Progressive Media Advocates
Georgianne Nienaber: Given the huge remaining humanitarian and economic crisis facing Haiti, it is puzzling that mainstream media in the United States short-changed coverage of former President Bill Clinton’s early August visit to Leogane. The symbolism is significant, considering that Leogane and the nearby village of Fayette are at the epicenter of the 7.0 quake.
Robert Reich: The man who electrified the nation with his speech at the Democratic National Convention of 2004 put it to sleep Tuesday night. President Obama’s address to the nation from the Oval Office was, to be frank, vapid. If you watched with the sound off you might have thought he was giving a lecture on the history of the Interstate Highway System.
Steve Ybarra: The $28 million that the Big O spent on Latinos and Chicanos was well spent and did the job of helping Latinos nationwide figure out that the Democratic Party was indeed on their side. So far, since the new DNC Chair (whoever he is) has been in office, we have seen absolutely no evidence that he gets it. So it is time for him to be shown the door and let’s get back to winning the midterms and finding a dogcatcher to elect.
Robert Illes: Anyway, I’ll take a kickass Obama for four years than a watery Obama for eight. Yes FDR is a good model, but the real lesson of getting things done may be the obscure guy who came along precisely 100 years earlier.
William Loren Katz: This is the nation of Patrick Henry and “Give me Liberty or give me death!” The United States was born in struggle against British colonial rule. It proudly declared people had natural rights and dedicated itself to self-determination. The heroic, freedom fighting struggle of the Seminole nation stands as a milestone in the American battle for liberty.
There seem to be some indications, however, that the sparse political will in Congress that has historically placed reparations on the legislative agenda may be waning. Michigan House member John Conyers may be giving up on his 20-year fight to legislate the case for slave reparations in America.
Ellsberg risked life in prison to expose the lies that had taken this nation into war in Vietnam, lies from Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. And Nixon believed that Ellsberg had incriminating documents on his own lies, which led Henry Kissinger to call Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America.”
Even the soberest fiscal conservatives cannot avoid the power of this pitch and will jump out of his or her seat with wallet wide open! You may get in for $19, but more than half of you will spend many hundreds if indeed not thousands more.
The fact is, if we had waited for Black unity to come about on the simple question of whether Barack’s candidacy was credible before we supported him, Obama would have never been elected, because the divide was in evidence and deeply entrenched.
No matter what kind of shape-shifters or mask-wearers we are as African Americans leaders, even our post-racial leaders are finding out that the nagging issue of race is an unavoidable one.
Someone asked what black people thought of Joe Wilson‘s “you lie” outburst. Of course, there isn’t a monolithic black answer to that question. I am a black person but I can’t speak for black people and I didn’t get together with other black people to form a consensus. But I did read a blog post [...]
Once upon a time, in a land far closer than we care to admit, a leader was elected, not selected, by a majority of those who voted, based on a dream of hope. The hope was that he was smarter than the last leader, willing to make us less fearful, safer, and better than we [...]
Regardless of which side of the religious and socio-political spectrum a child’s parent or guardian is on, that child is innocent. Children are not billboards for hatred, malice and lies. But they can be purveyors of truth, and speak for the greater good. After all, it’s their faces and that most affect us.
In 1798, during the Quasi-war with France, Congress, with President John Adams’ support, passed the Sedition Act. Outraged by attacks on her husband, Abigail Adams supported the act, which was opposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others. “Let us not establish a tyranny,” wrote an alarmed Alexander Hamilton to an ally in Congress. [...]
July 26, 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman signing Executive Order #9981 ending racial segregation of the United States military. 2009 also marks the 16th anniversary of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the law passed by Congress mandating the discharge of openly gay, lesbian or bisexual military servicemembers. According to Servicemembers Legal [...]
Recently, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the New York Post, personally apologized for a recent cartoon by Sean Delonas, nicknamed by some “the Picasso of Prejudice”. The cartoon, which depicted a chimpanzee being shot by the police after mauling a woman, captioned “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”. Shown here [...]
“I screwed up.” Sounds like a simple, ordinary, and harmless little thing to admit, unless of course you’re the President of the United States. We haven’t heard the likes of this in at least eight years. No wonder everybody in the media is almost literally erupting about it. They can’t believe their ears. Seems THAT [...]
President Barack Obama’s first week in office was certainly filled with only the highest of expectation, given the eight years of Republican elephant poo-poo that was left on the White House floor for him. That’s a lot of poo-poo: Over 180,000 more jobs lost in January (60,000 in a single day during his first week [...]
The day of an African American President of the United States is no longer coming. That day is here. Witnessing Barack Obama take the oath of office, in the freezing cold with a million other people, is surely one of the seven highlights of my life (along with the witnessing the birth of my four [...]
This is a heckuva hangover. More than just the sun dawned on me on the morning after Obama Day. I realized as I woke up following the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States that I’m not sure how to behave anymore. For eight years I’ve felt like a hostage. [...]
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has introduced a bill, H.R. 104, that would create a commission to spend a year and a half looking at the various crimes of Bush and Cheney. While this might allow congressional Democrats to run election campaigns against Bush and Cheney yet again, even though those two will have [...]
Dear Jerry: I can’t believe it’s been a year since you’ve gone. While you’ve been dead much has happened. You got cremated. Part of you was scattered at sea per your request; a bit of you escaped into the wind at the beach, some is with your family and I have a tiny spoonful of [...]
The euphoria has yet to wear off, and probably won’t for a while. The “shock and awe” of the looks of dazed black people walking down the street really says more than could ever be explained. Many folks I talked to are virtually speechless and just walk around shakin’ their heads, not so much wondering [...]
They should have played “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” when Barak Obama was elected president of the United States. It’s a song about a defining moment in the Civil War that saw the old South and all that it stood for going down to defeat. They should have put the version by Joan [...]
If Barack Obama wins the election today not only will it be “historic” for all of the reasons we’ve discussed throughout the long campaign, he surely will be our president for the next eight years. My nine-month-old baby daughter, Gianna Isabella, will be in the third grade when President Barack Obama leaves office.
Guantánamo Bay, September 11, 2026. Defeated Republican presidential candidate Bjorn Looser was sentenced to death today after a secret trial, on charges that were not specified. According to the current interpretation of a law passed 20 years ago, in 2006, the government did not have to specify charges, did not have to show evidence, and [...]
ive former U.S. Secretaries of State gathered at George Washington University to give advice to the next president of the United States. Nothing profound or unexpected was uttered from a single one. It was more of the same – the same players living their comfortable lives speaking their politically correct language. I was hoping to [...]
In recent weeks, our LA Progressive has started getting a regular stream of reader comments on our articles or directly to us as editor and publisher.
Dan Bacher: Despite intense political pressure by the oil industry, the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 29 approved three bills proposing to halt fracking, a controversial method of oil and natural gas extraction, in California.
Benjamin called on the President to use his power as Commander-In-Chief to close Guantanamo prison, release the 86 Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release, and stop the killer drone program
Angola 3 News: Hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.
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What Was the Top News Story of 2009
Ten years ago, the story dominating the headlines was Y2K. In 2009, according to Yahoo, the story that dominated in terms of searches online was — wait for it — Michael Jackson’s death! Not the economic meltdown, not the healthcare debate, not even the inauguration of the first black president of the United States!