AND THE INGLEWOOD TRIBUNE, CARSON BULLETIN, WILMINGTON BEACON, THE CALIFORNIAN, THE WEEKENDER & EL MONTE BULLETIN WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2018
AN AMERICAN PRINT MEDIA PUBLICATION
‘Times Are a-Changin’? Why America Is Ripe For Protest in 2018 By Adam Geller She was the face of mass protest, but long ago lost her faith in protesting. Then, last year, hundreds of thousands of women set out to march on Washington, and Jan Rose Kasmir knew she had to join them.
CA Republican And Allies Want Renewed Immigration Fight
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WHEN Trump was elected president, I couldn't not participate. ... It seemed like the only way to get my voice out there,” said Kasmir, 68, who was 17 when a photographer snapped a now-iconic image of her offering a chrysanthemum to National Guardsmen during a 1967 protest against the Vietnam War. Kasmir gave up protesting when public opposition failed to stop the Iraq War in 2003. But after the 2017 Women's March, she returned to the lines this spring to rally for gun control near her home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, joining a series of recent protests by millions of Americans demanding change. “I think we've reached a tipping point,” Kasmir said. There's something happening here. But what is it, exactly, and why now? More than five decades after Americans poured into the streets to demand civil rights and the end to a deeply unpopular war, thousands are embracing a culture of resistance unlike anything since. In a country founded on the right to speak out against authority, every generation has hosted protests, from the watchfires set by women pushing for the power to vote a century
By Alan Fram
Courtesy Jan Rose Kasmir via AP In this March 24, 2018 photo, Jan Rose Kasmir holds a sign with a photo of her offering a flower to soldiers in a 1967 protest against the Vietnam War, during a rally for gun safety laws in Bluffton, S.C. Kasmir gave up protesting when public opposition failed to stop the Iraq War in 2003. But after the 2017 Women's March, she returned to the lines this spring to rally for gun control near her home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, joining a series of recent protests by millions of Americans demanding change. "I think we've reached a tipping point," Kasmir said. ago to the Tea Party rallies shortly after the 2008 election. But the past year or two have seen a near-simultaneous explosion in activism around disparate causes. NFL players have taken a knee during the national anthem. Teachers have packed statehouses to demand raises. Activists proclaiming “(hash)MeToo,” have called out those who used their power to abuse them. High school students have walked out of classrooms nationwide to send an ultimatum to those who insist society needs more guns. One of every five Americans has joined a protest or a political rally since the start of 2016, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Washington
Post found. Many more are Democrats than Republicans, with about a fifth telling pollsters they had never participated in a protest before. Protests are “what America is all about. But this is bigger and more volatile” than in the recent past, said David S. Meyer, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and author of “The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America.” “We're in a moment where people are frustrated with institutional politics and where people see urgent issues that need addressing and for a moment they believe that taking action can make a difference,” he said. Opposition to Trump has
clearly been a catalyst, he and others said. For many activists on the left, “there's a great deal of fear that we may be living in the last days of this experiment in democratic self-rule, that Donald Trump's election may mark a fatal turning point,” said Maurice Isserman, a professor of history at Hamilton College and co-author of “America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s.” But experts on political activism say it is more complicated than that. Many of those protesting speak loudly for causes that go beyond electoral politics. And many of those concerns, like anger over shooting n Protest, see page 8
WASHINGTON—A quiz: If a bipartisan majority of House members wants votes on a subject that gets skyhigh public support, why do they seem likely to fail? And why are they pushing it regardless? Here's some help: It's the politically loaded issue of helping “Dreamer” immigrants. And it's an election year. Around 50 Republicans and nearly all 193 Democrats have rallied behind an effort to hold those votes, a drive led by a GOP lawmaker from a central California district where around 4 in 10 residents are Hispanic. There would be four alternatives: A conservative bill restricting legal immigration, a liberal one helping Dreamers achieve citizenship, any bill of House Speaker Paul Ryan's choosing and a bipartisan compromise. “The American public is demanding a vote,” the ringleader, Rep. Jeff Denham, said Wednesday, a nod to polls showing 80 percent support for helping Dreamers. “And we're demanding it too.” Ryan, who's already said he opposes the proposal, is unlikely to allow the votes to even happen, citing a desire to push only legislation President Donald Trump would sign. Facing prospects of losing control of the House, GOP leaders have little interest in highlighting party
The American public is demanding a vote. Rep Jeff Denham (R-CA)
Willowbrook Ave & Greenleaf Blvd.
Melina Cervantes
division. The fight demonstrates some Republicans' persistent discomfort with Trump's hard-line immigration stance and the party that has embraced it. With high-level, bipartisan talks about legislation for the “Dreamers” dead, some Republicans are now focused on protecting themselves from political fallout still to come. The push for a new round of votes is popular in the districts of Denham and his GOP supporters, many of whom represent areas with high Hispanic populations, industries that rely heavily on immigrants like agriculture or moderate suburban voters. Many of them believe a congressional stalemate over immigrants will cost them in November, a sentiment happily shared by Democrats who broadly back a fix for the immigrants whose protection from deportation under an Obama-era program has expired. If the roll calls were held, many believe the winner would be the bipartisan plan, which would help many young Dreamers stay in the U.S. permanently but not offer them citizenship. It would strengthen border security but provide none of the $25 billion President Donald Trump has wanted to build his border wall with n Immigration, see page 2