I got this email from Yetta Kurland a lawyer, activist and former NYC council candidate on a ruling that would impact LGBT and homeless rights in New York CIty.

The case revolves around Alan Bounville a NYU student and activist who had been charged with violating the law while protesting in front of an elected official’s office.

On October 15, 2010, Mr. Bounville was arrested and charged with obstructing the sidewalk under a section of the New York City Administrative Code, AC 16-122(b).  This law is meant to prevent the storage of vehicles and other immovable personal property and garbage on public sidewalks. Bounville had been sleeping in sleeping bags placed atop cardboard boxes in the Chelsea neighborhood as part of a demonstration advocating for LGBT rights.

They say this law is often used to jail homeless people. The odd thing is the law refers to trash removal from sidewalks which when you think about it shouldn’t even be applicable to Mr. Bounville.

Here’s a good quote from one of the attorneys on this:

Mr. Quackenbush explained his reasons for taking the case. “There is no reason Mr. Bounville or any homeless person should be charged under a law aimed at keeping trash off the sidewalk. People sleeping on sidewalks are not breaking the law, are not trash, and should not be treated like it.”

Here in DC with homeless shelters being closed over the past few years, homeless people are most likely sleeping on the streets more. In New York City I’m sure similar conditions like cuts to services is triggering the same effect. Not that it’s a good thing that homeless people are living on the streets but arresting them for doing so is not the answer.

In the end this ruling is also good news for far more than just LGBT rights it’s also good news for anyone wanting to protest and exercise their First Amendment rights.

The Center offered some minimal services like a small meeting room and a coming computer center, but mostly this was a beehive for campaign-based advocacy in and around the core of the African-American community.  More recently they had spent the last year helping found Florida New Majority in 2009 to increase civic engagement dramatically.    Using targeted canvass programs in several urban areas around the state more than 15,000 had joined through that program and participated in civic activities leading to the mid-terms, thereby filling a vacuum in Florida, as Hashim mentioned, created by the dissolution of ACORN in the state.

via Visiting with the Miami Workers’ Center « Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog.

People are going to organize no matter what. You can take down one organization but another one will take its place. It is the same thing with organized labor. Corporations and right wingers can attack unions all they want…but guess what? They will not go anywhere. People will organize. They organized unions before the NLRA and they will continue to do so no matter what you try and do.

Yes, since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers the weakening of unions has been effective–we know this. Yet if workers were given an opportunity to join a union they would–we know this too. Because this is known I am glad to see alternatives to unions being tried out along side traditional unionism practices–alternatives like worker centers and the AFL-CIO’s Working America.

It is that drive to organize that cannot be denied you’d have to take away the right of assembly for it not to be effective anymore! Whether it is for a building, neighborhood or workplace people are going to organize because strength lies in numbers.

“After that whole process, the Marbury Plaza was never sold, and is still owned by the Lightstone Group out of New York. After we took the action to try and buy our own building from the owners, they stopped caring about the facilities and let them fall apart. It got to the point where almost every apartment had been flooded, most people had been witness to a crime in the building, the disabled had trouble getting into one of the buildings because it was not ADA accessible, and we would go for periods without heat and air conditioning. The conditions were terrible.

via April on Bringing Change to the Marbury Plaza « Peoples District.

You know people knocked ACORN around for the voter registration thing which was actually silly anyway–but the other thing that ACORN did was overlooked and that is its community organizing strength which was often put to use in situations like the one highlighted here.

Whether it’s some entity called Lightstone Group or the Pinnacle Group LLC (ironically both NY based Lightstone owns this DC property cited however) landlords seem to have it out for their tenants all the time.

This is the result of organizing and fighting:

“Now, after a number of years of fighting it out, with much of that time in the courts and dealing with appeal after appeal, we are in the final stages of a settlement with the building. Those of us who withheld our rent will get an abatement and the building has promised to make the necessary repairs and adjustments to bring the building up to code. While nothing is ever perfect, and there are people who feel like the settlement is not enough, I view it as a success. The 1,000 to 1,500 residents here will finally be able to live with regular heat and air conditioning and free of animal infestation, security problems, and constant concerns by the disabled about getting into and out of their buildings. We couldn’t get everything, but I think that these changes will make all of our lives here better.

“When I tell people about all of this, they are always pretty shocked when they find out that I am not a D.C. native and still, I organized and led a movement to make our living conditions better. To be honest, I don’t think it really matters where you are from. If something is wrong, it is wrong, no matter where you are. I saw something that needed to be addressed, and I did it. The experience has made me rethink what I want to do with my life, and I want to go to law school, if I can find the money, and do this kind of work full-time. Now, I spend my days now working on regulations and grants, but to be able to actually make a real impact in someone’s life is really powerful. I want to help other people do what I did and help make them feel powerful, too.

While the Citizens United v. FEC ruling has taken a backseat to the other pressing issues of the day. I thought it interesting to see a local movement to try and stand up and fight back against the ruling.

From the Town of Greenburgh’s Democratic Committee:

WHEREAS, the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC ruled that corporate funding of candidate elections cannot be limited because corporations have the same First Amendment rights as “natural persons”; and

WHEREAS, corporations are not treated as “natural persons” in other respects under the law and have, among other advantages, limited liability privileges and favorable treatment for the accumulation and distribution of assets;

The Democratic Committee of the Town Of Greenburgh New York hereby;

RESOLVES, that it will exert all possible effort to urge the United States Congress and the New York State Legislature to pass legislation providing that all corporations which choose to exercise the privilege under Citizens United v. FEC to unlimited corporate funding of candidate elections and ballot questions have thereby waived their corporate privileges and immunities and may be treated as natural persons in all other respects.

Good for them! Now if they could get a resolution passed by the town board of Greenburgh, NY that would be another good step. The goal would be to get local municipalities throughout the state to pass similar resolutions which could then lead to a bill in Albany. Then it’s on to the US Congress!

An online movement to boycott BP for its role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is growing at a rate of better than 25,000 names a day.

“I won’t buy their gas any more. I won’t patronize a company that’s destroying our planet,” New Jersey resident Patricia Jarozynski told CNN, one of 118,000 fans of the “Boycott BP” Facebook page as of this writing

via Facebook fans organize to boycott BP – May. 26, 2010.

Why stop with BP? Clearly Chevron could use some of the public’s hatred.

Though I consider myself a deist, I am glad that there are liberal Catholic groups like Catholics United trying to do the right thing and fight back against the the Catholic Right represented by groups such as the Catholic League.

This is what Catholics United is up against:

For decades, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has worked to end poverty by empowering people in low-income communities. Despite CCHD’s organizing successes, the Catholic Right is now working to discredit the program and take away its funding. Just last week, a coalition of anti-social justice groups launched a new petition campaign calling on the U.S. Catholic Bishops to suspend all national CCHD grants.

These conservative groups say that CCHD money is being used to support abortion and same-sex marriage, which is not true. What is true is that the Catholic Right’s attacks are political in nature. One member of the anti-social justice coalition mocks CCHD for funding groups that support community organizing and a strong role for the federal government in ending poverty.

They have a petition going on here which you can sign to ask that the CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) continue to fund the important work of fighting poverty and community organizing. If there is one thing I associate Catholicism with is fighting poverty and support for labor! I may not agree with them on some social issues, but I support them on these matters.

I agree with Ralph Nader on this point.

Roslyn and Howard Zinn left two children, Myla and Jeff, and five grandchildren. Together with his publisher, Dan Simon of 7 Stories Press, his editor, Matthew Rothschild, his interviewer, Amy Goodman, his associate, Anthony Arnove, and his innumerable writers and fighters for justice, for the principle that the truth is revolutionary, why not a well-funded and staffed Institute, organizing from the neighborhoods on up, as he urged so often, with horizons for all seasons, as befits his vision?

Nader suggests it be called the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice.

I find it poetic justice.

Oregon voters bucked decades of anti-tax and anti-Salem sentiment Tuesday, raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to prevent further erosion of public schools and other state services.

The tax measures passed easily, with late returns showing a 54 percent to 46 percent ratio. Measure 66 raises taxes on households with taxable income above $250,000, and Measure 67 sets higher minimum taxes on corporations and increases the tax rate on upper-level profits.

The results triggered waves of relief from educators and legislative leaders, who were facing an estimated $727 million shortfall in the current two-year budget if the measures failed.

The great things is that the anti-tax corporations were powerless to stop it.

Those Chinese hackers are rather sophisticated indeed. When blogger Noel Hidalgo went to China and was picked up & deported for filming a protest with his cell phone. He noticed that someone had also hacked his Facebook and Twitter accounts. Now Google is saying they’ve finally had enough? No more bending to the will of the Great Fire Wall of China?

Google said it had evidence to suggest that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts” of Chinese human rights activists. The attack was discovered in December.

Based on its investigation to date, Google said it does not believe the cyber attack succeeded. “Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves,” the companysaid in a blog posting.

But David Drummond, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer, added that the attacks “have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”

For the moment it would appear that Google is saber rattling. But even if they are it will be interesting to see how China responds.