Editorial: Union organizing helps the economy
The labor movement’s nationwide drive to get a minimum of 1 million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act is close to the 75 percent mark. It has caught on like wildfire.
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.
Calif.s most vulnerable in peril with state budget still in limbo
If California’s budget, now stalled since July 1, isn’t resolved by the end of the Labor Day holiday, it will set a dismal new record.
Railroading immigrants and the Constitution
Federal immigration officials swept into Postville, Iowa, in May and detained nearly 400 workers at a kosher meat processing plant. Swiftly, local enforcement and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency arrested, charged with crimes, extracted pleas and sentenced 297 of these individuals by the end of the following week. Apparently, this shock and awe strategy was specially designed to drop the hammer on undocumented workers doing backbreaking jobs under reportedly sub-optimal conditions.
Letters: August 30
Fighting for single payer Georgia-Russia-South Ossetia The left and World War I State budget crises
Editorial: Swifter, higher, stronger
The Olympic motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Swifter, Higher, Stronger) was never so dramatically enacted as during the 29th Olympiad in Beijing these past two weeks. We watched in awe as U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals.
Editorial: The Paris Hilton compromise
In her response to John McCain’s use of her name and image to attack Barack Obama in a recent TV ad, Paris Hilton proposed an interesting energy policy: combine new offshore oil drilling with serious investment in clean energy alternatives like plug-in hybrids and wind and solar power. Apparently when Paris talks, people listen. A remarkably similar bipartisan bill is making its way through the Senate right now.
Editorial: Some questions for the GOP
Fifteen thousand members of the press are covering the historic events at the Democratic Party convention in Denver. Next week the same number will cover the Republican convention in the Twin Cities. After Denver, many of them may wonder how to cover the smaller, less exciting event.
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.
