Aug. 18, 2007

Baton Rouge, La., Kansas City, Mo., and Bethlehem, Pa., are far from Wall Street, but they are among the ground zeros in the financial crisis now grabbing headlines. It’s a crisis caused, some say, by “incredible greed and looting” by the nation’s financial institutions.

It looks as though the administration will use a September report by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, to paint a rosy picture of the situation there. Elected leaders and broad sections of the American people vow to “not be fooled again,” and are using the current congressional recess to ramp up the fight to set a date to withdraw troops.

LOS ANGELES — On Aug. 10 the Bush administration, invoking its executive authority, announced a 26-point program of harsher, more punitive immigration policies, including the further militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border and the expansion of temporary worker programs.

MINNEAPOLIS — Cars have been removed and the ninth victim’s body was recovered Aug. 13 from the I-35W bridge collapse here. Tall black cranes, one with the American flag on top of it, moved slowly on the horizon over the site. A wide area surrounding the bridge is closed to all but recovery workers.

When Louis Alonso Hernandez, 23, Manuel Sanchez, 41, Kerry Allred, 57, Brandon Phillips, 24, Don Erickson, 50, and Carlos Payan, in his 20s, began their 12-hour shift 1,500 feet underground at the Crandall Canyon mine Aug. 6, they fully expected to see their families at the end of the day.

Under the guise of “electoral reform,” California Republicans are preparing to launch a deceptively-named ballot initiative which could seriously distort the results of next year’s presidential election.

JENA, La.: NAACP steps up to secure justice for ‘Jena 6’
TUCSON, Ariz.: City remembers Hiroshima, urges nuke ban
MACON, Ga.: Mayor extends hand of friendship to Venezuela

NEW YORK — Michimasa Hirata was not supposed to be speaking in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Aug. 9, the 62nd anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. But in a tragic illustration of the bombs’ continuing effects, the originally scheduled speaker was diagnosed with leukemia in April and died within the following two weeks.

CHICAGO — The labor movement showed what it is made of Aug. 7 at Soldier Field when 17,000 union members and their families challenged seven Democratic presidential candidates to explain to the nation how they will change things.

Puerto Rican resistance to the U.S. war in Iraq, unfolding in the context of struggles for independence and economic justice, has special characteristics. Recent opposition to military recruitment and FBI harassment of youth activists suggests that young people in Puerto Rico are at the center of these conflicts.