What’s happening in Washington and St. Paul right now goes way beyond muddying waters, both in the literal sense of what is flowing into our waters and in the metaphoric sense of how politicians talk about protection and pollution. Both in Washington and in St. Paul, politicians are shutting down water protection. They are ditching regulations that protect lakes, rivers and drinking water and slashing funds for enforcement. Continue reading
Author Archives: Mary Turck
Guess what I had for breakfast?
Kernza bread is both delicious and thought-provoking, which is probably why it was on the menu at the Land Stewardship Project‘s annual Family Farm Breakfast. Kernza bread and all the rest of the “best breakfast in town” grown by LSP farmer members fed right into issues of science and farming and democracy and local control. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Ash Wednesday, Sage Thursday: Walking prayer and protest
I missed getting my forehead smudged with ashes on Ash Wednesday, on the slushy, icy road out of the Twin Cities by sunrise. On Thursday, I walked out of the house into a cold sunrise, heading for the Lake Street Bridge and a different kind of smudging in another holy ritual. Continue reading
Filed under environment, human rights, Latin America, organizing, race, religion
Protecting the right to protest
Berta Caceres paid the ultimate price – she was assassinated one year ago in Honduras, killed for her work for indigenous rights and environmental protection. On February 17, indigenous leader José Santos Sevilla was assassinated in his home — another martyr paying the ultimate price for defending indigenous rights and working for environmental justice. Santos Sevilla, reports Democracy Now, “was the leader of the indigenous Tolupan people, who are fighting to protect their ancestral lands from industrial mining and logging projects.” Continue reading
Filed under human rights, organizing, race
Hold onto hope, stand up against hate
In Kansas, an anti-immigrant terrorist killed one man and shot two others this week. In Florida and in Texas, arsonists burned mosques in January and February. Dozens of Jewish Community Centers have received bomb threats over the past two months, and two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in the past week. In each case, people have responded, fighting back against terrorism and hate. We need to acknowledge the hatred and bigotry that exists in our country. We need to name these actions as terrorism. We also need to recognize the responses of Americans rejecting that terrorism. We need to insist that we are the majority, not the haters, not the bigots, not the terrorists. This is our country, and we will not let them take it away. Continue reading
Filed under immigration, organizing, race, religion
First, they came for the immigrants
According to “a senior Department of Homeland Security official,” there’s no need for immigrants to panic. The new policies announced Tuesday are really “not intended to produce mass roundups, mass deportations,” mainly because “We do not have the personnel, time or resources to go into communities and round up people and do all kinds of mass throwing folks on buses.” The plan, however, is to hire 10,000 more immigration agents so that they can implement new priorities targeting basically every undocumented immigrant. Except for DACA recipients. For the moment – there will be a new memo coming about them. Continue reading
Filed under immigration
From Lynda McDonnell’s A Pilgrim’s Way: Living in our dirt
Now begins the latest chapter in our new President’s dissembling.
Before cheering crowds in Florida last weekend, President Trump declared his resolve to deport “gang members – bad, bad people.” But in the crowded basement of my church in Minneapolis last Sunday, tearful women worried that their children will return to empty apartments, effectively orphaned by our president’s pledge to deport anyone who is in the U.S. without the proper papers except those brought here as children.
Read more from Lynda McDonnell’s A Pilgrim’s Way here. This post re-blogged with permission.
Filed under immigration, Tracking Trump, Uncategorized
To my Republican friends and family: This is personal
Today the bomb threat came to the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. That’s where our children went to preschool. That’s where they learned to swim, and where we splashed and laughed together in the swimming pool. That’s where we attended plays and made friends and went to parenting groups. Do you see why this bomb threat seems personal? Do you know that this is one of dozens of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers across the country, ten today alone, dozens in the past two months? Continue reading
I remember Watergate
I was in law school during the Watergate years, watching in horrified fascination as the Executive Branch, under President Richard Nixon, attacked the very foundations of our constitutional system. Over a period of years, investigations, indictments, resignations, and impeachment revealed a law-breaking administration riddled by corruption and contempt for the Constitution. Today I see attacks that may be even more serious and damaging to our country and Constitution. Now, as then, every day brings new revelations in a seemingly endless cascade of outrages. Continue reading
Filed under Tracking Trump
Fact check: Police, crime rates, statistics
Joe Friday – Just the facts, ma’am
Is crime increasing? Are police under attack and being killed in large numbers? Despite three Executive Orders this week – which amount to a combination of fear-mongering and orders to conduct studies – crime is decreasing in the United States, and so is danger to police. The numbers come from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and the FBI, neither of which is noted for any left-wing bias. Continue reading
Filed under fact check, police and crime, Tracking Trump
Mary Turck