PRESIDENT OBAMA “THROWS IN THE TOWEL” ON POPULISM AND “INTEGRITY” IN HIS ADMINISTRATION Two obscure cabinet appointments with an outsized impact on the daily lives of Americans made by President Obama in the last month offers a startling look at the true course the president’s second term will take, argues Norman Solomon. Penny Pritzker [...]
(SOMEBODY’S) “WAR GAMES” BEGIN IN SYRIA—BUT WHOSE GAMES AND TO WHAT PURPOSE? These are questions without definitive answsers as devastating air strikes hit targets near Damascus. Syrian officials, noting that only Israeli forces would have the firepower in the area to deliver such blows, accuse Israel of perpetrating them, though Israel officially denies this. [...]
WILL “KEYSTONE COPS,” IN THE NAME OF “SECURITY,” BE SUPPRESSING PROTEST AGAINST KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE IN NEBRASKA? Local officials of the pipeline company behind the oil company, TransCanada, are in negotiations with local police enforcement agents about using “off duty” police officers to insure against “violence” among the protesters. The local protest group, Bold [...]
FOILED BY CONGRESS, GUN CONTROL ADVOCATES TURN TO STATE BALLOTS IN BID TO END VIOLENCE. Lawmakers and organizations in several states are considering whether to place gun-related amendments such as universal background checks on state ballots as soon as the 2014 elections.Though the piecemeal approach is not ideal, activists are beginning to tire of [...]
THE POOR IN AMERICA: THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES. In what Mike Whitney calls the “lousiest recovery of all time,” the U.S. economy has recovered from the recession of 2007 in only one respect: in booming profits in the stock market and elsewhere on Wall Street. Meanwhile unemployment remains high, real wages [...]
COLOMBIA: “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY BEING CARRIED OUT IN OUR NAME.” This is labor activist Daniel Kovolak’s characterization of the Free Trade Agreement passed by Congress and signed by the President. This agreement, when implemented, will result among other things in huge amounts of U.S. agricultural products being “dumped” tariff-free in Colombia, creating wholesale displacement [...]
“THERE ARE ALWAYS WAYS TO WORK FOR PEACE.“ So says Kathy Kelly, describing some of her work with Afghan Peace Volunteers. Besides urging international action to demand and enforce a cessation of hostilities in the country, APV supports a collective of Afghan women who work to create vital supplies of bedding and warm clothing [...]
RED TIDE IN THE SARASOTA COUNTY, FLORIDA SUNSET? NOT QUITE YET. Sarasota Herald Tribune reports the “good news” that a red tide bloom that has left many dead fish on county beaches seems to have moved further offshore into the Gulf of Mexico. Still, the newspaper publishes a picture of the shore near the [...]
HOW AN ECONOMIC BOOM CAN BE A BUST FOR LABOR. THE USA? NOT THIS TIME, BUT SOUTH KOREA. A report of the International Trade Union Confederation makes this point about the economy of South Korea, often upheld as a “model” of what an Asian economy can be. If so, it is not a model [...]
IT’S ELECTION TIME, ISN’T IT? TIME FOR BOTH PARTIES TO DO A LITTLE CHINA-BASHING. Both Romney and Obama vie for union votes by blaming trade policies of China for the woeful state of the labor economy in the U.S. Romney accuses Obama is being too “soft” on China while the President announces at a [...]
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