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Chick-fil-A

Help The Simpsons Co-Creator Sam Simon Take a Bite out of Chick-fil-A’s Animal Cruelty

Sam Simon and Mercy For Animals
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Don’t miss the final story in our Product of Mexico series: Children work the fields


Los Angeles Times
Dear Readers:Meet Alejandrina. She was 11 when Los Angeles Times journalists first began reporting her story. Alejandrina, a little girl who likes lip gloss and longs to go to back to school, works 14 hours a day picking chile peppers for a farm that supplies a U.S. distributor.
Mexican law requires workers to be at least 15, but Alejandrina is among an estimated 100,000 children younger than that who work the fields. As she told The Times: “I work because we don’t have any money and we need money to eat things.”
Times reporter Richard Marosi and photographer Don Bartletti tracked Alejandrina’s nomadic existence for a year. Read her story, which is also the story of so many others: Children harvest crops and sacrifice dreams in Mexico’s fields
This marks the fourth and final piece in our Product of Mexico series, an investigation into conditions on Mexican farms that supply Americans with much of our tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other produce.
We’ve told readers about unbearable conditions at labor camps and taken them into Bioparques, a supplier to Wal-Mart and one of Mexico’s biggest tomato exporters, where Mexican officials found workers held captive. We’ve examined company stores, where a lack of price tags and big mark-ups leave many farmworkers trapped in a cycle of debt.
I want to thank all of you for reading this important series and sharing it with others. Here’s a sneak peek at a video coming Monday that features Marosi and Bartletti talking about the reporting behind this eye-opening series.
Davan Maharaj, Editor
P.S. We’ve created some extra content available only to our subscribers. Bartletti, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist whose interest in photography dates back to his service in Vietnam, has covered Mexico for decades. He shares some of his best photos and memories of what it took to capture the images.
~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Yelp and ALEC are partners ?

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Yelp! is silencing thousands of its users who oppose its recent decision to join ALEC.ALEC protest in ChicagoAt our new site TELLYELP.NO, submit your own Yelp! “review” and we’ll deliver it directly to Yelp’s CEO.

Go

Friends ,

According to documents ColorOfChange obtained from the highly-secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) last month, user-review site Yelp! joined ALEC — and gave the group at least $10,000 — during the opening week of George Zimmerman‘s murder trial.

More than 50 corporations have pulled their funding from ALEC over its responsibility for deadly so-called “Stand Your Ground” — or “Shoot First” — laws. It’s due to Shoot First that Zimmerman was not only acquitted of all criminal charges for his confessed killing of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin,1 but will likely be immune to any civil penalty for wrongful death.2

Pressed to explain the company’s bizarre decision to join ALEC now, Yelp!’s Director of Public Policy admitted he “can’t ignore” the damage ALEC has done.3 But the company is suppressing thousands of negative reviews posted to ALEC’s Yelp! page opposing the move, and Yelp!’s CEO has made every effort to sidestep the growing controversy. To cut through Yelp!’s filter and reach company decisionmakers directly, ColorOfChange is launching a new site — TELLYELP.NO — that drives home the harm Yelp! inflicts on our communities by funding ALEC.

Check out TELLYELP.NO now, and urge CEO Jeremy Stoppelman to withdraw Yelp!’s funding from ALEC.

In the wake of Zimmerman’s acquittal, Shoot First — with its legal presumption that subjective, racist fears are justifiable grounds for vigilante homicide — has served to paint a target on the backs of Black youth.4 Shoot First endangers millions of people living in more than two dozen states, and there is now eight years of available data on the laws’ racially-biased outcomes.5 But ALEC has taken no steps to repeal Shoot First laws in the states where they’re on the books — nor to stop ALEC legislators from continuing to introduce new ones. Ten Shoot First bills have been introduced so far in 2013, and two have passed.6

ALEC is a bill mill that thrives on millions in fungible corporate “membership,” “scholarship” and “sponsorship” monies;7 this explicit pay-to-play legislation pipeline ensures that ALEC will continue to produce extreme profit-driven laws8 that exploit and endanger our communities. By funding it, Yelp! is directly furthering all aspects of the ALEC legislative agenda, and is responsible for the harms caused by the laws that result.

Join us in urging Yelp!’s CEO to withdraw funding from ALEC and TELLYELP.NO now. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

Thanks and Peace,

–Rashad, Matt, Arisha, Kim, Johnny and the rest of the ColorOfChange team
September 26th, 2013

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way.

 

References

1. “Fox News Still Denying Role Of Stand Your Ground In Zimmerman Acquittal,” Media Matters for America, 08-20-13
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2975?t=10&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

2. “‘Stand your ground’ law may snarl any civil suit vs. George Zimmerman,” Orlando Sentinel, 07-16-13
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2966?t=12&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

3. “Agree: can’t ignore it,” @lutherlowe (Twitter), 08-15-13
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2967?t=14&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

4. “Open season on black boys after a verdict like this,” The Guardian, 07-14-13
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2969?t=16&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

5. “Uneven application, shocking outcomes,” Tampa Bay Times, 07-03-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2970?t=18&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

6. “ALEC at 40: Turning Back the Clock on Prosperity and Progress,” Center for Media and Democracy, 08-08-13
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2971?t=20&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

7. “How the ALEC corporate bill mill works,” Capital Times, 08-16-11
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2972?t=22&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV

8. “Big Money, ALEC and the Gun Agenda,” Truthout, 12-16-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/2098?t=24&akid=3138.1174326.5lrQmV