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Cops of the Pacific? The U.S. Military’s Role in Asia in the Age of Trump

Tim Shorrock TomDispatch
Donald Trump is certainly an unpredictable figure, but at the moment it looks like the only genuine opponents of the status quo may be the democratic opposition movement in South Korea, the anti-base movement in Okinawa, and what remains of the peace movement in the United States. Unfortunately, while the Pentagon has been focused on the military situation in Asia, the American antiwar movement has largely left Asia behind in the decades since the Vietnam War ended.

The Green Party Should Stop Running Presidential Candidates

Tom Gallagher opEdNews
Could the Greens survive and even thrive as a strictly local party? Perhaps -- Canada does provide a nearby example of voters frequently supporting one party in local elections and another in national. But what does seem clear is that the Greens will not thrive as a presidential party. If Jill Stein wants to run, let her enter the Democratic primaries -- I might vote for her.

Walter Rodney and the Racial Underpinnings of Global Inequality

Tianna Paschel Items: SSRC
While inequality has become a topic of increased popularity and politicization in recent years, most of the attention has focused on how 1% own an increasingly large share of the world’s wealth, rather than on inequalities between nations. In a global context in which national borders and citizenship pose few barriers to the mobility of capital, the reality is also a story of the world’s richest nations continuing to reap a disproportionate amount of the globe’s profits.

What Percent Virus Are You?

Hannah Moots FiveThirtyEight
With advances in genome sequencing and computational tools to analyze genomic information, researchers are able to estimate that about 8 percent of the human genome is made of sequences that originated as invasive retroviruses. To put that number in perspective, genes make up about 1 percent to 1.5 percent of your genome.

Following Negotiations, No Rockettes Will Be Required to Perform at Inauguration

Maggie Penman National Public Radio
After a stern message to the dancers from their own union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, reminding them of the terms of their contracts and that refusal to perform at Trump's inauguration could result in termination, both the employer and the union have issued new statements. However, the AGVA emphasized the original compulsory contract terms by saying the there was no room for politics in the workplace.

Ohio Factory Workers Fight for a Union: "Everyone Deserves a Seat at the Table"

Jeff Schuhrke Working In These Times
The Fuyao plant in Ohio illustrates changing trends in U.S. manufacturing jobs, which are beginning to resemble jobs in the fast food and retail sectors. While manufacturing is still popularly associated with living wages and competitive benefits, one-third of the families of frontline factory workers are now forced to go on public assistance due to substandard pay and benefits...

The Scandal of Vast Inequality in Retirement Pay

Lawrence Wittner History News Network
And there’s also CEO David Cote of Honeywell―a company that has locked out its workers from its factories in Green Island, NY and South Bend Indiana for seven months for rejecting a contract that eliminated workers’ pensions―who receives a monthly retirement check from the company for $908,712.