Excerpt (Endnotes Omitted): At least since the early 1990s, the share of young people earning a four-year college degree has not increased as quickly as many economists would like. A higher share of young people today have college degrees than at any point in our nation’s history, yet many economists remain concerned that the […]
Subjects Archives: Inequality
Fire in My Belly
wo * * * “When he died in 1992, David Wojnarowicz, artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty. On December 1, 2010, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC celebrated World AIDS Day by capitulating to the demands of […]
Arresting Latinos for Marijuana in California: Possession Arrests in 33 Cities, 2006-08
Highlights: In the last twenty years, California made 850,000 arrests for possessing small amounts of marijuana, and half a million arrests in the last ten years, disproportionately of young Latinos and blacks. U.S. government surveys consistently find that young Latinos use marijuana at lower rates than young whites. Yet from 2006 through 2008, major […]
Death Squads in Honduras
Anyone who thinks that social and political instability in Honduras ended with the election of Porfirio Lobo as the president of the republic is mistaken, according to the Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH). Human rights violations, political persecution, and selective political murders continue to be the order of […]
For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly
For colored boys I will crucify myself like Christ let my blood purify and sanctify these words create a doctrine and go knocking door to door letting the people know that messiahs are here that we are messengers even though we embody the word queer that we are a reminder of how colonization has […]
Brazil Should Lead on Access to Essential Medicines
By the greater use of compulsory licenses, Brazil could lower drug costs not only in Brazil, but in developing countries overall. At a time when the New York Times is reporting that “the global battle against AIDS is falling apart for lack of money,” it is absolutely essential that the price of lifesaving medicines in […]
Immigration and Labor
John Schmitt: My view on immigration and how to deal with the labor market challenges is to focus on the labor market rather than to focus on the immigration issue itself. I think, if we have good, effective national labor standards that guarantee workers at the bottom have the basic minimum wage, they have the […]
Truth To Power: Guerilla Projection on FBI Headquarters Highlighting Suppression of Dissent
Starting Friday, September 24th, FBI started raiding homes and offices of anti-war organizers, accusing them of providing material support for “terrorism.” Grand juries, initially designed as a control on unlimited prosecutorial power, are now used for the purposes of unlimited fishing expeditions. — Glass Bead Collective Glass Bead Collective is a multimedia direct action […]
Jewish Boat to Gaza Sets Sail from Cyprus
At crisis point in peace talks, Jews, Israelis call to lift the siege on Gaza, end the occupation. 26th September 2010 Passengers on the Jewish Boat to Gaza gather for a group photograph before their departure. Photo by Vish Vishvanath/Metro. Passenger Reuven Moskovitz. Photo by Vish Vishvanath. A boat carrying aid for Gaza’s population […]
Racism: A Passion from Above
I’d like to add some reflections on the notion of “state racism” to our meeting’s agenda. These reflections run against a widespread interpretation of measures that our government has recently taken, from the law on the veil to the expulsions of the Roma. This interpretation detects an opportunism that is exploiting racism and xenophobia […]
Cubans Sign Books of Condolences for Lucius Walker
Among those who signed the books of condolences, leaving diverse expressions of love and respect, are students of the Latin American School of Medicine who are from the United States, the youth that the Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of Pastors for Peace, brought to Cuba. At the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos […]
Are Immigrants “Good for the Economy”?
U.S. progressives have expressed a great deal of concern about the effects of anti-immigrant hysteria in the general population, from criminal attacks on immigrants to vicious legislation like Arizona’s SB 1070. But instead of just condemning the hysteria, maybe we need to ask ourselves what we’ve been doing to counter it. Not very much, according […]
The Scandal That Wasn’t or How Not to Reform the Prison System in Illinois
As if Illinois didn’t have enough real scandals, the state’s political and journalist classes — Democratic and Republican — created another one out of whole cloth, and it’s a whopper. It has led to the firing of a respected chair of the Prisoner Review Board, the forced resignation of a newly appointed and progressive director […]
The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups
On August 26, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed the existence of a draft UN report on the most serious violations of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo over an eleven-year period (1993-2003).1 The massive draft report states that after the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s takeover of Rwanda in 1994, it proceeded to […]
Take Action against Isolation — Free Ahmad Sa’adat! International Days of Action, October 5-15, 2010
Imprisoned Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat will be returning to court in mid-October 2010 challenging his isolation and the isolation of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons. Write letters today and take action from October 5-15, 2010 in support of Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for freedom — demand an end to isolation! Ahmad Sa’adat, the General […]
Mexican Community Theater: A Different View of Immigration
In a small, crowded theater in New York’s West Village the night of August 8, a group of thirty indigenous women from central Mexico finally got a chance to perform their play before a U.S. audience. The cast, members of the community group Soame Citlalime (“Women of the Star” in Náhuatl), had spent the past […]
The Return of the Damascenes
Christa Salamandra. A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004. x + 199 pp. $21.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-21722-6; $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-34467-0. Christa Salamandra’s A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria is a thought-provoking analysis of one segment of the Syrian elite’s […]
Health Insurance
Uncle Sam: “This one can’t be left without health insurance.” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was first published in Granma. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
What Oil and Gas Companies Extract — from the American Public: It’s Time to End Unjustified Tax Loopholes for Oil and Gas Companies
In the wake of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the public and the media have turned their attention to some of the subsidies provided through the tax code to BP, the corporation that leased the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.1 The truth is that oil and gas companies have for […]
La Casa Rosa
La Casa Rosa tells the story of the necessity and difficulty of finding a way forward for every community impacted by free trade and migration. Drawing inspiration from the real lives and experiences of a group of women from the town of Tetlanohcan, Mexico, the play is the tale of two sisters struggling for […]
