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The Audacity of Obama's Farewell Address

Jack Rasmus teleSUR
True, the Republicans played hardball and blocked many of his initiatives, but Obama did little to fight back in kind. If he was a community organizer, he was from the most timid in that genre. He kept extending a hand to the Republican dog that kept biting it at every overture.

Report: Chicago Police Use Excessive Force

German Lopez Vox
Still, it’s worth emphasizing that these findings may not be exclusive to Chicago. Whether it’s Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans, or Ferguson, Missouri, the Justice Department has found horrific constitutional violations in how police use force, how they target minority residents, how they stop and ticket people, and virtually every other aspect of policing. These issues come up time and time again, no matter the city that federal investigators look at.

Israel’s Covert UK Campaign: An Insidious Threat To Be Feared

Robert Grenier Al Jazeera
The resignation of Shai Masot, the Israeli embassy’s senior political officer, is the latest fallout from Al Jazeera’s six-month investigation of Israel’s plot to influence UK politicians, which included a political “hit list” and “taking down” a British cabinet minister who criticized Israeli settlement policy. A former CIA station chief warns of such “insidious threats” and the “shame” of those who passively allow their institutions to be suborned by a foreign power.

What Should Reparations for Slavery Entail?

Ama Biney Black Agenda Report
In the light of the former British Prime Minister’s dismissal of reparations, activists must push the debate further by detailing what reparations should entail. Fundamental to a reparations program must be the fact that we transform the system of capitalism which slavery gave birth to. We must initiate a “trans-Atlantic dialogue on reparations, as well as creating progressive governments and leadership to push for a reparations program.”

The Real Face of Washington (and America)

Tom Engelhardt TomDispatch
" I deeply believed that our country was simply too special for The Donald, and so his victory sent me on an unexpected journey back into the world of my childhood and youth, back into the 1950s and early 1960s when (despite the Soviet Union) the U.S. really did stand alone on the planet in so many ways."

The Sanders’ Campaign: A Local Perspective

Peter Haberfeld The Stansbury Forum
The Stansbury Forum is proud to publish organizer and labor attorney Peter Haberfeld’s diagnostic of the Bernie Sander’s ground game in Berkeley/Oakland in the run-up to the California primary in June of 2016. Haberfeld contrasts the “organizing” work that he and his comrades attempted to do with the “mobilizing” approach of many in the national Sanders campaign, and their over reliance on social media and barnstorming meetings.

My Mother Explains Why She Never Voted

Meryl Stratford Rattle
"Imagine--a woman in the White House." As Florida poet Meryl Stratford implies about her pre-feminist mother--"It wasn’t worth the argument"-- of just how hard it is to change someone's mind when it comes to voting!

Exxon - Oil, Oil Spills, Climate Denial and "America Uber Alles"

Erika Spanger-Siegfried; Antonia Juhasz Union of Concerned Scientists
Rex Tillerson stands a good chance of being confirmed as Secretary of State. His statements about climate change adaptation, whether, hubris, ignorance, or deception talking-it's a dangerous view. It's playing with other people's lives. So why does Rex Tillerson want a job that could easily be seen as a step down in power and influence? He has unfinished business, particularly in Russia, which he likely does not trust the Trump administration to handle.