Act Now!

Pete Seeger for the Nobel

By Peter Rothberg

This past Sunday, Pete Seeger became the oldest person to perform publicly as part of Barack Obama's inauguration festivities.

Singing the "greatest song about America ever written" (Bruce Springsteen's words) before 500,000 people and tens of millions more on television, the 89-year old legend crooned two little-known verses of his friend Woody Guthrie's 1940 patriotic standard, "This Land is Your Land" -- one about Depression-era poverty, the other about trespassing on private property -- restoring the song to its former glory over the sanitized version that ruled for so many years.

Watch the performance:

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January 20, 2009

MLK's Grassroots Legacy

By Peter Rothberg

From 1961 to 1966, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an annual essay for The Nation on the state of civil rights and race relations in America. His 1965 contribution, "Let Justice Roll Down," which originally appeared in the March 15, 1965 issue of the magazine, was both timely and timeless.

So is his oratory. Thanks to YouTube we can watch King's I Have a Dream speech given on August 28, 1963 on the national mall in Washington, DC, near the spot where Barack Obama will take his oath of office on Tuesday.

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January 18, 2009

Justice for Oscar Grant

By Peter Rothberg

From Rodney King to Sean Bell, recent American history has seen far too many examples of police brutality directed against people (usually men) of color. Rarely though, has there been a more chilling, outrageous, seemingly unnecessary instance of abuse than that of Oscar Grant's killing at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, California on New Year's Day.

This video is kind of long and the quality is pretty shoddy but by the end you see an unarmed man lying on the ground being shot at point blank range for absolutely no apparent reason.

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January 14, 2009

'Get Afghanistan Right' Week

By Peter Rothberg

The biggest concern about Barack Obama's foreign policy is probably his hawkishness on Afghanistan. Since early in the primary campaign he has consistently taken the position that, in contrast to Iraq, Afghanistan is the right war and we would we wise to ramp up military efforts in the region.

The problem, as Katrina vanden Heuvel argues in a recent Nation post, is that Obama's planned escalation would drain resources that are vital to the President-elect goals for an economic recovery, health care, and social justice at home, while impeding other critical international initiatives such as the Middle East Peace process and regional diplomacy in South Asia.

Fears that quagmire in Afghanistan could undermine Obama's planned domestic reforms are driving a new campaign launched by the online magazine, The Seminal, in collaboration with a host of progressive media groups, including The Nation. Get Afghanistan Right Week is an effort to rally people who oppose military escalation in Afghanistan, and who support non-military solutions to the conflict.

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January 12, 2009

Allow Media into Gaza

By Peter Rothberg

As America's leaders knew at least as far back as Thomas Jefferson, a functioning media is critical to the informed citizenry necessary for a working democracy. That was the partial basis of the Israeli high court ruling on December 31 directing the Israeli government to allow foreign media into Gaza, where it has so far prevented all reporters from visiting since it commenced bombing raids nine days ago.

The decision by the High Court came in response to a petition by the Israeli Foreign Press Association, which represents more than 400 members from the world's leading international print and electronic media. The association, composed of media outfits across the political spectrum, called the ban "an unprecedented restriction of press freedom" on Israel's part.

The Israeli High Court specifically ruled that the Israeli government should allow a press pool of at least twelve foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip. The government countered that it will allow eight reporters into Gaza every time it opens the border at the Erez crossing, but so far the crossing has remained completely closed to entry.

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January 5, 2009

War in Gaza

By Peter Rothberg

Since Saturday, Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 325 people, including civilians and children, according to a wide range of sources. The attacks have left more than 1,400 people wounded, medical facilities wholly unable to respond to the crisis and desperate shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

CARE International has responded swiftly to the growing catastrophe, starting on December 27, the day the attack began, with provisions of medical supplies and pharmaceuticals that were in short supply. CARE, along with its partner the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, intends to continue providing emergency medical supplies and winterization equipment like heaters, blankets, and window coverings to families who have had their homes damaged in the bombing. Contributions to help continue this work can be made through the CARE.org website and should be sent with a note that the funds are for CARE Gaza emergency response.

Gaza's people were already vulnerable and its institutions and infrastructure fragile as a result of more than a year of economic blockade in response to Hamas' aggression against Israel. The blockade has denied the Strip fuel, spare parts, building materials, cash, agricultural inputs, medical supplies, or equipment. In particular, the health system has been hard hit by increased demand and an inability to secure supplies or to repair or replace equipment.

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December 29, 2008

Justice in New Orleans

By Peter Rothberg

In an 18-month investigation appearing this week on the cover of The Nation (directed and underwritten by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute), reporter A.C. Thompson paints a terrifying picture of New Orleans in the days following Hurricane Katrina. Black residents, desperate to flee the Lower Ninth Ward, were gunned down with impunity by white vigilantes in the Algiers Point neighborhood, which stood between the Lower Ninth Ward and the nearest rescue point. In Katrina's Hidden Race War and a companion piece, Body of Evidence, Thompson uncovers at least eleven unreported, un-investigated vigilante shootings.

This exclusive Nation Institute video features Thompson talking with two victims of post-Katrina violence describing their experiences fleeing vigilantes as well as some of the unrepentant shooters defending their actions.

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December 19, 2008

Bush's Midnight Regulations

By Peter Rothberg

President Bush may have hospitably welcomed his successor and his wife into the White House while promising a "transition of the highest order," but despite voters' overwhelming rejection of Republican ideology, his administration has been using its waning days in power to codify a host of harmful new pro-industry, anti-environmental rules and regulations.

As R. Jeffrey Smith and Juliet Eilperin wrote recently in the Washington Post, "In a burst of activity meant to leave a lasting stamp on the federal government, the Bush White House in the past month has approved 61 new regulations on environmental, security, social and commercial matters that by its own estimate will have an economic impact exceeding $1.9 billion annually."

These so-called "midnight regulations" are free of Congressional oversight and will be completely legal once Bush signs off on them. They'll allow factories to pollute more, let food manufacturers hide their toxins more easily, gives states the chance to restrict women's access to abortion services and force municipalities to cut off aid to needy families in the middle of a recession.

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December 17, 2008

Toxic Toys

By Peter Rothberg

For the second straight year, HealthyToys.org is highlighting test results for more than 1,500 toys and children's products. Researchers at the Ecology Center, a Michigan-based nonprofit, tested more than 1,500 popular children's toys for lead, cadmium, arsenic, PVC and other harmful chemicals in time for this year's holiday shopping season. The results are sobering: One in three toys tested were found to contain "medium" or "high" levels of chemicals of concern.

Lead was detected in 20 percent of the toys tested this year. In fact, lead levels in some of the products were well above the 600 parts-per-million (ppm) federal recall standard used for lead paint, and will exceed the US legal limit in February, according to the new Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulations. Levels of lead in many toys were significantly above the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended ceiling of 40 ppm of lead in children's products. (Children's jewelry remains the most contaminated product category, maintaining its spot at the top of HealthyToys.org's "worst" list.)

The site's utility allows ease of use for busy parents and children's advocates. Type in "Dora," and several varieties of toys appear. Click on a specific toy, and up pop product ratings based on test results for lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic and mercury. The ratings range from low- to high-risk. A primer on the hazards of each substance and a breakdown of which components were tested lets consumers evaluate the risk.

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December 15, 2008

The Grinch as Hero

By Peter Rothberg

My blogging has been off lately as I've been recuperating from my first-ever bout of food poisoning. Nasty thing. If you're ever so unlucky, check here.

But I'm healthy now and find myself suddenly confronted with holiday shopping so I've decided to embrace the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood's Guide to Commercial-Free Holidays.

Not that I'd play grinch to my two little kids but there is something about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression that makes this season's rampant commercialism seem more off-key than usual. (Concerns about the economy are so great that experts predict far less spending on presents this year. Reports indicate, however, that spending on advertising will not reflect the downturn.)

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December 9, 2008