Inequality: A Broad Middle Class Requires Empowering Workers

Robert Borosage Campaign for America's Future
Trying to explain rising inequality without talking about unions is like explaining why the train is late – the tracks are worn, the weather is bad – without noting that one of its engines has been sabotaged.

The Wage Gap

John Oliver explores America's wage gap between men and women and proposes a possible (100% sarcastic) solution
 

Court Rules FedEx Employees Are FedEx Employees – Why This Matters

Dave Johnson Campaign for America's Future
A U.S. Appeals Court has ruled FedEx’s employees in California, Oregon, and other states with similar employee-protection laws, are FedEx’s employees, "employees as a matter of law.” The Court ruling is similar to the recent National Labor Relations Board ruling against McDonald's for similar practices, designed to circumvent labor standards by pretending their employees are independent "contractors" or employees of "franchises" or labor "contracting companies."

Global Community Must Address Deep Roots of Ebola Crisis

Sarah Lazare Common Dreams
As the World Health Organization warns the Ebola outbreak could infect up to 20,000 people, experts urge the international community to take more aggressive action to address crisis. Medical professionals fighting the Ebola epidemic on the ground in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria say it is "unacceptable" that "serious discussions are only starting now about international leadership and coordination" to fight the virus.

Secret Report Says Diablo Canyon Nuke Plant on Shaky Ground

Karl Grossman CounterPunch
A recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, kept secret for more than a year, raises serious questions about the ability of California's last remaining nuclear power plant to survive an earthquake on any of Diablo Canyon's several fault lines. The environmental group Friends of the Earth called for the immediate shut down of the plant, charging PG&E, the plant owner, and the NRC with putting profits before the "safety of millions of Californians."

"We Need a New Culture on the Left, Pluralist and Tolerant"

Marta Harnecker/translation by Federico Fuentes Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
In a wide ranging acceptance speech for the 2013 Liberator's Prize for Critical Thought, sociologist and author Marta Harnecker discusses the essential role of genuine popular participation in the revolutionary transition to "21st Century Socialism" in Latin America, exercising power in the "inherited (capitalist) state" to build the foundations of a new political system, and the fundamental need for a new pluralist and tolerant culture on the left.

Heavy Metal Songs: Contaminated Songbirds Sing Wrong Tunes

Helen Fields and Alanna Mitchell Environmental Health News
After extensive research in Virginia, scientists have shown that mercury alters the very thing that many birds are known for – their songs. Emitted by the burning of coal, mercury in the atmosphere has quadrupled since the days before industrialization. Understanding why mercury-contaminated songbirds can’t sing their songs could help scientists learn more about how human brains are damaged by mercury, too.

Documentary: The One Percent

This 80-minute documentary focuses on the growing "wealth gap" in America, as seen through the eyes of filmmaker Jamie Johnson, a 27-year-old heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. Johnson, who cut his film teeth at NYU and made the Emmy®-nominated 2003 HBO documentary Born Rich, here sets his sights on exploring the political, moral and emotional rationale that enables a tiny percentage of Americans - the one percent - to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film Includes interviews with Nicole Buffett, Bill Gates Sr., Adnan Khashoggi, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader and other luminaries.