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Berkeley Information Network: A Good Place to Seek Help

Features
It is very rewarding for librarians when the Berkeley Information Network is used as a source of help for homeless people and those living on the edge. Berkeley librarian Isobel Schneider declares enthusiastically, “This is the area we really shine in — to help people find resources that can really improve their lives.”

Gov. Brown’s Shocking Cuts to California’s Safety Net

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Despite the already extreme levels of poverty in California, Gov. Brown is planning to balance the budget on the backs of the poor by grabbing an additional billion dollars from critical social services programs. This deal jeopardizes the state’s safety net, with permanent changes being made to many life-saving programs.

How a Wells Fargo Occupation Led to Felony Charges

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The occupation of a vacant building in Santa Cruz became a complicated and illegal experiment in social change. Eleven people — including alternative journalists and some of Santa Cruz’s most visible activists — were singled out and charged with misdemeanor trespassing, vandalism and felony conspiracy to commit trespass.

Chilling Crackdown on the Santa Cruz 11

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In a chilling strategy to crush political dissent, activists in Santa Cruz face felony charges for a peaceful occupation of a vacant bank building. Six of those charged are journalists and high-profile critics of the police and city council, prompting many to call it an attack on the First Amendment

The Rich Are Shielded from the Suffering of the Poor

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The problem is that the one percent has learned ways to tweak the business and economic environment in such a way that they can receive massive amounts of wealth while depriving others. Why do people continue to behave in this way, amassing piles of wealth while others go hungry?

‘The System Is Broken — The People Are Not’

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The Courts of Women on Poverty have launched a challenge to economic injustice. Their gathering was held in Oakland, a city of extreme contrasts — from the hills of green abundance and million-dollar homes to a parking lot at Eastmont Mall, where a homeless woman sleeps in her car with three small children.

A Man of Spirit: The Long Journey of Kenneth McCoy

Features
Kenneth McCoy, age 64, has been selling Street Spirit since he was diagnosed with colon cancer six years ago and found he had no way to pay for the medicine he needed to survive. Now he has a roof over his head and the income from his Street Spirit sales.

Sharing Food as a Form of Nonviolent Protest

Features
Food Not Bombs stages a daily protest against a system that values profits more than people. It expresses its values in a supremely nonviolent way. Sharing food is an act of nonviolent resistance to the violence of hunger and simultaneously a protest of the corporate state’s military and economic violence.

Living in the Dark Ages in Modern America

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There is no excuse for political leaders and for the wealthy people who influence them to allow widespread poverty, hunger and disease. The starvation and disease that continue in many places would not exist if the people who hoard most of the wealth cared about helping their fellow human beings.