October 2011

Lessons From The Single-Payer State: How to Spread Vermont’s Human Rights Victory Throughout the Country
October 27, 2011
BURLINGTON, VT. -- On May 26, 2011, as we watched Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) sign "Act 48: Relating to a Universal and Unified Health System" into law--which sets Vermont on course to become the first U.S. state to have a universal healthcare system--we were struck by how far we had... Keep reading »
National Civil Rights Groups Raise Issue with LA Attorney’s “Crackdown on Dissent”
October 26, 2011
National civil and human rights organizations with a long collective history of defending the right of political expression and challenging the targeting of movement leaders submitted a strongly worded appeal letter to the Los Angeles City Attorney on behalf of Mr. Steve Richardson, a community... Keep reading »
NESRI Presents Vermont's Post-Irene Housing Rights Demands to United Nations Representative
October 25, 2011
On October 21, 2011, NESRI presented the struggle of Vermont’s displaced mobile home residents to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing. NESRI raised the issue of human rights in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene at a side event of the 66th UN General... Keep reading »
A Global Challenge to Health Inequities: Alternative Health Declaration and Report
October 24, 2011
The World Health Organization’s World Conference on Social Determinants of Health ended last week with an official declaration on reducing health inequities. Yet the failure to propose concrete actions prompted social movement organizations to denounce the declaration and call for “... Keep reading »
The Ever Shrinking Health Reform: After Demise of Long-Term Care, Take Action Against Limiting Essential Benefits
October 19, 2011
As the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate” to buy private health insurance is making its way to the Supreme Court (ironically, had the Act required everyone to take part in a social insurance system, it would have never raised a legal eyebrow), its remaining provisions are... Keep reading »
A Sister Movement? An Expression of Outrage? A Moment of Inchoate Inspiration? -- What is Occupy Wall Street?
October 14, 2011
Everybody’s talking about Occupy Wall Street.   There are plenty of people writing about it as well, but what seems to be visibly missing from a lot of the conversation and writing is a simple willingness to take the participants of this effort at their word.  Based on the... Keep reading »
They Say Push Out, We Say Push Back!
October 13, 2011
On October 4th, over 100 students, parents, advocates, and teachers were joined by City Council member Daniel Dromm (D-Queens) at City Hall Park to speak out against punitive discipline policies and over policing in public schools. The message from members of the citywide coalition, Dignity in... Keep reading »
Dignity in Schools Week of Action on School Pushout
October 8, 2011
Throughout the week of October 1-8, 2011, thousands of parents, youth, and educators took part in actions and events in 28 cities to expose the school pushout crisis in our nation and advocate for the human right of every young person to a quality education and to be treated with dignity. Below... Keep reading »
What Do They Want? Human Rights for All!
October 7, 2011
Whenever the media talks about “Occupy Wall Street,” the question inevitably gets posed “what do they want?”  It seems the pundits want policy proposals in technical terms, and the people want a vision and a new society.  So long as they... Keep reading »