War on Poverty – 50 Years and Counting

By Harry DeRienzo

January 8, 2014 marks the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Poverty.”  This milestone provides an opportunity to review and assess our accomplishments as well as our failures.  As declared by the President later that year (1964), this war was designed to lead to a Great Society, a society the foundation for which “rests on abundance and liberty.” … Read more...

Gentrification

By Harold DeRienzo

Gentrification is not a term that is seen as being value neutral.  It is a term that has negative connotations – a formerly undesirable area becomes desirable, people with financial means move in, and poor people are forced out. … Read more...

1st Annual Bronx Gentrification Conference

1st Annual Bronx Gentrification Conference

Saturday December 7, 2013 — 3-6 Panel Discussion; 7:30 Film Screening

Bronx Documentary Center
614 Courtlandt Avenue, Bronx 10451

Harry DeRienzo, President, Banana Kelly, is a member of the panel discussing gentrification

http://bronxdoc.org/post/67662846354/1st-annual-bronx-gentrification-conference… Read more...

Response to Winston Churchill Was Right

By Harry DeRienzo

My friend, Dr. Brian Sahd, says I am becoming more conservative over time.  He goes so far to say that “Glen Beck would be proud.”  It may be true that I am becoming more conservative, if conservatism is defined through peopled-centered, accessible, and equitable economic systems that, far from degrading our humanity, enhance it; systems that are politically organized to be ever suspect of “big government,” concentrated wealth, or economic power aggregated within corporate entities. … Read more...

Winston Churchill Was Right

By Brian Sahd

I have come to the belief that DeRienzo is more conservative as time goes by.  In his latest musings DeRienzo suggests that the prognosis for the United States is not bright; America is in a state of decline. … Read more...

Theory Meeting Practice on the Streets

By Eric Goldfischer

At the Urban Convergences conference this past weekend (sponsored by the Rosa Luxembourg NYC office and hosted by the New School), a group of academics, thinkers, activists, and students got together under the banner of “Where Theory Meets the Street.”… Read more...

Neo-Liberalism and the Death of Democracy

By Harold DeRienzo

In my last blog, “National Health” Care, I posed the question of whether or not our country was in the state of decline.  This question was based on the philosophical analogy of government as a “body politic,” one that functions as a whole only as well as each of its parts function. … Read more...

1st Session of the Organizing Academy

By Jefrey Velasquez

It has been a week since Eric and I had attended our first Organizing Academy Session.  At first, we were all broken into groups and were asked to answer several questions on the whiteboard.

Share your experience of the first time you experienced injustice in your life.… Read more...

“NATIONAL HEALTH” CARE

By Harold DeRienzo

Government Shut Down; Debt Default; No Rental Subsidies; Food Stamp Cuts; Defund Obamacare; Sequester I; Sequester II.  Turn on any news show that is not programmed to mimic Entertainment Tonight and these are headlines.  The vast majority of people are suffering (or certainly struggling) and our representatives in Washington dither with brinksmanship and posturing. … Read more...