Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008: 106 mins)
The aphorism "The poor are always with us" dates back to the New Testament, but while the phrase is still sadly apt in the 21st century, few seem to be able to explain why poverty is so widespread. Activist filmmaker Philippe Diaz examines the history and impact of economic inequality in the third world in the documentary The End of Poverty?, and makes the compelling argument that it's not an accident or simple bad luck that has created a growing underclass around the world.
Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes.
Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes.
Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Kevin Seal: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless
News of the Occupation: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless
by Kevin Seal
The Occupied Oakland Journal
(Kevin is a member of the Occupy Oakland Media Committee as well as a freelance journalist)
Several new proposals for action are underway in Occupy Oakland. As these initiatives take root, occupiers are careful to note that this movement happens in the context of a lengthy history of protest in Oakland. From the Black Panthers to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights to Color of Change, there is a rich legacy of civil disobedience in Alameda County, and Occupy Oakland is helping bring these varied and long-standing communities together in action.
The occupation is looking at reclaiming foreclosed homes and preventing at-risk homeowners from losing their properties to predatory lenders and fraudulent banking institutions. As this movement evolves and strengthens, it is instructive to study the Oakland Union of the Homeless, and the many successes this group had in the reclamation of abandoned houses.
On December 15, 1987, a homeless man named James Lee was killed by gunshot, prompting a Christmas Eve protest in which activists broke into and occupied an abandoned house. Oakland police evicted the activists two days later, but the seeds were sown for a national movement. With that action, Andrew Jackson, Glenna Jackson, Terry Messman (now the editor and layout designer of the newspaper Street Spirit) and several other activists founded the Oakland Union of the Homeless.
Over the following few years, this group reclaimed Victorian houses in Oakland, demanded low-income housing from then-Senator Pete Wilson, and staged a high-profile act of civil disobedience in which the Union’s members refused to leave Wilson’s office. In 1990, the Union took over three more houses, and successfully petitioned California for an allocation of $1 million to the building of Dignity Housing West, an Oakland low-income housing development. The 26-unit James Lee Court Apartments, just three blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza at 15th Street and Castro, came from this demand, as did 46 other units in Oakland. Dignity Housing West is in negotiation to acquire 1,000 more units in California and Nevada, and is working to establish a downtown Oakland office building for non-profit clients.
On the national level, 1990 also saw big steps forward from this movement. The National Union of the Homeless got the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development at that time, Jack Kemp, to commit 10% of the agency’s vacant housing stock for the purpose of homeless housing. Kemp ultimately broke his promise, and in response, poor and homeless people in Oakland as well as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities began breaking in and taking over these houses.
To Read the Rest
by Kevin Seal
The Occupied Oakland Journal
(Kevin is a member of the Occupy Oakland Media Committee as well as a freelance journalist)
Several new proposals for action are underway in Occupy Oakland. As these initiatives take root, occupiers are careful to note that this movement happens in the context of a lengthy history of protest in Oakland. From the Black Panthers to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights to Color of Change, there is a rich legacy of civil disobedience in Alameda County, and Occupy Oakland is helping bring these varied and long-standing communities together in action.
The occupation is looking at reclaiming foreclosed homes and preventing at-risk homeowners from losing their properties to predatory lenders and fraudulent banking institutions. As this movement evolves and strengthens, it is instructive to study the Oakland Union of the Homeless, and the many successes this group had in the reclamation of abandoned houses.
On December 15, 1987, a homeless man named James Lee was killed by gunshot, prompting a Christmas Eve protest in which activists broke into and occupied an abandoned house. Oakland police evicted the activists two days later, but the seeds were sown for a national movement. With that action, Andrew Jackson, Glenna Jackson, Terry Messman (now the editor and layout designer of the newspaper Street Spirit) and several other activists founded the Oakland Union of the Homeless.
Over the following few years, this group reclaimed Victorian houses in Oakland, demanded low-income housing from then-Senator Pete Wilson, and staged a high-profile act of civil disobedience in which the Union’s members refused to leave Wilson’s office. In 1990, the Union took over three more houses, and successfully petitioned California for an allocation of $1 million to the building of Dignity Housing West, an Oakland low-income housing development. The 26-unit James Lee Court Apartments, just three blocks from Frank Ogawa Plaza at 15th Street and Castro, came from this demand, as did 46 other units in Oakland. Dignity Housing West is in negotiation to acquire 1,000 more units in California and Nevada, and is working to establish a downtown Oakland office building for non-profit clients.
On the national level, 1990 also saw big steps forward from this movement. The National Union of the Homeless got the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development at that time, Jack Kemp, to commit 10% of the agency’s vacant housing stock for the purpose of homeless housing. Kemp ultimately broke his promise, and in response, poor and homeless people in Oakland as well as New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities began breaking in and taking over these houses.
To Read the Rest
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