Aug 01 2008
I have been writing for months on the deaths of farmwokers in California from the heat.
United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old
How many Farmworkers must die before someone cares??
Please Tell Fallen Farm Worker’s Family We Care
“How much is the life of a farm worker worth? Is it less than the life of any other human being?”
Another farm worker died from the heat today. 5 in the last three months.
Come around after the fold for the sad news.
Jul 25 2008
I’ve written in the past about the preventable death of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and her unborn child. California’s Occupational Safety and Health Agency recently issued a $262,700 fine against the Central Valley farm labor contracting company that employed Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, the 17-year old farm worker who died of heat stroke because of the company’s negligence in following the law. That’s not enough. United Farm Workers President, Arturo S. Rodriguez, thinks criminal prosecution is the only way to deter companies so that no more will die:
“This is a case of manslaughter – there is no difference between a driver killing someone while breaking our traffic laws and a labor contractor breaking the law and killing this beautiful young woman. Anything less than criminal prosecution is a desecration of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez’ death.”
UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez
More, after the fold.
(also in orange)
Jul 13 2008
I just got back from vacation and saw an email from the United Farm Workers, part of which I quote below:
Ramiro Carillo was the fourth farm worker in the last two weeks to die of heat stroke and the second this week alone!
Ramiro Carrillo Rodriguez, 48, father of two, died in Selma, CA on Thursday afternoon after working all day for Sun Valley Packing in Reedley thru a farm labor contractor.
snip
42 year-old farm worker Abdon Felix Garcia, father of three, died on Wednesday after spending the morning and early afternoon working for Sunview Vineyards in Arvin. The coroner says Felix’s body core temperature was measured at 108 degrees just 13 minutes before his death.
64 year-old Jose Macarena Hernandez died during a record-breaking heat wave on June 20 while harvesting butternut squash in Santa Maria on land owned by Sunrise Growers.
People keep dying and few give a shit. I’m pissed off and you should be also.
What we can do, and more, after the fold.
(also on Daily Kos)
Jul 12 2008
The likely outcome of the Bush-led Republican raid on America astonishes me. As America’s national nightmare approaches the eight-year mark, the Bush administration is apparently going to escape unpunished. They are going to skate scot-free. They have brazenly committed major crimes against the people of the United States, not to mention the terrible things they have done to much of the rest of the world…and these bastards are going to skate scot-free.
Jun 14 2008
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the tragic and preventable death of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. She who died due to heat stroke while laboring in a Stockton area vineyard when the company failed to provide her with the shade and water required by California law. Her body temperature was 108.4 degrees when she was finally taken to a hospital nearly two hours after she collapsed. Doctors found after her death that she was two months pregnant.
To date no one from the companies involved has had the decency to express condolences to Maria’s family.
snip
We want to let Maria’s family know that people from all over North America care about this tragedy-that people from all walks of life and of all backgrounds recognize the value of Maria’s life and death. Tell the family that you share the sorrow of Maria’s death and pledge to do what you can, so other farm worker families do not have to endure the same agony.
Now, the United Farm Workers are asking people to sign a condolance card to her family.
More, after the fold.
Jun 11 2008
And misleading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the doorNeil Young
On Monday of this week Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment. On Wednesday it finally was acknowledged by CNN. In fact it was, for a time, the third most popular story right after Incest girl reunited with family and ‘Idol’ runner-up lands record deal.
Jun 05 2008
Yesterday I introduced the concept of The People’s Champions for discussion and refinement by the community. This is a continuing exploration of the concept, please join in!
It is the politics of fear that have brought us to this sorry turn. If there is one thing that Bushco can be said to have done well (besides making the rich obscenely richer and the poor obscenely poorer and kill folks) it is their masterful use of the politics of fear. They cowed Congress, they cowed the press and with a few exceptions…they cowed the populace. This phenomenon is far from over. It will be on prominent display from now until the election…and beyond.
It is manifested most clearly in the Emperors New Clothes metaphor, where no one of prominence has survived standing up and pointing. Every person who has done this has been smeared marginalized or ignored. The lesson was well learned and is still observed. But the proverbial (impeachment free) table is turning. His lame duckness, the weakness of his successor and the nations desire for change are conspiring against him. As are the sands of time that are removing us from the trauma of 9/11, the trauma that made that fear the most powerful force in the land.
Obama is a symbol of that…but as a symbol he is perhaps most enduringly affected by it. He cannot buck the fear to0 hard without incurring a backlash….from those forces and voters who still treasure or use that fear. Due to the success of the ‘wedge issue effect’ of that fear that has succeeded in dividing the nation, he cannot be seen to be “angry,” or attack Bushco other than on pure policy grounds. That would be ‘shrill’ or ‘looney.’ He, as I have previously stated, needs surrogates to attack for him. The Peoples Champions would be one aspect of that strategy. These three Great Men, backed by a citizen coalition could attack Bushco….and metaphorically live to tell the tale. In fact I think this is what it will take, since we have exhausted nearly every other option. Is it possible? It is certainly worth a try!
May 31 2008
We need to tell you about a story that will break your heart, and then we need to ask you for help so we can prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again.
Will you help in a fight for justice? I received an email today from the United Farm Workers about a prevantable death of a young, pregnant woman. The Daily Kos and Docudharma communities can make a difference here. The cause is just and necessary.
I just spoke at the funeral of 17-year-old Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. Maria was working in a grape vineyard outside Stockton during the 1st heat wave of this year. She became ill due to the heat as the farm labor contractor and grower she worked for, like many others, did not provide the protections required by law.
The death of this young pregnant girl is hard to accept because it did not need to happen.
This is not the first time farm workers have needlessly died from the heat. Ten have died over the last four years.
Arturo S. Rodriguez
President, UFW
Can you help the United Farm Workers? Will you fight for justice? More after the fold.
May 24 2008
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
The New York Times reports that 270 undocumented workers who were arrested at a meat plant in Iowa in March, instead of being swiftly deported back to Guatemala, have instead been convicted of federal misdemeanors, sentenced to 5 months incarceration, and then will be immediately deported. This marks a lamentable, new, harsher policy toward punishing defenseless undocumented workers who are selected for this special treatment. And, let me say it, it’s a show designed to frighten and threaten and disrupt the other almost 15 million undocumented workers now in the US.
In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.
The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.
The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.
Isn’t that efficient and fast. The poultry workers were arrested on March 12, they pleaded guilty in record time, and they were sentenced in short order. How, you might inquire, did this happen so swiftly? Where was their relentless, publicly funded defense? Where were their trials, their juries, their appeals, the recognition by the defense that these kinds of proceedings need to be fought and fought hard? Answer: none of that happened because the government used threats to cow the accused into pleading guilty.
Apr 27 2008
I’ve been trying to write about torture, and I’m finding it slow, painful going. I’ll begin one thought only to be distracted by wave after wave of random related thoughts crashing on the heels of the unfinished original, leaving me twitching in psychic anguish, paralyzed and at a complete loss for words. My God, how did we let it happen? And why in hell haven’t we stopped it? Why have we not arrested the torturers? Why have we not impeached this sorry excuse for a President?
“History will not judge this kindly,” to quote that rat bastard, John Ashcroft.
That of course presupposes that there will be a future from which to look back on this disgraceful period, and that this is just a phase, not simply the end.
Apr 27 2008
cross posted from The Dream Antilles
A Memorial To Sean Bell
I’m shaking my head at the verdict Judge Cooperman (without a jury) rendered yesterday in the Sean Bell murder case. I’m saddened and troubled. I think I understand the roots of his acquittal verdict, and I think there has been an enormous miscarriage of justice in this case. Unfortunately, this kind of injustice probably should have been expected because of the way the law acknowledges and fosters police exceptionalism. The defense lawyers for the detectives knew it, and sought to benefit from it, and the prosecutors knew it as well, and didn’t try to block it.
Please join me in Kew Gardens.
