The Spring Immigration Update is now available! This immigration policy update gives a summary of developments in Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Obama administration. Topics include:
Leave a Comment » | 
Action Alerts, Immigration, Legislative Updates | 
Permalink
Posted by Tammy Alexander
Jesse Epp-Fransen writes about hunger and systemic injustice in the latest Third Way Cafe.
Economic justice in the United States is an incredibly complex topic. It covers far more than the simple math of the cost of food and shelter compared to the average wage. Economic justice must be rooted in the ability to meet not only immediate needs, but future needs as well.
[...]
Food insecurity not only inhibits households from having enough food, but decreases their chances of being able to be successful in work and school. Hunger combines with interrelated issues such as unemployment and lack of health insurance to create a larger structure of economic injustice from which there is no simple escape.
Read the entire article here.
Leave a Comment » | Issues, U.S. Economic Justice | Tagged: hunger, Third Way Cafe, U.S. economic justice | Permalink
Posted by jesseeppfransen
Armed Violence in Numbers
2 of 3 people killed by armed violence die in countries at peace
2 bullets are produced each year for each person on the planet
700 people are estimated to be killed with arms each day in Latin America
As MCC workers in Latin America, we see firsthand the injuries, deaths, and suffering caused by guns and other weapons. The current violence in Mexico and Central America, the on-going internal armed conflict in Colombia, and violence in marginal urban neighbourhoods throughout the region are evidence of the easy availability of weapons…
Read the entire blog entry on the MCC Latin America Advocacy Blog. To add your support to a petition in favor of the treaty, follow this link: http://www.controlarms.org/home.
Leave a Comment » | Issues, Militarism | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach
At the end of April, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), S.1925. The House, however, is set to vote on a bill this week (H.R. 4970) that would roll back protections for immigrant survivors of violence. Take action.
Leave a Comment » | Action Alerts, Immigration | Tagged: Immigration, VAWA HR4970 | Permalink
Posted by Tammy Alexander
When we envision hunger in the world, it is not usually our own communities that we picture. Yet reports from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) tell a different story. Hunger not only exists in the U.S., it is common. Yet the United States is one of the largest agricultural exporters.
One helpful concept to understand hunger in the U.S. is food insecurity. Unlike hunger, food insecurity measures the difficulty a household has accessing food. Rather than focusing on how much food is consumed or the nutritional value of the food consumed, food insecurity is concerned with the ability of a household to access food reliably. Food insecurity points to two separate but related barriers to adequate food, the economic and the social.
Economic inaccessibility of food is clear and what is usually envisioned when thinking about hunger. If a household does not have enough income to purchase enough food then they suffer from food insecurity due to economic causes.
An example of a social cause of food insecurity is a family who find themselves living in a food desert. Food deserts are areas where nutritious food is not readily available for sale. This could be in an urban center where there are areas that do not have grocery stores and so most food must be purchased at restaurants or corner stores. These are both more expensive and often less nutritious than the fruits and vegetables that can be purchased in grocery stores. This means that a household that earns sufficient wages to purchase nutritious food might end up spending more money for less nutritious food and so still not receive adequate, nutritious food.
Leave a Comment » | Issues, U.S. Economic Justice | Tagged: food insecurity, hunger, U.S. economic justice | Permalink
Posted by jesseeppfransen
On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee approved this year’s defense authorization bill. The bill increases the Pentagon’s budget by $4 billion over the president’s request and sets Pentagon spending at $8 billion more than allowed in last August’s Budget Control Act.
While Congress is moving to slash other programs in the name of deficit reduction, this bill funds a number of programs that even the Pentagon has said they don’t want or need. One example is a missile-defense site on the East Coast which would cost billions of dollars over the coming years. The bill would also increase funding for nuclear weapons programs. The bill is likely to move to the floor of the full House next week.
Support for this bill is particularly glaring in light of the House vote yesterday on a proposal by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Ryan’s bill replaced “sequestration” cuts to the Pentagon with cuts instead to other programs, including nutrition and health care. A Democratic alternative which was not allowed to come up for a vote would have reduced the deficit by limiting subsidies to the oil and gas industries and increasing taxes on millionaires. Neither version–Republican nor Democratic–made any cuts to the Pentagon, which already receives more than half of all discretionary spending.
Read more on MCC’s take on military spending.
2 Comments | Issues, Legislative Updates, Militarism | Tagged: defense authorization, Pentagon spending | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach
Photo: Jenna Stoltzfus/MCC
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. and Mennonite Church USA have joined dozens of organizations in calling on the U.S. government to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.
We write now to encourage you strongly to make a decision on future U.S. landmine policy as soon as possible, and to announce that the United States will accede to the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. This is a crucial humanitarian decision that should not be put off any longer, or postponed during a busy election year.
Leave a Comment » | Issues, Militarism, Sign-on Letters | Tagged: landmine, Mine Ban Treaty | Permalink
Posted by Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach
You are currently browsing the archives for the Issues category.
