The government of South Sudan arrested Peter Biar Ajak in July after he criticized that nation's government, which I'm sure are two completely unrelated events, though South Sudan hasn't exactly been helpful in clearing that up by detaining and utterly failing to charge him with something for six months. Didn't they do the extra reading for Totalitarianism 101? You're supposed to manufacture a bunch of BS charges when you arrest political enemies -- "insulting the leader," "undermining security," like that. Mr. Ajak's life should be a movie -- he came to America as a refugee, one of the "Lost Boys" of South Sudan in 2001; he settled in Philadelphia, attended LaSalle and then Harvard, and was about to finish his Ph.D. in philosophy at Cambridge, but now he's in South Sudan's notorious "Blue House," kept from contact with his lawyers and loved ones (including his wife and children). Sounds like some country's got something to hide, and the Big Stick of Bad PR can beat it out! Change.org helps you demand that South Sudan release Mr. Ajak.
Meanwhile, Color of Change helps you tell New York Mayor Bill deBlasio to stop using heavy-handed police tactics in public schools, including arrests and summonses. They must have thought that being "tough" on schoolkids would "scare them straight," but it doesn't -- it actually makes it more likely that those kids will go to jail again and again when they're adults, and surprise, surprise! Black and Latinx kids are the ones more likely to find themselves in the "school-to-prison pipeline." Turns out having a police officer serve a summons to you in school is not the kind of thing that gets young people to trust police officers! You've no doubt seen smartphone-captured video of police bodyslamming students in classrooms, and you may have wondered why that was ever necessary, particularly after learning that most of the time police come to school to settle decidedly minor disputes. If you want school to teach folks to be civilized again, getting police out is one step.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 1170/S. 478, the Social Security Expansion Act, then Social Security Works still helps you do that. Our Glorious Elites constantly act like privatization and cutting benefits are the only ways to keep the promise of Social Security -- which is, to review, that all Americans who work their whole lives and pay into the system deserve to enjoy a dignified retirement -- but we know, likely because our livelihood doesn't depend on not knowing, that we could lift the cap on payroll taxes so that income over $132,800 can be taxed into the system, and we also know that we could expand benefits thereafter so we can create, shall we say, a more perfect retirement for Americans. And who would oppose that? Folks who think that only folks with money should continue to have money, that folks with money are somehow better than the rest of us? Well, this is America, and they don't get all the say around here.
Comments