Skip to main content

How Montanans Stopped the Largest New Coal Mine in North America

Nick Engelfried Waging Nonviolence
The coming together of ordinary people — first in southeast Montana, then an ever-growing number of communities throughout the Northwest —to oppose the Otter Creek mine says much about how land defenders and climate activists are learning to fight back against the planet’s biggest energy companies. The roots of this recent victory go back more than 30 years.

The U.S. Working Class - Two Quick Snapshots

Robert E. Scott and David Cooper / Cherrie Bucknor and Dean Economic Policy Institute
1) Still Working Hard: An Update on the Share of Older Workers in Physically Demanding Jobs 2) Almost Two-Thirds of People in the Labor Force Do Not Have A College Degree

The Powerpuff Girls Are Back - And Their Timing Is Perfection

K.M. MCFARLAND Wired
Upending the patriarchy was always a part of Powerpuff storylines, as trio demolished villain after cackling villain en route to saving the bumbling Mayor of Townsville (voiced by Tom Kenny). That’s not going to change. If anything, the new series will go further, providing commentary both nostalgic Millennials and younger viewers can grok.

New Labor's Debt to Saul Alinsky?

Mike Miller CounterPunch
Jane McAlevey is a union organizer and a critic of what is generally thought of as the U.S. “labor reform” movement. In this review of her article, I separate her criticism of labor—which I think has merit—from its attribution to Saul Alinsky—which I find without merit.

Berry Farmworkers Toil 12 Hours A Day For $6. Now They’re Demanding A Raise.

Esther Yu-Hsi Lee ThinkProgress
For the past three years activists have been fighting hard for unionization efforts for farmworkers supplying berries for Driscoll’s in the United States and in Mexico. In 2014, workers in Washington state went on strike after complaining that the piece-rate wage was set too low. Sakuma Farms allegedly brought in hundreds of guest workers under a H-2A visa program to replace the strikers, The Progressive reported.

The Antibiotics Dilemma: Running Out of Drugs to Treat the Superbugs

Keri Phillips Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National
Growing resistance to antibiotics now allows long-treatable diseases to once again become killers. Yet, pharmaceutical companies are sacking their antibiotic researchers. Even with the looming threat of drug resistant “superbugs,” there are now less than 1,500 researchers who know how to develop antibiotics. It’s a problem rooted in the market-driven nature of the pharmaceutical industry. Big Pharma makes more money by making expensive drugs and selling a lot of them.

Uncharted Territory: Are We in a New American World?

Tom Englehardt TomDispatch
This is not war as we once knew it, nor is it government as we once understood it, nor are these elections as we once imagined them, nor is this democracy as it used to be conceived of, nor is this journalism of a kind ever taught in a journalism school. This is the definition of uncharted territory. A new, more frightening America is emerging and we can’t blame it all on Donald Trump. For it is this new America-in-formation that has paved the way for him.