Gareth Porter: U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
A Higher Truth in Libya
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William Blum: In fact, it appears rather likely that a majority of Libyans supported Gaddafi. How else could the government have held off the most powerful military forces in the world for more than seven months?
Occupy Movement Enlists New Activists for Social Change Struggles
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Randy Shaw: Occupy has gone beyond the usual suspects and given a new generation of activists a desperately needed vehicle for advancing progressive change.
Lynching Alive and Well in America
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Jessie Daniels: When I see the cheering from a crowd over people dying – dying by state-sponsored lethal injection or the slower death by neoliberalism from a lack of health care – it frankly makes me question how strong our collective political will might be for ending the death penalty.
Big-Drama Obama
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Brent Budowsky: The Truman metaphor is right for Obama, but it must presage a sustained battle for jobs, and not another brief theatrical scene in an incoherent drama with an inconclusive ending.
Separation Anxiety
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Wendy Block: My worst long-range political nightmare is watching the next Republican president appoint even one Supreme Court justice (Go Ralph Nader for President in 2000!).
North Dakota’s Economic “Miracle”—It’s Not Oil
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Ellen Brown: North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008.
New York Times Smacks Down Darrell Issa’s Demand
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Lee Fang: In responding, Dean Baquet, the assistant editor of the Times, debunked claims of factual inaccuracies listed by Issa spokesman concerning a major investigation it had published two weeks ago.
Prettying the Porker’s Puss, Republican Style
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Berry Craig: This union-card carrying Hubert Humphrey Democrat from Kentucky — where Steve Beshear, our second-term-seeking, union-endorsed Democratic governor is up two dozen points over his Scott Walker-wannabe Republican challenger in a recent bellwether poll — hopes Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s “way forward” will include a recall election that will unemploy him, too.
Michele Bachmann: A Serious Candidate?
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Stanley Kutler: Bachmann is so obviously an off-the-wall politician, one deservedly dismissed as a fringe candidate. But ironically, the liberal media have propelled her rise from well-deserved mediocrity to suddenly a “serious” candidate
As Food Stamp Numbers Hit Record Highs, Luxury Sales Boom
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Randy Shaw: While Democrats are not nearly as zealous or extreme in their policy proposals, there is now a bipartisan consensus that budget deficits – not unemployment or poverty – are the nation’s top problem.
How Debt Ceiling Crisis Reelects Obama
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Tom Hall: The mainstream media has had little to say about Obama’s accomplishments. Why would they? The mainstream media is owned by, and serves, a handful of huge corporations in New York.
Nixon’s “Decent Interval” Vietnam Strategy Should Give Obama Pause
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Ken Hughes: Forty years ago this month, President Richard Nixon quietly sold South Vietnam down the river for political gain.
Crunch Time for Public Sector Unions
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Shamus Cooke: Public sector unions must mobilize their members and the community they serve to fight back. They have no other choice if they are to remain powerful or even relevant.
Why Teach For America Is Not Welcome in My Classroom
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Mark Naison: Every spring, without fail, a Teach for America recruiter approaches me and asks if they can come to my classes and recruit students for TFA, and every year, without fail, I give them the same answer: “Sorry.”
The National Education Association Flunks a Crucial Test
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Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer: As long as the N.E.A. as well as organized labor in general remain tied to the corporate-dominated Democratic Party, public education will deteriorate, critical thinking will be undermined, wages will remain low, and the working class will continue to suffer a decline.
At What Point Does the GOP Become a Hate Group?
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David Love: There is no question, based on the evidence, that the GOP is that peculiar institution in which people thrive, based on an alternate set of facts, divorced from reality.
Christie, Kasich Win Media Cheers While Public Pays the Price
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Randy Shaw: Eliminating this human element allows Christie, Kasich and others to avoid appearing like plutocrat-serving elitists who do not care about common people.
Gay Marriage Offers Lessons for Immigration Reform
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Randy Shaw: Gay rights advocates have been far more publicly critical of the President than immigrant rights groups, and have done a far better job of holding Obama accountable for his actions rather than his words.
Obama’s Disappointing Peace Plan
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Rebecca Griffin: Unfortunately, the president’s plan allows the war to last indefinitely and leaves in place almost twice as many troops as when he came in office. The American and Afghan people will pay the price for prolonging this disastrous policy.
Conference of Mayors May Vote Monday Vs. Wars
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Sherwood Ross: The Conference, which speaks for 1,200 mayors, expresses the pain felt by city officials as urgent domestic needs have been long scuttled so that America’s imperial presidents can wage wars in the Middle East to control the region’s oil.
Netroots at Crossroads in Minneapolis This Weekend
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Paul Hogarth: I look forward to this Conference as a way of re-engaging in the national struggle, and harnessing the energy everyone with a Wi-Fi connection can take to fight for progressive change.
The Fight for Peace Heats Up
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Tom Hayden: The fact is that Democratic constituencies and leaders, responding to overwhelming public sentiment against the war, have been uniting in recent weeks behind a call for “substantial and significant” troops reductions and a transfer of war funds to job creation at home.
How Obama Can Revive Hopes for Change
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Randy Shaw: In hindsight, activists should have taken it upon themselves to become the vessels of hope rather than trusting Barack Obama. But at this political moment, it is Obama who is best positioned to restore the hopes of his core supporters.
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London’s Youth Are Falling Down
Mariah Adin: Let this serve as a warning: of the danger of creating a class of young people who have no stake in society, and thereby have nothing to lose by destroying it.