Sammy Loren, Author at Toward Freedom

The ‘Poorly Housed’ Rise Up in France

Sammy Loren April 8, 2009 Sammy Loren

Though France's endless winter is finally thawing, for tens of thousands spring time marks the beginning of another cold spell: evictions and the wild goose chase for a new place to sleep. People waiting for years to get into public housing, those living in unsafe conditions, the homeless, and those crammed into dilapidated hotels make up the over three million people in France classified as mal-logés, or the 'poorly housed.' French housing laws prohibit evictions during the winter, thus for the mal-logés, the season's changing brings little relief.

France: Workers Protest Neoliberal Response to Economic Crisis

Sammy Loren February 5, 2009 Sammy Loren

Black Thursday Protesters

Facing rising living costs, stagnant wages, and proposed reforms meant to liberalize labor and cut public spending, an estimated 1.4 million marchers came out in France on January 29th to state that they should not take the fall for a crisis that many blame on greedy bankers.

As the Banks Crumble: A Look at the Left in Switzerland

Sammy Loren November 26, 2008 Sammy Loren

Swiss Bank Bailout Protest

If the left draws the majority of its support from those at the lower rungs of the economic pecking pole - organized labor, civil servants, and the working poor - how then in Switzerland, one of the wealthiest countries, with some of the lowest poverty and unemployment rates in the post-industrialized world, does the left ever make it to public office? How on the turf of banking goliaths Credit Suisse and United Bank of Switzerland does the left not get laughed out of town?

India: Gay Pride Parade Mobilizes Against Discrimination

Sammy Loren July 10, 2008 Sammy Loren

Rainbow Pride Parade

As the locals of Calcutta, India began relaxing over tea on a humid Sunday afternoon, supporters of the city's sexual minorities, including lesbians, bisexuals, gays, transgender, Hijras (eunuchs), and heterosexuals took to the streets for a Rainbow Pride Parade. Much of India is still deeply conservative. Indeed, homosexuality in the Indian subcontinent is illegal.

Tibetan Freedom Struggle: Refugee School Points to Future

Sammy Loren December 5, 2007 Sammy Loren

The first sign that welcomes visitors reads, "Caution: Children at Play." Back in the West, a sign of this sort wouldn't even cock an eyebrow, but up in the Himalayas, it stopped me dead in my tracks. Indian street life is defined by chaos. Clogged with cars and cows, lepers and beggars, roads are forged like white water rapids, not splashed in like puddles. Yet, I'm visiting the Tibetan Children's Village, a residential school for underprivileged Tibetan refugees.

Janadesh: India’s Landless Farmer Movement Gains Momentum

Sammy Loren November 8, 2007 Sammy Loren

The generally clogged New Delhi, India streets were uncharacteristically clear on the afternoon of Tuesday October 30th, 2007. The auto rickshaws continued buzzing between pedestrians and cows, the denizens of Delhi. With the arrival of Janadesh, a movement of 25,000 landless farmers and tribal people who drilled into New Delhi just days before, one would have expected a city under siege. Raj Gopal, the leader of the protesters, warned that if the government decided to ignore the people's demands, it should start "making arrangements for picking up the bodies of those who had participated in the march."