Transcript edited by Pierce Butler.
This is the 34th in a series of transcript excerpts from the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program collection at the University of Florida.
Phil Fixico [F] was interviewed by Ryan Morini [M] in 2012.
M: Your date and place of birth?
F: July 23, 1947. Los Angeles, California. Racially, I’m African-Native-American. Culturally, I’m an aspiring Seminole Maroon descendant, but to the people of America who see me on the street, I’m just another flavor of black.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
Nobel Peace Prize nominee and activist David Swanson will speak in Gainesville, Sarasota and Jacksonville about the latest developments in the telling and the debunking of lies about wars. He’ll answer questions and sign copies of his new book, “War Is A Lie: Second Edition.”
There will be no Veterans for Peace Memorial Day weekend display of tombstones this year in Gainesville.
We plan to come back next year, although the new design will condense the display and move it further from the parking area.
The former Gainesville City Commission voted to remake NW 8th Avenue into an ugly cement and asphalt speedway.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
A fund-raiser for the Doris Bardon Community Cultural Center, Friday, April 15, and Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 pm, donations at the door. Suggested donations are $15 for the general public and $10 for students. For more information call 352-378-9166.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
In times of deep political division finding common ground — even on local issues — is hard. We should be able to agree, however, that democracy works better when more citizens vote and that our government needs to be more efficient and less expensive.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
Feb. 25 was a great day for Florida Representative Keith Perry (R). Promising to “keep government off your back and out of your pocketbook,” he announced his bid for the newly-drawn Florida Senate district that includes all of Alachua and Putnam counties as well as part of Marion county.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
Yes we just had an election here in Gainesville, and it came out pretty well. With a higher voter turnout driven by contested presidential primaries, we saw Mayor Ed Braddy turned out of office by Lauren Poe, and Adrian Hayes-Santos score an overwhelming triumph in the City Commission race.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
Fight for $15, Orlando — April 14
It’s time to take the Fight for $15 to the streets!
Nearly 64 million hardworking Americans make less than $15 an hour. That’s just not right – and on April 14, we’re standing together in Orlando to yell “enough.” Are you with us? We’re rallying to show that we support $15 and union rights for all working people. Fast-food workers will go on strike in 300 cities, including Orlando.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
Tagged aclc, alachua county labor c, fight for 15, living wage campaign
Bernie Sanders, the Foreign-Policy Realist of 2016 by Robert English – Of all the presidential candidates of either party, Bernie is actually the most sober and clear-eyed.
http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-the-foreign-policy-realist-of-2016/
Chomsky, Snowden, Greenwald on Privacy in the Age of Surveillance by Lauren McCauley – Panel discussion challenges the rhetoric that national security requires that governments can access individual communications.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/03/26/chomsky-snowden-greenwald-privacy-age-surveillance
Slain Activist Berta Cáceres’ Daughter: US Military Aid Has Fueled Repression & Violence in Honduras by Democracy Now! – This is a stunning and powerful segment of Democracy Now devoted to Honduras, and the political assassinations which have followed the coup that Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State allowed to stand.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/18/slain_activist_berta_caceras_daughter_us?autostart=true
What’s the Matter with Liberalism? by Mike O’Connor – Historian’s review of Listen, Liberal–or–What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?, Thomas Frank’s new book on how the Democrats came to represent yuppies rather than workers.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/162357
Why is Honduras the world’s deadliest country for environmentalists? by Autumn Spanne
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/07/honduras-environment-killing-human-rights-berta-caceres-flores-murder D
Posted in April 2016, Articles
So the other night I got home about 9:45, and remembered the NCAA men’s basketball championship game was on. I flicked on the TV and started through the channels until I found it. As an underdog rooter, and not a big basketball fan, I was leaning toward Villanova, and my timing was great; score tied at 46 each in the second half.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
The April 2016 issue of the Iguana is now available! If you want to get your hands on a hard copy, check out our distro locations here.
Posted in April 2016, Articles
The Alachua County Labor Coalition has been hard at work campaigning to raise workers wages across the County.
The living wage campaign, launched in August 2015, has the ambitious goal of getting the 10 largest employers in Alachua County to pay a living wage by 2020. In the past seven months we were able to help pressure the University of Florida and the Alachua County Commission to raise their starting wage to $12 an hour. These raises directly affected over 500 workers and will put over $1.5 million back into our local economy this year.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
Transcript edited by Pierce Butler.
This is the 33rd in a series of transcript excerpts from the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program collection at the University of Florida.
Judith Davis [D] was interviewed by Richelle Moore [M] in 2015.
D: I was born January 15, 1953 in Gainesville, Florida. My dad worked at the physical plant at the University. Mom was a baker for the school board. I was an only child. Even though they didn’t have a lot of money, I was always supported in anything I wanted that they could afford. I had a wonderful childhood.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
Helping mark 30 years of publishing the Iguana, the monthly ArtWalk at the CMC will feature a display of the 35-card deck which was produced in 1988 to commemorate the 1986 Iran-Contra hearings.
These hearings helped expose a “secret government” that had been created to fund the CIA led operations in Central America devoted to topple the elected government of Nicaragua.
The Sandinista government came to power in 1979 after overthrowing the U.S. backed dictator Anastasio Somoza, whose brother and father had ruled Nicaragua for decades, and enriched themselves immensely in the process. The Sandinistas created many popular reforms and in 1984 were officially elected to power, but their Socialist leanings were not tolerable to the U.S. Government under President Ronald Reagan.
When Congress blocked money going to the Contras (the force the CIA created that was terrorizing the countryside), the CIA turned to drug smuggling and selling weapons to Iran to generate the funds to carry out their illegal war.
These operations came to light, and Congress convened hearings that further exposed the illegal and deadly operations.
These cards are 35 history lessons of a corrupt administration’s bloody efforts The blowback from these interventionist policies in Central America still impact the region. It was out of that ferment that the Gainesville Iguana began.
The March Artwalk at the CMC (and all over downtown) is Friday March 25, and will run from 7-10 pm.
For more information, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_5961748.html. D
Posted in Articles, March 2016
In early February 2015 a committee was formed to look at Gainesville Police policies and practices. This was on the heels of the increased concern over police misconduct which came to light in Ferguson, MO. After a year of meeting monthly, the Committee presented its report to the City Commission. Its recommendations were as follows; how seriously they are taken remains to be seen:
Background:
To support the work of the Mayor’s Community Response Council, the Committee was formed and open to all MCRA representatives to attend. Meeting monthly since the inception of the MCRC, with an average attendance of 4 – 8 members present, the Committee discussed current policies and practices, listened to presentations to gather information, requested and received supporting information from GPD Leadership and reviewed 3 key reports: President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Department of Justice, and Campaign Zero Report.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
Pierce Pettis will be in concert at the Civic Media Center April 9 at 8pm. Pierce, adored by both critics and public alike, is one of this generation’s most masterful songwriters. His music is distinguished by his uncanny ability to capture universals in human experience by drawing on the humor and trials in daily life. Pettis’ music can simultaneously pull on our hearts and keep us laughing. In live performance his mastery of the craft is moderated with an endearing ADD infused spontaneity.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
Jim A Stevenson gave a rousing speech at the Save Paynes Prairie and our State Parks event on Jan. 23. He is a 50-year veteran of working with the multi award winning Florida State Parks system, which provides not only habitat for wildlife, but also a connection to Florida history. As a public commons that have provided respite and adventure to over 30 million people, they are over 80 percent self-supporting, with the 20 million Florida taxpayers only having to kick in about a dollar each.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
The president’s fiscal year 2017 budget has more bad news than good news for senior citizens. While Social Security beneficiaries will see no changes in the way Social Security benefits are determined, proposals for Medicare are downright bad news.
What’s proposed are higher deductibles, means-testing and more cost-shifting to seniors and their families.
Medicare is the good and moral healthcare program for seniors that was designed to keep retirees and their families free from the added burden of healthcare costs as family members deal with the obligation of caring for their aging relatives. President Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965 and former President Harry Truman was the first to receive a Medicare card.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
Every semester, the University of Florida’s 4,000 graduate, teaching, and research assistants are responsible for paying exorbitant university fees. This spring 2015 semester, most of us will pay around $700 back to our employer. For many, this is more than the amount of their biweekly paycheck.
That the university would charge its graduate assistants such a significant amount in fees — hundreds of dollars higher per semester on average than its peer institutions — is especially ironic given the recent campaign, which Graduate Assistants United (GAU) supports, to turn the University of Florida into a Top 10 public research institution.
Posted in Articles, March 2016
On January 28, the impasse over faculty salaries between UF and the faculty union ended with a Kafkaesque flourish, with UF’s own Board of Trustees deciding in favor of UF against the union.
At the end of a hearing attended by about eighty faculty, students, and other UF constituents, Trustee Steven Scott gave a short statement, in which he lectured the faculty on fiscal responsibility. UF sits on the largest reserve of funds, both in dollars and in percent of operating budget, of any university within the Florida state university system. Yet Scott told the faculty that it wasn’t prudent to give them the raise the union had proposed. Instead, he said, UF’s millions in accumulated funds were for things like replacing the “shrubbery” after a hurricane.
With very little deliberation, the Board voted for what is effectively a 1.25 percent faculty raise for 2015-16.
Posted in Articles, March 2016