As casino companies and government officials continue to claim that putting predatory gambling institutions in the heart of our city will benefit us (and a month after Temple University Health Systems shut down one of the last remaining hospitals in the city that accepted all Medicaid plans), check out these stories of health care crisis from the people of Atlantic City. The first casino in Atlantic City opened in 1978, with the promise of revitalizing the city's economy. But as I watched these interviews in "Health Care Crisis U.S.A."--some of them shot literally in the shadow of the Taj Mahal casino--I wondered: revitalized for who?
Asfolks in New Orleans are fighting to keep public housing alive, and as we here of the attacks on protesters by police today in New Orleans during a city council meeting,here is some info on what the fight is really about.
A New York Times report on a conference about New York City and whether gentrification will kill what the city has been known for. The comment section is quite lively.
New York Calling
I'm sure this is not the first you've heard of this, but alternet offers a short analysis of what is going on in LA:
The LAPD's "Safer Cities Initiative," launched on Skid Row last summer, is based on the "broken windows" theory of law enforcement... What the theory is doing is reading poverty as disorder and using those 'signs of disorder' as an excuse to bring additional police attention and additional sanctioning to areas where poor people live."
Movement for Justice in El Barrio
in Philadelphia for two special events.
The East Harlem based organization of Mexican immigrants will link their local antigentrification work to the larger global struggle for dignity and against neoliberalism. The presentation will feature short videos documenting the dialogue between Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio and the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) who send a message to those struggling for justice all over the world and include a special message for historically marginalized peoples.
Community organizations and public housing residents from across the nation, along with Miami Workers Center and Power U Center for Social Change, stormed the Housing Agency of New Orleans (HANO) office at around 12:30 PM today. The organizations we are acting in solidarity with displaced residents of New Orleans public housing.
HANO, under federal HUD leadership, has fenced off four public housing projects and will not let people return to their homes even though the units were not damaged by the storm two years ago.
All of MMPs Feeds