The Huffington Post’s “Firing” of Labor Journalist Mike Elk

Posted on February 16, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO MIKE ELK

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“There are so many reporters that sellout to Wall Street, that print Wall Street’s talking points, that do all the bidding of Wall Street. The thing that people said to me is, ‘By helping these workers you showed that you were too much on the side of workers.’ Sure, there’s a thousand reporters that are sellouts to Wall Street, but how about three or four that are sellouts to working people. I’m perfectly fine with people calling me a sellout to the working class. I’m perfectly fine with people saying, ‘Mike Elk is totally beholden to the interests of somebody making $17,000 a year that can’t feed their kids.’ I’m fine with that.”

The Huffington Post, which describes itself as “The Internet Newspaper,” doesn’t have a full-time labor reporter. Mike Elk, a third-generation union organizer and labor journalist, helped fill that void. Elk produced more than 100 posts for the Huffington Post, without pay. Continue reading →

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Prevention Works

Posted on February 16, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO RON HARRIS

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“If one of us has HIV, all of us have HIV. If one of us is in jail… all of us are in jail. If one of us is unemployed, all of us are unemployed. If one of us is homeless, all of us are homeless. [We need to adopt the] mentality that what happens to my brother, black, white, brown, pink or green, what happens to him is also effecting what happens to me… [Until we get this, we’ll] just continue to go around in circles; nothing changes, and nothing changes.”

“I don’t believe, right now, we understand the ramifications of PreventionWorks! closing,” said Ron Harris, a former employee. “I commend the other organizations who are going to try and pick up the slack, but there is such an unseen, voiceless… population out there that needs the service that PreventionWorks! provides. I don’t know if the other organizations, right now, are up to speed to meet that need.” Continue reading →

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Tunisia. Egypt. Mexico?

Posted on February 14, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO JAMES COCKCROFT

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“I talk to audiences all over this country… and you’d be surprised how many questions I get from the public [asking], ‘Well, what would Mexico do without us?’ And I gasp, and most Mexicans on the Left would gasp, because without the U.S. calling the shots down there, Mexico would be free for crying out loud. They’d have a democratically elected president, for example, [Andres Manuel] Lopez Obrador.

“The U.S. is meddling all over the map of Mexico and the U.S. investments are sucking money out of Mexico. They’re not creating jobs for Mexicans,” said James Cockcroft, author of “Mexico’s Revolution: Then and Now.” “NAFTA laid off millions of workers. Two, three million peasants have been made landless by NAFTA because cheap corn imports from agribusiness in the north drive them out of business. Continue reading →

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A Valentine’s Day Request: Have a Heart, Don’t Take Our Homes (Part Two)

Posted on February 14, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO LINDA LEAKS

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Today at 1:00 PM, a group will gather at the Russell Senate Office Building (Constitution Avenue and 2nd St, NE) to deliver Valentine’s Day cards to senators which ask them to “Have a Heart” and reject the Republican-controlled House of Representatives’ proposal for cutting $100 billion in non-military federal spending. (See Friday’s piece for more on the proposed cuts).

In Part Two of TheFightBack’s interview with Linda Leaks, lead housing organizer for Empower DC, she said, “[When] I see those visions of the Great Depression and I see those long lines and the long faces of people, I can see that now… These cuts are the deepest cuts in the history of the U.S.A. This is what [House Speaker John] Boehner and those folks tell us. They brag about it. But for me, it’s nothing to brag about because people are going to be hurt so badly that I just don’t know what’s going to happen.” Continue reading →

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A Valentine’s Day Request: Have a Heart, Don’t Take Our Homes

Posted on February 11, 2011 by admin

LISTEN TO LINDA LEAKS

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The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has proposed cutting $100 billion from the non-military federal budget for fiscal year 2011. Now it’s the Senate’s turn to act. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Republicans were “blindly swinging a meat ax to the budget when they should be using a smart, sharp scalpel.” Monday, Feb. 14, activists will join with those impacted by the proposed 21 percent cut to Housing and Urban Development to deliver Valentine’s Day cards to senators asking them to “Have a Heart – Don’t Take Our Homes.”

In the District of Columbia, there is “a severe housing crisis,” said Linda Leaks, lead housing organizer for Empower DC. “We’re looking at about 30,000 people on the waiting list for… subsidized housing, public housing. And we’re looking at something like 16,000 or so people who are without housing at all, who are called homeless… We have more than 50 percent of people [who earn $30,000 or less] paying more than 50 percent of their income for housing. And the situation is getting worse.” Continue reading →

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Mr. President, Come Home With Your Rhetoric

Posted on February 10, 2011 by admin

“Congress rules over this colony called the District of Columbia,” said Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate and many time presidential candidate. “For over two hundred years, [residents of the District of Columbia] haven’t had the right that all other Americans have in the 50 states to elect their own voting representative and two senators.”

“No other capital city in any country that claims to be a democracy disenfranchises, strips its residents of its capital city (like Brasilia or London) of the right to vote for representatives in their Parliaments. Only the District of Columbia remains a colony.” Continue reading →

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A Bittersweet Settlement for Black Farmers

Posted on February 8, 2011 by admin

Dec. 8, 2010, President Obama signed into law an historic discrimination settlement, known as “Pigford II,” which provides $1.15 billion to 75,000 black farmers. The settlement is a continuation of Pigford vs. Glickman, a class-action lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1990s by black farmers for the decades of discrimination they experienced. Attorney General Eric Holder said, “This is a settlement that addressed a historical wrong, I mean something that this country is not and should not be about.”

Lawrence Lucas, president of the USDA Coalition of Minority Employees, waited for years for this settlement, yet he called it “bittersweet.” Continue reading →

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“Paying a Hell of a Price” for Walmart

Posted on February 7, 2011 by admin

Jan. 18, on DCTV’s “More Room On the Outside,” Milfred Ellis, a longtime Ward 4 resident and former Department of Labor economist, discussed his opposition to Walmart’s attempt to locate four stores in the District of Columbia. “[People] think they’re getting cheap prices and so forth [when they shop at Walmart], but they’re paying a hell of a price that they’re not even aware of… Wherever Walmart lays its head, it tends to absorb a lot of the other businesses. And for every job that Walmart produces, it causes the community to lose one-and-a-half jobs. So therefore, it’s not a job creator for any community.”

“More Room” co-host Toussaint Tingling-Clemmons is a native Washingtonian who lives east of the Anacostia River in Ward 7, where unemployment stands at 19 percent. Continue reading →

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Obama’s (Anti-Union) Stroll Through Lafayette Park

Posted on February 6, 2011 by admin

Monday, Feb. 7, President Obama “will cross Lafayette Park from the White House to the headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, his longtime political nemesis,” the Wall Street Journal reported. In an open letter to the president , longtime consumer advocate and many time presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, asked, “What about walking next door and visiting your political friends at the headquarters of the AFL-CIO whose member unions represent millions of working Americans?”

The Washington Post noted: “The White House’s campaign to rebuild ties with corporate America gets the ultimate photo opportunity Monday when President Obama crosses Lafayette Park and steps into the imposing headquarters of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The gesture may surprise Americans who recall that Obama, just four months ago, said the group may have used foreign money to air ads attacking Democrats, or that a senior aide called the Chamber’s political tactics a ‘threat to our democracy.’ And the applause certain to fill the ornate Hall of Flags inside the Chamber building might seem jarring given the tens of millions of dollars the group spent to fight Obama’s signature health-care overhaul and deliver the House majority to the Republicans.” Continue reading →

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Hardy’s Future Is Gray

Posted on February 4, 2011 by admin

Members of the Hardy community protesting outside the John A. Wilson Building, Jan. 14, 2011

LISTEN TO ERIC WOODS

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Wednesday, Feb. 2, Mayor Vincent Gray addressed the North Michigan Park Civic Association in Northeast D.C. During the Q&A, Miranda Woods, an eighth grade student at Hardy Middle School, expressed concern about the ongoing problems at her school. Miranda called for Patrick Pope, the popular former principal, to return. Mayor Gray said he did not “understand why Mr. Pope was taken out [by the previous administration],” but he didn’t “want to be the chancellor of the schools. That’s why we hire a chancellor, to make those decisions.” Gray continued, “I think that there will be a new interim principal at Hardy starting next week.”

What Gray didn’t say Wednesday night – and what his administration had not told the Hardy community despite meeting regularly with them these past weeks – was that the position of Hardy principal may have already been offered to (and possibly accepted by) Clarence Humes, the 8th grade assistant principal at Deal Middle School, according to Candy Miles-Crocker, a member of the Hardy Middle School Local School Restructuring Team.
Continue reading →

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