justice – kimi blog

2016100220161002

For healthy and non-GMO foods, vote for House and Senate candidates like Josh Gottheimer

Josh Gottheimer v Garrett in NJ's 5th CD — Source: foodpolicyaction.com

In November, vote for the House and Senate candidates who believe in good, healthy and GMO-free food. Food Policy Action compares the food positions of 12 sets of candidates.

Here’s the scoop on Rep. Scott Garrett vs. Josh Gottheimer – New Jersey’s 5th District Congressional candidates:

Josh Gottheimer supports a strong federal safety net for seniors and food insecure families with children. He also supports fair wages and working conditions for food and farm workers. Incumbent Scott Garrett has voted repeatedly to cut hunger reduction and nutrition programs like SNAP; and he opposed measures that would reduce the misuse of antibiotics in food. read more

20160413

Break Free into Renewable Energy Now!

Break Free Albany 2016 on May 14 in Albany, NY is a mass demonstration for climate justice … a unified demand to keep fossil fuels in the ground and implement renewable energy now. Anyone interested in clean energy and a renewable energy future is welcome to attend.

Sign up for a bus departing the New Jersey area from Teaneck, Wayne, West Nyack and South Jersey. $35 round trip if you can afford the cost and scholarships available if you can’t.

2016010320160104

Cosby’s business is private, but the state of America’s democracy is our concern

Cosby punching bag — Source: Randy Bish, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review via toursdelaliberte.blogspot.com

I’m a little ashamed of myself. I’ve done to Cosby exactly what I caution people to never do, unless an accused person’s actions have been substantively witnessed and recorded – like the police who killed Eric Garner. Without the benefit of legal discovery or a trial, I had already convicted Cosby in my mind.

Although only a handful of his accusers claim to have been actually raped by Cosby, I had decided in my mind that he is guilty of serially raping almost 50 women. I didn’t bother to learn what these women have actually accused Dr. Cosby of doing to them. And I didn’t question my right or ability to judge him either, until I watched this video last night … and realized that I am a hypocrite, as well as a victim of the fine art of misdirection, which Wikipedia defines as: read more

20151022

The People won prison phone justice today – thanks FCC!

We won phone justice — Graphic by Jermaine Chambers

What kind of a nation would lock up 10% of its adult population long term for minor crimes like smoking a marijuana joint or stealing a jacket … and on top of that, make calling home so expensive for prisoners it became virtually impossible?

Well, that would be the United States of America – until this morning, that is, when the FCC voted to make prison calls affordable. Thank you for heading up this valuable initiative Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.

Today (Thursday, 21 October 2015), the Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to cap the rates and fees companies charge those families struggling to keep in touch with incarcerated relatives by phone. That change came as a direct result of mounting pressure from groups across the country. read more

20150412

Wisconsin may be 1st US state to completely end justice

Monied interests in Wisconsin have been systematically working to eradicate justice in their courts in order to make it legal for court decisions to be bought by the mighty and the monied. By pushing through a change in this spring’s election to the way the state’s Supreme Court Chief Justice is selected, Wisconsin conservatives may have finally reached the tipping point they’ve been working towards for several years.

They’ve made it legal for money to buy court decisions and for court oversight to be removed – accomplishments they were able to make law because America is not voting, and we don’t seem to know what democracy means. read more

2013122320160404

Book: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Category: Social Justice

Author Michelle Alexander-West is the wife of a United States federal prosecutor and an attorney in her own right. In this book, she does a truly remarkable job of drilling down through levels of strategy, policy and procedure that form the complex web of injustice that has brought the United States to the terrible point of imprisoning over 1% of our adult population and detaining 25% of all prisoners everywhere in the world … many of whom have been jailed for minor offenses, such as carrying a couple of marijuana cigarettes. Over 3200 non-violent offenders have been jailed for life for non-violent offenses like that, or for stealing an item of clothing worth $150. Unjust imprisonment is part of the intentional destruction of the lives of people of color. read more

2013071320221207

Watoto children honor Trayvon with hauntingly beautiful music video and original song

The loving and wonderfully talented young performers from Watoto from the Nile have produced a hauntingly beautiful song they call “Warning”. In their music video, the young people follow in the wake of Trayvon’s fateful footsteps as he walks to the 7-11, singing –

… Watoto here with a Warning … right now our Nation’s in mourning. Oh Martin Family, we’re with you … I put my hoodie oh I weeping … because this case is so misleading. We come together we must care … Trayvon Martin your spirit is in all of us. read more