Tag: Great Depression

Will Struggle for Greed ­– No More! The Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act introduced on March 24, 2021 is built to close the obscene gap between greedy CEOs and the workers who make it possible, to tax corporations a fair share, with tax penalties against CEO/median worker ratio excesses, and the Treasury Department required to issue regulations to prevent tax avoidance.

The underbelly of the Oakland Police snake is beginning to writhe upward and utilize rhetoric to dehumanize and vilify youth and create fear and panic in defense under pressure of demands for accountability and defunding for redistribution of bloated budgets into communities to address bare necessities.

One morning we wake up and find ourselves in the middle of something that is killing people worldwide. It feels so strange, so unbelievable. Many of us are in shock, angry and depressed.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday released his demands for six key priorities that he said must be included in the next round of federal economic relief for suffering Americans as the coronavirus pandemic cripples the country’s healthcare system and eviscerates the economy.

For the 5 million formerly incarcerated people living in the U.S., landing a job means more than just personal success: It means finding a place in their communities and being able to care for their loved ones again. It’s well known that the obstacles to finding a job are severe for people who have been to prison. The scale of this problem, however, has been difficult to measure – until now.

There is an alternative politics of memory that Americans can also practice, and it might help to keep fascists out of public squares and do something concrete, literally at the same time: Honor Reconstruction. Remembering Reconstruction ought not to shunt aside the politics of Confederate memorials. Yet remembering this pivotal era certainly deserves to be built into the new national politics of memory. The sesquicentennial of Reconstruction is September 1, 2017.

It’s hard to imagine that the country that controls so much nuclear firepower and drops so many bombs every day is unwilling to educate its children and house its own people. As much as I would like to see zero poverty in the United States, I know that the political will for such policies is just not there today. This, despite the efforts of thousands of people just like me all over the country to alleviate the unnecessary suffering of the poor in the U.S.

Jason Anderson has been a staunch activist in the Oakland area for about half a decade and has been working very hard on keeping the historic Liberty Hall building, the original Oakland home to Marcus Garvey’s UNIA in West Oakland, in the hands of the Black community. It has been an uphill battle, but this veteran of Occupy Oakland is up for the challenge.

As Delores Hearring celebrates her 100th birthday on July 11, 2014, allow us to share a bit of her history and contribution to the Hunters Point Bayview community. Delores speaks with pride of her days working in the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard as a riveter. Not having had the opportunity to complete her schooling, she did so in California, earning her high school diploma and attending San Francisco City College for two years.

“Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment” (2011) is a collection of writings by Jones herself. The book makes a tremendous contribution to the literature on left, feminist and Pan-African struggles during the 20th century. A new generation of activists and organizers will benefit immensely from Jones’ writings on the most pressing and burning issues of the period.

This year marks the 33rd anniversary of Black August, the annual commemoration of the liberation struggle of African people inside the United States. The month of celebration and reflection was initiated by political prisoners, many of whom were members of the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Africa, two of the main revolutionary organizations that emerged during the late 1960s.

In his last public message the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on Black people in Memphis to support Black banks. “We’ve got to strengthen Black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank,” he said ...

Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the African American members of the House Financial Services Committee were recently honored by the NNPA - the Black Press of America - for their work to strengthen the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

What would happen if 34.5 percent of White men did not have jobs? According to new U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, joblessness for 16-to-24-year-old Black men has reached Great Depression proportions – more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population. Some African Americans are asking: “Will it take a revolution to spark economic change in Black America?” “All eyes are on the uprisings playing out in Egypt and Tunisia, yet America systematically turns a blind eye to the oppression in its own backyard.”

On Jan. 11, 1944, in the midst of World War II and on the heels of the worst economic disaster in the history of the country, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed a new “Economic Bill of Rights.” Today, 67 years later, we must push for a similar set of rights

Local 10 of the ILWU is calling for a labor and community rally on Saturday, Oct. 23, 12 noon, at City Hall, near 14th & Broadway in Oakland, to demand justice for Oscar Grant and the jailing of killer cops. Bay Area ports will shut down that day to stand with the Black community. Get ready for the rally Friday, Oct. 22, 6:30 p.m., with a screening of Minister of Information JR’s film ‘Operation Small Axe’ plus revolutionary art by Black Panther Minister of Culture Emory Douglas at the Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland.

On Thursday, Dec. 3, while President Obama holds a national summit on jobs and unemployment, unemployed workers will picket at 11:30 a.m. in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in the SF Federal Building, 90 7th St., calling for Congress to take immediate action to put people back to work.

San Francisco bus fares will go up and service will go down - impacting Blacks more than any other group - as the struggle over who gets stimulus funds continues. Transit authorities around the country are in line for token stimulus funds, but only for new building projects; no immediate operating support to stave off fare hikes, service cuts and layoffs.

Despite the city's considerable wealth, our local economy is suffering. Ten thousand more San Franciscans are unemployed than a year ago, 1,000 families have lost their homes to foreclosure and more people are waiting in lines for free food than anyone has seen in a generation.

As the United States delves further into a serious long-term recession, African Americans are facing the challenge of coming from a seven-year silent recession into a depression. What the national economy is going through could decrease the Black middle class by a staggering 33 percent.