by Michael Parenti An urban slum in Hanoi, Viet Nam. (Photo: Flickr / United Nations / Creative Commons)The world's 85 richest individuals possess as much wealth as the 3.5 billion souls who compose the poorer half of the world's population, or so it was announced in a report by Oxfam International. The assertion sounds implausible to me. I think the 85 richest individuals, who together are worth many hundreds of billions of [...]
Pussy Riot Being Followed by the Moscow Police Change Links March 2014 Calendar Volunteer: Change-Links Change-Links needs a VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR to assist John in bringing together people to determine the necessary resources for continuing CL with the permanent, reliable status it enjoyed for over 20 years. The VC and all other positions are unpaid due to CL’s low budget and the fact that the newspaper is available free citywide and to subscribers [...]
It's the Physical Cliff, Stupid We can lead at Doha and address our economic woes by John Atcheson OK. There’s the fiscal cliff – a self-inflicted economic hotfoot, but nothing irrevocable. Then there’s the physical cliff – the remorseless warming of our planet driven by human emissions and the laws of physics, already irrevocable, and drifting toward a full-scale planetary disaster of biblical proportions if we don’t take drastic actions. As the [...]
The Growing Global Movement Against Austerity by Amy Goodman Amaia Engana didn’t wait to be evicted from her home. On Nov. 9, in the town of Barakaldo, a suburb of Bilbao in Spain’s Basque Country, officials from the local judiciary were on their way to serve her eviction papers. Amaia stood on a chair and threw herself out of her fifth-floor apartment window, dying instantly on impact on the sidewalk below. She [...]
Election Over: 5 Hard Realities Progressive Have to Face About Obama By Jeff Faux Democrats must start mobilizing their own agenda now. And the first step is to face the truth about Obama's record. November 18, 2012 | Terrorized by the prospect of a complete takeover of the U.S. government by right-wing reactionaries—progressive Democrats swallowed their unhappiness with Barack Obama throughout the campaign. They gamely defended his policies on the economy, health [...]
It’s Election Time Again, Yea More ranting from John Johnson I participated in the 1964 election, having been involved in supportive actions for the civil rights movement that was taking place in the South. Some of us were already working in groups, including the Young Democrats. Our main target was the reactionary Birch Society’s candidate, Barry Goldwater. We worked for Johnson and local politicians going door to door. We worked for [...]
Toward Barbarism United States Imperialism Unleashed by BEN SCHREINER With signs of a global economic downturn mounting, US aggression across the Middle East and North Africa ratchets up. And once again, US imperialism stands poised to swing open the gates of Hell. The choice presently confronting humanity, then, is one between imperialism on the one hand, and the struggle against imperialism on the other. Global Capitalism Imperiled According to the IMF’s [...]
5 Ways America Is Being Hollowed Out by Unfettered Corporate Greed Paul Buchheit There's no free market -- just businesses doing whatever they please with virtually zero accountability. Conservatives believe that enriching individuals will eventually enrich society, and that government should not get in the way of the process. This is what happens as a result: (1) The tax loss from one scheming businessman could have paid the salaries of 30,000 nurses [...]
More Than 46 Million Americans Still in Poverty Salvatore Babones 15 percent of the US population lives in poverty. The poverty rate for children remains more than 20 percent for the third year in a row. As state anti-poverty programs around the country confront severe budget cuts, today's report indicates income inequality has reached an all-time high. According to Census Bureau figures released today, 15 percent of the US population lives in poverty. [...]
Occupy: Five Things The Movement Did Well Occupy Wall Street (Creative Commons). From its origin on Wall Street to its re-creation in Los Angeles, the Occupy movement has spanned from coast to coast, cropping up in various cities and media coverage across the nation. The movement has been criticized for not having defined demands or goals, and some question whether the movement has had a tangible effect on politics. Nevertheless, Occupy has [...]
Corporate Fascism By John Johnson The current media onslaught of political mud slinging and hate-based self-promotion (“I’m tougher on immigration than my opponent,” for example) is beyond absurdist/comical. The world totters at the edge of disastrous climate change. Wall Street, banks and corporations are putting the cash they swindled into Cayman island accounts, destroying most of the world’s economies. Including our own. The war against women, abortion and contraception [...]
Sad But True: Corporate Crime Does Pay By David Morris Almost daily we read about another apparently stiff financial penalty meted out for corporate malfeasance. This year corporations are on track to pay as much as $8 billion to resolve charges of defrauding the government, a record sum, according to the Department of Justice. Last year big business paid the SEC $2.8 billion to settle disputes. Sounds like an awful lot of [...]