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The End of Liberal Zionism - Israel's Move to the Right Challenges Diaspora Jews

Antony Lerman, Op-Ed New York Times - Sunday Review
In the repressive one-state reality of today's Israel, which Mr. Netanyahu clearly wishes to make permanent, we need a joint Israeli-Palestinian movement to attain those rights and the full equality they imply. Only such a movement can lay the groundwork for the necessary compromises that will allow the two peoples' national cultures to flourish. They should know that Israel is not Judaism. Jewish history did not culminate in the creation of the state of Israel.

America’s Continuing Border Crisis

Aviva Chomsky Truthdig
The “crisis” of Central American children crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, which lasted for months amid fervent and angry debate, is now fading from the news. Since late June 2014, the “surge” of those thousands of desperate children entering this country has been in the news. Sensational stories were followed by fervent demonstrations and counter-demonstrations with emotions running high. There is so much more to the story than what we read in the news.

Ferguson, Missouri: This Is Who We Are

Simon Balto History News Network
Violence has been an important element of law enforcement in majority-black communities since virtually the day that African Americans began moving to cities in large numbers during the first Great Migration of the late 1910s and 1920s. Put differently, to be black in an American city at the very moment that those cities were becoming the homeplaces for sizable numbers of black people meant to live in fear of what the police were capable of.

Docs, Drug Companies, Insurers Drive Up Medicare Costs

Wendell Potter Center for Public Integrity
The Hospital Trust Fund accounts for only about half of total Medicare spending. Most of the rest goes to cover physician fees, prescription drugs and to provide incentives for health insurance companies to participate in the Medicare Advantage program and administer the Medicare drug program. The Affordable Care Act could have done much more than it does to curb spending in those areas.

McDonald’s Can’t Hide Behind Franchise System

Julia Kann Labor Notes
By calling McDonald’s a “joint employer” with its franchisees, the General Counsel—that’s the prosecuting side of the NLRB—sided with workers, who argue the corporation exerts so much control over store operations that it should be held accountable for what happens under its Golden Arches. The General Counsel’s announcement will clear the way for local NLRB offices to hold the corporation, not just franchisees, accountable for the workplace abuses.

Freedom Strategy Put To The Test At Democratic National Convention

Debbie Elliot National Public Radio
Young volunteers spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi, working to register African-American voters. But leaders of the movement also had a political strategy designed to chip away at the oppressive white power structure in the South, and it was put to the test at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J.

Sanctions & the Dollar: A Fall From Grace?

Conn Hallinan Dispatches from the Edge
Unless the institutions of international finance are wrested from the control of a few wealthy nations, and unless there are checks on the ability of the U.S. and its allies to devastate a country's economy over a disagreement on foreign policy, those figures bode for some serious trouble ahead.

Looking Back at Labor Day's Turbulent Origins

Peter Rachleff Twin Cities Daily Planet
Understanding the turbulent, complicated beginning of the “Labor Day” holiday can help us to rethink the significance of this holiday today.