By John Johnson As we go to press that jetliner is still missing in the Indian Ocean. Amid confusion in the Middle East, world powers maneuver to seize the Ukraine. Russia appears to have annexed the Crimea, but at the moment the US and United Nations retain some control over the Ukraine. Various factions in Syria, Iran and Iraq and Al-Qaeda continue lobbing missiles at each other, and, as always, the killing [...]
by Linda Johnson Hoffman My brother, John Johnson, was an icon of the ‘60s. That decade personified his life and it was where he felt most comfortable. Growing up in North Hollywood with our parents and our older brother, Eric, my brothers and I all attended the same elementary, junior and senior high schools. Johnny always looked up to Eric because he admired his intelligence, perseverance and gregarious personality. While Johnny was shy [...]
By Paul Krehbiel John Johnson, publisher and editor of Change-Links newspaper, passed away April 13, 2014 while preparing the May issue of a newspaper loved and relied upon by thousands of progressive political activists in Los Angeles and southern California. He would have turned 70 on July 4, 2014. John was in his 21st year with Change-Links, most as publisher. Founded as a result of the Winds of Change conference held in Los [...]
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by John Johnson Last month we got an email from the Getty Foundation. They demanded $350 from Change- Links, claiming that we used one of their photos on a page from our Website from about three months ago. On it, we’d ran an article about a homeless families. To illustrate it I chose a photo I found on the Web of a homeless family. A number of years ago the Getty empire [...]
by Sonali Kolhatkar If the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling was not devastating enough for American democracy, a new case could wipe away any remaining vestige of election integrity. The nation’s highest court heard oral arguments in McCutcheon vs. Federal Election Commission this month. If the court rules in favor of Alabama mining CEO Shaun McCutcheon, rich Americans could make unlimited amounts of campaign contributions directly to political candidates and parties. [...]
We should thank all the volunteers who have help Change-Links since the beginning. We have other editors who taught me how to put the newspaper together. All those who have helped distribute Change-Links every month. A mainstay has been Dean who gets them out on the Westside and elsewhere and makes it by for every mailing meeting. Chuck from Orange County. Franco who has helped in the Pasadena area until he had [...]
Pretend All You Like, It’s Still Class Warfare by DAVID MACARAY It’s an old joke, but it bears repeating: An Oxford professor meets a former student on the street. He asks what he’s been up to lately. The student tells him he’s working on a doctoral thesis about the survival of the class system in the United States. The professor expresses surprise. “I didn’t think there was a class system in the United [...]
We have come, as a nation, almost full circle back to the deeply unequal America of the late 1920s. The future just keeps getting brighter for Americans with unique specialties. Randy Stearns has one such specialty: “home-tech integration.” Stearns helps people install and maintain high-tech gadgets. But we’re not talking “geek squad” and hooking up home networks here. We’re talking rich people — and electronic toys that can cost more than houses. [...]
By John Johnson Hi John, I think you’ve landed on a significant observation. While I’m not certain that the bloated lords of Greed would ever abandon a target consumer (nor do I believe they’ve lost interest in us - witness all the garish obnoxious commercials), impoverished demographics seem to spend hugely disproportionate amounts of money on worthless shit that gives them the temporary illusion of status. Was it John Steinbeck who said [...]
by https://www.commondreams.org/bill-quigley Bill Quigley “We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted…the Patriot Act. As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when [...]
By John Johnson I sit at my computer on a warm-hot summer day in the Valley, unsure about what I want to write. I turn to MSNBC and see photos and reports celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Among the main speakers are Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, and in a second I’m carried back to 1963. Back to the days of real hope, love and friendships. I sit [...]
