Dwayne David Paul

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Articles

Wage theft is a critical problem. Organized labor justice is the solution.

2 months ago | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul |Michael Sean Winters

(Dreamstime/Hye Jin Kang) There are a few reasons to bluff when you've got a weak poker hand. First off, it just feels good to be a little naughty and get away with it. (Personally, I've never been able to hide my self-satisfaction, so most of my hobbies require a sourdough starter, not a poker face.) More importantly, your odds of success plummet if you're too strait-laced, because lots of other players are bluffing too. You're more likely to win when you mix in some calculated lies.
Walz is right about free school meals - and Catholics should care

Sep 10, 2024 | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul

Once Vice President Kamala Harris named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Walz's policy achievements entered the national discussion. Among the most important bills he signed into law as governor was the Free School Meals for Kids bill that went into effect July 1, 2023. The law builds upon the National School Lunch Program and the National School Breakfast Program to make free school meals a universal benefit to all Minnesota students.
It's past time for the National Tenants Bill of Rights

Aug 28, 2024 | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul |Brian Fraga |Michael Sean Winters

Housing rights activists and tenants protest against evictions and the poor condition of their apartments outside the offices of the landlord Broadway Capital in Chelsea, Mass., April 25, 2022. (OSV News/Reuters/Brian Snyder) I recently attended a webinar hosted by a coalition of housing advocates on what they have dubbed the National Tenants Bill of Rights.
Social Mysticism Can Help Us Encounter the Divine

Aug 22, 2024 | sojo.net | Dwayne David Paul

GOD SEIZED ISABELLA on Pentecost 1826. Isabella Baumfree, born in slaveholding New York, had secured her freedom. But, in despair for her children, she “looked back into Egypt.” On the verge of returning herself to slavery, God’s spirit overtook her in a mystical encounter that changed her life. This thunderclap of God’s grandeur surpassed any notions of the divine she had previously acquired. This God, at once familiar and foreign, called Isabella to abandon the faith of her owners.
Yep, Prison Labor Sounds a Lot Like Slavery.

Jun 13, 2024 | sojo.net | Dwayne David Paul

I HAD A conversation recently about an essay I’d written on prison labor in the United States. My colleague was shocked. Well into the 21st century, she mused, isn’t that a phenomenon reserved for totalitarian regimes on the other side of the planet? It’s a reasonable assumption. After all, it sounds an awful lot like slavery. The U.S. never abolished enslavement; we only regulated it.
'Cop cities' are on the rise. Catholics should be concerned.

May 9, 2024 | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul |Dennis Sadowski

Help us raise $225,000 for NCR!We have raised $87,165 from 601 supporters. We are 38.7% of the way to our goal! Demonstrators hold signs and chant slogans in Atlanta March 9, 2023, during a protest over plans to build a new police training center in public South River Forest.
Child labor law violations are at their highest in decades.

May 1, 2024 | americamagazine.org | Dwayne David Paul

One of the largest child labor cases in U.S. history was settled last year, when Packers Sanitation Services of Kieler, Wis., paid $1.5 million in penalties after a Department of Labor investigation found that the company employed at least 102 children aged 13 to 17 to clean slaughterhouses.
Landlords should be required to legally justify every eviction.

Apr 1, 2024 | americamagazine.org | Dwayne David Paul

American renters are desperate. The market is at its bleakest in generations. In January, Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies released a report describing in detail the magnitude of the affordability crisis: Half of the country’s renting households are classified as cost-burdened, meaning that they spend at least 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. This represents an increase across all income brackets, but it is most pronounced among the poorest.
WIC is in danger. Do Catholics care?

Nov 16, 2023 | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul

If Congress does not act, about 600,000 mothers, infants and small children are at risk of being waitlisted or altogether removed from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, by Friday, Nov. 17. WIC is a federal grant program facilitated by the states. Congress must appropriate funds for the program annually, and this year the funding proposals in the House and Senate fail to meet projected participation levels.
Thomas Merton's wisdom is still timely and prophetic for today's Christians

Nov 16, 2023 | ncronline.org | Dwayne David Paul |Daniel P. Horan

Last month, in the wake of the horrific violence in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Ukraine, I wrote about how the Trappist monk, author and social critic Fr. Thomas Merton's thinking about the relationship between fear and violence continues to speak to our fractured world. But Merton's thinking on nonviolence and peacemaking is not the only place the late mystic and writer's insight continues to be relevant.