I perused the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) website, an organization for which I’d like to volunteer, and found two major issues of environmental justice in Iowa that interested me. They are outlined below.
1. Factory Farming
The Issue: Political and economic power is distributed disproportionately in favor of giant agribusiness corporations that maximize profits by producing huge agricultural outputs. Factory farms drive local farms out of business by outcompeting them in a globalized economy. Factory farms also pollute the air, water and soil in Iowa, thereby threatening the quality of life for local communities.
Long-term Goals:
A) Elect government officials and pressure those in office to legislate for and enforce strict restrictions on environmentally harmful factory farm practices (ie, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia emissions, hog manure spills into metro water supplies).
B) Improve permitting and siting processes by shifting power to local communities in order to ensure that the public is able to control its health and welfare. Specifically, CCI supports campaign finance reform by way of voter-owned elections, which would deter special interest money from political campaigns and reduce the disproportionate political power of corporations.
2. Immigrant Rights
The Issue: Latino immigrants have helped maintain and develop the Iowa economy, yet they face poor working conditions and financial and housing discrimination in the very state they serve. The recent ICE raid of Agriprocessors Inc in Postville, Iowa left at least 400 undocumented workers displaced and unemployed.
Long-Term Goals:
A) Reform immigration law such that CEOs are held responsible rather than demonizing the immigrant workers they employ, upholding constitutional rights to due process for employees taken into detention, and pressuring Congress to provide a realistic solution for immigrant workers living and working in Iowa.
While on the topic of creating change through knowledge, this morning I listened to a very interesting NPR interview with William Ayers, an anti-Vietnam War activist and popularly assailed “terrorist” and Obama campaign conspirator. However reprehensible his activism may have been in response to an unquestionably reprehensible period of global terrorism on the part of the United States government, he happens to be a very eloquent, moving speaker and had this to say about becoming an activist for social justice:
“You cannot live a political life, you can’t live a moral life, if you’re not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly, see some of the injustices going on. Try to make yourself aware of what’s happening in the world, and if you are aware, you have a responsibility to act, and when you act, you have a responsibility to doubt. And when you doubt, you can’t get paralyzed; you have to use that doubt to act again. And that then becomes the cycle: you open your eyes, you act, you doubt. And without doubt, you become dogmatic and shrill and stupid. And without action, you become cynical and passive and a victim of history. And that should never happen.” – William Ayers, Fresh Air from WHYY, National Public Radio, November 18, 2008
