Why veterans' healthcare offers a 'beacon of hope'

Read this week's VHPI Newsletter

"A Beacon of Hope" Edward Machtinger, M.D., Professor of Medicine and UCSF's Director of the Women’s HIV Program is a national thought leader and advocate for using trauma-informed approaches to more effectively address complex health and behavioral conditions. He also believes that veterans healthcare can improve care for all Americans. Read Why "An agency in 'chaos'" The Trump Administration says its Executive Orders have led to positive reforms within the VA bureaucracy. But a major Iraq and Afghanistan veteran advocacy nonprofit and VA employee representatives have said the agency's instability has put veterans and their care at risk. Read more at the San Diego Tribune.   Transgender veterans have 'few differences in health' In reporting published by Health Affairs, transgender veterans were not found to have worse health than cisgender veterans (and thus unlikely to increase healthcare costs). Read more at Reuters. VA / Air Force effort to increase awareness of services A program being piloted at Air Force and VA facilities aims to increase awareness of health programs and services available to women veterans. Read more at the Standard Examiner. Mar-a-Lago trio fallout A liberal veterans advocacy group has sued the Trump Administration in an attempt to keep three high-profile influencers, first revealed in a ProPublica report, from impacting decision-making at the VA. Read more at Stars and Stripes. Veterans 'Saddle Up' at VA Medical Center in St. Louis Veterans who participated in equine-assisted therapy have reported decreases in anxiety and pain. Read more at U.S. News & World Report. NW Florida VA system adds care teams The VA's Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System is adding additional integrated care teams to serve the regions veterans. Read more at Northwest Florida Daily News. Copyright © 2018 Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, All rights reserved. You’ve subscribed to the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute newsletter (formerly FFVHC). Our mailing address is: 4081 Norton Ave. Oakland, CA 94602 Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

EEOC case alleges rape in Florida’s strawberry fields, reminding us of an ongoing reality on farms beyond the protections of the Fair Food Program…

EEOC case alleges rape in Florida’s strawberry fields, reminding us of an ongoing reality on farms beyond the protections of the Fair Food Program… “No employee should be subjected to sexually degrading conduct as a condition of employment,” Robert E. Weisberg, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Miami district office, said in a statement. “Migrant farmworkers are no exception.” Longtime Fair Food activists may be familiar with a thought experiment that CIW members often share in public presentations that is designed to put you, the consumer, at the edge of the field where the food you buy is harvested. The mental exercise – set in a classic roadside farm stand, like the one pictured below, brimming with freshly picked, local fruits and vegetables – is intended to bridge the gap between the consumer buying produce, on the one hand, and the workers harvesting that produce in often brutal, demeaning labor conditions, on the other.  Here is an example of the thought experiment, from the transcript of a Fair Food presentation at the 2018 Tom Tom Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia: … Imagine you’re driving on a beautiful country road winding through Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and you come upon a bucolic farm-stand full of colorful, delicious, fresh sweet corn with kernels this big, the kind that pop and shoot sweet juice everywhere when you squeeze them, and huge, juicy watermelons with slices cut and arranged on a paper plate for you to taste, and red ripe tomatoes still smelling like the plants they were picked from that very morning. You pull over and fill your bags with as much mouthwatering produce as you can carry and head to the cashier. And as the cashier begins to ring up your purchase up, your perfect moment is suddenly shattered… by a scream… a scream coming from just over the cashier’s shoulder in the field where your fruit and vegetables are being picked. You look up and you see a young woman, a farmworker, being sexually assaulted by a supervisor in the supervisor’s truck. And as the field now comes into focus you realize that in another corner a worker is on his knees, trying, in vain, to block the kicks and blows of another supervisor, a cup of water that was knocked from his hand on the ground at his side. The supervisor is yelling, “Did you come here to work, or to drink water, you lazy mother….!” And just then the cashier turns to you and, smiling, says, “That will be $21.50! Cash or credit?” What would you do? Would you complete your purchase? Would you turn your eyes away from the workers, give the cashier your money, and drive away?  Or would you cut off your purchase immediately and try to stop the abuses — intervening directly, or maybe calling the police? Of course, thousands of audience members, in talks and panels and workshops from New York to California, have responded with one voice and without hesitation to say NO, they would never buy produce picked by workers they knew were being sexually or otherwise physically abused. And yet we do. Every day, farmworkers in this county go to work knowing that they may face sexual harassment and assault, physical and verbal abuse, systemic wage theft, and dangerous working conditions as they pick the fruits and vegetables that we eat. And every day we buy produce with hardly a thought given to those conditions, because the clean, colorful produce aisles where we buy our food are light years away from the fields where the harvesting – and the abuse – takes place. Out of sight, out of mind, with only a thought experiment to remind us of the brutal reality countless farmworkers face every day to put food on our plates… until the headlines remind us that the thought experiment is actually rooted in tragic reality... Read the full news and analysis about the Florida strawberry case over at the CIW website! Coalition of Immokalee Workers (239) 657 8311 | workers@ciw-online.org | www.ciw-online.org Connect with us ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Thu 8/23 Prison Strike Solidarity Action organized by Deeper Than Water (7pm, Nashua St)

David Rolde<davidrolde@comcast.net>

8/20/2018 12:32 PM

To  Boston May Day Coalition  

• Quick reply all
• Reply
• Forward
• Delete
• Actions

Per our BMDC meeting yesterday, I have informed Deeper Than Water that BMDC endorses the Prison Strike Solidarity action to be held this Thursday August 23 at 7pm outside the jail on Nashua Street. (Note location is not South Bay)  Info at  https://www.facebook.com/events/678244485871784/ and pasted in below.   I believe John Harris said he will post this onto the BMDC Facebook page once I email it to our list.

  ~ David Rolde

AUG23

Prison Strike Solidarity!

Public

 · Hosted by  Deeper Than Water

• Thursday at  7 PM -  8 PM

• pin	125 Nashua St, Boston, MA 02114-1101, United States

Details

Nationwide, prisoners are going on strike from August 21-September 9, and we will rally in solidarity with them! We also choose the 23rd of this month to spotlight the 23 hours per day many prisoners spend in solitary confinement

We take this moment to build toward abolition and an end to the atrocities our people inside face.

Read our endorsement at: deeperthanwater.org/strike

DETAILS WILL BE CONSISTENTLY UPDATED, STAY TUNED.

Thursday, August 23, 7-8 pm
Suffolk County Jail - on Nashua St (NOT SOUTH BAY)
*nearest T stop: Science Park
Meet by the parking lot at 125 Nashua St

We will amplify the voices of our loved ones inside and send our love to those held captive at the Nashua St jail.

Our coalition is just over 1 year old, and like the prisoner organizers of this strike, our supporters and organizers inside have been subjected to torturous and punitive solitary confinement, re-incarceration, harassment, and more.

We are accepting endorsements for this action! Endorsing means:
- your organization must accept the national strike demands (below) + call for the total end of solitary confinement in any circumstance
- committing to turn out 4-10 (or 100, or 1000...) of your members
- share this event on your email, social media, etc lists
to endorse email deeperthanwater@protonmail.com

Coalition members:
Black Lives Matter Boston
Black and Pink
SURJ Boston - Showing Up for Racial Justice
Toxics Action Center
PSL Boston - Party for Socialism and Liberation
Young Abolitionists
individual current and formerly incarcerated organizers

Endorsing organizations:
National Lawyers Guild - Massachusetts Chapter
Boston Democratic Socialists of America
FIRE Boston
Workers World Party-Boston
Jericho Movement: Boston Branch
Harvard TPS Coalition
Jewish Voice for Peace Boston
Free Siham
Harvard National Lawyers Guild
Boston Liberation Health
Boston May Day Coalition
----
Full Strike Demands (http://sawarimi.org/national-prison-strike)
These are the NATIONAL DEMANDS of the men and women in federal, immigration, and state prisons:
1. Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.

2. An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor.

3. The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned humans a proper channel to address grievances and violations of their rights.

4. The Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act must be rescinded so that imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and parole. No human shall be sentenced to Death by Incarceration or serve any sentence without the possibility of parole.

5. An immediate end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of Black and brown humans. Black humans shall no longer be denied parole because the victim of the crime was white, which is a particular problem in southern states.

6. An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and brown humans.

7. No imprisoned human shall be denied access to rehabilitation programs at their place of detention because of their label as a violent offender.

8. State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitation services.

9. Pell grants must be reinstated in all US states and territories.

10. The voting rights of all confined citizens serving prison sentences, pretrial detainees, and so-called “ex-felons” must be counted. Representation is demanded. All voices count!

Honoring Sacco & Vanzetti in a Time of Heightened Repression In Cambridge

 

Honoring Sacco & Vanzetti

in a Time of Heightened Repression

This year marks the 91st anniversary of the August 23, 1927 execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, both immigrant working-class activists and anarchists. We call your attention to two events being held next week in their honor. On Wednesday, August 22, 2018, the Sacco Vanzetti Commemoration Society and the Dante Alighieri Society of Cambridge, will host "We Still Remember… A look at the case that rocked Boston and the world from 1920-1927." 7:00 p.m. at the Dante Alighieri Auditorium at 41 Hampshire St. Cambridge, MA 02139

Rare film footage of the funeral  LA MARCIA DEL DOLORE (The March of Sorrow)  Reading from Bartolomeo Vanzetti's  Events and Victims edited by Jon Curley  Readings from a new novel  The Diary of Sacco and Vanzetti by David Rothauser    Public discussion and commentary led by  Gov. Michael Dukakis  Mining the Archives: in the Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti  Prof. Michele Fazio  Music inspired by the story of Sacco and Vanzetti  Jake and the Infernal Machine