Dr. Cornel West on Poverty In America


Cornel West, is one of America’s most gifted, provocative, and
important democratic intellectuals, now focusing much of his energy on his second national tour to heighten awareness of poverty in the U.S., aggressively committing to stopping Stop & Frisk practices and resisting efforts to privatize public education and against school closings.

The national discourse has been focused on the deterioration of the
“middle class”. But this framework ignores the plight of the
growing number of working poor and those not included in the workforce, suffering crushing poverty. Organized labor’s wages and benefits are under threat, chronic, high unemployment persists, increasing numbers of workers are falling off the unemployment benefit rolls and those new jobs created increasingly paying poverty wages. The recent Census shows that more than 46 Million Americans last year were living below the poverty line ($22,314 for a family of 4), the highest level since 1993.

However, the rise of poverty has been ignored by politicians and the mainstream media. But,author,lecturer,public intellectual Cornel West is a welcome exception to that reality. He has co-authored the new book “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto” and has been traveling the country broadsiding his message that now is the time to confront the underlying conditions of systemic poverty in America.

He’s broadcasting the message that there are nearly 150 million
impoverished people in America, who aren’t responsible for Great
Recession, yet they pay the price for it. The poor did not create the
deindustrialization of America, unmitigated corporate profiteering
and greed, more than a decade of foreign wars and unregulated tax
benefits for the wealthy. Rather, the housing and jobs crisis the
plutocrats created have fostered a poverty unseen in generations,
crossing race, age and gender lines.

Cornel West places the eradication of poverty in the context of the
nation’s greatest moments of social transformation - the abolition of slavery, woman’s suffrage, and the labor and civil rights movements. As did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. West raises ending poverty as the defining civil rights struggle of America’s 21st century. Building on the legacy of Dr. King he asks us to re-examine our assumptions about poverty in America, confront our dormancy and travel the road laid out to undertake to eradicate poverty, to redistribute the wealth and challenge the system that thrives off of inequality.

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How Class Works: The RepublaCrats and Their Servant Economy
With
Jeff Faux, renowned economist, Founding Pres., Economic Policy Institute, author of The Global Class War and The Servant Economy

Faux explains why neither party's leaders have a plan to remedy America's unemployment, inequality, or long economic slide that America's political and economic elite spent so long making. While Republicans and Democrats brawl in public, in effect they have already cut a deal: the “American Dream” will have to be sacrificed. Faux will take us on a historical tour of the rise and fall of the idea that democratic government has a responsibility for shaping the future, delivers a savage indictment of Wall Street financiers and their Washington toadies who promote an age of austerity for the people and an age of gluttony for themselves.

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So Rich , So Poor - The Crisis of U.S. Poverty Today

with
. Peter Edelman, Author So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard To End Poverty In America. Prof., Georgetown University Law Center ,he was top advisor to Senator Robert Kennedy and was a member of President Clinton’s administration until he resigned in protest of Clinton’s signing, 16 years ago the Welfare Reform and Reconstruction Act.
. Dr. Avis Jones DeWeever, Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women, who has been described as a change agent, living on the intersection of race and gender and fighting for justice every step of the way
. Frances Fox Piven, professor of political science and
sociology , Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her latest book is Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven: The Essential Writings of the Professor Glenn Beck Loves to Hate.

The income-level disparity in this country is now wider than at any point since the Great Depression. How can this country be so wealthy yet have a steadily growing number of unemployed and working poor.In the past we took important positive steps without which 25 to 30 million more people would be poor, but poverty fluctuates with the business cycle. The structure of today’s economy has stultified wage growth for half of America’s workers — with even worse results at the bottom and for people of color—while bestowing billions on those at the top.

What is happening to the people behind the statistics and especially the continuing crisis of young people of color, whose possibility of a productive life too often is lost on their way to adulthood. This is crisis of poverty is the most critical American dilemma of the twenty-first century.

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What The Lonmin-Marikana Mining Massacre Says About The New South Africa
With
Mazibuko Jara, editor, “Amandla, South Africa’s new progressive magazine Standing for Social Justice”, a leader of the Democratic Left Front in South Africa, bringing together 40 South African social movements into a broad anti-capitalist front, former media officer of the South African Communist Party, and first chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign challenging big pharma and an AIDS denialist government to win ARV treatment.

Jara discuses the current political situation in South Africa in the aftermath of the Lonmin-Marikana mineworker massacre, and its broader context, including internal ANC battles in the lead up to its conference in December and what it means for working class struggles and efforts to build the left

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We are proud to announce that Building Bridges has yet another outstanding Media Competition award for excellence from the International Labor Communication Association (ILCA) for our program, "The 99% Occupies Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge"covering the Nov.17 2011 upsurge celebrating the two month anniversay of Occupay Wall Street. The 99% delivered a powerful message that the domination of society by a tiny elite of super-wealthy individuals and corporations who caused the economic crisis and lobby against an effective policies to end it , harnessing government to do their bidding is unacceptable. The day started with massive civil disobedience in Wall Streets and the  protests were capped off by a rally and march over the Brooklyn Bridge by tens of thousands determined to take back and redistribute the wealth of this country to those who created it - the 99%.

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What Chicago Teachers Taught Us

With
Kimberly Bowsky, Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) rank and file
activist, member of CORE, Council of Rank and File Educators and the CTU House of Delegates
and
Brian Jones, former NYC public elementary school teacher, now pursuing a doctorate in urban education, co-narrator of the film “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” and contributor to the book “Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation”

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has a tentative agreement. Some have proclaimed the strike as the biggest and most inspiring union victory since the 1997 UPS Teamsters strike. While it clearly demonstrates the
resilience of unions and the viability of the traditional strike tactic, it also raises the limitations of what even the best led unions can accomplish through collective bargaining alone today. What are the lessons of the CTU strike for N.Y.C.'s school personnel and its students, and for teacher’s
unions and public workers across the country facing challenges to their very existence?

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The Making of Global Capitalism:

The Political Economy of American Empire
with
. Leo Panitch, Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political
Economy in the Dept. of Political Science at York University
. Sam Gindin, former Research Dir. of the Canadian Autoworkers Union and Prof. at York University

Panitch and Gindin discuss the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an informal empire promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they’ll show how the US has superintended
the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises. Analyzing the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, they identify the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them and how these emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.
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"The Story of Mouseland"
Narrated by Tommy Douglas, leader of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and, later, the New Democratic Party of Canada, both social democratic parties.

A political fable expressing the CCF's view that the political system was flawed in offering voters a false dilemma: the choice of two parties, neither of which represented their interests.

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Mexican Caravanistas Cross Border & Journey Across US, Their Message, Peace, Justice & Dignity, No To The Increasing Militarization In The Fight Against Drug Abuse

Mexican activists in the first bi-national caravan of more than 115 mostly victims of the drug war arrived in New York on their month-long journey across the US. They called attention to organized crime, money laundering by HSCB, Citibank and other greedy financial institutions who they say are equally responsible for the bloodshed caused by the drug merchants and corrupt Mexican government officials serving them and supported as well by the US government. Memorializing the more than 60,000 who have died, which includes the son of poet Javier Sicilia, a caravan organizer, on both sides of the border, the message is to stop militarizing and treat drug abuse as a public health problem, not a war.
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Ending Mass Incarceration
with
Jazz Hayden, longtime member of The Riverside Church Prison Ministry, a founding member of the Ministry's Campaign to End the New Jim Crow,dedicated to combating mass incarceration and building caring communities.

For the past four years, Jazz Hayden has videotaped police officers as they performed illegal stop and frisks in Harlem as part of his coverage of the Harlem community as a citizen journalist. Now Jazz Hayden the peoples’ documentarian and leading exponent against police and prison abuse, is currently being persecuted by the NYPD and is fighting his own felony charges.

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Southern Workers and Occupy Protest at the DNC

With
. Angaza Laughinghouse, Pres. ,UE Local 150,
North Carolina Public Service Workers,
. Rev. Stephen Copley, Dir., Arkansas Interfaith
Alliance and Chairman, Ntl. Nonpartisan Let Justice
Roll Living Wage Coalition,
. Yen Alcala with the Coalition to March on Wall Street
South and Occupy Charlotte

No, say it ain’t so – was it really so that the Democratic National Convention(DNC) had the chutzpa to convene, of all days, on Labor Day, in a nonunion convention hall, in a right to work state? Well, it’s true! So, there’s all the more reason to join and build bridges with the worker advocates that converged in Charlotte last week. We bring you on the ground coverage with southern worker coalitions organizing public and private sector workers for labor rights in their Southern Workers Assembly; and other activists from across the country who converged on Wall Street South (the second largest concentration of finance capital in the
U.S., after N.Y.C.).
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Undocumented Immigrants’ Freedom Bus Ride!

Undocumented immigrants taking a page from the civil rights movement rode on a bus for justice from Arizona to Charlotte, N.C. to the Democratic National Convention. Across the states they challenged the champions of prejudice by their voices, and with actions against discrimination, harassment, and deportation. They are ready to move the country forward and they demanded that the Democratic Party match their courage by stopping the arrests and deportations and enacting comprehensive immigration reform.
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How We Can & Why We Must Stave Off The Assaults On Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security & Public Assistance
With
. Joe Baker, Pres., Medicare Rights Center, serves on the US Dept. of Health and Human Services Medicare/Medicaid Advisory Panel, former NYS Deputy Sec'y for Health and Human Services under Gov. David Paterson
. Timothy Casey, Senior Staff Attorney with Legal Momentum
. Nancy Altman, Co-Chair, Strengthen Social Security Campaign

Sixteen years ago Pres. Clinton and a bipartisan Congress replaced Aid To Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which has proven to be a disaster for poor parents and children, even more so in the midst of recession and economic downturn. The shredding of the safety net began with AFDC and is expanding with proposals to cut, to privatize, to block grant or set up vouchers for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Both political parties seem willing to sacrifice key elements of these programs at the altar of the budget deficit
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Immigrant Workers Organizing Breeds Energy And Hope

For Labor Movement
With
. Jacob Horowitz, Lead Organizer, National Guestworker Alliance
and the New Orleans Workers’ Center
. Joseph Sanchez, Focus on the Food Chain, Brandworkers' International
. Gaudalupe Palma Deputy Director, Warehouse Workers United, Inland Empire, CA.

Immigrant workers, documented and undocumented are on the move. They’re organizing for labor rights and infusing the workers’ movement with new energy and creativity. We need to make sure every worker, documented or undocumented is protected by our labor laws and we need immigration reform that allows immigrants to be securely part of our country from day one—able to assert their legal rights, including the right to organize. Over two hundred million people, just about all of them workers and farmers, are part of a great migrant stream, a human bond that connects the countries of the developed and developing world.

Who can see more clearly the operation of the global economy than those workers?  Who has a greater stake in
changing it? Who can help us to change our unions, and stop the hemorrhaging of our workers organizations than immigrant workers? Organizing immigrant workers is so necessary for the survival of our labor movement. If we are serious in wanting to build political power, then we must organize immigrant workers, fight for their rights, and make the movement for social justice one that belongs to all of us, documented and undocumented.
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The Sparks That Ignite Hate: The Growth of American Extremism

With
Chip Berlet, investigative reporter, independent scholar and progressive activist specializing in the study of U.S. right-wing movements

Berlet describes that what happened at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin is both a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism and discusses what’s feeding white supremacist radicalization. He’s written scholarly articles on conspiracy
theories, religious apocalyptic aggression, and organizations of racist groups. Berlet examines major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the context of mass media’s vilification of a
scapegoated group, governmental policing and military policies and the politics of race and gender hierarchies, that stimulate individual and group aggression. Berlet reminds us that whether the “lone wolf” or leaderless resistance cells on the radical right, they can be likened to the mined canaries, warning us of something toxic spreading the fumes of anxiety through our society.

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Workers in low-wage jobs, car washers, taxi drivers, airport workers, daycare providers, restaurant workers and retail employees joined in solidarity with organized labor, community organizations, religious leaders and politicians to demand better pay, benefits and working conditions for ALL workers. They rallied to call for fair wages on the three-year anniversary of the last increase to the federal minimum wage. The Day of Action in over 30 U.S. cities was in support of legislation in Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9.80 by 2014. The rallies followed on the heel of new data showing that large corporations with more than 100 employees hire the majority of the country’s low-wage workers (66%) – and that their recovery signals it is time to improve wages for the lowest-paid workers. New data from the Economic Policy Institute also shows the wideranging impact a minimum wage raise would have on America’s workers and on improving the economic growth.

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Bringing Home The Gold:
What’s To Love And Hate About The Olympics
with
Dave Zirin
Dave Zarin, writes about the politics of the world’s favorite pastime, sports.  He’s been named one of UTNE Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World”.  He’s the winner of Sport in Society and Northeastern University School of Journalism's 2011 Excellence in Sports Journalism Award.  Most recently he collaborated with Olympic icon Dr. John Carlos in writing the book, The John Carlos Story, he’s published Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games We Love,  A People’s History of Sports in the United States, and Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports. Actually he’s the best darn sports-writer in the United States.  Zirin joins Building Bridges to scrape away at the gold surface and reveal some serious Olympic tarnish.   
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Today’s Opinion, Yosvany Terry’s Latest Musical Journey


Composer, musician Yosvany Terry has helped redefine the Afro-Cuban and contemporary jazz idiom in the New York music scene. His new release Today’s Opinion reflects his deep cultural roots as well as the versatility of his musical styles. This exceptional, multilayered recording Today’s Opinion is accessible and profound and Yosvany Terry previews it on Building Bridges.  

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Coke Workers Sue Calling Plants A “Cesspool Of Racial Discrimination”

With
. Yvette Butler, a mechanic, fired from the Maspeth, Queens, plant
. Ramon Hernandez, a haulage driver, fired from the Elmsford, Westchester, plant
. Ray Rodgers, Director, Campaign to Stop Killer Coke


Sixteen African-American and Latino production workers are suing Coca-Cola, accusing the company of relegating them to less favorable assignments, unfair disciplinary action and retaliation for complaining. The workers say they were
subjected to racial epithets, and the people who used them went unpunished, according to the complaint. The suits are centered on two production plants — one in Maspeth, Queens, and another in Elmsford in Westchester.

Sondra Walker, a merchandiser at the Maspeth plant, said she had “never been called so many names as I have been at Coca-Cola,” citing “Nappy Head” and “Aunt JaMamma” as examples. Walker describes in the complaint an incident
in which a white employee complaining about cleaning a sewer allegedly said: “What am I, a n----- or something?”
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Turn The Lights Back On For Locked Out Con Ed Workers
with
John Melia, Spokesperson, Local 1-2 Utility Workers Union


Building Bridges brings you an exclusive update on contract negotiations with the locked out NYC workers of Local 1-2 of the UWUA and Con Ed.

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Con Ed Wants To Turn The Lights Out On Worker Power

With
Harry Farrell, President
and Members of Local 1-2 Utility Workers Union


We’ll bring you exclusive, from the picket-line interviews with workers and the latest on negotiations with Local 1-2 leadership in the New York City’s Con Edison lockout. Con Edison illegally, more than a week ago, without notice, in the midst of bargaining over pensions, health care and wages locked out its 8,500 workers, after the union refused to surrender its ability to strike. While the sides have returned to the bargaining table tensions run high with injuries to the scab management, thinking it can do the workers jobs and service cuts to our neighborhoods.

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Workers At Atlantic City’s Tropicana Tells Casino

You Can’t Gamble With Our Pensions!
With
Shari Shugar, Cocktail Waitress at the Tropicana,
Member UNITE HERE Local 54
and
Ben Begleiter, Research Analyst, UNITE HERE Local 54


The Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City indefinitely suspended 21 workers who protested by blocking traffic near the casino's entrance resulting in the arrest of 49 protesters. Local 54 of UNITE HERE was protesting the failure to negotiate a new contract and the casino's termination of its employee pension plan. The union says its members were exercising their free speech rights on their off hours, and should not have been suspended. Francine Stevenson marked her 17th anniversary with the Tropicana by getting a suspension notice. "I feel very angry and upset about what has happened. My father is 81 years old, and he had to go back to work driving a truck because he has no pension. It is just not right what companies are doing to their workers.” Stevenson vowed to continue the fight for the
workers pension. Bob McDevitt, President of Local 54, said the Tropicana broke the law first by refusing to bargain in good faith, and terminating its pension plan.
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The Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?

Excerpts from this new feature documentary talking about the implementation of the now generations old plan which was started in the 1970’s by the US ruling class transferring wealth from the working class and the poor to the rich. The excerpts deal with attacks on workers’ pension plans, social security and unions.

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Louisiana Guest Workers Expose Forced Labor Coverup At Walmart Supply Chain and Take Protest To Walmart Board Member’s Home


Mexican guest workers, who peel crawfish for C.J.’s Seafood in Louisiana confronted their bosses after being forced to work shifts of up to 24 hours, weren’t allowed to take breaks, were cheated out of their overtime pay and were threatened with physical violence. Ana Diaz, one of the workers said that, “when we wanted to take breaks the supervisor threatened to hit us. When one of our co-workers called the police because she couldn’t take the treatment, then our boss threatened to hurt our families.” Despite the threats,workers walked off their shift and demanded payment of their unpaid wages. The workers have extended their protest to Sam’s Club, a Walmart subsidiary that buys 85 percent of C.J.’s crawfish and marched on the New York offices and penthouse of Walmart board members.

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Thousands in N.Y.C. Say STOP Frisking Our Communities:

Community and Labor Say No To Racial & Ethnic Profiling and the New Jim Crow


Thousands upon thousands marched in NYC's Father's Day stop Stop and Frisk march organized by civil rights and labor unions in protest of the policies of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and implemented by NYPD Police Commisioner Kelly. Under Mayor Bloomberg, in 2011, 685,000 New Yorkers were stopped by the Police. Of those that were stopped 605,328 were completely innocent of any wrong- doing. African-American youth constituted 350,743, or 53% of those stopped and Latinos comprised 223,740 or 43% of those stopped. In response to the profiling and efforts to criminalize Black and Latino youth, and following yet another fatal police shooting thousands came together to demand: End Stop and Frisk; End The “Drug War” Against Our Youth; End Mass Incarceration;End the New Jim Crow;  & Stop the Implementation of ICE’S Secure Communities Program in New York and Mass Deportations. Building Bridges presents the march highlights.

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