Affirmative Action for the Privileged

For those who bash affirmative action for disadvantaged minority groups in the university admissions process as against our American meritocracy should reconsider that notion. Because, as an article in "the Economist" points out, the elite in this country have their own system to get their children into the best schools.

According to the article (which profiles some of the major findings of a new book called “The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates” by Daniel Golden) "No less than 60% of the places in elite universities are given to candidates who have some sort of extra 'hook', from rich or alumni parents to 'sporting prowess.' " which benefits whites way more than blacks. The power of legacy in these elite universities are staggering. Harvard admits 40% of legacy applicants while accepting 11 % of applicants and Amherst accepts %50 of legacy applicants. Also there are plenty of sports scholarships outside of football and basketball for preppy white kid in sports like fencing, squash, sailing, riding, golf and lacrosse.

This privileged affirmative action is taking its toll on elite universities as they become more socially exclusive:
"Between 1980 and 1992, for example, the proportion of disadvantaged children in four-year colleges fell slightly (from 29% to 28%) while the proportion of well-to-do children rose substantially (from 55% to 66%)." In a time when in the US when social inequality is rising while socially mobility is at a low, the social stratification of college admissions is quite disturbing. The two groups of people that are burdened the most by these admission policies are poor whites and Asian americans.

Efforts to get rid of Affirmative Action across the country may make these trends even worse.

Here in the State of Michigan, there is a ballot initiative called the MCRI (Michigan Civil Rights Initiative) which will end affirmative action not only in state schools but also in the workplace. The campaign behind this initiative, led by Ward Connerly who has pushed this legislation through California and Washington, receives all its funding from donors outside of Michigan. In face of this elite affirmative action, trying to get rid of this program that help disadvantage groups into schools and jobs just seems unjust.

IRS attacks a liberal church's right to free speech

It looks like free speech in this country, especially the kind that doesn't sit well with the current Bush administration, is under attack. The liberal All Saints Episcopal Church is being investigated by the IRS for "alleged improper campaigning" after the Rev. George F. Regas gave an anti-war sermon two days before the 2004 Elections.

The IRS used the excuse that "the tax code bars nonprofits, including churches, from endorsing or campaigning against candidates in an election" even though the reverend made did not do so in his speech. Now the church's non-profit status could be threatened.

But under the guise of a new enforcement tool called the Political Activity Compliance Initiative, the IRS is trying to stifle freedom of speech in this country. It threatens non-profit and religious groups ability to engage in non-partisan issue advocacy and criticize our elected officials. Churches have always been a source of political activity especially during the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King, was himself a preacher, and mobilized people politically through his church in Atlanta. Even in recent history, figures like Falwell and Dobson created the Religious Right through political activities in evangelical churches. I guess all that matters to the IRS is that you are advocating the wrong political ideology. Even the NAACP was under investigation after the chairman Julian Bond criticized Bush's civil rights policies until the charges were recently dropped..

Legal questions have been raised over this new IRS arm. A report of the program by OMB Watch states PACI's problems:

• the vagueness of the "facts and circumstances" test
• secrecy regarding enforcement action
• IRS statements regarding its intent to prevent repeat violations before an election
• the threat that an organization's tax-exempt status will be revoked
• lack of deadlines for closing cases

Thus this enforcement tool is ripe for abuse and partisan attacks against certain groups. As of now, Commissioner Everson, who runs the IRS and a Bush crony already has a bad track record. According to News Corpse:
"Commissioner Everson came right from the Bush White House, where he was deputy director for management for the Office of Management and Budget. His wife, Nanette, was a White House counsel. One of his first projects at IRS was a plan to cross-check applications for tax-exempt status against terrorist watch lists. These lists were notoriously inaccurate. He also considered sharing IRS data with other agencies in spite of the fact that it was illegal to do so. He was said to believe that 9/11 legislation gave him the authority to act without the laws being changed."

American Prisoner Exploitation

Not only do we have the largest percentage of the American population incarcerated but there is also a booming manufacturing industry that is growing around this prison industrial complex. This prison industry employs nearly 3/4 of a million people out of the a prisoner population of 2 million people which is "more than any Fortune 500 corporation, other than General Motors."

Prisoners manufacture goods "everything from blue jeans, to auto parts, to electronics and furniture" at dirt cheap wages since they are produced for exports (domestic goods produced by prisoners have to be paid "prevailing wages"). One such blatant example of how prisoners are being exploited for cheap labor is when Honda paid prisoner inmates $2 an hour to do the same job an autoworker would get paid $20-$30 to do.

Many of these prisoners involved in this work are serving non-violent crimes. In America in general, among our prisoner population, 76% of those incarcerated are in for non-violent crimes.

Unfortunately this industry will be expanding becoming "one of America's most important growth industries." It will help support the prisoner system which is expected to "double in the next 10 years" because of our war on drugs and tough mandatory sentencing. At the same time, our prisons have become overcrowded and neglected . Thus the industry is being used to pay for our reckless, racially biased criminal justice policies and our high-levels of incarceration which in themselves don't reduce crime rates in this country.

Interestingly enough though, many prisoners enjoy the work. Tony Matos an inmate says "When we step through the gates and into the shop, it's another world. This is a company. This isn't prison. Guards still keep watch, the capitalists still profit -- the critics and supporters still debate. But in the end, I get a skill, a few coins and a ray of hope and dignity." Though its important to keep prisoners busy, corporations should pay them atleast minimum wage if not a living wage considering they get alot out of this form of labor. This is just another way corporations undermine working people in this country by turning to dirt cheap prison labor. Not only does this undermine working people in this country but it also seems like more of an incentive for companies to push various levels of government for "tougher" criminal sentencing laws to expand that pool.

Youth and the US anti-war movement

People may be wondering where the American anti-war movement is especially when over 60% of the US public disapprove of the way the Iraqi War is being handled, 72% of American troops think the military should leave Iraq in the next year and sectarian violence continues to spiral out of control.

Well it happens to be poking up beneath the surface in local counter-recruitment campaigns: "Mass national protests didn't sway the Bush administration, so young organizers have focused on local counter-recruitment campaigns."

The US Military has become increasingly desperate for new recruits since "the Air National Guard missed its recruiting target by 14 percent last year, and the Army missed its goal by 8 percent, its largest recruitment failure since 1979." As a result, they have eased restrictions on military recruits by "allowing young men and women with criminal records to enlist, recruiting members of hate groups, easing restrictions on recruiting high school dropouts and raising the maximum recruitment age from 35 to 42." The US Military enlistment push has shot their recruitment costs up to $3 billion.

Organizations like Not Your Soldier and STORY Collaborative are trying to counter US military enlistment initiatives targeted at economically disadvantaged youths through education training camps about the brutal reality of military life. They bring youths together with Iraqi veterans to discuss The aims of these groups can be summed up in this poignant quote from Ruckus Society founder John Sellers:
" 'During Vietnam, we had the draft. Now we have the poverty draft. But we think that, by making all of the military recruiters miss their quotas, that's going to impact how Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney are going to view this war -- if they have less cannon fodder at their disposal.' "

Yet the weakness in these counter-recruitment education campaigns is exactly what makes the military recruiter's message so powerful to many individuals: economic opportunity. So an organization called smartMeme is trying to make an alternative for those who would be forced into military service as a result of economic necessity. They are building a network of organizations -- nonprofits, for-profits, institutions, businesses, farms and more -- that are willing to provide another option to young people who feel that they have no choice but to enlist.

If our politicians continue to waver on the military involvement in the Iraqi War, ordinary people will work to resist the military-industrial complex.

Even Iraqi veterans and military servicepeople are turning on the war. Lt. Ehren Watada refused to be deployed in Iraq and as a result is now the first officer in the war to face court martial charges. He calls on other soldiers to resist fighting in this war:
"The idea is this: that to stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it. They must remember duty to the Constitution and the people supersede the ideologies of their leadership. The soldier must be willing to face ostracism by their peers, worry over the survival of their families, and of course the loss of personal freedom. They must know that resisting an authoritarian government at home is equally important to fighting a foreign aggressor on the battlefield."

Only when the American public actively protest the Iraqi war will we achieve full troop withdrawal. This is already a good sign of things to come.