LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

2003 July 9	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 7 Number 6	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

Homeless Soccer World Cup

Soccer players from 18 countries kicked off a World Cup of a different kind yesterday in southern Austria: All the players are homeless. Organizers hope the tournament can spark positive changes in the players' lives--and in society's perception of them.       "It's about people who are homeless realizing they have potential," said organizer Mel Young, president of the International Network of Street Papers. "It's about inclusion--including homeless people in society. We are always looking for new ways of including homeless people."       One player, Marcus Stevenson, a 23-year-old on the English team, recently began sharing an apartment in West London after living in homeless hostels for a year and a half. Using his newfound confidence, he plans to start studying when he returns to England after the tournament.       "It's just helped me a lot," Stevenson said about the Homeless Soccer World Cup. "It gave me motivation. I realized that if I could get up and go to training, I could get up and get a job or go to school."       All US players are now in the process of getting housing, coach Stephanie Quinn said.       But not all the stories at the event have happy endings. Three players were sent back to Sweden even before they played their first match because they went drinking. Other players on the team voted to send them home because they broke rules.       Although Young wants the tournament to become an annual event, he hopes he won't see the same players next year. "I would expect most of the players to have moved on," he said.       Source:  Associated Press

The Sad State of Amerindian Law

Columnist Carey N. Vicenti, a judge, of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, writes:       The law in America that applies to Native peoples ought to be as informal and personal as our communities are. But most of the law that applies to us is of foreign origin. It comes mostly from American law which, in turn, is deeply rooted in the traditions of European and, more precisely, English law. This is not to say that the traditional laws of our peoples were unimportant. The outcome of five centuries of invasion, subjugation and forced assimilation, however, is that we have largely abandoned those traditional ways. But it's more complicated than that.       The very concept of "law" was foreign to Native peoples. It's not that we didn't have ways to organize our societies. Using written word-formulas was just not our style.       It goes further than that, though. We generally did not live under social orders that were coercive in nature. Search the continent and you will not find the ruins of any ancient jail. Commands were rarely given by our leaders. Much of our daily lives was ruled by consensus. We learned the requirements of behavior through stories and the advice of our elders. If we failed to perform our lives according to desired public norms, we were subtly steered back to the right course through shame, ridicule or shunning. On rare occasion, punishment did take place, but an individual was then usually embraced back into the group without a stigma being attached. Admittedly, these are generalizations, but there is a distinct difference between Native and American Justice.       Most tribes now have migrated toward the forms of justice prescribed by our American captors. With our recently reshaped systems of justice we must also accept the pitfalls of American justice: overloaded dockets, impersonal treatment, technicalities, an elite group of legal interpreters (lawyers and advocates), the bitter cruelties of incarceration, and an attitude of contempt for those who commit crimes, even if they are our own--the core of vengeance itself.       Source:  Indian Country

Words Too Wild from Both Wings by Ret Z.

The left, along with some religious leaders, accuses the President of irresponsible speech. I agree sometimes, but I would call the left to task for the same. A piece I received recently, called "The Revelation of St. George", by Chris Floyd, from Counterpunch, begins:       "So now we know. After all the mountains of commentary and speculation, all the earnest debates over motives and goals, all the detailed analyses of global strategy and political ideology, it all comes down to this: George W. Bush waged war on Iraq because, in his own words, God 'instructed me to strike at Saddam.'"       The writer goes on to say, "You can't put it plainer than that. The whole chaotic rigmarole of Security Council votes and UN inspections and Congressional approval and Colin Powell's whizbang Powerpoint displays of 'proof' and Bush's own tearful prayers for 'peace'--it was all a sham, a meaningless exercise."       George Bush is a United Methodist, and so was I, long enough to know that a UM generally doesn't hear a voice and ignore other evidence. My startup of Life-Net News, in early 1997, will show you what I mean. I can't say it plainer than this: God instructed me to strike at poverty.       Did I hear some voice? No. I read two books that showed me the details of the problem. They also pointed me to Scripture, which showed me that God has a big heart for the poor. The combination of reason and Scripture sparked a feeling of discovery: God wanted me to do something, and Life-Net News ensued.       When the opportunity to do radio came along, did I proceed based on some voice? No. I had the backing of the same reason and Scripture, as before, but I had a bigger decision to make. So I opened my spiritual ears on all frequencies, including especially other sensible believers. Only when a preponderance of information from all sources came together, including a feeling of unction when a bishop laid hands on our heads one Thursday morning, only then did I conclude that God was instructing me to strike at poverty in this way. I pre-decided nothing.       Unless more information indicates otherwise, I'm reckoning that the President, speaking before an audience of Israelis and Palestinians, was merely putting forth an idea in words that intensely religious Jews and Muslims can both relate to.       Mr. Floyd's Article:   "The Revelation of St. George"

Broke in the 'Burbs

The first portrayal of suburbs was as wealthy utopias of white picket fences, lawnmowers and backyard pools. Films, books and popular thinking would have us believe that suburban streets are paved with gold.       Toronto's suburbs contain pockets of very real, largely hidden poverty. Increasingly, suburban high-rise developments are packed with immigrants crowded too many to a room with family and friends. Single mothers raise their children in suburban complexes and supplement welfare with trips to the food bank. Seniors live on fixed, strained incomes, as do the working poor.       Recent reports over the imminent closing of a food bank in the low-income area around Flemingdon Park in North York highlight the extent of suburban poverty. They also illustrate some of the particular issues poor people face when they live far from more well-known downtown areas like Regent Park or Parkdale.       It used to be that immigrants would move into Flemingdon Park and be well on their way to brighter and better things within a couple of years. Today, high rents and stagnant incomes mean that people are stuck, unable to move on, surviving on Ontario Works money that doesn't leave enough after rent to pay for food.       It seems cruel to compare poverties, but indeed, if you live in the downtown core you can usually walk to services such as food banks, health and legal clinics, and welfare offices. There are places to panhandle. Community workers can get to homeless people to deliver emergency first aid.       But Toronto's population growth over the past decade has been concentrated disproportionately in the former suburbs of York, Scarborough, North York, East York and Etobicoke, where services remain few and far between.       While the closure of one food bank in Parkdale or Regent Park would not be the end of the world, the Red Cross's decision to close its Flemingdon office leaves food bank users without options. Getting anywhere requires a car or a long, difficult ride on public transit. Without money for transportation or child care or ample leisure time after putting in full-time hours at a minimum wage job, the idea of travelling an hour or more to get food is just a sad joke.       While the experience of poverty is different in the suburbs, the causes are the same, including preventable causes such as high and uncontrolled rents, discrimination in housing, low incomes, unemployment, and an inadequate minimum wage.       Planning is another critical factor. Planning Action, a group of architects, planners and activists, has noted that the new official plan for the city of Toronto, unveiled in September, 2002, implies pushing poor people out of revitalized downtown spaces and into the high-density, isolated suburbs, where they are physically separated from wealthier residents and from essential services.       Source:  Toronto Star

World Population Grows Slower

July 11 is World Population Day.       The human family has more than doubled since 1960. World population pushed over 6.2 billion in 2002, yet last year's growth of 1.18% percent was the lowest since rates peaked above 2% in the mid-1960s.       Although deaths from AIDS and lower-than-expected fertility prompted the United Nations to cut its global population projections for 2050--from an original estimate of 9.3 billion people to 8.9 billion people--the impact of population growth is anything but tapering for the world's poor. In the 49 poorest countries, populations are still increasing at 2.4% per year, nearly 10 times the 0.25% annual growth in industrial nations.       Source:  Worldwatch Institute

Citing Christ, Governor Floats Top-Heavy Tax Plan

Alabama governor Bob Riley (Republican) has stunned many of his conservative supporters, and enraged the state's powerful farm and timber lobbies, by pushing a tax reform plan through the Alabama legislature that shifts a significant amount of the state's tax burden from the poor to wealthy individuals and corporations. And he has framed the issue in starkly moral terms, arguing that the current Alabama tax system violates biblical teachings because Christians are prohibited from oppressing the poor.       If Governor Riley's tax plan becomes law--the voters still need to ratify it in September--it will be a major victory for poor people, a rare thing in the current political climate. But win or lose, Alabama's tax-reform crusade is posing a pointed question to the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and other groups that seek to import Christian values into national policy: If Jesus were active in politics today, wouldn't he be lobbying for the poor?       Alabama's tax system has long been brutally weighted against the least fortunate. The state income tax kicks in for families that earn as little as $4,600, when even Mississippi starts at over $19,000. Alabama also relies heavily on its sales tax, which runs as high as 11%, since local governments are free to add to it, and many do. The sales tax applies even to groceries and infant formula. Property taxes are the lowest in the nation, benefiting primarily the timber industry in a state where 71% of the land is timber.       The upshot is wildly regressive: Alabamians with incomes under $13,000 pay 10.9% of their incomes in state and local taxes, while those who make over $229,000 pay just 4.1%.       Source:  New York Times       Source:  SojoMail

Need Drives Illegal Gold Coast Mining

Across Africa, in countries with rich mineral reserves and barren economies, thousands of the unemployed dig for fortunes on land controlled by large mining companies. Operating illegally and unregulated, these miners use primitive extraction techniques not seen in the United States since the California gold rush a century ago. With dynamite, pickaxes, mercury, and the strength of their arms, they earn a living at great threat to their health and environment.       Located on West Africa's Gold Coast, Ghana earns the majority of its foreign exchange from gold, most of it extracted by multinational corporations. The government says these companies funnel money into public coffers and minimize environmental impacts, but disaffected villagers say the firms have ravaged their lands and given little in return. As an alternative, many locals support the illegal miners, known as "galamsey", despite the threats posed by their toxic methods. Concentrated in Ghana's heavily excavated southwestern rainforests, the galamsey comprise one of the largest groups of illegal miners on the continent.       Small-scale mining was a respected tradition in Ghana for centuries, but it became a persecuted profession after the British colonized the region in the early 19th century and banned the practice. Ghana's independent government legalized small-scale mining in 1989, but the government grants few mining concessions to peasants, forcing most people to mine illicitly.       Source:  Grist Magazine

Life-Net News Extras

More Native Americans Moving to Cities

Alvis Robertson chants and pounds his drum inside rented office space, against a backdrop of glass and steel office towers, far from the red rock spires of Indian land. A member of the Sisseton/Wahpeton Tribe of South Dakota, the Tempe man works with Native American teenagers growing up in urban settings, teens who identify with rap star Eminem more than their Indian culture.       They are part of a fast-growing Native American population in the Valley. In Maricopa County, there are more than 50,000 Indians representing more than 80 tribes. Many of them left behind the poverty and 50% unemployment rates on reservations to seek education and other opportunities in the city.       "We miss the spires, clean air, community atmosphere and the closeness of family, but we realize that this is the world we have to deal with to attain our goals and education. We always have the aspiration of returning home," said Cal Seciwa, director of the American Indian Institute at Arizona State University in Tempe.       Leland Leonard, chief executive officer of the Phoenix Indian Center, said the urban Indian population in Maricopa County is expected to continue the rapid growth it has shown over the past decade.       Now 51, Robertson has lived in the Valley since he was 10. He is emblematic of American Indians in the 1950s who were transported off their home reservations through federal relocation programs. They were sent to cities from Cleveland to Los Angeles for job training in blue-collar trades.       Retaining cultural identity is often an individual undertaking. Susan Lobo, a visiting scholar and teacher at the University of Arizona in Tucson, said American Indians are more scattered within populations than other minority groups. "There's not a neighborhood to go to like the barrio or Chinatown. They're not a place-located community; they're network-based people who know each other.       "That's distinctive from other communities and part of the reason Indian people are so invisible."       Cultural ties that were once second nature on the close-knit reservation are more difficult to retain. Great distances from their families back home create another hardship in carrying traditions from generation to generation.       Source:  Arizona Republic

Bush Tries to Protect Rights of FBOs

"I recognize that government has no business endorsing a religious creed, or directly funding religious worship or religious teaching. That is not the business of the government. Yet government can and should support social services provided by religious people, as long as those services go to anyone in need, regardless of their faith. And when government gives that support, charities and faith-based programs should not be forced to change their character or compromise their mission," said President George W. Bush.       Late last month, the White House released a position paper, which says in part:       For nearly forty years, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has respected the right of religious groups to make religiously based employment decisions. Title VII of this Act--which is supported by Republicans and Democrats alike--protects Americans from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It also protects the ability of faith-based organizations to maintain their religious liberty and identity by hiring employees who share their religious beliefs.       President Bush believes that--regardless of whether government funds are involved--faith-based groups should retain their fundamental civil rights, including their Title VII right to take their faith into account when they make employment decisions.       Congress has enacted a number of additional civil rights provisions that apply to some Federal social service programs. With respect to religious hiring rights, these laws are confusing, and in some cases, contradictory. Some laws protect the hiring rights of faith-based groups that receive Federal funds, and others do not.       There are now at least five different--and often conflicting--approaches that Congress has applied to religious organizations that receive a Federal grant. States and localities may have additional rules. This hodgepodge of conflicting approaches has led to confusion for providers of social services, and a consequent reluctance by many faith-based groups to seek support from Federally funded programs. A faith-based organization that receives Federal funds to house the homeless, help them find work, and provide them with drug treatment and counseling could be subject to different Federal, State, or local rules on whether it can hire according to its religious beliefs.       It is simply too difficult and costly for many faith-based organizations to navigate these uncertain regulatory waters. The real losers are the homeless, the addicted, and others who are denied access to a range of effective social service providers.       Source:  Washington Post       More Info:  Pew Forum

Timber Certification for Rainforest Protection

In the last 15 years, 243,000 square kilometres have been deforested, the equivalent of 5% of the Brazilian Amazon. New satellite information shows the speed of deforestation increased by 40% between 2001 and 2002 to reach its highest rate since 1995.       Under a new plan developed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), 42 Brazilian timber companies recently formed an alliance called the Compradores de Madeira Certificada. The new association is committed to purchasing only timber which has been certified as being harvested from sustainable forests. The certification program guarantees that timber with the FSC stamp of approval comes from a forest which is being managed according to agreed social, economic and environmental standards. About 18 million hectares of forests in around 15 countries have the FSC certificate, including 1 million hectares in Brazil.       This new buyers' group which includes furniture and utensils manufacturers, state governments and three municipalities will ensure an incentive in the market place for good forest stewardship as certified timber commands a premium price. The director of the new group stated, "The demand for certified timber is already a reality here. It is up to producers to be able to meet it".       Source:  BBC News       Source:  Global Village News & Resources       More Info:  Compradores de Madeira Certificada       More Info:  Forest Stewardship Council

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