Police Allegedly Used Excessive Force Against Anti-Poverty Group

Paul Everest reports that police allegedly used excessive force against an anti-poverty in Halifax. I include an excerpt:

The Halifax Coalition Against Poverty plans to file an “excessive force” complaint against police after coalition members were pepper sprayed and allegedly roughed up during a protest in Halifax on Thursday night.

Three coalition members were arrested as more than 30 protesters and Halifax police clashed outside the World Trade and Convention Centre during a Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia fundraising dinner.

Coalition spokeswoman Susan LeFort said the group will be discussing legal options and whether a complaint is warranted during their general meeting next week.

She said they certainly have grounds for grievance, as police and security guards were “manhandling” protesters half their size.

“Most of them are women, quite petite,” she said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon. “I mean the cops were 250 pounds, big mega-cops with pepper spray and Tasers in hand.”

Read entire article by Paul Everest.

Unsurprisingly, the two sides disagree on what happened. The police claim that the anti-poverty activists behaved aggressively and that the police behaved reasonably to protect themselves from unreasonable aggressors. The anti-poverty activists claim that the police behaved aggressively and that the anti-poverty activists behaved reasonably to protect themselves from unreasonable aggressors.

Without direct knowledge, I find it easier to believe the anti-poverty activists. In my personal experience, police seem like aggressive bullies with an inferiority complex who over-compensate by abusing their power. In contrast, anti-poverty activists usually act peacefully and kindly. Nonetheless, those generalities cannot actually tell us what happened in the specific incident at Halifax.

I hope that the facts come out in an objective investigation, and if it turns out the police used excessive force I hope that they pay the consequences.

Millions of Mouths May Mega-Markdown

What Child Could Deserve This?

Innocent children dying of hunger…

millionsofmouths.com

Millions Of Mouths intends to sell a million pixels to raise over a million pounds of food to help feed the millions of starving and hungry people.

Millions Of Mouths May Mega-Markdown – Through the month of March, you can buy pixels at 1% of the regular price. That’s only one-tenth of a cent per pixel!

    The Facts:

  • 852 million people across the world are hungry.
  • Every day, more than 18,000 children die from hunger-related causes–one child every five seconds.
  • One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
  • Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.
  • For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.

What Does Millions Of Mouths Do?

Millions Of Mouths sells pixel advertisements on the homepage of our website (millionsofmouths.com). This means that anyone can purchase a block on a click-able pixel grid; whenever anyone clicks on any of those pixels they are sent to the pixels owner’s website.

How Much Goes To The Hungry?

Every pixel purchased helps fund 1lb of food to the hungry.

How Much Will Millions Of Mouths Raise?

If we reach our goal of 1 million pixels in a year, we will have raised over $100,000 to fund one million pounds of food to feed the millions of hungry people.

How can I help?

What If I Don’t Have A Website?

You can advertise any site you wish with the pixels you purchase. If you do not have a website, you can advertise any third-party site. We recommend a hunger-related site such as www.thehungersite.com.

Suze Orman Wants to Break Poverty Cycle

Rita Chappelle recently wrote an article about Suze Orman and Orman’s new book. I include an excerpt:

According to U.S. Census poverty data, women are twice as likely as men to retire in poverty. One out of eight women is poor, compared with one out of every 11 men.

Those grim facts supercharged financial guru, author and talk show host Suze Orman to move into high gear in helping women break the cycle of poverty.

“How do women end up with statistics like this?” asked Orman, who spoke yesterday at a conference at 1st Mariner Arena. “Because women put themselves last in every category, especially finances. Despite the fact that women are making more money now, they don’t make more out of their incomes. They think that the money they earn is to be used for everyone else but themselves.”

Orman wants to obliterate this selfless mentality. In her latest book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny she tackles the issue head-on and lays out a concrete plan called “The Save Yourself Plan,” to put women on the road to financial stability. As back-up, she enlisted T.D. Ameritrade to be the savings vehicle for women to begin investing in themselves.

Read entire article by Rita Chappelle.

I’ve heard Suze Orman’s financial advice before. She gives sound advice in a way that the average person can understand and use without the help of a personal accountant or such. I appreciate that she now wants to use her advice and her new book to help women learn how to avoid poverty.

Can We End Homelessness?

Sarah Arnquist recently wrote an article exploring the possibility of ending homelessness. I include an excerpt:

Is ending homelessness a realistic goal?

The National Alliance to End Homelessness and the federal government have championed the idea that it is possible to end homelessness, or at least significantly reduce the number of people who chronically lack a place to live.

Cities such as Denver, San Francisco and St. Louis have reduced the number of people sleeping on their streets by one-third in the past few years. The cities say it is less expensive to move homeless people into housing than leave them in the streets.

Read entire article by Sarah Arnquist.

I absolutely see ending homelessness as a realistic goal. If (at the misdirection of the government) our society can waste trillions of dollars on needless wars such as that in Iraq, then we can easily end homelessness.

Homeless people don’t choose homelessness. Remember, struggling employed single white females make up the highest population of homeless and poor people. Let’s take our money back from the corrupt government and put it towards the realistic goal of ending homelessness instead of militarism and imperialism.

Poverty Rate Doubles for Ethnic Minorities in Britain

Tendai Maphosa recently reported that minorities in Britain have double the poverty rate as non-minorities.

A new report says the poverty rate for Britain’s minority ethnic groups stands at 40 percent, double the 20 percent found among white British people. The report says minority ethnic groups are also being overlooked for jobs and are being paid lower wages, despite improvements in education and qualifications.

The report pointed out that people from minority ethnic groups who have higher educational achievements do not receive the same rewards as those from white British backgrounds with similar qualifications.

Read entire article by Tendai Maphosa.

When will we actualize the dreams of men like Martin Luther King? It disgusts me that in 2007 we still have racism, and thus racial poverty, still plaguing this world.

College Degree Not Enough to Protect Against Poverty

The Associated Press recently released an article that points out an increase in educated poor. I include an excerpt:

A rise in college attendance coupled with downsizing, outsourcing and a shortage of high-paying jobs is bolstering the ranks of the educated poor – people with college degrees who don’t earn above the national poverty line, economists said.

According to recent U.S. Census estimates, the number of college graduates earning below the poverty line has more than doubled in the past 15 years to almost 6 million people.

Read entire article on theledger.com.

I felt compelled to post this information for two main reasons.

First, I want to show that poverty threatens all of us. It affects our friends, family members, children, and people in our own local communities. It doesn’t just affect some lazy and uneducated strangers from nowhere land. We have to organize our communities to eliminate poverty as a matter of self-preservation.

Second, I post these facts about the educated poor to undermine the myth that a poor person can escape poverty on their own. That myth causes people to put the blame solely on poor individuals rather than our non-meritocratic society. The high and rising rates of educated poor and working poor people show that one cannot simply escape poverty by getting an education and a job.