Behind Foreclosures, Ruined Credit and Hopes

NEWARK — After Franklin Abazie fell behind on his mortgage last year, he tucked one of his foreclosure notices, still in its ripped envelope, into the visor of his car — a looming reminder of why he had to take a second job.

Rashid and Yvonne Moore, a middle-aged couple whose lenders are threatening foreclosure because they have fallen behind on their mortgage payments, have begun thinking the unthinkable: moving in with his parents.

For Quintin Fields, it may take a miracle to keep his house; he owes nearly as much in late payments as he will earn all year.

“Everything is closing in on me right now,” Mr. Fields said.

Broad swaths of Newark are groaning under the weight of mortgage debt, much of it accumulated in the building boom of recent years that has transformed some parts of the city with gleaming redevelopment.

But in many of these neighborhoods, a heavy mortgage debt has led thousands of residents — many of them first-time homebuyers — close to financial ruin, experts and local officials say. According to recent census figures, more than 40 percent of Newark homeowners spend more than half their income on housing, one of the highest percentages in the New York metropolitan region and among the highest in the country.

In small ways and large, that debt is forcing thousands of people here to change their lives. Many have taken second jobs. Others are selling off prized possessions. Some have had to rent out rooms. And more than a few have surrendered to the inevitability of losing their homes to foreclosure.

Driving the high mortgage debt and the boom in home sales here, and around the country, has been the proliferation of mortgages that have made it possible for people with poor credit, scant savings and modest incomes to buy homes. Among these are subprime loans, which are easier to obtain than prime rate loans but come with an added burden: much higher interest rates. In many cases, financial institutions lent to people without verifying whether their incomes could support the monthly payments. [...]

Malcolm Bush, president of the Woodstock Institute, a national research group that studies mortgage lending in poor neighborhoods, said that widespread foreclosures in an area can depress already low housing prices, making it harder for others in that area to get loans or refinance. And those troubles can afflict an entire community. “This has wider social implications,” Mr. Bush said. “It appears that things are going to get worse.” [...]

At first, [Franklin Abazie] had assumed that he could find a tenant to help offset the cost of the mortgage, but soon discovered his neighborhood had a glut of vacant apartments [...] Last month, they found a tenant, who pays $400 a month, far short of the $1,200 rent they had thought they could charge. 

[...] For Michelle Pitt, subprime loans were not the problem. But she, too, has found herself swimming in debt that is jeopardizing her ability to keep her home.

Ms. Pitt, a 39-year-old single mother of four, bought her two-family house from a local nonprofit group, Episcopal Community Development, in 1999. The house sits on a hill in the South Ward and rattles constantly with the sound of Interstate 78, the highway next door. Still, it was a good deal, selling for $105,000 under a subsidized housing program.

Ms. Pitt, a first-time home buyer, got a mortgage with a relatively good interest rate of 7.5 percent. And at the time, she was earning decent salaries from two jobs, as a flight attendant for Spirit Airlines and as a dental assistant in state prisons.

Over the next few years, she was laid off by the prison and stopped working at Spirit when the company moved some of its New York operations to Florida. Since then, she has held temporary jobs, most recently as a part-time orthodontist’s assistant. [...]

-----

The first reflection that hit me with the force of a hammer is that living in Newark for people like TFA-ers is not only a "nice" and "responisible" thing to do, but (done right) it is a very concrete way to help not only the landlords, but also the community surrounding the house against financial ruin.

I have been reading about the effects that the bursting of the "housing bubble" has had on THEM, but this is the first in-depth analysis I have read about the effect on PEOPLE. And it really makes me despise these Wall Street types who - with the goal of making a quick profit - set up conditions that have the only foreseeable consequence of screwing people over. How sick is this system? And is there anything that individual citizens and taxpayers can do to help these poor people out?

Trovato qui:

Diminuisce il lavoro stabile e di qualità a Pistoia, aumenta quello precario. Il risultato è un forte impoverimento sociale. È quanto emerso nella realtà pistoiese da una serie di assemblee svolte dalla Cisl e da uno studio statistico effettuato dalla società di servizi del sindacato. Stando a quanto emerso aumentano i contratti a termine e i co.co.pro sia per i giovani, che per le generazione di mezzo, cioè i soggetti tra 40 e 50 anni, per i quali il ricollocamento lavorativo è più problematico. Il sindacato chiede una politica sociale più mirata, anche a livello locale. Toscana Radio News

Non che sia una sorpresa, date le conversazioni che ho avuto con molti amici a Pistoia.

Mi piacerebbe pero' trovare i dati esatti...

To the Times:

Re: "The Hamas Conundrum"

Imagine this sentence:

"If Israel wants American aid restored (all $2 billion of it) it must begin to meet three conditions: ending violence against Palestinians, recognizing and negotiating with the elected leadership of the Palestinians, and respecting UN Security Council resolutions and the Geneva Conventions as they apply to the occupied territories."

It is impossible to even utter such a sentence in our political discourse without being subjected to vicious attacks from the defenders of political orthodoxy. And this sadly assures that our country cannot be part of a "just and lasting" settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Today I also got an email from Assaf, a former Israeli reservist who became a concientious objector. He forwarded this article, which has to do with maps. For some good ones, check here.

Without Borders
 
Uri Avnery 24.03.07
 
INCREDIBLE! In Palestinian schoolbooks, there is no trace of the Green Line! They do not recognize the existence of Israel even in the 1967 borders! They say that the "Zionist gangs" stole the country from the Arabs! That's how they poison the minds of their children!  
 
These blood-curdling revelations were published this week in Israel and around the world. The conclusion is self-evident: the Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for the schoolbooks, cannot be a partner in peace negotiations.
 
What a shock!
 
Truth is, there is nothing new here. Every few years, when all the other arguments for refusing to speak with the Palestinian leadership wear thin, the ultimate argument pops up again: Palestinian schoolbooks call for the destruction of Israel!
 
The ammunition is always provided by one of the "professional" institutions that deal with this matter. These are foundations of the far-right, disguised as "scientific" bodies, which are lavishly funded by Jewish-American multi-millionaires. Teams of salaried employees apply a fine-tooth comb to every word of the Arab media and schoolbooks, with a pre-ordained objective: to prove that they are anti-Semitic, preach hatred of Israel and call for the killing of Jews. In the sea of words, it is not too difficult to find suitable quotes, while ignoring everything else.
 
So now it is again perfectly clear: Palestinian schoolbooks preach hatred of Israel! They are breeding a new generation of terrorists! Therefore, of course, there can be no question of Israel and the world ending the blockade on the Palestinian Authority!
 
WELL, WHAT about our side? What do our schoolbooks look like?
 
Does the Green Line appear in them? Do they recognize the right of the Palestinians to establish a state on the other side of our 1967 borders? Do they teach love for the Palestinian people (or even the existence of the Palestinian people), or respect for the Arabs in general, or a knowledge of Islam?
 
The answer to all these questions: Absolutely not!
 
Recently, Minister of Education Yuli Tamir came out with a bombastic announcement saying that she intends to mark the Green Line in the schoolbooks, from which it was removed almost 40 years ago. The Right reacted angrily, and nothing more was heard about it.
 
From kindergarten to the last day of high school, the Israeli pupil does not learn that the Arabs have any right at all to any of this land. On the contrary, it is clear that the land belongs to us alone, that God has personally given it to us, that we were indeed driven out by the Romans after the destruction of our Temple in the year 70 (a myth) but that we returned at the beginning of the Zionist movement. Since then, the Arabs have tried again and again to annihilate us, as the Goyim have done in every generation. In 1936, the "gangs" (the official Israeli term for the fighters of the Arab Revolt) attacked and murdered us. And so on, up to this very day.
 
When he comes out of the pedagogic mill, the Jewish-Israeli pupil "knows" that the Arabs are a primitive people with a murderous religion and a miserable culture. He brings this view with him when he (or she) joins the army a few weeks later. There, it is reinforced almost automatically. The daily humiliation of old people and women - not to mention everybody else - at the checkpoints would not be possible otherwise.
 
THE QUESTION is, of course, whether schoolbooks really have that much influence on the pupils.
 
From earliest childhood, children absorb the atmosphere of their surroundings. The conversations at home, the sights on television, the happenings in the street, the opinions of classmates at school - all these influence them far more than the written texts of the books, which in any case are interpreted by teachers who themselves have been subject to these influences.
 
An Arab child sees on TV an old woman lamenting the demolition of her home. He sees on the walls in the street the photos of the martyred heroes, sons of his neighborhood, who have sacrificed their lives for their people and country. He hears what has happened to his cousin who was murdered by the evil Jews. He hears from his father that he cannot buy meat or eggs, because the Jews are not allowing him to work and put food on the table. At home there is no water for most of the day. Mother tells about grandpa and grandma, who have been languishing for 60 years in a miserable refugee camp in Lebanon. He knows that his family were driven out from their village in what became Israel and that the Jews are living there now. The hero of his class is the boy who jumped on a passing Israeli tank, or who dared to throw a stone from a distance of 10 meters at a soldier who was pointing a gun at him.
 
[...]

What can schoolbooks change here?
 
And on the Jewish Israeli side? From the earliest age, the child sees the pictures of suicide attacks on TV, bodies scattered around, the injured being taken away in ambulances with blood-curdling shrieks from their sirens. He hears that the Nazis slaughtered his mother's entire family in Poland, and in his consciousness Nazis and Arabs become one. On every day's news he hears bad things about what the Arabs are doing, that they want to destroy the state and throw us into the sea. He knows that the Arabs want to kill his brother, the soldier, without any reason, just because they are such murderers. Nothing about life in "the territories", perhaps just a few kilometers away, reaches him. Until he is called up, the only Arabs he meets are Israeli Arab workers doing menial work. When he joins the army, he sees them only through gun sights, every one of them of them a potential "terrorist".
 
For a change in the schoolbooks to have any value, reality on the ground must change first.
 
DOES THAT mean that schoolbooks have no importance? It should not be underestimated.
 
[...]
 
Forty years have passed, and the name "Israel" does not appear in Palestinian schoolbooks, nor, I assume, on any school map from Morocco to Iraq. And the name "Palestine" does not appear, of course, on any Israeli school map. Only when the young Israeli joins the army, does he see a map of "the territories", with its crazy puzzle of Zones A, B and C, settlement blocs and apartheid roads.
 
A map is a weapon. From my childhood in Germany between the two World Wars I remember a map that was hanging on the wall of my classroom. On it, Germany had two borders. One (green, if I remember correctly) was the existing border, that was imposed by the treaty of Versailles after the (first) World War. The other, marked in glowing red, was the border from before the war. In thousands of classrooms all over Germany (then governed by Social-Democrats) the pupils saw every day before their eyes the terrible injustice done to Germany, when pieces were "torn" from her on every side. Thus was bred the generation which filled the ranks of the Nazi war machine in World War II.
 
(By the way, some fifty years later I was taken on a courtesy visit to that school. I asked the principal about that map. Within minutes, it was brought out from the archive.)
 
NO, I do not make light of maps. Especially not of maps in schools.
 
I repeat what I said then: the aim must be that the child in Ramallah sees before his eyes, on the wall of his classroom, a map on which the State of Israel is marked. And that the child in Rishon-le-Zion sees before his eyes, on the wall of his classroom, a map on which the State of Palestine is marked. Not by compulsion, but by agreement.
 
That is, of course, impossible as long as Israel has no borders. How can one mark on the map a state which, from its first day, has refused, consciously and adamantly, to define its borders? Can we really demand that the Palestinian ministry of education publish a map on which all the territory of Palestine lies inside Israel?
 
And on the other hand, how can one mark on the map the name "Palestine", when there is no Palestinian state? After all, even most of those Israeli politicians who profess - at least pro forma - to support the "two-states solution" will go to great lengths to avoid saying where the border
between the two state should run. Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, is totally opposed to the announced intention of her colleague, Minister of Education Yuli Tamir, to mark the Green Line, lest it be seen as a border.
 
Peace means a border. A border fixed by agreement. Without a border, there can be no peace. And without peace, it is the height of chutzpa to demand something from the other side that we totally refuse to do ourselves.

Yesterday I helped out and attended the "People's Rally for Peace and Justice" sponsored by the Peace and Justice coalition, with much of the work done by the People's Organization for Progress.

A lot of speeches were made. Too many, I felt at the time. But I wonder.

Many of the points that were made were right on target. The waste of resources represented by the current war in Iraq was appropriately attacked, and the point was made repeatedly that those resources are - desperately - needed here, in Newark. Some of the speakers gave examples of just what could be accomplished with the billions of dollars spent in Iraq, in terms of housing, education, and health care.

The war was appropriately assailed as immoral, and illegal, on all parts.

We heard from veterans, and from one man whose son was killed in action. As Larry Hamm - the MC - pointed out, those were the domestic groups most affected by the barbarity in Iraq. Perhaps an Iraqi perspective would have been appropriate. There were speeches from Labor, from elected officials, from the first African-American woman president of the New Jersey Chapter of the National Organization for Women, from Ministers of both large African American churches and the Nation of Islam. More women spoke at the Rally than did at the Conference - a welcome development.

I quickly grew impatient with all the speeches. "Yes, I know all of these things," I thought. Now let's be constructive and talk about ACTIONS. The Occupation Project (a courageous, creative idea) was briefly mentioned towards the end of the event. People agreed to march. But I felt impatient, restless. When I read Stokeley Carmichael's autobiography (Ready For Revolution) or Howard Zinn's accounts (in SNCC: the New Abolitionists) of what people in the Civil Rights movement were doing to end US Apartheid, they were getting trained for non-violent resistance, they were having heated debates, and they were putting their bodies on the line - they didn't sit around and listen to people talk for hours on end. I wanted to say something about tax resistance, and my own efforts, limited though they may be, at civil disobedience with the federal excise tax in my phone bill.

But - and this is still slowly sinking in - I began to realize was that what was happening was something different. There was a delicate dance being conducted by the member organizations. And the point of the dance was to see whether they could all be together in the same room and agree on something - namely, in Martin Luther King's words, that

we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

And I realize that perhaps the focal point of this rally was less to mobilize the masses, and more to continue on the tentative path that the coalition set out on after the Peace Conference in January. And that my impatience with the proceedings is misplaced: what I was witnessing was the complicated and lengthy birth of a strange new creature. A still tentative alliance of African-American religious organizations, Labor, college students, and traditional "peace activists" which could - potentially - target the nexus of domestic corporate power and imperialism, with the aim of creating a more just society. This is the stuff that must give Dick Cheney nightmares.

So the role of anyone who was there was not to immediately become a foot-soldier in a wave of mass action, but rather to indicate to those who were on the podium, and to everyone else in the room that this is important. That we support their and our efforts to figure it out, and work as a coalition. That whatever differences may divide us (or divide our "leaders"),  we AS A PEOPLE think that this is important enough to set those differences aside.

Will it work? It's hard to say. But it seems clear that at SOME point these changes will have to occur, if the coalition is going to be sustainable, sustained, and ultimately effective:

• shift the focus away from this or that particular war and pinpoint the military budget and the whole military-industrial complex. Individual wars end (and the war in Iraq may end soon, hopefully). The Pentagon goes on.
• Think more broadly about our permanent war economy, as represented by the empire of US military installations around the world - which are being resisted from Ecuador, to Italy, to Japan.
• Move to engage the masses of people. The organizations in the coalition who do not mobilize in the street will have to start doing so. The "white, middle class" peace movement will have to challenge itself to incorporate more fully the domestic repercussions of a war economy, so as to become meaningful to the poor, the homeless, and the chronically undermeployed. All will have to be more visible, foster organization at all levels of society, and promote a culture of resistance.
• Somehow engage the youth of the cities in the struggle, and make them a focus of the "revolution of values."  Gangs, for example, represent a tremendous potential source of organization and energy. Schools at all levels are teeming with children who are just yearning for a framework to make sense of their world, and the natural rebelliousness of youth, properly channelled, could be a fantastic source of energy.

...Writing about this helps me reflect about what happened on Saturday, and it sharpens my focus on what I need to do. What should my role be in all this? If you got this far, anonymous reader, hopefully you are doing the same.

THE PEOPLE'S RALLY FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

Saturday, March 24

12 noon

Essex County College Gymnasium

Stop the war! Bring the Troops home now! Fund Education, Health Care, Jobs, and Housing not War and Occupation! Stand up for Peace and Justice! Stop the War in Iraq, Stop the War in out Streets!

From Reuters:

Chiquita Brands International Inc. said on Wednesday that it would plead guilty to one count of doing business with a terrorist group, ending a three-year U.S. government probe into payments made by the banana company's former Colombian unit. [...]

The Justice Department filed in federal court in Washington a document detailing the payments made to a group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a violent right-wing group that has been designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. [...]

The payments were approved by senior executives at the Cincinnati-based company, according to the court documents. [...]

Chiquita said the groups made threats against its workers and that it made the payments only to protect its employees. [...]

The government of President Alvaro Uribe has been rocked by a scandal in which eight of his congressional allies and his former intelligence chief have been jailed for financing or otherwise supporting the paramilitaries.

The story continues:

Colombian prosecutors will determine if an extradition request should be made against company executives

Let's be clear: Multinational corporations in the United States LIKE right-wing death squads. The US-instigate coup in Guatemala, which led to a genocidal campaign against indigenous people that killed hundredsof thousands of people, was carried out for the benefit of the United Fruit Company - later renamed CHIQUITA. Other examples are too numerous to count.

Let's also be clear about Colombia: the worst human rights violator in the hemisphere and (not surprisingly) the leading recipient of US military aid (apart from Israel and Egypt). It is the most dangerous country in the world to be a labor unionist - people there get KILLED for trying to organize unions. Killed by right-wing paramilitaries, operating with high-level government support, on the pay of foreign owned companies. So the idea that Chiquita paid the AUC to "protect" it's workers is quite ironic.

Learn some more (along with connections to Coca-Cola and Nestle) at the website of the SINALTRAINAL (a Colombian union), the international Labor Rights Fund, and the Colombia Action Network

 And for what?

Rachel Corrie (1979 - 2003) was a US college student who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza, on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Rachel was trying to prevent the bulldozer from demolishing the house of a Palestinian family.

No-one has been put on trial for her murder.

The following is from an email she wrote home from Gaza: Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home again when I'm done.

Is that "w" for "woman" or "warmonger"?

From the New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military. [...]

She said in the interview that there were “remaining vital national security interests in Iraq” that would require a continuing deployment of American troops.

The United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state “that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda,” she said. “It is right in the heart of the oil region,” she said. “It is directly in opposition to our interests, to the interests of regimes, to Israel’s interests.”

All doubts are gone. Hillary is just as much an imperialist as anybody else. And how ironic that she at least has the decency to acknowledge the role of oil, and Israel, in forumulating US policy.

So, who should someone opposed to the war and the extension of the US empire of bases around the world support in the Democratic primaries? Obama? oops,

Senator Barack Obama, a rival of Mrs. Clinton, has said that if elected president, he might keep a small number of troops in Iraq.

While we wait for something definitive from Edwards, let's just roll up our sleeves and start talking about Kucinich.

Ho letto quanto segue qui:

PISTOIA. Una sorta di “metrò” in nemmeno due anni. Questo il progetto dell’amministrazione comunale di Pistoia che ha affidato al Copit l’incarico di riorganizzare il trasporto pubblico cittadino. La novità è rappresentata da un sistema di bus veloci, frequenti e gratuiti che viaggeranno in corsia protetta collegando piazza S. Francesco alla Stazione ferroviaria.

L'idea non mi dispiace, e mi sembra ben fatta. Idee? Critiche (del tipo: bella promessa elettorale)?

Mi hanno rimandato il computer!!! ora posso tornare a fare quello che mi riesce meglio!

I got my computer back! now i can go back to doing what i do best!

The history of International Women's Day (in English, from wikipedia) is below.

Quanto segue e' la "versione wikipedia" della storia della festa della donna. Le mimose c'entrano poco.

In Italia è molto diffusa un'ipotesi che fa risalire l'origine della festa ad un grave fatto di cronaca avvenuto negli Stati Uniti, nel 1908 a New York. Alcuni giorni prima dell'8 marzo, le operaie dell'industria tessile Cotton iniziarono a scioperare per protestare contro le condizioni in cui erano costrette a lavorare. Lo sciopero proseguì per diversi giorni finché l'8 marzo Mr. Johnson, il proprietario della fabbrica, bloccò tutte le vie di uscita. Poi allo stabilimento venne appiccato il fuoco (alcune fonti parlano di un incendio accidentale). Le 129 operaie prigioniere all'interno non ebbero scampo.

Altra ipotesi è che questa storia derivi da un avvenimento storico: l'incendio che avvenne nel 1911 (quindi dopo, e non prima della tradizionale data di nascita della festa, il 1910), a New York, nella Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Le lavoratrici non erano in sciopero, ma erano state protagoniste di una importante mobilitazione, durata quattro mesi, nel 1909. L'incendio, per quanto le condizioni di sicurezza del luogo di lavoro abbiano contribuito non poco al disastro, non fu doloso. Le vittime furono oltre 140, ma non furono tutte donne, anche se per il tipo di fabbrica erano la maggior parte. I proprietari della fabbrica si chiamavano Max Blanck e Isaac Harris, vennero prosciolti nel processo penale ma persero una causa civile.

L'origine della festività è controversa. Una possibilità è che la sua istituzione risalga al 1910 nel corso della II Conferenza dell'Internazionale socialista di Copenaghen. Sarebbe di Clara Zetkin la proposta di dedicare questo giorno alle donne.

Alcune femministe italiane (Irene Giacobbe, Tilde Capomazza, Marisa Ombra) sostengono tuttavia che non c'è nessuna prova documentata a supportare questa ipotesi. Il movimento operaio e socialista di inizio secolo ha celebrato in date molto diverse giornate dedicate ai diritti delle donne e al suffragio femminile. L'unica data certa è l'8 marzo 1917 (27 febbraio secondo il calendario non riformato) quando le operaie di Pietroburgo (Russia) manifestarono contro la guerra e la penuria di cibo (nell'ambito della rivoluzione di febbraio). Le autrici citate ipotizzano che per rendere più universale e meno caratterizzato politicamente il significato della ricorrenza, si preferì omettere il richiamo alla Rivoluzione russa ricollegandosi ad un episodio non reale, ma verosimile, della storia del movimento operaio degli Stati Uniti.

In Italia, nel secondo dopoguerra, la giornata internazionale della donna fu ripresa e rilanciata dall'UDI (Unione Donne Italiane) associando nel contempo alla data dell'8 marzo l'ormai tradizionale fiore della mimosa.

---ENGLISH---

The first IWD was observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America. Among other relevant historic events, it commemorates the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (New York, 1911), where over 140 women lost their lives. The idea of having an international women's day was first put forward at the turn of the 20th century amid rapid world industrialization and economic expansion that led to protests over working conditions. Women from clothing and textile factories staged one such protest on 8 March 1857 in New York City. The garment workers were protesting what they saw as very poor working conditions and low wages. The protesters were attacked and dispersed by police. These women established their first labor union in the same month two years later.

More protests followed on 8 March in subsequent years, most notably in 1908 when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In 1910 the first international women's conference was held in Copenhagen (in the labour-movement building located at Jagtvej 69, which until recently housed Ungdomshuset) by the Socialist International and an 'International Women's Day' was established, which was submitted by the important German Socialist Clara Zetkin. The following year, IWD was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. However, soon thereafter, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City killed over 140 garment workers. A lack of safety measures was blamed for the high death toll. Furthermore, on the eve of World War I, women across Europe held peace rallies on 8 March 1913. In the West, International Women's Day was commemorated during the 1910s and 1920s, but dwindled. It was revived by the rise of feminism in the 1960s.

Demonstrations marking International Women's Day in Russia proved to be the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Following the October Revolution, the Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai persuaded Lenin to make it an official holiday, and it was established, but was a working day until 1965. On May 8, 1965 by the decree of the USSR Presidium of the Supreme Soviet International Women's Day was declared as a non working day in the USSR "in commemoration of outstanding merits of the Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defense of their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War, their heroism and selflessness at the front and in rear, and also marking the big contribution of women to strengthening friendship between peoples and struggle for the peace."

From Haaretz:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Winograd Commission that his decision to respond to the abduction of soldiers with a broad military operation was made as early as March 2006, four months before last summer's Lebanon war broke out.

And then comes the inevitable, bitter comedy of all such situations:

Olmert stated that he had decided in earlier meetings that Israel's goal in an operation would be the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the deployment of the Lebanese army along the Israeli border and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

Ah, Israel, the grand enforcer of UN Security Council resolutions, of which it violates more than any other country in the world (with US support to the tune of $2 billion a year and more....)

Ho letto questo articolo sulla Repubblica sul calo relativo della spesa statale sulla scuola pubblica e sulle universita'.

Per farmi un'idea, sono andato a cercare il budget del ministero della difesa, che e' di oltre 20 miliardi di euro.

Ma non sono riuscito a trovare il bilancio del ministero della pubblica istruzione. Qualcuno mi sa aiutare?

There's an article in the NY Times today about the expanding crisis for middle class people who are forced to go without any kind of health insurance.

And here's this quote:Since the Clinton plan collapsed in 1994, the politics of health care have changed because of the steady rise in health costs, the increase in the number of uninsured and the erosion of employer-sponsored insurance. Politicians are once again speaking about universal coverage as a goal, though opinion polls show that many voters still oppose the idea of a government-run health care system.

Really?

By almost a 2-1 margin in this poll, 62 percent to 32 percent, Americans said they preferred a universal system that would provide coverage to everyone under a government program, as opposed to the current employer-based system. [USA Today Poll from 2003]

Most Americans believe government can play a role in fixing the health care system. Two-thirds say the federal government should guarantee that all Americans have health insurance — and a similar number says providing health insurance for all is a more serious problem than keeping health care costs down. [NY Times/CBS Poll from 2007]

So i Quickly wrote to the Times:

Re: Without Health Benefits, a Good Life Turns Fragile

I was surprised when I read that "opinion polls show that many voters still oppose the idea of a government-run health care system."

I was surprised because a NY Times / CBS News poll conducted in February of 2007 reported that "two-thirds [of voters] say it is the responsibility of the federal government to guarantee that all Americans have health insurance."

Is this comment just an example of poor research, or a cover for politicians who listen more to lobbysists from the insurance companies than their own consituents?

Let me conclude with a reminder to support HR 676

In inglese - la traduzione in italiano e' sotto:

DEAN BAKER
Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Baker said today: "A lower stock market is good for a lot of people. If corn prices fell 30 percent, that would be bad for you if you're a corn farmer, but good for you if you weren't and ate a lot of corn. Stock ownership is highly concentrated; 75 percent of the population holds little or no stock (including retirement accounts), so if stocks go down and you don't own any, you're better off.

"When stocks plunge in value, it's similar to a situation where there are trillions of dollars in counterfeit currency, held by a small group of people, and the police seize and burn it. This is good news for the rest of us because the trillions of dollars of counterfeit money will not be bidding up the prices of things like houses and cars. Any honest economist would have to concede this point -- it's elementary economics, but many economists tend to cheer the stock market, in effect favoring the wealthy at everyone else's expense."

Baker's most recent book is " Conservative Nanny State : How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer."

DEAN BAKER

Il co-direttore del centro per la ricerca economica e politica ha detto oggi: un mercato azionario in ribasso e' un bene per molte persone. Se il prezzo del granturco cadesse del 30%, significherebbe una notevole perdita per l’agricoltore, ma un notevole vantaggio per chi non e’ un agricoltore e compra molto grano. Il gruppo di persone che possiede azioni e’ molto ristretto: il 75% della popolazione (degli stati uniti) non possiede nessuna azione, per cui per loro un mercato che cade produce vantaggi economici.

Quando il prezzo delle azioni cade precipitosamente, ci troviamo in una situazione simile a quando vengono trovati miliardi di euro in banconote fasulle, nelle mani di poche persone, e la polizia li distrugge. E' una buona notizia per il resto della popolazione perche’ non ci sono piu' persone che comprano oggetti costosi, facendo salire i prezzi degli oggetti che tutti dobbiamo comprare. Qualsiasi economo onesto deve ammettere che e’ vero – si tratta di economia elementare, ma molti economi fanno il tifo per il mercato azionario, di fatto favorendo i ricchi piu’ di tutti noi.

For some months now I have been refusing to pay the federal excise tax on my phone bill, as a way of protesting and resisting our country's militarism. I have been writing to Verizon letting them know that I was doing this and why.

Today i got a letter from them acknowledging that they had received my letter, that they informed the IRS that I wasn't paying the taxes. I also infer from the letter that they may take the charge for the tax off my phone bill, but i have to notify them every month.

I was told to send all future correspondence about my refusal to this address:
Verizon
PO Box 9000
Annapolis MD 21401-9000

There is also a toll-free number: 1-800-755-1068

Find out more at Hang Up On War

In the continuing saga of Newark's economic woes, there was a fascinating piece in today's Star Ledger by Joan Whitlow, an astute obsever of city hall's doings. She describes the attractive apartments being built by the Newark Housing Authority, and then highlights the fact that the poor in Newark cannot afford them. 

Some highlights:

One hundred units are beginning to open for occupancy. A one- bedroom flat goes for $868 a month; it's $1,316 a month for a four-bedroom townhome. [...] Compare that with an apart ment in one of the multifamily houses going up around town: $1,600 a month,[...]

The housing authority says it has built 2,200 townhouses since the demolition derby. However, more than 7,000 units of low-cost housing were lost. [a lot of high-rise projects were demolished starting in '95]

The NHA says the people who used to live in the old housing towers have the right to return only if they did not take any kind of a relo cation deal from the NHA, such as a Section 8, federally subsidized housing voucher, to find other accommodations.

So: Only those low-income families that managed to go off on their own, in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, for, say, five years -- that's how long ago Stella Wright came down -- have a guaranteed right to move into the housing built on the dust of the homes that were blown out from under them? Yep, and not even that guarantee is a guarantee.

First, there are income limits: between $25,307 and $35,460 for an individual through $37,226 to $58,740 for a family of six.

Then comes the credit check. Too many late rent payments will knock you off the waiting list for Cottage Place.

Cottage Place is nice, and officials aim to keep it that way. What the NHA has built is not public housing. It is affordable housing, the authority explains. [affordable for WHO???]

So far, out of 381 applicants, 233 have been turned down.   

I would count this as another "strike" against the new Booker administration. They have claimed that they want to do lots of good things for the poor, and i had previously been lulled by their talk of "affordable" housing - but now that I better understand what that means (namely: no poor people allowed) I will be much more skeptical in the future.