UEPI News and Commentary

Friends,

I am sending you two important pieces by journalist Harold Meyerson. The first -- linked here -- is his final "Powerlines" column in the LA Weekly, a retrospective on LA politics and the LA Weekly's role as a progressive voice in our community, during his almost two decades at the paper. It is his final column because the new owners of the Weekly let Harold go. Don't mourn for Harold. He's doing fine from his pundit perch in DC. He was recently promoted to editor of the American Prospect and will continue as a regular columnist for the Washington Post.  But mourn for LA, which will miss Harold's strong reporting and commentary on LA politics and movements for justice.

Continue reading "Meyerson's eulogy for the progressive LA Weekly"

Few progressive activists under 60 will know the name Dorothy Healey -- who died yesterday at age 91 -- but she was a remarkable organizer and activist. Tiny in stature, she was a charismatic and inspiring speaker, a feisty firebrand with a great sense of humor, who began her activism as a teenager and persisted through her late 80s.  The obituary in today's (Tuesday's) LA Times is reasonably thorough, but doesn't really capture the energy and enthusiasm that was so forceful and contagious.  Even people (like myself) who disagreed with some of her political views -  she was a leader of the LA branch of the Communist Party from the 1940s through the 1960s -- learned a great deal from her organizing skills and her lifetime commitment to social, economic and racial justice. Like her colleague Frank Wilkinson, who died last year, she was a long distance runner for progressive change. I haven't made contact with her son Richard yet, but I assume there will be an LA memorial event for her at some point.

Continue reading "Dorothy Healey, Los Angeles Advocate for Progressive Change"

In a walnut paneled conference room, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with Georgian chandeliers, Remington-style bronze reproductions, 17th century Flemish art and Persian carpets, including one woven by servants of the Shah of Iran, John Edwards sat in the same chair at a small round table for two days taking copious notes, as panels of policy wonks expounded on new approaches to fight poverty.

In the age of George W., Wal-mart, and free market ideology, few public officials or candidates for office have much to say about the persistence of poverty in the world's wealthiest nation. Yet here was Edwards, calculating whether and how to run for president, at a two-day seminar on poverty that, while attracting 200 people, really had only one student. Read the rest of my article on the Common Dreams website...

Many of you have seen the LA Times' 4-day series last week criticizing the United Farm Workers.  In response, I wrote this op-ed, published in the Sunday LA Times (yesterday), criticizing the paper's general coverage of labor and workplace issues.

On a positive note, the NY Times Magazine yesterday ran a great cover story on the growing "living wage" movement around the country, focusing on ACORN staffer Jen Kern.
And Holly Sklar has a great article about Dr. King's views about economic justice and labor on the TomPaine website.

The new (Winter 2006) issue of Dissent has my tribute to Rosa Parks.

CommonSense last week published a tribute to civil liberties and housing activist Frank Wilkinson by Jan Breidenbach and me.  It was also published in The Nation as part of Katrina Vanden Heuvel's column.

Also in The Nation, I recommend "A Top Ten List of Bold Ideas" by Gar Alperovitz and Thad Williamson. Even if you don't agree with all of these ideas it is important for progressives to create a positive forward-looking agenda, not just be against things.

Something to be against, though, are the huge tax break for the wealthy, including that part of the homeowner deduction that goes to the richest folks with the biggest homes. My article in the current issue of Shelterforce examines President Bush's tax reform task force and its recent recommendation to reform what I call the "mansion subsidy":

Finally, I recommend a new report by Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, who estimate the cost of the war in Iraq at $2 trillion - four times more than the Bush administration's projections.

The obituaries for Frank Wilkinson,  who died January 2 at 91, primarily focused on his role as a leading opponent of McCarthyism, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and government spying on citizens. In 1958,  Wilkinson was one of the last people ordered to prison for defying HUAC.  He appealed his contempt citation all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5 to 4 against him. After spending nine months in federal prison in 1961, Wilkinson through the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, spend more than a decade fighting to dismantle HUAC, which was finally abolished in 1975. Wilkinson also fought the FBI.  He sued the FBI to obtain its files on him, eventually getting 132,000 documents,  which revealed that the agency had been spying on him for 38 years. A federal judge order the FBI to end its surveillance of Wilkinson.

Continue reading "Frank Wilkinson's Legacy"