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A Nation of Immigrants? Erasure, Exclusion and the Power of Rodney Toy’s Art

Jonah Raskin

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A recent art exhibit in San Francisco got me thinking about immigrants and immigration, which has long been a hot topic in the US. I can relate on a personal level. Rodney Toy, 53, the artist ...

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One Foot in the Present, Another in the Future: Food Coops

Jonah Raskin

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The San Francisco Bay Area loves cooperatives, aka coops, which were invented in 1844 when the Rochdale Pioneers in Lancashire, England banded together to help themselves and their community. It was an auspicious beginning. 1844 was ...

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Property: Is it Theft? Is it Freedom or Is it Both? Merry Christmas!

Jonah Raskin

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Not long after Thanksgiving this year, I went to San Francisco’s Japantown (“Jtown” to locals). Surrounded by commodities for sale and in a high rent district I was reminded of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s famous remark, “La propriété, ...

On the Table: A Tale of One Un-American All-American Family

Jonah Raskin

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The dining room table that sits in a corner of my apartment is a storehouse of memories. Until I went to college, my parents, my two brothers and I sat around it and ate together almost ...

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Rain Day Blues in Frisco Town

Jonah Raskin

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When I arrived in San Francisco in May 2021, I brought with me three umbrellas, which had been useful in Sonoma County where it often rained 40 to 50 inches in a year, though there were ...

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Bagels, Grapes and Marijuana: A Day in the Country

Jonah Raskin

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I did not go to the town of Sonoma to buy bagels, but while I was there for a meeting of the Sonoma Valley Cannabis Enthusiasts (SVCE), I figured I might as well buy half-a-dozen. The ...

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Banksters: A Story of Debits and Credits

Jonah Raskin

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During the “Great Recession,” which was brought on by the banksters themselves who usually take the money and run, I wrote an article titled “Burn Down the Banks?” It was prompted by the financial crisis of ...

Social Forces and Me

Jonah Raskin

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When my beat up 2009 Jetta with 70, 000 miles was stolen on the street in front of the apartment building where I live, I felt isolated, alone and a victim. It was the big impersonal ...