THE UNITED CASTES OF AMERICA. Upward economic mobility and the basic premise of the “American Dream” have been been eradicated, argues economist Joseph Stiglitz. Decades of regressive economic and social policies — policies wholly accepted and perpetuated by the current presidential administration — have severed a large and growing segment of the country from [...]
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: IF YOU ONLY READ ONE BOOK ON THE HISTORY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY. Anti-war activist Ron Jacobs recommends Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin’s Blacks Against Empire as that book. Jacobs notes how the BPP was demonized in the press and persecuted by Cointelpro operations against groups suspected of “domestic violence” [...]
WHERE ARE SEATTLE KIDS GOING TO FIND A 38-FOOT HIGH DIVING PLATFORM WHEN THE “RAMPS TO NOWHERE” ARE TORN DOWN? Ramps connected to the Route 520 highway have been abandoned for 40 or more years when plans to make various connections to the road were dropped after citizen protests. One of these will [...]
LASSO THAT ICEBERG, COWBOY! Exxon Mobil prepares massive oil drilling off the coast of Newfoundland, ironically near the point at which the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg. To ally any fears that another iceberg could produce an even larger environmental disaster, the company plans to construct concrete towers taller than the Eiffel Tower [...]
WHAT DO SAUDI ARABIA, BAHRAIN AND QATAR HAVE IN COMMON? First, they are “monarchical regimes” within which are found some of the most barbaric labor practices in the world, often featuring immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Second, they are the closest of allies of the United States in its determined policy in fomenting insurrection in a “humanitarian [...]
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN LOOKS AT THE GLOBE AND FINDS TURMOIL AND THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT IN THE “MIDDLE RUN” FUTURE. While predictions for a given year are a “fool’s mission” and those for centuries in the future only too easy to make, those for the “middle run” of a decade or so hence are subject to [...]
THE HOUSING RECOVERY: IT’S NOT FOR HOMEOWNERS. Darwin Graham Bond gives a crash course in how real estate investment companies are snapping up mortgage-foreclosed properties and are helping to transition homeowners into house renters. The extremely low rates of the Federal Reserve are feeding this frenzy of investments that, as far as housing is [...]
BLACK EMANCIPATION: LINCOLN’S HORSE-TRADING OR FREDERICK DOUGLAS’S STRUGGLE? Louis Proyect deconstructs the message behind the Stephen Spielberg movie “Lincoln” based on a screenplay by Tony Kushner. While ostensibly about the 16th U.S. President, the Kushner/Spielberg effort seems more like an indirect ode to the present one, depicting Lincoln as, like Obama, a wheeler-dealer [...]
SOMETHING IS EATING AWAY AT THE SEA SHELLS IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN. British oceanographic report publicizes the fact that Antarctic waters are showing ominous indications that acidification of oceans resulting from CO-2 contamination is destroying the shells which are the basis of the marine and bird food chain. (Common Dreams) ` FIFTEEN ASIAN NATIONS [...]
BRITISH MP’S PLAY THE JUNKET GAME FOR TRIPS TO ISRAEL: PRO- AND ANTI-ISRAELI LOBBY GROUPS PICK UP THE TAB. Conflicts involving Israel may be deadly for Gazans and Israelis, but they are an opportunity for MPs to pick up a paid trip the only “price” of which is that they issue statements of support [...]
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