Movement Building and Challenging Mass Incarceration

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Is it time for community members to work with an often overwhelmed public defender system to keep people out of prison in the U.S.? One organizer in California says, “Yes.” 

By Raj Jayadev / Special to Equal Voice News

I recently received a spoken word piece called “The New Jim Crows” from an unlikely source – a public defender in North Carolina named Danny Spiegel. The title pays tribute to Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book: “The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”

Spiegel’s poem is an outpouring of the heartache and frustrations of his occupation – how he is forced to bear witness to, and at times feel complicit in, the damage of mass incarceration.

The refrain goes:

Yeah I’m a public pretender,
pretending to be defending to the best of my ability,
trying not to be a liability
when my caseload’s in the infinities

Through rhyme, Spiegel passionately tells the story of his clients – the young teen Melissa, who is tracked from foster care into jail, the schizophrenic who ends up locked in a cell rather than in treatment, the broken families of the failed war on drugs.   [Read more…]

Reclaiming the Radical Spirit of Women’s History Month

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By Nadine Bloch / Waging NonViolence

If you missed celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, don’t worry — there’s most of “Women’s History” month left to make amends. If you did celebrate it, there’s a good chance you participated in something quite unlike the original radical intentions for the day. Since 1975, when the United Nations established March 8 as the official date for International Women’s Day, it has been co-opted by corporate and state sponsorship of feel-good events — celebrating women’s achievements and inspiring actions — that cater to the political mainstream. That is, of course, only part of the story. It wasn’t always all about fun — and certainly it did not start that way.

The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911 by socialists and labor activists to call for organizing rights for working women. It was followed quickly with other demands, including suffrage. Locking up so many women to slave away as garment workers in horrendous conditions in the early 20th century not only catalyzed the young women and girls into activists, but also led to organized resistance with fellow workers with whom they spent so much time. With no sick days, 16-hour shifts, a grueling pace, crowded and dirty floors, dangerous machinery, and hardly any time off, there were plenty of reasons to get mad and organize on the job!   [Read more…]

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