Social Security Versus National Security

The U.S. “national security” budget is still the third rail of politics in this country.

How Democrats and Progressives Undermined the Summit

Most Democrats in Congress are now locked into a modern Cold War mentality that endangers human survival.

James Haslam To Step Down From VT Rights and Democracy

“It’s been quite the roller coaster of a historical period to be having an organization called ‘Rights & Democracy,’” James Haslam said.

Disaster Capitalism: Puerto Rico Plunged into Darkness

“This is a classic example of disaster capitalism,” says Arturo Massol-Deyá, executive director of Casa Pueblo, a community-based natural resources conservation and sustainable development group.

Media Bits and Bytes - June 15, 2021

Media regulation — who, which, when, how? Also Ransomware, BitClout and Roblox

Organizing Poultry Workers: Start Learning Together

These workers have a beautiful voice, a powerful voice. The only problem is that nobody wants to hear them.

Where is the State of Emergency?

How do we manage that rage and indignation and re-channel them as something liberatory against systems of oppression, not in a way that reinforces those systems?

Make Normalizing Relations with Cuba a Priority

With the stroke of a pen, Biden could lift trade and travel restrictions and allow unrestricted remittances to Cuba, alleviating needless pandemic suffering.

There Is No Labor Shortage, Only Labor Exploitation

"This moment provides opportunities to raise wage demands, but it must be a moment where workers organize in order to sustain and pursue demands for improvements in their living and working conditions.”

Coming Home: Jeanette Lazam Returns to the I-Hotel

The I-Hotel struggle helped to forge a unified Filipino community linking elderly immigrants from the early twentieth century and young people who were raising their consciousness of ethnic pride and their awareness of racial and class inequities.
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Culture

food

Black Communities Have Always Used Food as Protest

Amethyst Ganaway Food & Wine
Beginning with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black people in America have used food as a means of resistance, rebellion, and revolution as well as maintaining a closeness with one another through the meals they ate.

poetry

Poem with an Ear Pressed to the Ground

Kindra McDonald Rattle
“So much of this last year has been about breath and breathing,” writes the poet Kindra McDonald, referring to respirators and the words “I can’t breathe.”

books

The Railway: An Adventure in Construction

Dragan Plavšić Counterfire
E. P. Thompson a leader among British youth in constructing a Yugoslav railway in 1947. The reviewer faults the book, for boosting the communist regime while exaggerating the role played by the nation’s workers, even as he lauds Thompson’s later work

books

After Homosexuality

Kate Redburn Dissent
This book is "an ambitious retelling of the history of capitalism through the politics of gay sex, arrives just in time to help dissuade us of the idea that we have reached the end of gay history."

Labor

labor

There Is No Labour Shortage, Only Labour Exploitation

Sonali Kolhatkar Naked Capitalsm
If the hyperbolic claims are to be believed, American workers are luxuriating in the largesse of taxpayer-funded payments, thumbing their noses at the benevolent and generous employers who are struggling to fill job vacancies.

labor

A Backroom Deal To Kill Single Payer

Julia Rock The Daily Poster
Under pressure from labor leaders and insurance execs, NY Dem leaders are blocking a vote on health care legislation even though it has majority support in the legislature.

labor

Trump-inspired Death Threats are Terrorizing Election Workers

Linda So Reuters
Flag that says stop the steal Election officials and their families are living with threats of hanging, firing squads, torture and bomb blasts, interviews and documents reveal. The campaign of fear, sparked by Trump's voter-fraud falsehoods, threatens the U.S. electoral system.

labor

Paid Sick Leave is a Women’s Health Issue

Cecille Joan Avila Prism
A woman’s ability to take the time they need to care for their health should never come at the expense of lost income, nor depend on the income they make or the industry they work in.

labor

Fighting for Coal Country

UMWA Journal
Working to preserve what we have now is what’s important. That’s what started the labor movement. Keeping the union strong and alive is about securing the jobs we have now and finding real solutions to transitioning to new ones.

Friday nite video

video

Is Most Published Research Wrong?

Mounting evidence suggests a lot of published research is false. But it's a lot better than denying published science.

video

Why the US Government Murdered Fred Hampton

This is the story of an assassination, and a coverup. But Fred Hampton's story is about much more than the raid that took his life: the movement he helped create was unique, and revolutionary.