|
||||||||
THIS WEEK on CHANGE.ORG Save the SerengetiPlus: Deporting Vietnam Vets • Musicians Boycotting Tobacco • North Carolina’s “Legal Rape” • Children Building Stadiums • “Bumfights” Star Redeemed There’s a place in the world where global issues like climate change, poverty, threatened indigenous cultures and mass species extinction converge. It’s one of the most recognizable wild places on earth, and it’s in danger of becoming roadkill. That place is the Serengeti, a World Heritage Site and home to the largest land migration of wildlife in the world. The people of Tanzania have protected the Serengeti for the role it plays in their culture since the birth of their country. Now their government plans to sever it with a 31-mile, two-lane highway. For those of us who are used to the six-lane highways stretching thousands of miles across the U.S., one little road might not seem like a big deal. However, this project has been mapped out right across the migration path of over a million wildebeest and other animals. Wildebeest numbers will plummet if they can’t reach the Mara River in Kenya, impacting the food chain from the top down. Lions and other predators would face a food shortage. Without wildebeest grazing to maintain the grasslands, leading biologists warn that grass fires could destroy the region and turn it into a source of carbon emissions. Despite the potential for ecological disaster, there has been scant media attention about the planned road. One of the few bright spots is the group Save the Serengeti, which is using Change.org to mobilize thousands of people within Tanzania and across the world to stop the road’s construction. Join the call for the world community to help Tanzania find a better transportation solution than to build a road directly through one of the world’s natural treasures. Because we won’t have a second chance. For more news and action from the world of change this week, see the summaries from your favorite causes below: |
||||||||
Deporting Vietnam Vets in IMMIGRANT RIGHTS Valente Valenzuela has lived in the U.S. legally since childhood and received a Bronze Star for bravery in the Vietnam War. His brother, Manuel, also served honorably. Now, under zero tolerance immigration law, the decorated veterans face deportation for crimes from years ago, crimes that most likely resulted from war-related post traumatic stress disorder. Not only will 62-year-old Valente be sent back to a country he left over half a century ago, he’ll lose all veterans benefits and the ability to continue attending PTSD counseling. America cannot so callously turn its back on immigrant veterans who sacrificed for the red, white, and blue. Read more » |
||||||||
Musicians Boycotting Tobacco in HEALTH The main sponsor of Indonesia’s largest music event, the Java Rockin’land Festival, is one of the country’s leading tobacco companies. The pressure is on for the headlining acts, including The Smashing Pumpkins and Wolfmother, to follow in the footsteps of Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson and refuse to continue their Indonesian tours unless tobacco sponsorship ends. But will they? Read more » |
||||||||
North Carolina’s “Legal Rape” in WOMEN’S RIGHTS Welcome to North Carolina, where rape is legal! If you consensually begin having sex in the great state of North Carolina, want to stop, and your partner forcibly restrains you to continue having intercourse, even causing injury, well, too bad. Women’s Rights blogger Alex DiBranco reports that due to a 1979 state Supreme Court decision, a woman gives up all control of her body upon penetration and cannot withdraw consent. Recently, a young woman found this out the hard way when her rape case was dropped. Read more » |
||||||||
Children Building Stadiums in END HUMAN TRAFFICKING In India, child labor is not uncommon. But even in India, child advocates were horrified to learn construction managers have been bribing poor parents to bring their children to dangerous work sites to build stadiums for the upcoming Commonwealth Games. The result? Children as young as three have been seen working in dangerous piles of rubble on a construction project that has already killed at least 45 people, including a two-year-old girl. It’s time to tell the Commonwealth Games Federation that child labor is not sporting. Read more » |
||||||||
“Bumfights” Star Redeemed in END HOMELESSNESS One of the men featured in the infamous “Bumfights” videos of the early 2000s is clean and sober and filled with regret. Rufus Hannah, a 50-something homeless man, published a memoir this month. He says he can’t forget the day in 2001 that a 17-year-old cameraman paid him in alcohol to beat his friend until the man had a broken ankle and was carried off in an ambulance. How could he? He has “Bum Fight” tattooed across his knuckles. His redemption story is not just uplifting, writes End Homelessness blogger Josie Raymond. At a time when violence against the homeless is increasing, it’s also vital. Read more » |
||||||||
| Have a great week. And remember: voter registration deadlines occur in many states at the end of the week – so make sure you’re registered today.
– The Change.org Team |
Category Archives: ~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture
Stop the Outsourcing
|
||||
Before they head off on their election season recess this Thursday, members of the U.S. Senate have the chance to take a real stand against shipping U.S. jobs overseas.
Urge your senators to end the filibuster of the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act (S. 3816). Click here.
The bill includes critical steps to keep jobs in America. It would:
- Give tax incentives to businesses that hire U.S. workers in place of those doing the same work overseas.
- End subsidies for companies that move facilities or production offshore.
With unemployment hovering near 10 percent, this is a commonsense step to stop the bleeding of good American jobs.
Don’t let your senators head off to campaign without voting now to move this important legislation forward.
Thank you for working for working families.
In solidarity,
AFL-CIO Working Families e-Activist Network
Share this:
Find Your Elected Officials
Enter your ZIP Code and click “Go” or click here for other searches.
Select your state to find your state representatives.
Enter your ZIP code and click “Go” or click here to search by last name or state.
Important issues, recent votes, current legislation, and more. Click here.
For election results, enter your ZIP Code or search by state.
Enter your ZIP Code and click “Go” or click here for other searches.
Share this:
Support Science
| Can curiosity save the world?
We believe that curiosity can save the world—but we can’t do it without your help. Support our work to spread the truth—and spread the curiosity—by becoming a member of UCS today.
|
 |
Climatologist Cameron Wake knows it. So does ecologist David Inouye. In fact, 98 percent of all scientists agree that global warming is a human-caused problem with potentially devastating consequences.
So how is it that so many people are still in the dark? Well, in short, they’ve been misinformed, and sometimes deliberately, by people who would rather protect their own short-term interests than our grandchildren and our environment.
That’s why it’s more important now than ever before that the voices of scientists are heard. Can you make a donation now to help us spread the truth about global warming?
Curiosity is what first inspired scientists like David and Cameron to explore the world around them, and it’s that curiosity that is the key to solving some of our most pressing environmental, health, and security problems.
Yet, by sowing doubt about the reliability of science, global warming deniers seek to kill the very curiosity that could save us and our environment. And we can’t let that happen. Support the Union of Concerned Scientists in our efforts to bring sound science to the public and spread the curiosity and the truth about global warming. Become a member of UCS by making a donation today.
Whether studying bees and wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains or glacial cores in the Himalayans, it’s clear that the world is warming like never before. But by working together to champion truth, curiosity, and science, we can protect our world and all of its precious curiosities.
 |
Sincerely, Kevin Knobloch President |
Share this:
A message from Vice President Biden
I’ll tell you one thing that worries me about this election: There’s a small group of billionaires and corporate special interests that are trying to buy their way back into power. They’re spending their fortunes to defeat our folks and elect some of the most right-wing Republicans this country has ever seen.
We’ve launched the By the People Fund to fight back, with the goal of reaching 3 million grassroots donations to power the most ambitious on-the-ground effort ever waged in an election like this.
Here’s the deal: We’re only 22,981 donations away from shattering that goal right now. We could reach it this month, with one big push this week.
It’s going to take 198 grassroots donations in Seattle to get there.
Will you chip in $5 to the By the People Fund today — and help us take back our elections?
I spent 36 years in the Senate, serving alongside Republicans of all stripes. But some of the Republicans running now are not from your grandfather’s Republican Party. They’re from the Republican Tea Party:
— Sharron Angle, who wants to be the next senator from Nevada, has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare — and even wants to end maternity coverage.
— Pat Toomey is running for Senate in Pennsylvania. He wants to de-regulate Big Oil and open up the Great Lakes for drilling.
— Christine O’Donnell, who is vying for the same Senate seat I was honored to hold in Delaware, is campaigning on repealing health reform.
The fact is this: The corporate special interests trying to elect these Republicans don’t care if they’re supporting extremists.
They just want us out of the way. With your help, we’ve enacted historic reforms despite their best efforts to derail us. Now, they’re focused on one thing — creating a Congress in which they can call the shots once again.
That’s why they’re pulling out all the stops — and spending millions — to win in November.
But we will not stand by and let them take the country backward.
We’re counting on you to chip in today to fight back. Your donation will help us fund the organizing going on right now in key races across the country.
Please donate $5 and help us reach our By the People Fund goal:
https://donate.barackobama.com/3Million
Thank you,
Joe Biden
P.S. — Tomorrow night at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time, President Obama will be rallying with supporters in Madison, Wisconsin. It should be an exciting event — and you can watch it live at www.BarackObama.com.
Be a Seed for Change 
You must be logged in to post a comment.