In a move unprecedented in American History, one local government is trying to make helping the less fortunate a criminal offence. The move emphasises the importance of the corporate dollar over the lives of people as no other laws to date could do, by denying the right of volunteers to help their follow man. The law denies the right of the charitable to feed persons whom "a reasonable ordinary person" determines may be indigent. In this writers opinion this is one step away from calling for the mandatory euthanasia of the poor.
Don't feed the homeless: new Vegas law
July 21, 2006 - 2:36PM
Trying to curb charity that is having unintended consequences, the Las Vegas City Council has made it illegal to give food to homeless people in city parks.
Residents complained that the large numbers of homeless gathering in the parks make it impossible for others to use them, said city spokesman David Riggleman.
Civil libertarians are crying discrimination.
"We're trying to empathise with both camps," he said.
"We're hoping we can improve their lives and improve the lives of people living around the park, some of whom have people urinating and defecating in front of their door."
The new law targets mobile soup kitchens, with a maximum penalty of a $US1000 ($A1300) fine and six months in jail.
Riggleman said that by shutting down such soup kitchens, homeless people will be encouraged to go to a centre or charity that offers services such as mental health evaluations or job placement.
Gail Sacco, who operates a mobile soup kitchen seven days a week, said the city doesn't have adequate homeless services and that she is undeterred.
"There's no way for people to get out to those services in triple-digit weather," she said - with the US experiencing a heatwave.
"My plan is to do anything I feel is needed to keep these people alive."
The law defines a homeless person as an indigent "whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive assistance."
American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said the language makes the law unenforceable.
"The ordinance is clearly unconstitutional and nonsensical," he said. "How are you going to know without a financial statement who's poor and who's not poor?"
"It means they can discriminate based on the way people look.".
Charged for Aiding the Dying
Texas
July 31, 2006
TWO volunteers who say they tried to save the lives of three sick migrants stranded in the Arizona desert have been charged with transporting illegal immigrants.
If convicted, Daniel Strauss, of New York, and Shanti Sellz, of Iowa City, Iowa, both 24, could face up to 15 years in prison and a $US500,000 ($A651,000) fine.
"It seems like common sense that providing humanitarian aid to someone who is in an extreme medical condition can't be against the law," Strauss said.
US Border Patrol spokesman Rob Daniels and a spokeswoman for the US attorney for Arizona declined to comment. But in court papers, the Border Patrol contended that the work of the faith-based group No More Deaths was encouraging migrants to cross illegally into the US.
The agency said group leaders were warned that volunteers could be arrested. The leaders called the arguments absurd.
Strauss, a social worker, remembers the day they found the immigrants. It was last year, during the hottest July in local history, which left 78 migrants dead.
One immigrant they found was lying in a ditch and couldn't stop throwing up when rescue workers tried to give him water. He had blood in his diarrhoea and had been drinking contaminated water from cattle troughs.
Strauss and others said the migrant told them he hadn't eaten in two days and that he was so weak he couldn't get up.
A trial is set for October 3.
US pair charged after aiding stricken migrants
Flea: Such compassion our American Friends show to their fellow man. These folks would have locked the Good Samaritan in the clink, me thinks. Seems this so called "Christian Nation" as long forgotten the teachings of the God they profess to believe in.
You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation. ~~ Marian Wright Edelman
New way to deliver compassion...
The "Christian" compassion of our brothers in America is actually compacted and sent at high speed via bombs and grenades so it can reach more people than ever before... The American way...
Yes flea, the US has traded Christian marbles for heavy bigotry, while praying to god in ways that are unbelievably corrupt. Of course the teaching of "casting the first stone" has been replaced by the parable of "shooting first, just in case", Chapter 3, versus 12, Judas of the CIA.
the price is not right
From the independent
Harlem to Clinton: you're ruining us
Gentrification since former president moved in sees rents rise by 100 per cent, forcing poor black families out
By Nicholas Wapshott in New York
Published: 23 July 2006
Bill Clinton's decision to site his office in the largely black Manhattan neighbourhood of Harlem, as a gesture of solidarity with African-Americans, appears to have backfired.
Dozens of angry blacks demonstrated last week outside the building that houses the former president's staff, claiming that his move had led to the gentrification of the area and increased the price of homes beyond their reach.
Mr Clinton's empathy with black Americans is well known. His humble family circumstances, as a penniless white boy raised among poor blacks in rural Arkansas, gave him a rare insight into the African-American community. It led to his being dubbed "Bubba", a term of affection among impoverished Southerners, and, without irony, "America's first black President".
But his move to Harlem, known as the Black Capital of America, has had unintended consequences. The protest march by 40 mainly elderly people to 125th Street was organised by the Harlem Tenants Council to protest at property prices, which have rocketed since Mr Clinton moved in.
read more at the Independent