Teach Our Workers Well: Open Letter to Governor Cuomo
Dear Governor Cuomo, I teach economics to construction workers at the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies in New York City, which is a part of Empire State College. Because of the...
View ArticleWhy Democratic and Republican Parties Don’t Dare Let the People Decide
The inept response of our leaders in Washington, D.C., to nationwide protests following the police murder of George Floyd can best be depicted with two images. First, there was the image from June 1 of...
View ArticleLet Us Name the System: “Racial Capitalism”
If you’ve been watching mainstream TV news programs lately, you’ve probably noticed that a number of corporate journalists – prodded by the marvelous protests against police violence – seem to have...
View ArticleToo Many Black Kids in America are Born in Shackles
“I can’t breathe,” pled George Floyd in Minneapolis and Erik Garner in New York City and Javier Ambler in Austin, Texas, before police killed them. Amid the protests against brutality, Rayshard Brooks...
View ArticleWhite Privilege: The Psychic Wage, Mass Incarceration and Class Solidarity
White Skin Privilege White privilege is a thing. It’s just not the same thing the corporate Democrats use to boss us around with. The concept of white privilege was not invented by some liberal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wilderness and Cows
Cattle grazing in the Mohave National Preserve. Photo by George Wuerthner The 1964 Wilderness Act requires federal agencies to protect and manage designated wilderness areas “to preserve its natural...
View ArticleWas It Only “Fear Itself?”: FDR and Today
“Movement” politics is how the people flex their power, while electoral politics under the corporate duopoly is the domain of the moneyed classes. — Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report While it’s myth that...
View ArticlePolicing Is Irrelevant for Public Safety—Here Are Some Alternatives That Work
Recent protests, catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, call for an end to racist police violence. With their actions, the protesters have also moved beyond many of the stale policing...
View ArticleCutting State and Local Budgets is an Attack on the Country’s Black Workers
Congress is currently debating whether the next pandemic rescue package should include substantial aid for state and local governments. These governments are experiencing massive budget shortfalls as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Confessions of a White Privileged Radical
In a time when Americans are inundated by messages of “support the troops,” and “honor our veterans,” and simultaneously veterans continue to commit suicide at alarming rates, go homeless and hungry,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview with a Tree-Sitter
View from the tree-sit (Photo courtesy Redwood Forest Defense) On June 9th and 12th, I interviewed Lupine, a tree-sitter who is currently participating in a Redwood Forest Defense campaign to stop...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Age of Disappointment (Or How the American Century Ends )
Let me rant for a moment. I don’t do it often, maybe ever. I’m not Donald Trump. Though I’m only two years older than him, I don’t even know how to tweet and that tells you everything you really need...
View ArticleTime to Act on Dr King’s Call to Tackle Evils of Racism, Economic...
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) just issued its 2020 Yearbook, reporting on developments in armaments, disarmament, and international security. In light of the drumbeat of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Paradox of Police Unions
Photograph Source: Chad Davis – CC BY 2.0 The history of the American labor movement is rich and diverse—diverse, exhilarating, depressing, inspirational and heartbreaking. Ever since passage of the...
View ArticleA Beautiful Movement and Horrible Choices
The resurgent Black Lives Matter movement plus its allies is the most beautiful, inspiring movement since the Sixties. It is unprecedentedly diverse. It is angry, determined, grimly serious when not...
View ArticleAmputating Capitalism
“We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal...
View ArticleIn Praise of the Floyd Rebellion and Statue Desecration
As protests and uprisings sweep across the nation and world, America’s profane aesthetics face extinction — desecrations of Christopher Columbus, Robert E Lee and Frank Rizzo, all symbols of whiteness...
View ArticleThe Second COVID Wave and the US Economy
Over the past week evidence keeps growing that the US has entered a second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic. More than 117,000 Americans thus far have died in just the past three months and more than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dams Be Gone
Somewhere in my mother’s photo albums is a picture taken by my father of the teenage me standing on a viewing platform above the Dry Coulee Dam in central Washington State. Behind me, like a sublime...
View ArticleWhy Trump Should Resign
Donald Trump should resign as president in light of a profile of disgrace about him by his onetime national security adviser, John Bolton. Bolton’s long-awaited book about a president who has been...
View Article