All posts by ripplesofhope

California

We need your help to fix the Mariana Islands! (cross-posted at Dailykos)

(Great work guys. Another reason to love Huey 😉 – promoted by juls)

We have some amazing news! Over the last four months, Nick Shepard and I (Neil Pople) have been struggling to begin Ripples of Hope. We’ve been talking with important officials, meeting with potential donors, taking advice from some of the most respected non-profit organizations and their staff, and making contact with potential board of advisors and even celebrity supporters. And now, we’re happy to report, that progress has begun moving along at an alarmingly rapid pace.

We have officially recruited our first two Board of Advisors member, Denise Gilpatrick and Wendy Doromal. Denise is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in sexual and pre-teen abuse. Her work is what got her interested in the Marianas, and has been working through volunteering, researching and internet blogging to bring awareness to the public on the islands’ plight. With her experience and knowledge, we now have a great start to our board. Wendy Doromal, as many of you may know, is a high school teacher from Orlando, Florida. She was an investigator for the Department of the Interior in the late 1990’s and documented the abuses on the Mariana Islands for President Clinton and Congress. She has since worked tirelessly to help the victims of the Marianas, and adds a tremendous amount of experience to our team.

On February 20th, Nick and I signed and sent our request to be recognized as a corporation with the California Secretary of State’s office. This is a critical first step in being recognized as an official non-profit. It has been incredibly difficult to start an organization from scratch, but we aren’t giving up now that we’ve come so far and we are on our way to being able to help the people who need it most.

To top off a fantastic February and begin another great month in March, we received a wonderful gift from actor/comedian Jorge Garcia. Jorge, who plays “Hurley” on ABC’s smash-hit television series `LOST,’ has joined our efforts to help bring justice to the Mariana Islands. He has been committed to helping those less fortunate whenever he can, from playing in celebrity charity poker tournaments benefiting Katrina reconstruction to volunteering time to help with a children’s theater group in Hawaii. Now he has thrown his support behind building up Ripples of Hope, and we couldn’t be happier!

Ripples of Hope has also garnered the attention of two American heroes: former California Congressmen Jerome Waldie (D) and Pete McCloskey (R). The interest of these great statesmen to RoH only goes to show that this is not a left vs. right issue, but indeed something both sides of the political spectrum can come together on. This is indeed an issue of right vs. wrong.

Our next step is to finally file for official 501(c)3 status with the IRS. With Mr. Garcia’s generous assistance, we are days away from doing just that. We are also continuing our work in recruiting a strong board of advisors, and will be opening a bank account in the upcoming days as well.

However, we still need your help.

We need to ensure that the men, women and children of the Mariana Islands are cared for. There’s no reason why immigrant workers should be sold into sex slavery, forced to abort their babies, work in sweatshop conditions and get paid a fraction of our minimum wage.  We need pledges to help us get started. A pledge to help Ripples of Hope will ensure that the people on the islands have a voice. When we get up and running, we want to help support Karidat, the Catholic social services group on the islands, as well as developing our own programs like those designed to help the pregnant immigrants have a safe place to have their babies free of worry or fear.

Help us begin our work with a contribution pledge by visiting our website at www.ripplesofhope.org and continue to send us your thoughts and comments. We appreciate all that you have done so far.

We also need your help in identifying and finding people of influence that can help us build this organization. Does anyone have contact with  political figures like Congressman George Miller or former Secretary of State Madeline Albright? Bloggers like Howie Klein? A TV or film actor that might be sympathetic to the plight of the people on the Marianas? If so, tell them about what we are working to achieve and what their support could mean. We are looking to find people that are committed to helping create positive change in the Marianas and eventually elsewhere around the world. If you’re a former campaign worker like Nick and myself or just an astute political enthusiast, you understand how an endorsement or statement of support can help a long way. We appreciate all the kind words and the encouragement we have seen so far.

California

Help stop sex slavery and forced abortions in the Marianas

(I love diaries with maps… – promoted by blogswarm)

As we speak, hundreds of young immigrant women and children are being sexually abused in the US Territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, and our government has done little to stop this from continuing.

In 2005, it was discovered that numerous lawmakers in the House of Representatives were being essentially bribed by a lobbyist representing the Marianas. The lobbyist was none other than Jack Abramoff. Mr. Abramoff, who is now in prison for bribing public officials for votes benefiting his clients, lobbied key Congressmen such as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, John Doolittle and Richard Pombo to kill or halt legislation that would have forced the Marianas to comply with US labor and immigration laws. In exchange for supporting the causes that literally put lives in danger, Abramoff and his clients gave considerable donations to the re-election campaigns of these GOP leaders.

There are horrific human rights abuses on these tiny Pacific Islands under US supervision. Workers in the garment industry work roughly 18 hour days locked into cramped spaces with no restroom facilities. Men are literally beaten by their employers for no reason. Women are told if they get pregnant they could face imprisonment or deportation, so they resort to back-alley abortions to keep their jobs. Children barely 13 years old are pulled from their sweatshop jobs and sold into virtual sex slavery as go-go dancers in “karaoke” clubs in the Marianas’ capital of Saipan. They are too ashamed to tell their families in mainland China, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or the Philippines of their experiences in the “American Islands”. Culturally, they are in a position to be completely cut off from their families and loved ones if they speak out in their letters home.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Situations like these are happening right this moment all around the world. We see sexual abuse all throughout the globe. Forced abortions happen all around in the third world. Sweatshops have been discovered in Panama City, Nairobi, Beijing and New York City.

But the Marianas are different.

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has been a US Territory since 1978. During World War II, the Japanese Empire had a firm grip on the Marianas. A garrison of nearly 30,000 Japanese soldiers under Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito had been deeply entrenched on the islands. Admiral Chester Nimitz led the Pacific Fleet on a brutal campaign to free the Marianas from Japan in 1943. By June of 1944, Saito abandoned his hold on the Marianas’ main airfield. By July of that year, Saito was killed in a final charge against the Americans, along with a majority of the final 3,000 Japanese soldiers that had survived nearly two months of intense fighting. When all was said and done, 3,426 Marines lost their lives in the taking of Saipan and the Northern Marianas. American blood was spilled for the freedom of the CNMI.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

In 1952, Japan officially gave up all claims to the Marianas at the Treaty of San Francisco, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was created, with the United States as the administering authority. On January 1978 the Northern Mariana Islands became self-governing in political union with the United States under the terms of a covenant negotiated between the two government and the area’s first elected governor took office.

Over the last 5 decades, our tax dollars have gone into repairing the damage inflicted on the Marianas from the war. Almost every law and regulation observed in the United States is observed on the Marianas, with the conspicuous exceptions of labor and immigration control. With these exceptions, major corporations have ended up taking advantage of these small islands. Garment factories from mainland China started making their way to the islands, some run and owned by suspected Chinese mafia families. No tariffs and duty-free, clothing produced in China are sent to the Marianas where “Made in the USA” labels are sewn onto the foreign-made garments. Those garments are then sent to the United States for consumption by an unwitting public.

From a security standpoint, we should all be concerned about the Marianas’ lax immigration and labor practices. Our ports are frighteningly insecure, and a potential threat to our country is highly likely to come from such a place. With the Marianas a virtual “middle man” to the rest of Southeast Asia, and little inspection or security in places like Long Beach and Seattle, any type of weaponry or other foreign agents could potentially be smuggled to the US.

The situation on the Marianas could become a threat to the stability and integrity of this nation. We must do what is necessary to right the years of wrongs done to these islands. Ripples of Hope aims to do just that.

My name is Neil Pople. I served as Deputy Communications Director for the Charlie Brown for Congress campaign in California’s 4th Congressional District. My friend and former co-worker, Nick Shepard, served as Field Director on the Brown campaign. Together, we are in the process of starting up a non-profit organization called “Ripples of Hope.”  We are basing our organization on a simple thought, a quote from a speech Senator Robert F. Kennedy gave in South Africa in 1966:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.  Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope; and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

This simple notion, that we stand up and take action whenever and wherever we see problems, has been part of the backbone of American idealism since its inception. Action, on the other hand, has not been as popular as the intention… but we hope to change that.

The most effective way to address the issue is to force our government to recognize the problem. Because the CNMI is a US territory, the United States Congress has ultimate authority over the islands. It can pass legislation to help stop the abuses but has thus far been unwilling to do so other than Congressman George Miller’s minimum wage bill passed last week.  A great first step would be for everyone who hears about this to write to Congress and ask them to look into the issue and what needs to be done on a governmental oversight basis to help. Then, visit our webite at www.ripplesofhope.org and email us at [email protected] to be put on our contact list.

We would be proud to have your support in our endeavors if at all possible. Nick and I are still in the process of getting the group official 501(c)3 status. However, money has become an issue. To put it simply, a lack of money means that we cannot get started just yet. In the meantime, we have been active on the internet by spreading word about the Marianas on blog sites like DailyKos and Calitics. We’ve been contacting potential board members and donors, and planning our first fundraiser once we get cleared with the IRS. A pledge to our group will help ensure that we will have the financial means to get the work done that needs to be accomplished in the Marianas.

We would love to have your input on Ripples of Hope and what should be done with this group. Please feel free to email us with any questions, comments or concerns you might have.

Thank You,
Neil Pople
Co-Founder, Ripples of Hope
[email protected]

Uncategorized

Why we fought for Charlie Brown…

(One minor correction: The Marianas were one of MANY reasons why we supported Charlie Brown. Brown is a good decent man who ran against…well..a different kind of guy. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Hey everyone! Neil here from Ripples of Hope. I just wanted to let everyone know that good news is coming in the next few days from Washington!

Congressman George Miller, a long-time champion of the wage and labor atrocities in the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands (CNMI), is pushing legislation witin the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress convening that will help curb the abuses in the Marianas. Here’s a link.

More over the flip.

So, in order for this legislation to pass, we ALL need to get pro-active. We need to email our House Representatives and strongly urge them to help this legislation pass. You can find your local Congressional Representative by visiting www.house.gov and typing your zip code on the front page of the site. This is a great step for the women and children being abused in Saipan, and we owe it to them to do what we can to affect change.

Charlie Brown, the candidate for Congress against John Doolittle in CA-04, is still fighting for justice for these people. They simply want good jobs and secure futures for their families, but its being denied. The American Dream is nothing more than an American Nightmare to them. Charlie, Nick, myself, and others like dengre over on kos are fighting to help these people: but everyone should be joining us in these efforts.

Also, please check out our website at www.ripplesofhope.org and see how you can help these immigrants being denied the American Dream, and suggest to your representative that they do the same.

Sincerely,
Neil & Nick
Ripples of Hope
www.ripplesofhope.org

Uncategorized

Bring Hope to the Marianas this Holiday Season

Merry Christmas, Dailykos! For most of us, there’s only a day and a half of shopping left to do before we visit our friends and family and enjoy this special time of the year. Many of us celebrate Christmas as not only a time of holy reverence, but a time of togetherness and goodwill. Aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, friends and even neighbors gather to give something from their hearts to the ones they love.

Here in the United States, we live lives of relative comfort. Even those of us who have substantially less than most are far better off and much more comfortable than people in African countries, Southeast Asia, and even most of Europe. That’s part of the American Dream: to live lives of comfort and ease and secure inviting accommodations for our loved ones. At least that’s what the perception is. The truth of the matter is that there are some people on American soil that are denied the American Dream. Those people live in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and are living what is known as an American Nightmare.

In the tiny islands of Saipan, Tinia and Rota, the promise of the American Dream is dangled in front of the faces of immigrant workers. Most of these immigrants come from China, while others come from such impoverished nations as Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. They come to the Mariana Islands in hopes of better lives. They know that the CNMI is a territory of the United States of America. They know that Americans live, by comparison, lives of luxury and comfort. They see the American Dream and are willing to risk all to get a piece of what we take for granted.

They are hard-working lower-class citizens in their home countries, and are approached by recruiters to come work in the “American Islands.” They sign the normal labor contracts a temporary worker needs to sign to be legal in the Marianas, and then the recruiters must sign a contract with their province labor ministries. In Communist China, these “Shadow Contracts” are legally enforceable, and as stated in a 1994 letter to CNMI Governor Pedro Tenorio from Tomas Camacho, the Catholic Bishop overseeing the islands:

“This contract can result in the worker being subjected to civil and criminal penalties for asserting the rights or fulfilling an obligation under the laws of the CNMI and the United States. This contract acts to deprive Chinese citizens of rights they might enjoy while resident in the CNMI. The effect of this contract is to dramatically inhibit a worker from filing a labor complaint because of fear of sanction upon return to China.”

In order to make it to the “American Islands,” migrant workers have to pay exorbitant recruitment fees, sometimes in upwards of $5,000. After paying a lifetime of savings to these recruiters, they arrive on the beautiful Marianas and find that many of the jobs they were promised never truly existed. Good construction jobs don’t exist for these immigrants. Higher paying government jobs are reserved for native islanders and white Americans. The only jobs these people can get are as household servants, “dancers” in sex clubs, or jobs in the infamous sweatshops exposed in Brian Ross’s 1998 20/20 expose. The pay is not what was agreed upon. The conditions are worse than any standard of living we would accept for ourselves here in the States. When the contracts are up and the immigrants are to go back to their home countries, there are certain fees and taxes that are burdened on these impoverished workers. With practically no money to pay the return fees, the immigrants have to take out loans to cover the taxes. If the worker cannot repay the loan, it seems that he may end up going to debtor’s prison. Being fired can mean going to jail. The situation seems hopeless.

In a 1994 press release, Bishop Camacho said the following:

“It is the teaching of the church that every human being has basic rights not because of the benevolence of the state or even because they are provided by the law. Rather, these rights flow from the essential dignity of every human being as the image and likeness of God. Several years ago, Pope John Paul II wrote in is encyclical letter, Centesimus Annus, that human rights involve the workplace as well. These rights include that of private property, the right to establish professional organizations and labor unions, as well as the right to a just wage. According to the Pope, these principles must find expression in the laws of the state which guarantee human rights in the fair enforcement of those laws and in the actions of each member of the community who looks “upon his neighbor as another self, bearing in mind above all his life and the means necessary for living it in a dignified way lest he follow the example of the rich man who ignored Lazarus, the poor man (Luke 16:19-31)…The CNMI seems to be in a situation where it may be complicit in depriving people of their rights, if it does not do everything of which it is capable to ensure that the rights of all people within its borders are fully respected. Whenever the rights of anyone living in the CNMI are in jeopardy, the rights of everyone are in jeopardy.”

The CNMI has been a territory of the United States for decades. They follow US law in almost every way, with the exceptions of labor and immigration. These seem to be the biggest problems the islands now face. Congress has had ample opportunity to fix these problems, at the urging of President Clinton during the 1990’s, Senators Frank Murkowski (R- Alaska), Daniel Akaka (D- Hawaii) and Congressman George Miller (D- California). Over 29 pieces of reform legislation have been held up or killed in committee.

As we prepare to reflect on the year and celebrate Hope with our families and friends, we need to remember that there are some people living on American soil that don’t have the luxury of celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or any other religious holiday. They cannot celebrate family in debtor’s prison. They cannot give in a sweatshop. They cannot have the togetherness we celebrate in a sex club. There is little hope of any form for these people.

What are our excuses for allowing these abuses to continue? The effective range of our excuses is zero meters. It is up to us all to cause change. Robert F. Kennedy said “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.  Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope; and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

We are two twenty-somethings trying to cause ripples in the world. We have watched our parents’ and grandparents’ generations take our world down a course that we don’t necessarily agree with. The first project we hope to work on is bringing awareness of the atrocities going on in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to public light. Ripples of Hope, started by Neil Pople and Nick Shepard, hopes to live up to Bobby Kennedy’s idea that we can affect changes that cause a chain reaction leading to bigger and better things.

If you are interested in learning more about the Marianas or our organization, please visit our website at www.ripplesofhope.org. We are in the process of getting our group official 501(c)3 status, which is the official status to make donations tax deductible. To put it simply, we cannot accept donations just yet. But what we ARE asking is that you make a pledge to Ripples of Hope, a financial commitment to helping the workers on the Mariana Islands. Saipan, Tinia and Rota are three extremely beautiful islands scarred by an ugly secret. We cannot wait for the next person to fix the problem. We need to roll up our sleeves and do something today.

2007 is going to be a year of community for us, and we wish you the best this Holiday Season.

Uncategorized

The Truth of the Marianas

(I had the pleasure of helping out Nick and Neil on the Brown campaign. They were greatly affected by what they learned about the Marianas and hopefully can draw greater attention to the atrocities. – promoted by juls)

The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has been a sore issue with certain politicians in Washington. Political leaders such as Tom DeLay, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Conrad Burns, Ralph Reed and even President George W. Bush have been linked to the scandals involving Jack Abramoff and the horrific human rights abuses on these tiny Pacific Islands under US supervision. As concerned citizens who first learned about the Marianas while working as staffers on the Charlie brown for Congress campaign, Nick Shepard and myself (Neil Pople) decided to create a non-profit group that would address the issues our elected officials and political leaders seem unwilling and unable to tackle…

More below the fold…

Calling ourselves “Ripples of Hope” after an amazing 1966 Robert F. Kennedy speech in Cape Town, South Africa (http://www.americanr….), we hope to affect change in the world, one issue at a time, causing ripples of hope to the disenfranchised people who live on American soil. Our first in what we hope to be many projects spanning the globe, we decided to tackle the egregious human rights and labor abuses going on in the Mariana Islands. These three tiny islands just miles from Guam, are composed of Saipan, Tinia and Rota. While the islands themselves rival Fiji and Maui in their natural beauty, there is a dark and ugly side that needs to be discussed.

As a Commonwealth of the United States of America, the islands are under the sovereignty of this country. US Federal laws apply to the CNMI, with the following exceptions:

• The CNMI is not within the customs territory of the US
• Federal minimum wage provisions do not apply
• Federal immigration laws do not apply
• The CNMI can establish its own tax laws
• The Jones Act, requiring goods shipped between US ports to be carried on US- registered ships, does not apply to the CNMI [1]
The 1995 CNMI Census data showed that 53% of the population are not American citizens. Non-residents are precluded by law from certain occupations and are largely working in the tourist, garment, construction and domestic service industries [2]. The CNMI is advertised as a place for foreign workers to come for “good American jobs.” They came to pursue the American dream, but what they unwittingly walked into was a labor nightmare, complete with shadow contracts that set extremely strict guidelines that limit the personal freedoms of the workers. The immigration laws on the Marianas do not comply with US law. In addition, these laws allow uncontrolled immigration to American soil (a serious security threat) and at a direct economic benefit to Communist China, which owns many of the garment factories, casinos and sex shops on CNMI.

The garment industry itself has been dominated by Chinese manufacturers employed by such major designers as Polo-Ralph Lauren, GAP, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. These companies enjoy the fact that, as a US Territory, the Mariana sweatshops get to sew “Made in the USA” on the labels of Chinese-manufactured clothing brought in duty-free to the islands. 

Garment workers on the Marianas often aren’t paid at all, work 16-20 hour days, are forced to pay huge “recruitment fees” to foreign recruiters, live in squalid housing, are malnourished, forced by employment contracts to have abortions if they become pregnant, and fired if they attend church. Many do not even have promised jobs waiting for them when they get to the islands, and are forced by their recruiters to be a part of the islands’ growing sex trade, or face being sent back to their home country… penniless and in violation of legal contracts that could force them to see jail time.

A 1999 Department of the Interior report described that the federal government was well aware of the human rights abuses, immigration policies and minimum wage violations:

“Even though the (Federal-CNMI Initiative on Labor, Immigration and Law Enforcement) Initiative has provided increased resources to address the problems, the Administration finds that the government of the CNMI is unwilling to alter its basic immigration, minimum wage, and garment manufacturing policies, and that there are  fundamental weaknesses in CNMI law enforcement [3].”

Despite this report, the House of Representatives failed to take action, and bills proposed by Congressman George Miller and Senators Frank Murkowski and Daniel Akaka were killed in committee over 29 times in the last decade. Progress and basic human rights have been denied the immigrant workers virtually enslaved on the Marianas. There is a time to sit back and there is a time to take action. Now is the time to take action.

Please take a look at the links to the following websites. They will prove useful in your basic understanding of the desperate situation in Saipan. We all need to get educated on this issue if we expect to make ripples…

http://www.msmagazin….
http://www.hartford-….
http://www.house.gov….
http://www.americama….
http://akaka.senate…..
http://www.pacificis….
http://www.truthout…..
http://www.pacificis…

These are but a very small sampling of the diverse groups and individuals working on stopping the abuses on the Marianas. With your help writing your Congress and pledging support for Ripples of Hope, we can “build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Thank you for your time and efforts,

Neil Pople and Nick Shepard
Founders, Ripples of Hope

PS- If you are interested in pledging support for our cause, please feel free to email us at [email protected].

[1] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 25
[2] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 26
[3] U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs: A Report on the State of the Islands, 1999 page 6