Category Archives: Emerging Justice Seekers

NETWORK’s New Year’s Resolutions

NETWORK’s New Year’s Resolutions

Alannah Boyle
January 1, 2019

We asked NETWORK staff to share their social justice goals and resolutions for the New Year. As we enter 2019, here’s what staff members are planning to incorporate into their lives:

My New Year’s Resolution Is To…

 

“Be a better food consumer.  I want to only buy food that I will consume and making more of an effort to use up food before it goes bad.  Additionally I want to cut out plastic bags in my shopping.”

-Erin Sutherland, Grassroots Mobilization Associate

 

“Live more simply so I can give more generously.”

-Catherine Gillette, Grassroots Mobilization Coordinator

 

“Follow more women and femmes of color on social media and read their blogs.”

-Meg Olson, Grassroots Mobilization Manager

 

“Cut down on my wasteful consumerism. In 2019 I will buy a maximum of 10 new articles of clothing all year”

-Alannah Boyle, Grassroots Mobilization Associate

 

“Try to greet each day with joy and welcome.”

-Laura Peralta-Schulte, Senior Government Relations Advocate

 

“Welcome the new Representative from my hometown (Chrissy Houlahan, PA-06) and introduce her to NETWORK! I’d also like to get more involved in local social justice issues, particularly concerning homelessness, affordable housing, and gentrification.”

– Lindsay Hueston, Communications Associate

 

“My New Year’s resolution is to read more books about domestic and international social justice issues so that I can have a deeper understanding of them, especially how issues are intersectional.”

-Colleen Ross, Communications Coordinator

 

Wishing all in our NETWORK community a happy and healthy 2019. May our work for justice continue!

Recognizing the Holiness of Bethlehem

Recognizing the Holiness of Bethlehem

Alannah Boyle
December 24, 2018

As I reflect on the story of Jesus’s birth, I am struck each time about the openness and generosity this story is contingent upon. An innkeeper opening the doors to his stable and allowing a stranger to stay allowed for the circumstances of Jesus’s birth. Ten months ago, I had the opportunity to visit Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. When in Bethlehem, I was able to focus on this same openness and experience it in the people I met, sharing stories, and breaking bread. We shared this deep human connection and recognition of the holiness of where we were standing.

As the season of Advent draws to a close and Christmas quickly approaches, I find myself reflecting on my time in the birthplace of Jesus. Preparing to spend Christmas with my family, I saved many gifts made of olive wood native to the area. The holiness of the land, and bringing something tangible back from Bethlehem for my family was important to me.

One of my favorite videos from my trip is in Manger Square where I filmed the bustle of businesses and tourists in the square, capturing the Church of the Nativity. The Muslim Call to Prayer is playing loudly throughout the city and the square. This moment, like many during my trip, reminded me of the ways in which we are all interconnected and how deeply the roots of multiple religions stem from this region of the world. In such a divisive time in our country and world, the interconnection I witnessed during my trip to Bethlehem is important to keep at the front of our minds as we at NETWORK continue our work for justice.

Resisting the Lie of White Jesus

Resisting the Lie of White Jesus

Lindsay Hueston
December 22, 2018

Brown-skinned, poor, no home to call his own: this is how Jesus entered our world.

This is not the image that we in the U.S. typically think of. With the rise of European influence on Catholicism during the past few centuries, the Jesus we came to worship transformed into one that looked like the people in power: white.


I’m certain that the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, light-skinned Jesus does not look like the very Jesus that was born in Bethlehem more than two millennia ago. But which image is featured more prominently?

As Christianity grew and was used as a tool of power over centuries (think: Spanish Inquisition, colonialism in many parts of the world, Native American boarding schools, and other similar practices), dominant forces co-opted Jesus’s race to show that the religious leader others should be following looked like the people in charge.

The irony is that Jesus was condemned to death by the very people in charge, who didn’t share the same background as him. This idea–of a savior fleeing violence, of a messiah born into chaos–is important to remember today. This image is much more representative of our current reality of refugees and asylum-seekers coming to the United States than the gold-haloed images of the Holy Family as portrayed in most religious circles.

In the Latin American tradition of Las Posadas, community members reenact Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem, and their search for a place  where Jesus could be born in safety. Two people playing Mary and Joseph walk to designated churches or homes, singing and asking for a place to stay, while crowds follow behind them. It is a visceral, spiritual reminder of the desperate hope for welcome Mary and Joseph felt while anticipating Jesus’s birth: a similar hope that motivates families fleeing to the U.S. southern border at the moment.

Like what happens in las posadas, our government is not letting these families in. “There is no room for you,” Customs and Border Patrol essentially tells them. A familiar line for those who know the nativity story.

Instead of a stable, many migrants cannot find any place to rest. We are offering them no safe resting place for their children, but cages instead.

Members of the current administration, ironically, claim to use principles of their faith to guide their policies. It is this same faith, though—based on the life of Jesus—that should call them to extend welcome to the asylum seekers at our borders.

Jesus wasn’t white. In the U.S., due to the intertwined systems of oppression that make up racism and classism, the communities affected by these institutional harms are not white, either. Jesus, too, was affected by these “isms” in his life, but how quickly we forget.

When we continue to depict Jesus as white, we hide the fact he too was considered “other,” different from the powerful majority. In overlooking this critical history, the figure of Jesus is no longer an outsider preaching welcome and a radical love, but a member of the dominant ruling group whose name is weaponized in order oppress the “other.”

When we as a culture whitewash Jesus, we forget from where he came, and the circumstances he was born into. By remembering Jesus as an outcast, a refugee, a carpenter’s son, we can better understand the radical nature of his teachings in our current political climate.

Our System of Mass Incarceration: Seeing the Parallels between Black Americans and Immigrants

Our System of Mass Incarceration: Seeing the Parallels between Black Americans and Immigrants

José Arnulfo Cabrera
December 19, 2018

In the last 40 years, the incarcerated population in the United States has increased 500%. There are currently 2.2 million people in U.S. prisons and jail. We incarcerate more people than any other country in the world thanks to drug and sentencing policies that disproportionately affects people of color. According to the NAACP, the effect of this callous approach to policing is riveting: Black people are incarcerated more than five times the rate than whites, the Black women prison population is twice that of white women, and Black children represent 32% of children who are arrested.  Then upon release, returning citizens face a myriad of obstacles that impede reintegration: employment background checks, low wages, and lack of affordable housing, coupled with banishment from government-sponsored safety net programs. For people of color, an encounter with the penal system could be its own death sentence. This is not how we as a country ought to be leading.

Yet, it doesn’t look like the U.S. will lose its standing as the world leader in mass incarceration with the presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned as the “Law and Order” candidate.  Since Trump took office, a new Jim Crow 3.0 has emerged: the criminalization of undocumented immigrants. Undocumented Immigrants are considered criminals because they committed a misdemeanor crime, the equivalent to running a red light, for staying, or entering the U.S. without documentation. Under President’s Trump’s administration 448,000 undocumented immigrants have been returned or removed and includes those with and without prior convictions. Because President Obama’s DACA policy gave prosecutorial discretion to immigration judges, there are no records available for undocumented immigrants without prior convictions.

As a Government Relations associate responsible for managing a legislative portfolio that includes both immigration and criminal justice reform policy, I find it dangerously easy to spot the similar tactics used to criminalize immigrants and Black Americans. During Trump’s presidential campaign he said Mexican immigrants are rapists, and that they bring drugs and crime to the U.S. This past mid-term election cycle President Trump retweeted a fear-mongering campaign ad that portrayed immigrants as dangerous criminals who we must keep out of the U.S. The video bore a notable resemblance to the 1988 Republican “Willie Horton” presidential campaign ad now infamous for the “dog-whistle” racism it employed. While I’d like to believe these fear-mongering tactics don’t work, 34,000 of the 2.2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. are immigrants held in ICE facilities, and 60% of those incarcerated are people of color.

When we begin to look at how immigrants and Black Americans are incarcerated, we find another scary similarity. Since 2000, the amount of people incarcerated in private prisons has increased by 47% and the amount of immigrants held in private facilities has increased 442% since 2002. The corporations that manage these prisons and detention facilities are GEO Group, Core Civic, and Management and Training Corporation, which require the states in which they are located to arrest and imprison a center amount of people in their prison to make a profit. Because of this practice, it is in their best interests that the U.S. incarceration and detention rate does not decline. Additionally, the prisons owned by these corporations are almost always located in the middle of nowhere, making it difficult for the families and lawyers of incarcerated people to visit them. These tactics are used to make it harder for people of color to seek the justice they deserve.

The United States has created a system that values incarcerating individuals more than helping them return to their communities to be self-sufficient and contribute to society as we all do. Our country views a criminal as people who have always been bad, and will continue to be bad. But the only true evil in this system is mass incarceration.

 

(feature image courtesy of the California Innocence Project)

Congress Takes First Step to Lower Maternal Mortality and Improve Health Equity

Congress Takes First Step to Lower Maternal Mortality and Improve Health Equity

Siena Ruggeri
December 17, 2018

There’s a silent but deadly epidemic occurring across the United States: women are dying during childbirth at an alarming rate. The United States is the only developed country where the maternal mortality rate is rising. Pregnancy-related deaths increased from 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to a high of 17.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2009 and 2011. On top of that, 50,000 mothers a year experience dangerous complications that have the potential to kill them. U.S. women had a better chance of surviving their pregnancy thirty years ago than they do today. The fact women are worse off than thirty years ago is an embarrassment and a terrifying reality for women who are choosing to start families. If we truly care for one another, we must put a special focus on this critical issue impacting women across the country.

The rising maternal mortality rate is a public health crisis that is receiving a woefully low amount of coverage and legislative responses. California is the only U.S. state that has successfully lowered their maternal mortality rate. From 2006 to 2013, the state cut its maternal death rate in half. This was accomplished by a thorough investigation of the care process, and an implementation of better practices. California hospitals work in a collaborative that shares information and best practices specifically about maternal care. In order for other states to replicate California’s success, Congress must act.

Recently the House and the Senate passed the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, which was introduced by Rep. Jaime Herrera-Beutler, with bipartisan support and a companion bill in the Senate introduced by Senator Heidi Heitkamp.  It creates maternal mortality review committees in every state that gather data and report their findings back to the Department of Health and Human Services.

(image courtesy of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice)

The U.S. healthcare system denies far too many women the care they need before, during, and after giving birth, a fact that needs to be remedied through legislation. Due to the medical racism that permeates the healthcare system, women of color are frequently ignored by providers when they advocate for their medical needs.

Black women are almost four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes, pointing to a shocking racial disparity. This is intensified in maternal health care deserts, where women lack access to critical healthcare. In rural and urban areas with limited OB-GYN services, women of color suffer greatly. In her congressional testimony, Stacey Stewart, the president of the women’s health nonprofit March of Dimes, emphasized that women of color often feel less trusted and feel less listened to in the medical system. She pointed to the fact that there are no obstetrical services east of the river in Washington, D.C.’s predominantly Black neighborhoods—women must cross the river to receive any sort of prenatal care. She also observed that in New York City, women of color are 12 times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy than white women. Women of color are disproportionately vulnerable to deadly pregnancy complications, making the maternal mortality crisis a horrifying manifestation of racial injustice.

In his testimony to the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee in September, maternal healthcare advocate Charles Johnson told how he lost his wife Kira after she gave birth to their second child. Kira and Charles, a young Black couple, made sure that hospital staff were aware that Kira was bleeding heavily after her C-section. Yet the hospital waited ten hours to address her medical crisis. By the time hospital staff acted, it was too late. Kira died of massive internal bleeding, leaving behind an 11-hour-old child, her husband, and her other young child. Kira did everything right; she advocated for herself and her child throughout her time in the hospital. Despite Kira and her husband’s persistence, her symptoms were ignored until it was too late.

The CDC Foundation estimates that 60 percent of American pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths could be prevented. The U.S. healthcare system is focused on infant health while ignoring the holistic needs of women.  As a result, healthcare providers are not equipped to protect pregnant women and prevent complications that can be easily addressed under the right care. We know many of these deaths can be avoided, but we must take action to examine how our healthcare system fails women and create policies that will prevent this.

Congress has taken the first step passing the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act, which was only possible because of the continued advocacy of the public. Using this as a first step, it’s important to keep the momentum going to fight for even bigger reforms to make health care safer and more equitable.  Health advocates need to make it clear to legislators that maternal health needs to be a key priority, both as we come to the end of the 115th Congress and in the new Congress. Far too many women, especially women of color, have needlessly died in this public health crisis. The only way to begin working toward a solution to this crisis is providing resources to gather more data on this epidemic so healthcare providers have the tools to prevent more tragic losses.

How Do We Treat Our Neighbors?

How Do We Treat Our Neighbors?

August Kissel
November 28, 2018

As a junior at Manhattan College and a student worker in our Social Action Suite, I have been watching this year’s Lasallian Outreach Volunteer Experience members prep for their upcoming immersion experiences.

The teams have spent the past semester preparing and fundraising for their upcoming experiences both abroad and in the United States. This is a time when these students will encounter a world and life experiences much different from their own and have the opportunity for open dialogue with the people they are meeting, and the social injustices they are experiencing.

This past January, as part of the program, I had the opportunity to visit a region of Ecuador called Monte Sinai. We stayed with an organization called Rostro de Cristo, a Catholic immersion retreat program.

Rostro’s goal is to live in solidarity with those in the Monte Sinai community. Each day the year-long volunteers who serve through Rostro go to their jobs at different organizations in the neighborhood, like the local women’s shelter, the nearby school, as well as the after school and tutoring program. The volunteers all live a simple lifestyle so that they are more fully immersed in the culture. We were given only a small taste of this lifestyle and experience during our time in Monte Sinai.

Our team met with neighbors who welcomed us into their homes and were willing to share a moment with us. We discussed the best way to make coconut rice, how the trash system works, and access to clean water. From these discussions we returned to the U.S. with new intentions, asking about our neighbors here and why don’t we get to know them in the same way we did in Ecuador?

Now, as the holiday season is moving forward, may we focus on our neighbors, who they are, what they contribute to our community, and what we can do as neighbors here in our own communities. We each belong to a community and it is our role to meet our neighbors, know them, and support them as we hope they would do the same for us. As we celebrate the end of this year and the start of a new one, may we meet, know, and come to love all of our neighbors.

 

August Kissel is a junior at Manhattan College. She has participated in two Lasallian Outreach Volunteer Experience (LOVE) trips through their Campus Ministry and Social Action program.

(Photo credit of Rostro de Cristo)

Stronger Borders, But Weaker Morals: What’s Happening to Asylum Seekers at the End of the Road?

Stronger Borders, But Weaker Morals: What Happens to Asylum Seekers at the End of the Road

Lindsay Hueston
November 26, 2018

On the westernmost portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, the taunting iron fence stretches from mountain to sand to sea – disappearing after a few hundred yards into the ocean. The water that chops around is the same, splashing both U.S. and Mexican soil. The most radical thing that struck me about being at the border was that birds could fly so easily over it, which seemed so normal – but the U.S. government, simultaneously, so heavily regulated the movement of people on land.

The U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, CA – June 2013

That was five years ago when I went to the border. Now, instead of birds, there are capsules of tear gas hurled over the border: the only thing in the air now is intense fear.

I’ve had the opportunity to visit the U.S.-Mexico border twice: first in the summer of 2013 during a college campus ministry conference in San Diego bordering Tijuana; and again in the winter of 2016 leading a service-immersion trip to El Paso, a city thoroughly integrated with its neighbor Ciudad Juárez in Mexico.

I never crossed over to Mexico in either of these encounters, but exchanged words, held hands, and prayed with people mere feet away from me, the only thing separating us an immense wall of steel and millions of dollars built up to create a militarized border. I stood on the U.S. side; a recently deported family stood less than three feet away in Mexico. We breathed the same air. We each huddled from the same chill.

That was three years ago; had I met that family at the border there now, they and their three kids would be running away from the fence to avoid tear gas and rubber bullets.

Last week the Trump administration put out a statement authorizing the use of lethal force against families and individuals from Central American countries who trekked thousands of miles to enter our country, with the possibility of closing “the whole border.”

The news of tear gas attacks on thousands of people coming to the United States to flee violence – and being met with more violence – hits me to my core.

Lethal force? For people seeking safety, fearing they’d die in their home country – and facing the possibility of death instead of new life?

I’ve eaten and laughed and cried with people whose life stories and trials are likely near-identical to the droves of asylum seekers searching for welcome in our country. What kind of country are we creating when we say we are a nation of immigrants, then turn away the most vulnerable?

The U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, NM – January 2016

The images and videos I’ve seen are of women, children, families – people who should not be faced with the immensity of physical punishment that the U.S. is inflicting upon them for fleeing violence in their own countries. It is unconscionable that the Trump administration has come so far as to demonize infant children and their mothers, and anyone seeking asylum, so much so as to accept their injury, trauma, and potential death as merely a necessary consequence of our political debate and national security.

Firing tear gas on children and families who are here seeking asylum is both legally and morally wrong.

The actions of the U.S. government in turning people away and further militarizing our borders are a result of systematic racism, and do not reflect the core of our foundational communal values. The immigration system in our country has long been broken, but the recent attacks against immigrants and refugees under this administration have attempted to fundamentally reshape our system with the aim of closing our border to all but wealthy, white immigrants.

The structures of our country were never set up to benefit the most marginalized, but we don’t have to accept policies that perpetuate these evils. Instead, we can change them.

Children shouldn’t choke on tear gas. Parents shouldn’t have to make pilgrimages hundreds of miles on foot to seek a better life for their families. People in neighboring countries shouldn’t have to face a life-threatening decision: stay and die, or go and live.

Bridge into Juárez, Mexico from El Paso, Texas – January 2016

Yet our administration sees these migrants from Central America as criminals for the very fact that they are pleading to us for help.  We are failing to live up to our own laws and international human rights obligations to offer asylum to those who qualify. We are willing to let innocent people die before we open our borders.

It isn’t right – none of it is right.

We must continue to pressure the Trump administration against the harmful consequences they are inflicting upon our sisters and brothers who deserve protection, not condemnation.

Did You Eat Today? Do More Than Thank a Farm Worker

Did You Eat Today?
(Do More Than) Thank a Farm Worker

Erin Sutherland
November 19, 2018

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend an interactive presentation and mindful dinner entitled “A Harvest for Justice,” led by Stoneridge Academy’s Director of Social Action, Lauren Brownlee. Lauren described her recent trip to Washington State to meet with other members of the National Farm Worker Ministry.  While learning about the challenges farm workers face in access to housing, adequate health and safety, just wages, and those that specifically impact women, I was both parts equally shocked and horrified.

I was immediately reminded of the striking similarities between the injustices farm workers experience and the issue areas NETWORK has chosen to focus on to “Mend the Gaps” in our society.  The gap for farm workers is even wider than that of the general population because of the inability of farm workers to organize collectively, or the fact that citizenship status can deter people from coming forward and reporting abuse.  Especially as Thanksgiving approaches, it makes me angry to think about how our national dinner table is supplied by people who are being exploited.  All of us, especially those who are dedicated to fixing societal gaps, need to do better to rectify the ways in which we are participating in an unjust food system.

As I reflect on all I have to be thankful this year, the evening left me wondering what more I could do to show my respect for farm workers and be an ethical consumer.  Attendees discussed eating mindfully, hosting a documentary watch-party like watching Food Chains, and participating in online campaigns.  While these are a great first step, I think it is also important to think more broadly about how to dismantle the unjust, capitalist produce market.

One way is to buy produce directly from farmer-organized initiatives or with ethical certifications.  As someone with modest income, I also understand how difficult it can be to pay a little more for ethically sourced produce.  One thing I’ve started doing is making sure to keep my food waste to an absolute minimum.  This is one way I can show my solidarity with those who worked so hard to pick the food in my fridge by making every effort to consume it all.  This means packing leftovers, coming up with creative solutions to using produce that is starting to look iffy, and supporting companies like Hungry Harvest that save perfectly good food from landfills by re-selling produce that couldn’t be sold at the grocery store.

My journey to becoming an ethical consumer and demanding positive change in the produce industry is just beginning.  Far from feeling hopeless or overwhelmed, I feel equipped with the knowledge to move my appreciation past words and into action.

Respecting Creation: How to Navigate the NAFTA Renegotiation

Respecting Creation: How to Navigate the NAFTA Renegotiation

José Arnulfo Cabrera
November 7, 2018

For the past year, the Trump administration has been renegotiating a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. Trade is a priority issue for President Trump and his Administration has emphasized the need to increase trade benefits to Americans as part of his “America First” agenda. While NETWORK affirms the need to improve the working condition in the United States, we also believe that any deal must benefit workers and those in poverty in all three countries. To that end, we and our faith partners sent a letter to the Administration outlining priorities for the renegotiation.

We have a 24-year track record with the current NAFTA agreement and we know that the agreement created great benefits for large corporations, but time and time again it has failed to benefit the common good.  For example, NAFTA flooded the Mexican market with subsidized corn, wheat, and soy from the U.S., forcing literally millions of family farmers off their land. The pacts also allowed huge U.S. corporations to move in, driving tens of thousands of additional small- and mid-sized Mexican employers out of business. In fact, real wages in Mexico are lower today than before NAFTA was enacted. During this same period working families in the U.S. have suffered as well from flat wages and loss of jobs in the manufacturing sectors.  The new NAFTA, if done right, has the opportunity to make incremental changes to the status quo.

On September 30, the Administration laid out newly designed NAFTA 2.0. NETWORK, along with our faith and secular partners, began reviewing the new deal with the hope that progress would be made. Thankfully, there were some important areas of progress made on key faith priorities. There are, however, areas where the new NAFTA fails.  We expect the Trump Administration will sign the NAFTA 2.0 on November 30 and then send it to Congress for consideration under fast-track authority which allows for an up or down vote on implementing legislation without possibilities to filibuster.  We don’t expect it to be taken up by Congress until early next year.

What does this mean for NETWORK advocates?  Plain and simple, we must work over the next few months to seek changes to the agreement that will substantially improve NAFTA 1.0.  As a faith-based organization, we believe the global economy must care about and respect people and creation. The renegotiation of NAFTA can and must make North America a model of the trade policy we want to see across the world.

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS): There are four areas where we see significant improvement in the new NAFTA 2.0. The first issue pertains to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement process, or ISDS, which gives giant corporations the ability to sue foreign governments over their domestic laws. To date, those courts have been used largely to attack domestic health, safety, and environmental laws.  This gives a lot of power to corporations over affected communities. The new NAFTA completely eliminated the ISDS between the U.S. and Canada, and between the U.S. and Mexico the ISDS was replaced by a new version of ISDS. The new one eliminates extreme investors’ rights, and remedies key procedural concerns. Unfortunately, there is a loophole in U.S.-Mexico’s new ISDS that gives nine U.S. oil and gas companies power going into ISDS courts. NETWORK and our partners will work to close this loophole.

Labor: Faith partners affirm the need for strong worker protections in all countries so that workers receive good wages, have the freedom to organize and work in healthy and safe environments. The NAFTA 2.0 text establishes new rules to end wage suppression “protection contracts” in Mexico – which, if enforced, could make a big difference over time on Mexican wage levels and incentives to outsource U.S. jobs to Mexico.  Recently, Mexican workers arrived at a new plant to find that a “union” they never voted for has signed a contract they never approved locking in low wages. Workers who strike are fired. Labor organizers face violence and intimidation. This is a step forward.

The key problem is that there is no language that ensures these rules will be enforced. Unless strong labor standards are made subject to swift and certain enforcement there is no way to ensure the new rules are implemented. NETWORK and our partners will continue to work to improve the agreement so it contains real enforcement mechanisms that allow workers to thrive. Without enforcement of these new rules, they are meaningless.

Environment:  To have a global economy that cares and respect all creations we must uphold environmental protections. NETWORK recognizes that climate change is real and disproportionately affects the poorest residents, especially the poor in developing countries and small islands. We can’t accept or have a trade deal that continues to contribute to climate change. NETWORK, along with our faith partners, hoped to see the new NAFTA prioritize long-term ecological sustainability. NAFTA 2.0 eliminated the forces that made countries export natural resources that they seek to conserve. This is a good start, but NAFTA 2.0 still has a long way to go. Unfortunately, NAFTA 2.0 failed to adopt, maintain, implement, and enforce domestic laws that ensure the seven core multilateral environmental agreements. The deal also failed to mention the word “climate change” along with stating the economic and national security challenges that climate change creates.

Access to Medicine: This is one of the biggest failures in the current NAFTA 2.0.  NETWORK is a strong believer in affordable medicine and healthcare for all. Therefore, we want NAFTA 2.0 to increase access to affordable medicine, not to limit it. Further, we believe the U.S. government should prioritize pharmaceutical corporations and allow them to continue monopolizing their product through trade agreements. The new NAFTA keeps expanding the monopoly of big pharmaceutical companies, and allows many big pharma companies to keep medicine prices high, and moves further away from affordable medicine. We are working with our faith partners to change the current pharmaceutical language so we can begin to move towards more affordable medicine and eliminate the current monopoly pharmaceutical companies have now. NETWORK will work to eliminate the bad policies included in NAFTA 2.0 which line the pockets of pharma will harm patients.

Agriculture:  NAFTA 2.0 does not address the needs of small farmers and locks in many of the agriculture rules that have devastated family farmers.  In fact, NAFTA 2.0 seeks to provide new intellectual property rights that stop farmers from being able to save and share protected seeds. The new NAFTA allows agricultural biotechnology products that will bypass national efforts to ensure safety, effectiveness, and impact on workers, rural communities and ecosystem should be rejected. All of the current agriculture problems NAFTA has created allows big corporate farmers to overpower small farmers in all three countries; because of that, it is slowly monopolizing farming. NETWORK will continue to work to protect small farmers.

NETWORK Responds to Week of Violence, Bigotry, and Anguish

NETWORK Responds to Week of Violence, Bigotry, and Anguish

NETWORK Staff
October 29, 2018

After a would-be assassin mailed pipe bombs to 14 prominent Democratic figures, including the families of 2 former Presidents; after a gunman tried to enter a Black Church in Kentucky intent on doing harm but was unable to gain access so walked to the nearest Kroger grocery store and killed two people instead; after all of that, there was the terrible mass shooting of Jewish worshippers at a Pennsylvania synagogue.  It was a devastating week and we are still reeling from it.

Nevertheless, we join the country in offering our most heartfelt and sincere condolences to the family and friends of those 11 people who were killed in Pennsylvania and the 2 people in Kentucky.  No words can express how profoundly we grieve with you in your time of need.  We stand together as the nation mourns your, and our, loss.

At the same time, we condemn, in the strongest possible language, these senseless murders of 13 ordinary people, worshipping at Tree of Life Synagogue and buying groceries at the local Kroger store.  They were simply going about their day until two white men, fueled by anti-Semitism and racial animus, attacked them.  These innocent people lost their lives to hate and fear in a country founded on freedom, opportunity and religious values.

But our Catholic faith tells us that we are all created in the image and likeness of God.  No exceptions.  And as a result, every human being is imbued with an essential dignity that must be honored, respected and protected.  The hate-filled actions of the gunmen belie that fundamental truth.   Whether or not you are religious or have some faith-based beliefs, there is something profoundly wrong in society when people turn to violence against others simply because they belong to a different religious tradition or have a different skin color.  We condemn every action based on hatred, bigotry and violence.

Sadly, this is not the first time we have witnessed, endured and decried the presence and menace of such evil in our midst.  But this can be the last.  This is a time when the whole country can stand up and speak out against it.  This is a time when we must demand of our leaders and each other the guarantee of civility, respect and safety for everyone.  For our sake.  For our children’s sake.  For the sake of our country’s future.  We must not let this hatred, violence and division defeat us.  The only question is:  will we do it?  Or will we once again pay a terrible price for our silence?  People are fond of saying “we are better than this.”  Now is the time to prove it.

May God grant eternal rest to those who were slain.  May God shower peace and consolation on all those who mourn.  And may God have mercy on all of us if we fail to stand up to this moment in history.