Is Freddie Mac REALLY never coming back?
The Bush administration seized control this week of the scandal-ridden mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the drive for profits by the corporate executives running them threatened both the financial markets and the entire U.S. economy.
New political realignment takes shape
DENVER — Sitting in Invesco Field at Mile High here Aug. 28 was awesome. The significance of Barack Obama’s historic presidential nomination was reflected in the inter-generational crowd of 84,000, many union members, all races and nationalities, moved to activism by their own life stories under the cruel, greedy and corrupt Bush administration.
August 28, then and now
I remember as if it were yesterday walking across the Capitol Mall on Aug. 28, 1963, in sweltering heat, one of hundreds of thousands, Black and white, holding hands with courage and dignity to usher in a new day in our country.
Are state troopers spying on you?
BALTIMORE -- Imagine getting a call from the Maryland American Civil Liberties Union to inform you that the Maryland State Police’s Homeland Security and Intelligence Division entered your name in the “Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area” (HIDTA) database. This happened to me, a pacifist, on July 16.
Did hate speech lead to murder of Mexican immigrant?
Three white youths have been arrested and charged by the Schuylkill County State’s Attorney with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the murder of undocumented Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in the small Northeastern Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah. Ramirez, 25, was attacked by a group of youths as he walked home on July 12, and witnesses said that his attackers yelled anti-Mexican epithets as they beat and kicked him. A kick in the head put him into a coma and he died on July 14 in a nearby hospital.
International law? Not in Texas
The World Court has issued a ruling demanding that the United States live up to one of the most important treaties to which it is signatory, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The demand by the World Court is likely to fail because of a bizarrely arrogant stance taken by the state of Texas, but U.S. voters could make sure that the circumstances which led to this case never happen again.
Supreme Court decisions are a mixed bag
A review of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 2007-2008 term should be enough to convince doubters of the importance of a massive vote to end the far-right Republican rule in government.
EDITORIAL: Eyes on the prize
Barack Obama is not a left candidate. This fact has seemingly surprised a number of progressive people who are bemoaning Obama’s “shift to the center.” (Right-wingers are happy to join them, suggesting Obama is a “flip-flopper.”) It’s sad that some who seek progressive change are missing the forest for the trees. But they will not dampen the wide and deep enthusiasm for blocking a third Bush term represented by John McCain, or for bringing Obama by a landslide into the White House with a large Democratic congressional majority
Beyond the landslide
The candidacy of Barack Obama for president of the United States is a long stride forward toward throwing off the last vestiges of the slaveocracy. The power and strength of the rank and file upsurge is making it extremely difficult for the inner circles of the ruling class power elite to stop the forward march against their deep-seated racist policies.
The age of progress?
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels ushered in a new philosophical view in their various works. Dialectical materialism became the scientific method which made sense of the universe. It has been borne out in quantum physics and other scientific endeavors including the study of history.
