Another story notes that Palestinians are “under a rain of cluster bombs, dropped by Israel, bought and sold by us. Last night, the US blocked – once again – a call for a cease-fire at the UN Security Council, today Senate “leaders” Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Mitch McConnell were standing solidly behind Israel’s ground operation against Hamas…let’s tell them where we stand.” Check out all of Alternet’s coverage here.

Common Dreams headlines “UN Leader: Invasion A Monstrosity.”   Huffington Post, called one of the biggest media stories of the year by Adweek for its explosive growth, tells us that even Jews in Sderot, where Hamas rockets have fallen, oppose this war (see the story here).  (Most deliciously, E&P notes the almost complete silence of the New York Times on this matter.)  They give us a story in the under-appreciated Editor and Publisher entitled “US Media Coverage Of Gaza Invasion Largely Biased Toward Israel.” (Stop the presses!  Check out the story here) Huffpo also links to a story in the Israeli paper Haaretz entitled “Right and Left, Diaspora Jews More Critical of Israel Than Ever.”

Anshell Pfeffer writes that Jews who care about Israel but are troubled by the excessive violence find that “others around them… can’t find in themselves compassion for the dead and wounded on the other side. They begin asking themselves very awkward questions: Are they surrounded by latent racists?”  He ends this way: “While the world’s Jews are still broadly in favor of Israel, they have more information and less innocence than ever before, and will give support, but with a healthy dose of criticism…Both Israeli and Diaspora leaders should be providing space for this kind of discourse, because stifling [it] will not consolidate support for Israel but increase frustration and disillusionment with it.”

This news comes from Harvey Wasserman, an activist who edits a website called nukefree.org.  He notes that the three communities currently rely on atomic power for some 75% of their electricity, which is supplied through Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon, America’s largest nuke owner.  With 11 operating reactors, Illinois has more reactors than any other state.

But 31,586 (68.3%) voters approved the referendum, versus 14,676 (31.7%) opposed.

Atomic energy will be one of the most critical issues the new administration will face. Obama was criticized  for taking campaign donations from Exelon.  Both he and Vice President-elect Joe Biden expressed campaign support for atomic power.

But the issue of how to finance such a “nuclear renaissance” now overshadows all the rhetoric, and will define the technology’s future.  A strong lobby is pushing new nukes.  The financial community hasn’t been excited, but new ratepayer-based reactor financing is now being shoved through state public utilities commissions in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and possibly elsewhere, with tens of billions in potential liability.   Also, in the fall of 2007, the industry inserted into a Congressional energy bill a package of loan guarantees meant to provide $50 billion in taxpayer-backed funds to build new reactors.

That gambit ultimately failed, thanks to some strong grassroots organizing.  This fall an even larger federal loan plan, offering virtually unlimited funds, was on its way to the US Congress.  Fortunately, the financial meltdown has put the kibosh on it pretty well for now.

Exelon will no doubt still have the President’s ear and his sympathy.  This strong vote by the people who have the most to lose from nuclear power - those who have to live near the plants - is a good sign that the resistance is strong and growing, and that the new administration won’t be able to sneak a favor in for their pals on nuclear power.

FAIR’s Jeff Cohen said it best: “With his legacy of best-selling books and historic recorded interviews, Studs will no more be silenced by death than Wobbly songwriter Joe Hill was by a Utah firing squad. If Howard Zinn wrote A People’s History, Studs developed “A People’s Journalism” – putting the stories and wisdom of poor and working class Americans [among others] on tape and the printed page.”  (Read Cohen’s whole commentary here.)

I didn’t know much about Miriam Makeba back in 1988.  I was home sick one weekend and decided to rent some music movies.  I watched a movie of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour and, while I’ve been a fan of Simon’s all my life, what knocked me on my ass that day was Makeba.  She impressed me more than almost any artist I’ve heard on the first listen.

Known as the “Empress of African song,” she grew up in South Africa, but she and even her records were banned there after she spoke out against the Sharpsville massacre and the apartheid system in the 60s.  Her third husband was Hugh Masekela; her fourth was Stokely Carmichael.  While some supporters of the apartheid boycott criticized Paul Simon for not conferring with exile groups before hiring South African musicians for “Graceland,” Makeba and Masekela gave him full support, because they felt the project brought important issues into general discussion and made cultural activity even more potent.  Like Studs and Joe Hill, she won’t be silenced; her work lives on.

Lawyers from the downtown firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel are trying to provide the knowledge. Peter Sloane, a partner at Cahill who has experience working with youth, introduced the concept at The Door, where his firm already was providing pro bono legal services.

There’s been some issues with the police activity in schools.  On Nov. 23, an estimated 200 young people rallied at City Hall in support of the Student Safety Act, introduced into City Council in August,  that would increase oversight of school safety agents.   Udi Ofer, advocacy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, says that under this regime, “What was once a trip to the principal’s office is now a trip downtown.”  So these grassroots activities are an important part of protecting the rights of vulnerable youth.

Check out the whole story here.

Two nonprofits — the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the Community Food Security Coalition in Portland, Ore. — formed a program last year to link up schools with nearby farms across the country.  Even Los Angeles has gone local: Rather than relying on a single food distributor, the school district now sends a buyer to farmers’ markets in the wee hours of the morning each day.

The National Farm to School Network estimates 2,000 programs have been set up.  Since its inception, the network has advised parents, farmers and school administrators interested in starting their own farm-to-school movement, and also lobbied for changes in federal legislation that would make it easier to do so, says co-director Marion Kalb.

It’s a win-win-win:  kids love the food and eat more,  local farms get money, it builds the market for local produce.  Even large food suppliers like Sodexho and Sysco are working more with local suppliers rather than trucking all the good in from far away.

“You’ve got to be taught/Before it’s too late/Before you are 6 or 7 or 8/To hate all the people/Your relatives hate…” The Matthew Shepard Foundation hopes to get to young people early so they can live “healthy and hate-free,” unlike  the imagined kids in the “South Pacific” song.  They’ve created their own website about it, Matthewsplace.com, and are linking up with Myspace, Facebook, etc.  Habbo.com, a teen-targeted virtual world, is partnering with them to educate their members through discussions about a range of issues including bullying, discrimination and hate. Beginning July 7, the Foundation will lead discussions twice a week in Habbo.com’s InfoBus, a virtual room designed as a safe environment for teens to discuss issues.

Hard to believe it’s been ten years since Matthew Shepard was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime.  I’m glad his parents are working to make sure others don’t meet the same fate.

CAP lists four principles and 12 steps:

• Promote Decent Work.

• Provide Opportunity for All.

• Ensure Economic Security.

• Help People Build Wealth.

The 12 steps:

• Raise and index the minimum wage.
• Expand EITC.
• Enact the EFCA.
• Child-care assistance and early childhood education.
• Housing vouchers and fair urban development.
• Expand youth programs.
• Make college more affordable.
• Help ex-offenders.
• Give unemployment benefits to low wage workers.
• Expand food stamps and modernize similar means-tested programs.
• Reduce the high cost of being poor

What they don’t talk about, of course, is how to build political will to make these changes. That’s the hard part, especially since giving all these goodies to poor people means that rich and/or middle-class people will have to give something up.

The economy is tanking and the rich are plundering the government more and faster than ever before. Yet politicians aren’t talking about real change. I can only hope the people at CAP, ACORN, etc., who are no doubt well-intentioned, will look in the mirror and ask themselves what political change they are really willing to fight for.  And I hope that the poor themselves will start feeling they have nothing to lose by fighting, and fighting for allies.

I was happy when Avaaz messages started showing up in my inbox, since they gave me a chance to act on issues I cared deeply about. The first one I got was about Tibet - they were trying to get a million signatures on a petition about leaving the monks alone. They were at 100,000 then, and I didn’t know if they would get there, but I found myself checking the website regularly and cheering when the million mark was hit.

Their website is in 13 languages. Right now they’re building a petition to save Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe, and raising money to run ads in newspapers in the region.

The beauty of it is, it creates a new narrative about how good people everywhere can come together for justice. They have a wonderful video called “Stop the clash of civilizations,” to wit: “Talk is rising of a ‘clash of civilizations’. But the problem isn’t culture, it’s politics - from 9/11 to Guantanamo, Iraq to Iran. This clash is not inevitable, and we don’t want it. ” Check it out, sign up, give money here.