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The Center's affiliate organization,
Western
State Strategies, is continuing our traditional work
on campaign finance reform, supporting voter-owned elections
and promoting a more transparent election system that
expands democracy. |
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Help Western States Center
support and grow the progressive movement in the West! |
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SUMMER,
2007 - VOLUME 27
Download
Entire Volume |
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Summer of Our Discontent: No Rest for the Weary
Following last November’s election, voters and progressives had strong expectations that the end of conservative Republican control of Congress and of an increasing number of state legislatures would translate into concrete wins on core issues. And indeed, across the country progressives did capitalize on shifts of power in legislative chambers, winning landmark legislation such as LGBT anti-discrimination and domestic partnership bills in Oregon, and paid family leave in Washington, some of which has literally been decades in the making. Other events, however, have tempered expectations, reminding us that while shifts in partisan control of legislatures or the Congress can open up avenues for key wins on issues, those wins seldom come about solely through partisan shifts alone. Big money and ideological forces still exert strong pulls on lawmakers, and it takes equally strong pressure from organized communities to overcome those influences. |
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Supreme Court Rules Women Must Be Protected ... from Their Own Decisions
On April 18, 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed four decades of precedent supporting a woman’s right to privacy and a health exemption to terminate a pregnancy when it ruled that we, as a country, must protect women from the consequences of abortion. As draconian as it is, the recent decision presents an opportunity for progressives to learn from history and begin to organize a broad based movement for reproductive justice. |
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Base-Building in Communities of Color
In Salem, hundreds of families—three quarters of them Latino immigrants for whom English is their second language—have organized to demand education equity from the Salem/Keizer School District. A fifteen-minute drive to the north, in Woodburn, Oregon’s largest city with a people of color majority, the Latino community is turning out to the polls at a rate 400 percent greater than just five years ago. In Seattle, African American, Latino and other youth of color are challenging No Child Left Behind and the racial bias permeating the push for standardized testing. In south Seattle, people of color are organizing to preserve low-income housing, end racial profiling by the police and shut down companies polluting the air in their neighborhoods. Throughout the West, as well as the nation, people of color are leading and winning campaigns around the issues that affect their communities. |
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Time Management Toolkit
Thalia Zepatos, Director of Organizing and Training for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, recently facilitated a seminar on techniques for supervising social change organizers. Here we present a couple of tools that participants found particularly useful. |
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War Resistance: Western Communities Organize for Peace & Justice
Signs of Americans’ disapproval of the Bush administration’s disastrous military adventure in Iraq continue to grow. As expected, on the war’s fourth anniversary, marches, rallies and protests involving thousands took place around the nation, with western cities like Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles providing some of the largest turnouts. These anniversary actions are only the most visible demonstrations of resistance to the war. They are taking place amidst numerous acts of civil disobedience, economic direct action, and cultural and artistic dissent. Pacifist grandmothers in rocking chairs block the entrance to a recruiting office. Trade unionists and peace activists work to interrupt loading of war material onto a ship. Anti-war veterans and local churches sponsor a traveling road show of anti-war art. Youth of color convene roundtable discussions to share their experiences as the primary targets of military recruiters. Opposition to the war is happening in large urban centers with strong progressive communities and—particularly in the West—with increasing frequency in smaller towns and rural communities. |
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America’s War on Immigrants: Racist Means to a Political End
Tens of thousands of people turned out in the streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other towns and cities on May 1, 2007 to protest the treatment of over 12 million undocumented immigrants living and working within our borders. The press chose to focus on the diminished size of the protests—only 150,000 marched in Chicago as opposed to 400,000 the year before —rather than what brought about a second year of mass protests: immigrants and a growing number of allies organizing against federal policies that are increasingly brutal and racialized. By doing so, they missed the real story: the evolution of a movement as significant to 21st century Americans as the abolition movement was to their 19th century counterparts. |
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Organizer's
Index
Welcome new staff members Aimee Santos-Lyons and Nancy Haque and Board Members Dan Neal and George Cheung;
Goodbye to New Voices Fellow Kayse Jama. |
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Nightstand: Good Reads and Good Deeds
What are we reading these days? BLUE GRIT: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians by Laura Flanders and GOODMONEY COLLECTIVE, A chronicle of ATR: A Territory Resource Foundation by Alan Rabinowitz |
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Back
to Views Magazine Archive Page |
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