Saturday, April 4, 2009

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Rev. Lennox Yearwood: Tears from Heaven: Dr. King Would Want Climate Justice Top
Forty-one years ago today, on a balcony in Memphis, TN, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was taken from us. His dream, however, did not die on the balcony. One year ago, on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, I was in Memphis at a very special and important gathering, the Dream Reborn Conference organized by Green for All. This gathering jumpstarted a nationwide movement for an inclusive green economy. Over the course of a year this movement grew so quickly and became so powerful, that we got $500 million dollars for green jobs training in President Obama's economic recovery plan. Now, our movement for climate justice and economic opportunity has a critical role this month. We must fight for federal clean energy legislation that will create jobs, help end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and combat global warming. This week, Congressman Henry Waxman, Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Congressman Edward Markey, Chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, released a draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). Here is a summary of the bill (link). This legislation takes a step towards ending global warming, and by working with our environmental movement allies we can align the cause of ending urban poverty with the need to protect our environment. That is, we can connect the dots between what's good for our planet and what's good for low-income urban communities. You see, it is mostly poor people of color in the U.S. and around the globe who are feeling the impact from climate change, through increases in heat-related illnesses and deaths, rising energy costs, and of course natural disasters, like Hurricane Katrina. We can end poverty and save our climate at the same time. Our demands in the month of April to our Representatives in Congress should be to create Clean Energy Jobs, rebuild our economy, save consumers and businesses money through industry efficiency, protect consumers from energy price spikes (like $4 a gallon gas last summer), and cap global warming pollution to protect our vulnerable communities and avert the high price of inaction. One piece of legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, can do all this for us, if we make it so. Nothing is guaranteed for Urban America in this green conversion, if the streets stay silent on this issue. We have come so far over the course of a year, as a movement we worked both to elect the people we wanted to best represent us, and at the same time, we fought hard on the issues that matter. Opportunity is before us, and we must seize it. I gave a speech one year ago, as the keynote to the opening plenary of the Dream Reborn Conference. Davey D, a renowned Hip Hop journalist, remixed it. I would give the same exact speech today, May 4, 2009 as we still fight for the Dream. Listen here. More on Climate Change
 
David Bromwich: Economic Adviser to the Aristocracy Top
The lately published list of the honorariums received by Lawrence Summers for lectures delivered in 2008--at firms like J.P. Morgan, McKinsey and Company, Goldman Sachs (twice), Citigroup (twice), Lehman Brothers (twice), American Express, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Skagen Funds (twice)--shows the practical meaning of an aristocratic class. The amounts received by Summers from these banks and brokerage houses and consulting firms covered a range from $59,400 per lecture (Skagen) to $135,000 (McKinsey). Other outfits paid still more. Summers also received a salary of $5.2 million in 2008 from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw after having brought substantial pressure to institute to a radical policy of deregulation that affords an unparalleled species of financial protection to hedge funds. The point about such a private counselor who becomes a public servant is not that he is corrupt. He need not be. Rather, he is predictable within the world he knows and believes in, which is the world that honors him. He does not have to be told what to do. When he thinks of the American family, these banks and investment groups, and the too-big-to-fail insurance colossus, are in fact his extended family. They are the people he talks to and jokes with and eats with, the people he thinks of in his spare time. They are the people he knows. One sees in the recent career of Summers--and not least, in his ascent to the position of economic adviser to President Obama--how subtle, consistent, and pervasive are the means by which an aristocracy maintains itself. How it doles out its rewards to maintain its power. How it buys the talents and shapes the careers it needs, so that even a general crisis brings only a second layer of bribed servants, and the medicine is administered by doctors whose judgment is bought and paid for. One sees, too, what drove the rage against such a class in earlier times--the feeling that its power is a monstrous imposition; the fear that no cry or protest will ever penetrate from outside the closed circle. More on Barack Obama
 
Michael Giltz: DVDs: Just A Tiny Bit Of Comfort, 007 Top
The last few weekends, I've been watching as a 12 year old boy works his way through my James Bond DVDs, something every young kid should do on spring break when they're growing up. So I feel as ready as ever to tackle the newest Bond, Quantum of Solace ($39.99 on BluRay and $34.98 for regular DVD; MGM). I think Daniel Craig is an excellent Bond, but felt Casino Royale was a bit overpraised. In contrast, I think Quantum is a bit under-praised. Both are very sleek, fun action films that stay true to Bond while obviously hewing more to the gritty, brutal character of the books than most of the series. The BluRay looks absolutely smashing and -- interestingly -- I found the action scenes easier to follow on TV than I did in the theater. Maybe it's just a second viewing, but the cutting seemed more organic and flowing than it did on the big screen. Is it the detail of the BluRay and the up-close nature of home viewing that in a way focuses your attention on each detail more directly? The Bond girl (Olga Kurylenko) is a major deficit, the weakest link of the movie. Given the movie's dramatic heft, she's actually asked to act and show emotion, something Kurylenko fails at miserably. The cheekily named Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton) is infinitely more appealing and interesting and unfortunately is onscreen all too little. If only their roles were reversed. The ultimate result is that Bond has far more chemistry with M (Judi Dench) than any other character in the film. Their every scene together crackles. As was the original plan with the planned sequel to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Quantum picks up right where Casino Royale left off, with Bond seeking vengeance for the death of his lover. It's a solid, solid entertainment and they're very close to getting every element right and delivering a Bond for the ages. In contrast, I watched Never Say Never Again ($34.98 on BluRay but onsale at Amazon for $14.98; Fox), which is just out on BluRay. It's the first title in that format I've seen that doesn't look smashing. I don't know whether it's the source print or laziness, but this is a grainy, unremarkable DVD, appropriate for a very unremarkable Bond film. Yes, it's nice to see Sean Connery back as 007, but the tone is very jokey, a la Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and this is the most dated Bond of all. Typically, the secret agent lives in an unchanging universe of beautiful women, lavish resorts, expensive cars and dry martinis. But in Never Say Never Again, the real world intrudes to an unpleasant degree. Poor Kim Basinger is seen doing aerobics and kicking up her heels at every opportunity. Worse, when Bond is following her in a casino, she leaves the main area and walks into a video parlor and Bond has to stand next to a bleeeping and blurping video game while trying to look suave. Then instead of a card game, he faces the arch villain in a goofy video game for their early stand-off. It's cheesy and awful and pained in a way even the late Roger Moore entries never were. There's tongue in cheek and then there's tongue on the ground in embarrassment. Stick to Daniel Craig. ANDY RICHTER HAS IT ALL -- The best news recently for the over-crowded late-night talk show world is that Andy Richter is rejoining Conan O'Brien when Conan takes over The Tonight Show this summer. Both have done well on their own but their chemistry together is undeniable. Conan, of course, chugged along in late night. Richter has appeared in many films and sitcoms, but his best work was on two shows he starred in: Andy Barker PI (which he says will be coming out on DVD shortly) and Andy Richter Controls The Universe: The Complete Series ($39.98; Paramount). This workplace comedy had a great cast (including Jonathan Slavin as a nebbishy buddy and James Patrick Stuart as a Ken doll-handsome guy for whom everything came easy), a playful sensibility (episodes about Andy dating a racist girl who was hot, etc) and fantasy sequences that were genuinely clever and fun. This set contains the last five episodes, which never aired, and they prove the show was just really hitting its stride. Very cult-worthy. TELL NO ONE? NO ONE LISTENED -- A genuine word of mouth hit that played and played and played in theaters for half of 2008, Tell No One ($27.98; Music Box Films) is a twisty crime drama about a man accused of murdering his wife (dead these eight years) and several others who goes on the lam when he receives an email message that seems to show she is still alive. Great fun for about thirds of the way, the film goes off the rails when the film takes about eight twists too many and then stops for ten minutes to explain the plot. But no else seemed to mind and it is craftily well played by a fine cast, including Kristin Scott Thomas who had a great year with this and I Loved You So Long. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE -- It's been a good year -- heck, it's been a good decade -- for animated films. Three of my favorite films of the year were "cartoons:" Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda and Azur and Asmar: The Prince's Quest. And Bolt ($32.99 special edition DVD and $39.99 on BluRay; Disney, which I missed in the theaters, comes pretty darn close. It's a very meta story for a flick nominally aimed at kids. Bolt (John Travolta) is a dog who believes he has tremendous abilities and a supersonic bark, all used to protect Penny (Miley Cyrus). In fact, he's an actor on a hit TV show where the crew works with elaborate care to make Bolt think he's really in the midst of world-shaking danger in order to elicit a great performance. Then Bolt escapes. The usual hi-jinks and confusions ensue (helped by Susie Essman of Curb Your Enthusiasm as a smart-ass alley cat and Mark Walton as Bolt's biggest fan). Clever, engaging and -- just like Kung Fu Panda -- this film has some of the best action scenes of the year. If only live action movies like Indiana Jones seemed less like cartoons and imitated the well-thought out scenes of mayhem of cartoons like Bolt. It's the best non-Pixar Disney cartoon in years. All versions look very good but the BluRay is only $4 more than the 2 disc DVD and it contains a regular DVD, the BluRay plus a digital copy, which gives families all sorts of flexibility. I can't say this enough: I wish they'd eliminate single DVD and two disc DVDs and just release everything in a package that includes all these three formats. Just the cost-savings of not having to carry three different versions should allow them to shave off a buck right away. And who would complain? No one. SHHHHHHH! GUY MADDIN IS A GENIUS -- Easily one of the most distinctive and remarkable talents of the past two decades is the criminally little known Guy Maddin, a man obsessed with silent movies, early talkies, black and white images, twisted early memories and much more. He's made a string of utterly original films, ranging from operatic shorts that use Russian silent cinema as a touchstone to pseudo-documentaries about his own childhood. You simply can't go wrong with this guy if you're any sort of film buff. The Guy Maddin Collection ($34.99; Zeitgeist) contains two films -- Twilight of the Ice Nymphs and Archangel -- and that brilliant short, The Heart Of The World .) His most recent film My Winnipeg (2008) reenacts supposed scenes from his childhood like a fever dream. Dracula: Pages From A Virgin's Diary ($29.99; Zeitgeist) takes the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's production of the classic horror novel down the rabbit hole. I haven't mentioned several gems but perhaps the best introduction is Careful ($29.99; Zeitgeist) a "remastered and repressed) new edition of a village in the mountains in the 1800s where everyone -- men, women, children and even creatures -- have to be utterly quiet for fear of starting an avalanche. From this absurd premise, Maddin revels in silent film techniques, beautiful tinting and sexual frenzy barely tamped down by society. It's devilishly clever and absorbing and comes with loads of extras like a new commentary by Maddin, a 1997 documentary about his career narrated by Tom Waits, a short film and more. Essential viewing. SLUMMING IT -- Slumdog Millionare ($29.98; Fox) the movie is almost as much of a fairy tale as the story about the people who made it. Its Dickensian tale of a boy from the slums who ends up on national TV playing for a fortune on a game show but in fact just trying to contact the girl he loves is energetically told with a terrific cast and high energy from director Danny Boyle. Boyle has had his ups and downs commercially and creatively but surely no one expected this unlikely story to be the biggest hit of his career. But in fact, as friends of mine pointed out, the film follows the Boyle formula to a t: people (not often the most admirable) endure high drama on the way to being deluged with piles of money. It happened in Shallow Grave and Trainspotting and Millions and perhaps others of his movies I'm not even aware of. Slumdog is a good movie, though the bad brother of our hero is almost cartoonishly bad and his fate is to heavy handed by half. But the cinematography and score and editing combine to keep it rushing along. Anil Kapoor -- so good as the game show host -- will be in the cast of 24 next season. So the good news for this Oscar winner keeps coming. CRITERION COLLECTION -- Any movie released by Criterion is worth owning: even if you're not familiar with the film or it's not a favorite, they're sure to include so many valuable extras that you'll get your money's worth and appreciate the film's significance as time passes on. When it comes to Truffaut vs. Godard, I'm definitely in the Truffaut camp. Long after Godard had given up delivering anything but the most self-absorbed, tiresome movies, Truffaut was celebrating the power of telling stories with the late period effort The Last Metro ($39.95 for regular OR BluRay; Criterion), which tells of a French theater troupe trying to mount a show while France is occupied by the Nazis. Catherine Deneuve stars with Gerard Depardieu. I haven't seen the BluRay but the regular DVD looks marvelous and comes with extras like two audio commentaries (one with Depardieu), old TV interviews, new video interviews with cast and crew, an interview with cinematographer Nestor Almendros and a short film made in 1958 by Truffaut and Godard before Godard became insufferable. Il Generale Della Rovere ($29.95; Criterion) is a Roberto Rosselini film starring director Vittorio De Sica (I'm always surprised when he acts but De Sica acted in hundreds of movies). De Sica -- in another WWII set film -- plays a con man forced by the Nazis to impersonate a general and get info from Italian prisoners. For the first time, the bum feels a twinge of conscience. Extras include interviews and a visual essay. Finally, Andrzej Wajda is having a success with his new movie Katyn , which is also set in World War II. Criterion is releasing Danton ($39.95; Criterion), a two disc set about the French Revolution starring Depardieu. Extras include interviews with Wajda and others as well as a 42 minute making-of documentary. All the movies look terrific and it's great to see Criterion charging the same price for BluRay as it does for regular DVDs. A-WOP-BOP-A-LOO-LOP-A-LOP-BAM-BOO -- Little Richard had something to prove at the Toronto Peace Festival in 1969 ($14.98; Shout). His last Top 40 hit was more than a decade earlier and he would never have another. But Richard was always convinced of his own fabulousness and knew the world should be convinced of it too. And he ripped the crowd into a frenzy during his half hour set, thanks to timeless classics like "Lucille" and "Long Tall Sally" -- not to mention a shirt adorned with tiny mirrors and a towering wig. DA Pennebaker captures the moment well, though the sound leaves something to be desired and at 30 minutes this is awfully short. Why not give us three hours of the day long festival, of which this could be a highlight. On its on, it's just not enough. Fans of Rory Gallagher will more satisfied by Rory Gallagher Live In Cork ($14.98; Eagle Vision). Even though it captures Gallagher at the tail end of his career when ill health was plaguing him, at least it's 80 minutes long and has a sense of occasion thanks to the setting of his home town. DOCUMENTARIES -- The Matador ($24.98; City Lights) is definitely not for your PETA friends as it shows the brutal world of bullfighting as David Fandila pushes himself to become the top-ranked matador in the world. Killer At Large ($19.95; Disinformation) is a all-encompassing look at why obesity is rampant in this country, with a 45 minute educational version , deleted scenes and more. Academy Award nominee The Restless Conscience ($39.95; Docurama) looks at the Germans who resisted Naziism from Hitler's rise to power through the 20+ attempts to assassinate the Fuhrer. The Great Depression ($12.95; History) is an all-too-timely (but budget priced!) four part look at the last time America was pounded by bad economic news. FInally, LIght At The Edge Of The World ($19.98; Smithsonian) is a three hour Smithsonian special that looks at four vanishing cultures in Peru, Polynesia, Himalayas and the Arctic. ALSO OUT NOW: Twilight ($34.99 on BluRay and $32.99 for regular DVD; Summit), the so-so movie adaptation of the wildly selling books about vampires in high school that didn't satisfy fans of the book (though they saw the film three or four times just to make sure it wasn't that good) or those of us who found the book poorly written but thought it might make good source material for a fun movie. Still, Robert Pattinson does look awfully pale and dreamy in BluRay. Schoolhouse Rock Earth ($19.99; Disney) -- all these years after the original shorts, the creative team comes back together to make 11 videos on global warming and darned if they don't pick up right where they left off and deliver the goods, from "Save The Ocean" to "Windy and the Windmills." Shakespeare's An Age Of Kings ($49.98; BBC Video) -- It's unthinkable that something this ambitious and high brow -- eight Shakespeare history plays told in 15 hours of TV with more than 600 speaking parts -- would be attempted by anyone other than the BBC. The cast is starry indeed, ranging from Judi Dench and Sean Connery to Julian Glover and Eileen Atkins. It was a smashing success in 1960 and while much discussed has been rarely seen since then, until this fine five disc set. Great fun for theater and Shakespeare buffs. The Odd Couple/To Catch A Thief ($24.99 each; Paramount) -- Two great teams. jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were so perfect it's all the more remarkable that the TV series could almost supplant our memory of the movie. And Cary Grant and Grace Kelly just had the spark essential for a great romantic thriller about a retired jewel thief, who may not be so retired after all. Nicely packaged but these movies keep getting reissued. If you own them already, don't bother trading up. If you don't own them, what are you waiting for? Praying With Lior ($24.95; First Run) -- Somehow, this documentary about a young man with Downs Syndrome preparing for his Bar Mitzvah manages to mostly avoid sentimentality even though its premise -- Lior, despite or perhaps because of his challenge is closer to God than most -- is close to fetishizing Downs. Also just out from First Run is The Kite ($24.95; First Run), the story of an arranged marriage that hits a snag when the 16 year old bride to be is held up at a checkpoint between Lebanon and Israel. And Opera Jawa ($24.95; First Run) is a visually inventive tale of a husband who must face down the butcher who has seduced his wife.
 
Blagojevich Loses His Lawyer, Again Top
Blagojevich lost a leading criminal-defense lawyer for the second time since his December arrest, as veteran attorney Terence Gillespie said he was bowing out, citing a conflict of interest. Gillespie was hired months ago to assist in the defense of indicted Springfield power broker William Cellini, so when prosecutors on Thursday added Blagojevich's case to Cellini's pending indictment, it forced Gillespie's hand. More on Rod Blagojevich
 
Andy Ostroy: Citi Field, Shmiti Field. I Want Shea Back Top
So in just a few short days the NY Mets baseball team will have its first 2009 home game in its brand-new stadium, Citi Field. Though many of my Metsy friends are ecstatic and can't wait to pay the higher ticket prices, I say bah-humbug . I could care less about the new park and have no intention of ever going. Ok, that's me belly-aching today, and I'm sure there'll be a game or two I'm dragged to, but my heart just ain't in it. In fact, I find the whole commercial motivation behind Shea's demise offensive and disheartening. For the record, I have been a mad-crazy Mets fan for 40 years ever since Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee, Tom Seaver, Buddy Harrelson, Jerry Koosman and my favorite, No 22, first-baseman Donn Clendenon, were among the "Amazin's" who gave us that miracle season in '69. I never looked back. Which is why I feel tearing down Shea was sacriligious. Baseball is America's pastime. It's how and where lifetime memories are made. Memories that include family, friends and co-workers. What's baseball without a strong sense of nostalgia? Will any of us be able to peer across Citi Field and remember their first game with mom and dad? Will any of us be able to spot the seats we sat in the first time we went to a game alone with our teenage pals? Or that great date we were on? Or the night out with the office boys? Or the annual games with our childhood friends? Or when we took our own sons and daughters for their first game? Or what about sitting in a place that saw two incredible World Series Championships? Or where those four kids from Liverpool created musical history? That's what Shea means to me. Citi Field , you say? No thanks. Yes, baseball is apple pie. It's not sushi or some trendy gourmet Danny Meyer restaurant. It's about enjoying the game, not shopping is some new ritzy store. Baseball is an American tradition for the massses. It's supposed to be where a family of four can spend a glorious Summer afternoon without needing an AIG-like bonus. Those days are gone. Call me crazy, but I like life simple. For me, happiness was a hot dog, a cold beer, sunshine and my Shea memories. I enjoyed the crappy seats, the bad angles, the lousy food, the joy that was orange and blue. All I needed was my Shea and my Mets. Adding insult to injury, couldn't they have at least kept the name Shea instead of bestwoing this honor on some near-bankrupt, TARP-fund-guzzling dinasaur? Citicorp will be shelling out $400 million over 20 years for the right to hang its tarnished shingle over the new stadium. To me, a life-long Mets fan and taxpayer whose money is part of Citi's $45 billion government bailout, it all just stinks.
 
Obama Makes Pitch For Chicago Olympics As Residents Voice Concerns (WATCH) Top
Chicago began its pitch to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in earnest Saturday with a message from the city's most famous part-time resident: President Barack Obama. In a four-minute video that was shown to shown to the International Olympic Committee inspection team, Obama touched on themes that organizers will stress throughout the IOC visit, starting with a reminder that Chicago is a global city and home to people from all over the world. "It's a city where races, religions and nationalities all live and work and play and reach for the American dream that brought them here," said Obama, who moved to Chicago as an adult. Obama talked about classrooms "filled with the sounds of the world's languages," and all kinds of music. One of the biggest questions the IOC faces is what city can be counted on the most to be able to build an Olympic Village and all the venues during a worldwide recession. And as Chicago 2016 organizers have done, Obama reminded the IOC of the city's history that includes rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1871 and hosting its second World's Fair during the height of the Great Depression. "This is a city that lives and breathes the ideals of perseverance," he said. After reminding the IOC that Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper, the president also portrayed Chicago as a forward-looking "city that Mayor (Richard) Daley has pledged to make the greenest in America." Daley has called Obama the "quarterback" of the city's effort to secure the games and his election in November was seen as a boost for Chicago as it competes with Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo for the games. Although other cities downplayed the affect of Obama's election, Spanish Sports Minister Jaime Lissavetsky has acknowledged that he would have rather seen the unpopular George Bush in the White House when the IOC makes its decision in October. For his part, Obama made his connection to the city that he moved to as an adult, worked as a community activist, law school professor and launched his own political career as part of his pitch. "After your visit, once you discover the Chicago that I know _ the city that I made my home, the city where my wife grew up, the city where we raised our daughters just blocks from where these games will be held _ I am confident you will discover that you're already in the perfect host city..." On Saturday, Chicago 2016 was opening its presentation with its vision for the games, with themes such as friendship and peace. The IOC will also hear about the venues, with Chicago 2016 organizers stressing how close many of the venues are to each other and cultural attractions such as the Field Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. As the olympic committee attempted to impress the international VIPs, two South Side community groups held protests to voice their fears that the Olympics would drive them from their homes and neighborhoods, the Tribune reports : "I'm afraid of losing my house," said Valencia Hardy, a spokeswoman for Housing Bronzeville. Members fear gentrification around their neighborhood -- located near the proposed Olympic stadium -- will lead to skyrocketing property-tax bills. Members of a second group -- the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization -- expressed fears the city would use its eminent domain powers to take control of their property. On Sunday, the IOC will be given a tour of the various venue sites. More on Olympics
 
Obama Diplomacy On New NATO Secretary Helps Avert Crisis (Again) Top
On the heels of his negotiations at the G-20 economic summit - where he negotiated a way out of a potential logjam spurred by a heated debate between France and China over tax havens - President Obama exercised his negotiating skills once again on this overseas trip, this time at the NATO Summit. This time the debate was over whether Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen should become the next secretary general of NATO. More on Barack Obama
 
Carla Bruni Kisses Michelle Obama (But Not On The Lips) Top
Carla Bruni may have hesitated to greet Barack Obama with a kiss, but it seems when faced with his wife Michelle, the French First Lady showed no such restraint. The pair appeared to lock lips on meeting for an event for the wives of heads of state during a NATO summit. More on Michelle Obama
 
Stewart Acuff: The Ongoing Struggle for Workers' Rights Top
41 years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while helping lead a struggle of city sanitation workers trying to form a union, and ,bargain collectively with their employer. Today, people of good will all over America pause to remember Dr. King Jr., his struggle and that fight in Memphis to win the simple freedom to form a union and bargain collectively. Unfortunately, this fight is not finished in America. For workers in the private sector it is harder to form a union and engage in collective bargaining today than it was in 1968. Corporations routinely harass, coerce, intimidate, and even fire workers for trying to form unions. We remember and honor Dr. King and take inspiration from his life and legacy today. As we struggle together- union members, civil rights leaders, students people of faith, community leaders, and human rights activists- to win the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. We often forget that Dr. King well understood and often articulated that union membership was the best exit route from poverty. He saw unions as essential to his struggle against poverty and economic injustice. So when he was invited to Memphis he went- against the arguments of his staff- to amplify the voice of those sanitation workers and their union, AFSCME. Reflecting on Dr. King and union organizing, I've often heard Dr. Joesph Lowery longtime President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference say that civil rights without silver rights are empty rights are empty promises. Social justice is not possible without economic justice. But the struggle in Memphis was about so much more than economic justice. At its core, it was a collective demand for dignity and respect. Those sanitation workers led by T.O Jones and Bill Lucy knew that they would never win basic human dignity without organization, without a union without collective action. That's why they carried their iconic sign- "I am a Man", taking their place in the long struggle of oppressed people in human history to demand and win the dignity and respect all human beings deserve. Harriet Tubman, had said a century before "Ain't I a woman". It is as true today as it was in 1968 or 1864 working people organize unions to win basic human dignity and respect- and to win a better life for their families and children. And those who oppose workers organizing whether Mayor Henry Lobe in 1968 or the Chamber of Commerce today or Jackson-Lewis in Nebraska Beef stand against the most fundamental thread of human history- the collective struggle for human dignity. Organizing is what makes is most human. We are a social species. We mostly live and work together. And when we use the social nature of our species to raise everyone up together, every family, everyone's kids- not by individual action- but together, that is when we are most human. That is the highest form of human endeavor. So today as we struggle across America to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we walk the path of history made by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Gene Debs and Walter Reuther and Caesar Chavez and Dr. King and thousands more before them to say we organize to win justice- social and economic- and to win dignity. That struggle is practically acute today in America because 30 years of failed trickle-down economics, union busting, deregulation, and corporate power run wild has taken our country to the verge of economic collapse. 30 years of wage stagnation and decline, of busting and exporting and outsourcing and subcontracting middle class producing union jobs has left us with too little demand, too little consumption power, too little buying power to drive the great American Economic Engine. And so our economy is in a ditch. And no matter what we do, no matter how much money we throw at the banks and financial institutions, we will not rebuild an economy that works for everyone until we restore the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively and pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That legislation will do 3 simple things; enact real penalties on employers who violate the law, guarantee that workers that workers who form unions get a first contract by providing meditation and arbitration, and across workers to choose a simplified, streamlined, democratic process for forming their unions, majority sign up.
 
Mike Garibaldi-Frick: As the Working Class Burns, Banksters Laugh All the Way to the Bank Top
Anyone interested in learning about what is really happening during this financial crisis, needs to watch Bill Moyers' interview of William K. Black (broadcast on April 3rd, 2009). As most of us intuit, the financial crisis has been manufactured entirely by greed and fraud and this interview clearly and concisely exposes this process. BILL MOYERS: I was taken with your candor at the conference here in New York to hear you say that this crisis we're going through, this economic and financial meltdown is driven by fraud. What's your definition of fraud? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Fraud is deceit. And the essence of fraud is, "I create trust in you, and then I betray that trust, and get you to give me something of value." And as a result, there's no more effective acid against trust than fraud, especially fraud by top elites, and that's what we have. BILL MOYERS: So you're suggesting, saying that CEOs of some of these banks and mortgage firms in order to increase their own personal income, deliberately set out to make bad loans? WILLIAM K. BLACK: Yes. BILL MOYERS: How do they get away with it? I mean, what about their own checks and balances in the company? What about their accounting divisions? WILLIAM K. BLACK: All of those checks and balances report to the CEO, so if the CEO goes bad, all of the checks and balances are easily overcome. And the art form is not simply to defeat those internal controls, but to suborn them, to turn them into your greatest allies. And the bonus programs are exactly how you do that. While the working class fights among itself -- blame the mortgage holders that "lived beyond their means," blame immigrants, blame the unions, blame blue collar workers, etc. -- the real criminals run free with trillions. When will Americans wake up and hold the real criminals - Banksters - accountable for their actions, and pressure the government to enact systemic changes to prevent future abuses?
 
Jim Cramer Declares The Depression "Over" (VIDEO) Top
It came and went - and some might not have even noticed it - despite the seriousness of its use. On April 2, CNBC's Jim Cramer proclaimed the Depression over. Throughout that day, the "Mad Money" host told viewers of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," CNBC's "Street Signs" and finally on his own program that the Depression was over and that we were on the verge of a bull run for the financial markets. More on Jim Cramer
 

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