Reviewing history may help us to make better decisions for the future. Our ancestors, many of them seeking economic stability, just arrived. They had no papers - just hopes. Prejudice influenced laws. Some people came by force. Until quite recently, hard work was an expectation for acceptance. There have been times when our borders were open. The vast majority of immigrants, including those in later years who arrived without documentation, obey the laws, rear wonderful families and share a rich cultural heritage with the nation.

Read the Entire U.S. Immigration-a Brief History

From 300,000 to 500,000 new arrivals enter each year and reside in the United States without documentation, a large majority of whom work in vital sectors of our nation’s economy, such as agriculture, construction, and service. At the same time, the U.S. government has spent nearly 25 billion dollars since 1993 to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. During that period, the number of Border Patrol agents has tripled, and, tragically, more than 2,700 migrants have died in the deserts of the American Southwest.

Read the Entire Immigration Issue Paper

 

"A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil."
~ Pope John Paul II 1/27/99, St. Louis, Missouri

Read the Entire Death Penalty Paper

 

United Nations studies show that, with a handful of exceptions, growing inequality has accompanied trade and investment liberalization over the past 15 years. Researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies note a growing divide between the wealth of the worlds billionaires and the world’s poorest. The combined wealth of the world’s 475 billionaires is greater than the income of the poorest half of the world’s people. This growing inequality is an outgrowth of the increased power of globalized corporations and the loss of power of laborers. Poor nations, conscious of their unequal position in negotiations, fear economic sanctions and are powerless to challenge corporations with more power and wealth than that held by their country.

Read the Entire World Trade Organization Paper

 

In traditional breeding, members of the same or very similar species are crossed to create offspring with some novel trait. This greatly limits the genes that can be combined. Furthermore, when different but similar species are crossed, their offspring are generally infertile. For example, a donkey and a mare can make a mule, but the mule will be infertile, the end of the line for the combined genes.

GE smashes these natural barriers! Using GE, any gene from any plant, animal, bacterium, fungus or virus can be inserted into the DNA in reproductive cells of any other organism. For example, GE enables scientists to create pigs, which have human genes, genes that will be passed on to future generations of GE pigs.

Read the Entire Genetically Engineered Foods Paper

 

The racism that has permeated city administration, law enforcement, and city culture has not been effectively addressed by the periodic pressure that has been exerted through individual protests, rallies, petitions, and letters to the editor. Citizen pressure has resulted in the formation of the previous six city commissions, but never in their implementation. Former Ohio Governor John Gilligan explains that no lasting improvements resulted from the reports, because “by the time the commission came out, the community had cooled off and they just kind of got put back on the shelf and the community went back to its old ways, without any discernible change.

Read the Entire Cincinnati Boycott Paper

War is permissible to confront a real and certain danger ie. to preserve innocent life, secure basic human rights, etc. Revenge and retribution are not just causes. Neither is economic gain. UN inspectors tell us that the Iraqi nuclear program is at least 90% dismantled. The Iraqi military was a weak opponent in 1991. Now it is weaker. Neighboring countries do not seem to fear Iraq. Most, including Saudi Arabia, have asked the US not to invade Iraq. Iraq did not use chemical or biological weapons in 1991 though they did against the Kurds. The US dropped bombs containing depleted uranium that caused many serious health problems. So far, no real evidence of a connection between the terrorists responsible for September 11 and the government of Iraq has been found. An argument given for an attack is to prevent Iraq from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. This admits that they are not presently a real danger.

Read the Entire Iraq - A Just War Paper

 

On August 6, 2003 at Eden Park, people in Cincinnati marked the 58th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Remembrance ceremonies were held in solidarity with Hiroshima in cities all over the world. Local participants heard speeches, listened to music and then carried paper lanterns from Seasongood Pavilion to Mirror Lake.

In her opening remarks, Carol Rainey, Professor of English at Xavier University, warned of new victims of atomic weapons, "Pictures are now coming back of deformed babies in Afghanistan, hospitals full of cancer and leukemia victims in southern Iraq. ... Mr. Bush responded to the events of September 11 with the biggest military buildup in world history and has requested money from Congress to develop new nuclear weapons."

Read the Entire Hiroshima Remembrance Paper

Sometime before dawn on August 6, 1945, a lone B-29 bomber named Enola Gay took off from Tinian island in the Marianas, about 1500 miles southeast of Japan. Its destination was Hiroshima, on the main island of Honshu, a beautiful city known as a center for the arts. At 8:09 a.m. the plane neared the bridge over the river in the center of the city that was the intended target. A few minutes later the bomb exploded...

Three days later a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, a shipbuilding center about 175 miles southwest of Hiroshima. The casualties from these two bombs were staggering. About 130,000 people died instantly in Hiroshima and another 70,000 in Nagasaki. Another 120,000 died in the aftermath of the two explosions from radiation sickness, burns, and other wounds. Why were the two bombs dropped? Were they necessary to end the war, or were they used for other reasons? A look at history may provide some answers.

Read the Entire Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Historical Perspective Paper

 

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has told the Senate the occupation's “burn rate” runs about $3.9 billion per month. (3) US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer has estimated rebuilding costs at $100 million. “The spiraling cost of involvement in Iraq will put the US in the red by almost half a trillion dollars next year, according to a nonpartisan government report this week. The Congressional Budget Office figures mark a new record in dollar terms and suggest a near-$1.4 trillion deficit in the 10 years to 2013 where a surplus of $891 billion had been previously foreseen.

Read the Entire Iraq - What Now? Paper

 

CAFTA was negotiated between very unequal trading partners. The combined GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of Central America is equal to 0.5 percent of the GDP of the U.S. Critics in Central America claim that trade privileges were given to their countries by the Caribbean Basin Initiative 20 years ago. They say that CAFTA is more of an agreement to establish rules for investment than trade. Analysts expect that CAFTA will attract foreign direct investment and boost Central American exports in certain sectors but will provide few benefits to the rural and urban poor of the region. Free trade doesn’t lead to improve living standards.

Read the Entire CAFTA Issue Paper

 

A Social Security program achieves the goals of solidarity. All of us need to care for each other, be willing to face problems and risks together. It was designed as a pension fund that protects everyone. The concept of an “ownership society” focuses on the individual and does not see the government as a vehicle for the common good.

Read the Entire Social Security Issue Paper

 

Water is often distributed inequitably by class, gender, and even ethnic group. The poor usually pay more for water than the rich. In Lima, Peru, for example, poor people may pay a private vendor as much as $3 for a cubic meter of water, which they must collect by bucket and which is often contaminated. The more affluent pay 30 cents per cubic meter for treated water provided through the taps in their house. In Lusaka, Zambia, low income families pay, on average, half their household income on water.

Read the Entire Water Issue Paper