BroadSnark

The situation in Mexico keeps degrading.  Predictably, increased police and military are being used against more than just drug cartels.  I mean they are so handy at getting rid of unions.  Also, they don’t actually have to worry about trials or anything, they can just shoot people and then kick back with a cold one.

Wiretap says that Latinos are Underrepresented in Nonprofits.  I can testify to that, having worked in Cali nonprofits for six years.  They say there is some better news when it comes to board representation, but I’m fairly sure those figures are misleading.  In Central California, the same handful of Latinos were on many, many boards.  In other words, they are counting the same few Latinos over and over.

Yvette brings up a good point about why women who are anti-porn don’t have equally scathing critiques about working at McDonalds.  Those women probably don’t buy porn, but they do buy cheap food from poor women (as I’ve written about before).

Janelle wrote a great article about sharing on Trust is the Only Currency.  It’s amazing how many ways there are to shift our lives in a more cooperative direction.

And, finally, this article over at the New York Review of Books talks about nonviolent revolutions since 1989.  It’s long, but there is a lot to debate about in the piece (especially for the revolutionarily inclined).

More than five million Americans could not vote in the last election because they were convicted of a felony. Only two states allow felons to vote. In many states, former felons are barred permanently from voting. In others, felons can get their voting rights back, but the process is so arduous that few do.

I doubt many people are losing sleep over whether Charles Manson can vote. I’m guessing many people would approve of the idea that criminals lose their rights as citizens after acting against the citizenry. But we aren’t talking about Charles Manson here. More than half of federal prisoners are in prison for drug crimes.

Let’s take a state like California. California has the nations largest prison population and an overcrowding problem so bad that federal judges have ordered the prison population decreased. While Prop 36 has caused a decrease in the percentage of prisoners incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses, they still constitute more than 20% of the prison population in California.

Recent polling shows that more than 50% of California voters are in favor of marijuana legalization. A vote would be close. All those people barred from voting, the very people who lost their freedom and civil rights due to drug prohibition, could tip the scales.

Drug laws have been broken at least once by 40% of Americans. If that many people are breaking the law, there is something wrong with the law. Would we strip 40% of Americans of their voting rights? What kind of democracy is that?

Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced a House bill intended to restore voting rights to all ex felons within thirty days of being released from prison. The bill is languishing in committee right now. If your representative is on the House Committee on the Judiciary, call and tell them you want to see that bill move.