LA Progressive

Benghazi: Who Cares?

Ivan Eland: Less scrupulous Republicans, such as McCain and Graham, should realize that their line of attack on Benghazi is not strong–Americans don’t usually vote on foreign policy unless a huge catastrophe has occurred.
Emulating Malcolm X

Bill Fletcher Jr.: Malcolm X’s transformation cannot be understood outside of a recognition that his adoption of a belief system and a commitment to something larger than himself involved a dedication to the building of organization.
Bill Maher v Glenn Greenwald

JP Sotille: Like so many of the so-called “Left” in America, Maher has basically accepted the key notion that a whole population of like-minded people have decided to kill Americans because of an irrational religious belief system.
The Right Wing Outrage Industrial Complex’s Complicated Week

Tina Dupuy: Benghazi is a cynical attempt to gain traction with a nontroversy. The more Congress spends time investigating the less time they have to spend being ineffective at negotiating with the President.
Rep. Steve King: “Why Won’t Obama Call Tim Tebow?”

Dave Zirin: Tim Tebow is a neon distraction in a league that prefers the equivalent of men in gray flannel suits. If Tom Brady is the Don Draper of quarterbacks, then Tim Tebow is Megan Draper, flashing some skin and singing French pop songs, equal parts transfixing and excruciating.
At Universities, Too, the Rich Grow Richer

Lawrence Wittner: Although many Americans believe their universities are places where administrators and faculty members coexist on a fairly equal basis, the reality is that this is far from the case.
Ríos Montt: Accountability at Last

John Peeler: The transition to democracy, now 30 years old, has passed a major test with the trial and conviction of Ríos Montt. The impediments to full democratization remain huge, but there is still good cause for Guatemalans to celebrate.
When Homophobia Trumps Misogyny

Irene Monroe: Joyner points to the ongoing struggle in the African American community with its unresolved homophobia and misogyny that falls on the backs of its women and LGBTQ population, pitting one disenfranchised group against another.
Effort to Stop Koch Brothers’ Takeover of LA Times Gains Momentum

Steve Smith: A sale by Oaktree (which has controlling interest in the Tribune Co.) to the Kochs would be an affront to the values of Angelenos and working people everywhere.

Events

African Immigration Town Hall — May 18

Join use as we examine the unique experiences of African immigration and better understand the role of African immigrants in the national movement to reform immigration policies.

Special Screening: Trans — Sunday, May 19

It takes a special kind of courage to be who you really are.

Passing Proposition C in Los Angeles on May 21st

We’re working from all angles to get the word out and drive turnout to pass Proposition C in Los Angeles on May 21st (vote by mail begins May 1st).

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LGBT

When Homophobia Trumps Misogyny

Irene Monroe: Joyner points to the ongoing struggle in the African American community with its unresolved homophobia and misogyny that falls on the backs of its women and LGBTQ population, pitting one disenfranchised group against another.

What Niall Ferguson’s Attack on John Maynard Keynes Has Wrought

Irene Monroe: While Ferguson’s gay-bashing of Keynesian economics was to discredit Keynes and his entire body of work, it has rather done the reverse, bringing renewed international attention to a renown economist and to another one of our LGBTQ unsung forebearers.

Jason Collins: The Great Black Hope

Rev. Irene Monroe: In a sports world that has become overwhelming shaped by African American male players and masculinity, Collins coming out celebration has everything to do with timing, gender, race and many more straight brothers embracing their gay brethren.

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The Media

Bill Maher v Glenn Greenwald

JP Sotille: Like so many of the so-called “Left” in America, Maher has basically accepted the key notion that a whole population of like-minded people have decided to kill Americans because of an irrational religious belief system.

Effort to Stop Koch Brothers’ Takeover of LA Times Gains Momentum

Steve Smith: A sale by Oaktree (which has controlling interest in the Tribune Co.) to the Kochs would be an affront to the values of Angelenos and working people everywhere.

Abercrombie & Fitch’s ‘Fat Policy’ A Good Thing

Jasmyne Cannick: Protesting Abercrombie & Fitch is sending the message to children, teens, and adults that it’s okay to be fat and if people don’t accept you being fat and make clothes to accommodate your fatness that they are somehow bad.

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Law & Justice

Protesting 22 Consecutive Years in Solitary

Angola3News: Ultimately, the people of the U.S. need to rise up and fight back against the imperial prison state, which is also an imperial torture state, decimating minds, bodies, and souls throughout the country on a daily basis.

Fear and Loathing in Houston

Tom Degan: Four months ago on the day after the massacre of innocents in Newtown, Connecticut, I predicted that, in spite of the carnage, nothing would change. Nothing has. Nothing will.

More Guns, More Gun Profits, More Gun Deaths

Tina Dupuy: We lose the equivalent of a small city of Americans every year to gun violence. Each year an entire Bangor, Maine is gone. Virginia Tech has 30,000 students in total. Every year the equivalent of a Virginia Tech loses their lives.

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Environment

Urban Farming — An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Urban farming is taking root because it makes sense. It conserves dwindling water supplies, makes little plots of land productive, reduces food bills, provides healthy produce free of salmonella and chemicals and gets people off the couch and in motion.

Big Oil’s War on the Sun

JP Sotille: Just imagine—what if people could stop burning oil and gas and even coal, and just use these miracle devices to transform Old Sol’s sunny disposition into the power needed to run just about everything?

Demonizing Alternative Fuels

Tanya Acker: Renewable energy failures get a lot of attention and generate a lot of (usually spastic) activity. The successes, not so much.

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Veterans

Help Advantage US Vets Put Veterans to Work

By purchasing and dedicating commemorative bricks, Americans everywhere will be helping Advantage US Vets establish the Roots & Sprouts Farmstead as a not-for-profit workplace which will directly hire jobless honorably discharged veterans.

Women Veterans: Celebrating Service and Fighting for Change

Diane Lefer: Keynote speaker, Brigadier General (Ret) Ruth Wong, and the many highly motivated women in attendance were living examples of the positive strengths and attributes employers can find in women vets.

Lieutenant Elle Helmer at the Vietnam War Memorial, US Marine Corps.

Military Sexual Trauma: Beyond Zero Tolerance

Karen Finney: While there is much to celebrate in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act recently passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, the rights of one group of Americans remain inadequately protected: the women and men in our armed forces who are victims of military sexual trauma.

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Elections

Cruz vs. Clinton in 2016

Brent Budowsky: Don’t laugh. Ted Cruz is apparently thinking of bringing his ability to outrage a majority of voters and alienate a majority of his Senate Republican colleagues to a campaign to be commander in chief.

Don’t Vent, Organize — And “Primary” a Democrat Near You

Norman Solomon: If there’s a defining issue that now separates the Obama party leadership from social decency, it is the president’s push to cut Social Security benefits.

Prop C: Battling Big Money in Politics

David Burke: By voting yes on Proposition C, we can make it clear that individuals should be at the center of the electoral process and that corporate speech does not deserve the same level of protection as individual speech.

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