Act Now!

Food Independence Day

By Peter Rothberg

Thanks to the Serious Eats site for alerting me to a new July 4 campaign. Kitchen Gardeners International (the same people who successfully led the charge for a White House Kitchen Garden) are encouraging patriotic citizens to celebrate America's independence by feasting on locally grown and raised food on the fourth.

The related "Food Independence Day" petition asks the nation's 50 governors to participate and share their recipes and the names of the local farmers, fisherman, and food producers whose ingredients they'll be using.

So far, more than 5,000 people have pledged to eat a meal made with local food on July 4. Check out the map of where things are planned. If there's nothing near you, join the campaign and add yourself. If you don't think you can create a mostly local meal, pick one dish and try to include one local thing--maybe some mint from a community garden in a drink, broccoli from a CSA, watermelon from a roadside stand in a salad, or a roasted pastured chicken from a nearby farmer's market.

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June 30, 2009

Chipotle Injustice

By Peter Rothberg

Last week, leaders of the food justice movement -- including Eric Schlosser, Raj Patel, Frances Moore Lappe, and Robert Kenner, producer and director of the new documentary Food, Inc. -- sent a strongly-worded letter to Chipotle demanding that they "work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers as a true partner in the protection of farmworkers' rights."

The letter comes in the wake of a recent breakthrough for the Campaign for Fair Food -- Whole Foods' announcement that two of Florida's leading organic producers, Alderman Farms and Lady Moon Farms, will implement the company's agreement with the CIW, including the penny-per-pound wage increase and a strict code of conduct.

For decades, Florida's farmworkers have faced terrible abuses and brutal exploitation. Workers earn sub-poverty wages for toiling 60 to 70 hours per week in season, and some have even been chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay.

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June 29, 2009

Time for Lunch

By Peter Rothberg

I'll be coming back to this project but for now watch Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel announce the group's new Time for Lunch campaign to get real food into public schools.

Children who grow up exposed to food that is fresh, local and good for them tend to adopt healthy eating habits that last throughout their lives. Conversely, if they're brought up on junk-food, it'll take a real effort for them to wean themselves of the habit as they grow older. The schools can be a big part of the solution if school systems are provided with sufficient resources to serve real food instead of the overly processed fast food that endangers children's health.

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June 26, 2009

WeWantThePublicOption

By Peter Rothberg

This post was written by Sarah Jaffe, a blogger, freelance journalist and Nation intern.

Seventy-six percent of Americans, according to a recent poll, approve of the health insurance plan that Barack Obama proposed on the campaign trail, which includes a public health insurance option.

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June 24, 2009

Food, Inc.

By Peter Rothberg

There are no seasons in the American supermarket. In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner explains what this means as he lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, the USDA and FDA.

Watch the film, spread the word, sign the petition to help ensure the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, and check out the film's website for a range of suggestions on how to get involved in the fight against America's corporate controlled food industry.

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June 22, 2009

For Single-Payer Healthcare

By Peter Rothberg

This post was written by Sarah Jaffe, a blogger, freelance journalist and Nation intern.

Healthcare reform is on everyone's mind these days. President Obama has repeatedly stressed his desire to bring all interested parties to the table to discuss the options, and even the insurance companies and the American Medical Association seem ready to play along.

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June 19, 2009

Blood in Iran

By Peter Rothberg

The government of Iran swiftly kicked the machinery of repression into high gear over the last several days in response to the largest anti-government demonstrations since 1979, when millions protested the tyrannical Shah.

One day after eight protesters were shot dead during a huge demonstration against President Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election, the regime barred all foreign journalists from the streets of Tehran in a move that gives the security forces much more freedom to crush dissent with overwhelming force.

The regime also blocked an attempt to repeat Monday's massive rally in support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister, who claims that he was cheated of victory last Friday by widespread vote-rigging.

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June 16, 2009

How to Help End the War(s)

By Peter Rothberg

FireDogLake founder Jane Hamsher is devoting herself to persuading 39 progressive Democrats to oppose the $106 billion 2009 war supplemental bill for the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak and to bailout European banks through the IMF. Arrayed against her, the Obama administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are aggressively whipping House Democrats to support the legislation.

The opposition has been successful so far and 35 of the necessary 39 members have already pledged to vote no. Moreover, a number of Blue Dog Democrats have their own reasons for opposing the bill.

Watch Hamsher's video, produced by the Brave New Foundation, to see why the stakes are so high and what you can do to help.

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June 15, 2009

Kill the FFEL

By Peter Rothberg

This post was written by ex-Nation intern and freelance writer Corbin Hiar.

One important policy issue that has been knocked down the legislative agenda by all the discussion regarding healthcare reform and the financial and auto bailouts is the urgent need to reform the higher education loan and financial aid systems.

The system is clearly broken. Student loans should create opportunities for the young, not cripple them for life. As Act Now! detailed in April, the proposal laid out in President Obama's ambitious budget could power up the Pell Grant program sufficiently to make a real difference. In addition to protecting Pell Grant scholarships from politicized annual funding debates, President Obama's higher education budget proposal seeks to increase government loan origination through the highly successful Direct Loan Program and end the sweetheart subsidies the private student loan industry currently enjoys via the wasteful Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program.

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June 15, 2009

An Open Letter to the Orlando Sentinel

By Peter Rothberg

Dave Zirin's recent Nation article exposed the ways that the owner of the Orlando Magic, whose team is currently facing off against the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA title, is using his team as the sporting arm of a radical right-wing empire whose reach extends from makeup to militias to reparative gay therapy. My colleague Habiba Alcindor penned the following Open Letter to the Orlando Sentinel. Please feel free to send it on to both the paper's editor and chief sportswriter.

Dear Editor,

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June 12, 2009