Yearly Archives: 2008

Proposition H offers an opportunity for San Francisco to obtain up to 51 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2017 and 100 percent by 2040. The storm of anti-Prop H mailers and television ads bombarding us is funded by PG&E from the money you pay for your steadily rising electric bills.

Haiti is now forced by the World Bank and its bloodsucking siblings like the IMF to pay more than $1 million a week to satisfy debts incurred by the Duvaliers and the post-Duvalier tyrannies. Haiti must repay this debt to prove its fitness for "help" from the Multilateral Financial Institutions (MFI).

Peace mom Cindy Sheehan, who has traveled the world speaking out for peace with justice, spoke to a full house of grassroots activists at the Oct. 2 Bayview Hunters Point Town Hall Meeting about her campaign to replace Nancy Pelosi in the U.S. Congress Nov. 4.

Political prisoner Aaron Patterson was tortured by Chicago police and brought up on trumped up charges originally in 1986, when he was framed for a double homicide. In 2003, Gov. Ryan of Illinois acknowledged the torturing tactics of the Chicago Police Department under the leadership of Lt. Jon Burge and tenure of then prosecutor and now Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Tears dripped down her face as she searched for her missing suitcase in the busy New Orleans bus station. "It had my ID, my children's birth certificates, my money and my credit cards," she softly cried. It was one week after she was bused out of New Orleans to a military base in Arkansas. She was supposed to be at work.

The Lower 9th Ward Village, a post-Katrina nonprofit community center, is to become a multipurpose, multi-use facility that caters to the community in general, with emphasis on providing services, skills training and recreational activities to youth and the elderly.

Herman Bell arrived from New York in late May 2007 to face this extremely unjust prosecution of eight former Black Panthers and community activists. Confinement in the San Francisco County Jail has been devastating to what little quality of life Herman and Jalil Muntaqim have experienced in New York prisons for three decades.

I want a leader who can love us. And, truthfully, by our collective behavior, we have made it hard to demand this. We are as we are, imperfect to the max, racist and sexist and greedy above all; still, I feel we deserve leaders who love us. We will not survive more of what we have had: leaders who love nothing, not even themselves.

In early October, ethics reporting revealed that PG&E is the source of all but $100 of the entire $5.5 million spent so far to attack Prop H - the San Francisco Clean Energy Act. Prop H is a vital ballot measure that will switch us to 100 percent clean electricity in just three decades, and at the same or lower rates than PG&E.

Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believe that the 2008 elections have already been stolen. What's an American to do given these circumstances? They suggest: "Steal it back!"

Rappers, producers, spoken word performers and graf artists, age 18-30, who want to express why they're voting this election and what issues matter most to them can submit music, a video or graphic arts piece to VoteHipHop.org.

Assemblymember Sandré Swanson joined Mayor Ron Dellums, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and other officials at a public unveiling of the Oakland Green Jobs Corps program, which will provide "green-collar" skills training and jobs to young adults, many of whom face significant barriers to employment.

Who's on welfare now? For years, the rich have condemned and criminalized women of color who survive dire poverty with a little cash assistance from the government. But now, big business wants to cut into the welfare line.

If HUD grants the Oakland Housing Authority permission to dispose of 1,615 public housing units for a nominal sum or for as little as $1 per parcel, 1,554 low-income families will be displaced from Oakland's public housing. Those families include 3,885 poor people - mostly children, young mothers, the aged, disabled and infirm.

In the 19th Century, the robber barons simply walked into government buildings and capitals with satchels swollen with money. They literally bought off politicians to do their bidding. They do the same thing today, but with a little more finesse.

Every single eligible citizen who is 18 years old on Election Day has the constitutional right to vote. A right that cannot be restricted because of tricks, wealth, property ownership, fiscal judgment, gender, national origin or race. That's the law, but ...

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the green heart of Africa. The country has the second largest rainforest in the world. It is resource rich but plagued with humanitarian crises resulting from the plundering of the DRC's mineral resources are severe.

On Oct. 14, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the death-row case of Troy Anthony Davis, putting him on the fast track to be murdered by the state of Georgia for the murder of a Savannah police officer in 1989. But on Friday, Oct. 24, in his third 11th-hour reprieve, the federal appeals court in Atlanta granted a stay so Troy's lawyers can file claims of his innocence. Block Report Radio speaks with Troy's sister Martina Davis about his case.

Recently KPFA has been making headlines for a number of reasons, most notably the Aug. 20 police beat down of Black programmer of 12 years Nadra Foster after a member of the KPFA management team called the police on her with approval from Pacifica management after Foster was accused of using a KPFA telephone for a personal call. So whose job is it to report on issues such as these in the Black community in and around KPFA or nationally? A daily or weekly Black public affairs show.

Four tropical storms in a month killed between 500 and 1,000 Haitians and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Because preparedness under Aristide had been abandoned and the U.N. won't help, damage and suffering are much worse than necessary.