Victories

First Bottled-Water-Free Town        

 Bundanoon, a town in Australia, may be the first town in the world to legally ban bottled water.  The town sets up free filtered water stations around town to accommodate the ban. 

A grassroots campaign called “Bundy on Tap” won this victory. Plastic bottles are made with oil. Bloody wars are fought for oil. And the world’s oil is coming to an end. The other problem with bottled water is the massive amount of plastic that is filling up landfills.

World’s First Carbon-Free Country

The Republic of Maldives, an island south of India, will become the world’s first carbon-free country by 2010. They will use renewable energy, including solar panels and wind turbines. And they will invest in new technologies with Eco-friendly practices. 

Climate changes are a threat to The Maldives’ survival. They can be severely harmed by rising sea levels and storms resulting from global warming.  Although their country is not the cause of climate problems, they are taking leadership in making changes. 

The Maldives is the seventh country to join the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net). This group helps countries transition into low-carbon economies. The other six countries are Costa Rica, Iceland, Monaco, New Zealand, Niue, and Norway. 

Contact: Climate Neutral Network www.unep.org/climateneutral

One Windmill Will Provide Energy for Whole Community 

It is as tall as a 38-story building. This wind turbine in Shakopee, Minnesota will generate enough energy for the whole Shakopee Sioux Community. They will be self-sufficient in energy production. This 386-foot-tall windmill was built in China and is environmentally friendly.

Court Rules For Immigrant Mom On Custody 

A Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal to terminate a mother’s parental rights simply because of her undocumented status.

In 2004, Maria Luis moved from Guatemala to Nebraska to raise her two American born children. She worked in a meat processing plant. In 2005, Maria stayed home with her 1 year old daughter who was very ill. Based on a tip, Child Welfare workers with police appeared at her home.  

The police arrested her on immigration charges and deported her. The two children, age 1 and 7 years old were taken into custody by Child Welfare. The children spent four years in three different foster homes. They did not see their mom again until 2008 when she managed to come back and have a hearing. 

The court ruled that “parental custody of children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by the U S Supreme Court”. It found that the state did not provide Ms.Luis with adequate legal representation or interpretation. They also denied her the right to appeal. And they failed to contact her embassy to intervene. Social workers failed to tell her how to regain custody of her children.  

The state had never proved that Ms.Luis was unfit. And they made no effort to reunite the family. Child Welfare social workers tore this family apart because they “thought the children would be better off living in the United States”.  

Ms. Luis said she never gave up hope that she would get her children back. “I knew this day would come.”

Feds Close Immigrant Family Prison 

On Aug. 6 the Obama adminstration announced that the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention center would close. Hutto was a former prison near Austin TX that now jailed immigrants.  Corrections Corporation of America  (CCA) ran Hutto. They forced children and parents to live in cells with bunk beds and a toilet just like criminals. The families are awaiting hearings for asylum. 

During the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency, activists organized 100 events to end family detention. Over 60,000 people signed a petition demanding an end to locking up immigrant families. 

Hutto opened in 2006. In 3 years thousands of people participated in dozens of Hutto vigils. Two documentary films on family detention were made there. In 2007, the ACLU filed suit against Homeland Security and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on behalf of 10 immigrant children confined at Hutto. 

CCA is the nation’s largest private prison company. In the first six months of 2009 it made $67 million imprisoning families. CCA has partnered with the federal government to “detain” 1 million undocumented people in five years. 

After Hutto closed, immigrant rights activist Maria Jimenez said, “I agree it is a victory. But we cannot forget that the government is simply using other facilities to detain people. There are at least four here in Houston. They may be more like group homes than traditional prisons. But as Los Tigres del Norte sing, “The cage may be made of gold, but it is still a prison.” 

Immigrants Beat Bigoted Big Business Costumes 

Amazon.com, Target, Walgreens, eBay, and Toys R Us removed racist anti-immigrant halloween costumes from their stores. They had been selling costumes that taught little children to hate and fear Mexican immigrants. 

Immigrant groups organized email and media campaigns to stop the stores from selling these hate toys.  They are made by Forum Novelties, Inc. Costumes included orange prison jumpsuits with “Illegal Alien” stamped on the chest, and space aliens with large “green cards.”  They also sold “alien” masks with a thick black mustache and a baseball cap.  

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is urging a boycott of stores that continue to sell or produce the costumes.

Tenants Win Against Electric Company and Landlord 

On Aug, 31 DTE Energy of Detroit shut off the electricity to Highland Towers.  150 residents were left in the dark. Highland Towers had suffered from years of neglect and mismanagement. Residents paid their rents. But the money was never used to make repairs or cover utility bills. 

On Sept. 3, tenants went to DTE Energy headquarters to demand that their power be restored. Security guards stated that executives would meet with them shortly. But after an hour they closed the lobby and no one was available to talk to them. 

On Sept. 4, tenants held an emergency demo in front of DTE Energy. Finally DTE executives met with Moratorium NOW! organizers and Highland Tower tenants. LaTanya Lloyd, a tenant said, “An executive told us that the landlord owed over $150,000 to DTE. He said, ‘No we’re not turning the power back on. This is a business. And we’re in business to make money’  

“Moratorium NOW! joined us tenants a few days after the shut off. They work with the community to stop unfair evictions and foreclosures. That’s basically what this was, an unfair eviction. Once they got involved, things changed real fast. We got hooked up with Legal Aid and Defenders’ attorneys. And we took DTE to court.  

“They still kept fighting us! They told the judge lies about giving us notice. We never got any notice. Our notice was the power going out. We’re human beings. And we matter. We just weren’t going to let them do that to us without a fight. And we didn’t. And you know…We won!” 

A court order on Sept. 11 forced DTE Energy to turn the power back on. 

Michigan has a 15% unemployment rate. Detroit faces 29% unemployment. The people are demanding that Governor Granholm declare a state of emergency. But both state and local officials refuse to take action in defense of the people.

Iceland Bans Paying for Sex

In April Iceland passed a bill banning strip clubs and paying for sex.  This is the third country to outlaw Johns (Norway and Sweden are the other two).  

Before this change, both selling and buying sex was legal in Iceland.  They changed the law because it was contributing to the trafficking of women.  Johns can be fined or imprisoned up to a year (two years if the victim is under 18).   

Justice for First Nation Women at Last 

After a 20-year legal fight, a First Nation mother won Indian status for her child and all children of non-Indian fathers.  Since 1985, Canada’s Indian Act discriminated against Native women who married a white man.  Yet children of an Indian man married to a white woman kept their Indian status.   

The victorious mom, Sharon McIvor, is a lawyer and a member of the Lower Nicola Band of British Columbia. 

Brutal Drug Laws Stopped in NY

On April 24, NY put an end to the 36 year old brutal Rockefeller Drug laws passed in 1973. These mandated severe minimum prison terms for low-level drug offenses, even for first time offenders. It denied judges sentencing flexibility. And it became a model for other states.

Thousands of first-time nonviolent people received life sentences! 12,000 people are currently jailed under these laws. More than 90 percent are black and latino. Yet whites and people of color use and sell illegal drugs at equal rates.

            The new law eliminates mandatory minimums. It restores judicial discretion. The law also provides $70 million to expand treatment and re-entry services. IT expands alternatives to prison. And it allows 1,500 low-level nonviolent drug ooffenders to apply for resentencing.

            The Rockefeller Drug Laws not only caused awful suffering. They also waste billions of taxpayers dollars. The nations prison population exploded from 350,000 in 1973 to 2.3 million in 2009. 500,000 were in prison for nonviolent drug offenses.  

Contact: The Ally, Drug Policy Alliance www.drugpolicy.org; 212-613-8046

Sources: Positive News ~ News from Indian Country ~ Freedom Socialist ~ Workers World ~ Rain and Thunder ~ People’s World ~! The Ally