February 21, 2005

If George W. Bush finishes a second term and avoids adjusting the federal minimum wage, we will have completed an 11-year record stretch without any adjustment. The previous record of nine years was brought to us by Ronald Reagan. The current federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour is over 40 percent below the 1968 level adjusted for inflation. A fulltime worker taking no vacation or holidays and earning the federal minimum wage earns 55 percent of the federal poverty line for read more

Feb. 23, 2005
“Why are we still here?” radio host Joe Madison asked a panel of speakers
gathered in a church basement around the corner from the Washington Post
Feb. 10 to discuss hiring and other forms of discrimination at that
newspaper.

And “What are YOU going to do?” he asked the 40 or so members and staff of
the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, CWA, gathered yet again to discuss
the decades-old dilemma of how to get the Washington Post newsroom to read more

Feb. 28, 2005

A case can be made that the left in the United States is too eager to compromise, that because we have no far left, our moderate left is more easily dismissed as extreme. This contrasts with a far right that advocates — for decades if necessary — for extremely unpopular positions (such as eliminating Social Security), thus rendering the right’s goals (such as partially dismantling Social Security) respectable, moderate, and middle of the road.

But what happens when read more

March 13, 2005
The majority of Americans, even according to polls conducted by corporations with an interest in war, think that attacking Iraq was a mistake and that continuing to occupy it is a mistake. But the will of a majority of Americans means very little without a substantial minority of Americans willing to struggle and suffer for a goal. If majority opinion mattered on its own, we’d have clean elections, democratic media, a serious effort to slow global warming, major investment read more

Published in “The Wealth Inequality Reader” by Dollars and Sense and United for a Fair Economy

Flame-Broiled Shark
May 2005 By David Swanson

If someone told you that a bunch of low-income people, most of them African-American or Latino, most of them women, most of them elderly, had been victimized by a predatory mortgage lender that stripped them of much of their equity or of their entire homes, you might not be surprised. But if I told you that these women and men had gotten together read more

March 16, 2005

Dear Italy, forgive us. Bring your dear soldiers home from Iraq. Teach them about peace. Teach us in the United States about peace. We need to learn from you.

I spent some terrific years of my life in your bel paese, and one of the first things that caught my attention was your humility and your cosmopolitanism. When I was a young exchange student in Italy I had the pleasure of making myself liked, of making myself almost a movie star, simply by telling people that I was an American. read more

See Photo Album on This Site.

“They want the rubber stamp of dictatorship,” said Senator Chuck Schumer.

“They want one-party rule,” said Senator Patrick Leahy.

“An ill wind blows through this country. Your freedom of speech is in jeopardy,” said Senator Bob Byrd. “The opponents of the filibuster, the opponents of free speech say we don’t need 217 years of American history.”

Senators Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and Hillary read more

PHOTOS HERE

March 18, 2005

March 18, 2005 — Twenty-two students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., stopped eating four days ago. They have resorted to a hunger strike after years of less drastic attempts to persuade the university to pay all of its workers a living wage. How long will they go without food? “As long as it takes,” is the answer that at least some of them give.

Mary Nagle is one of a half dozen students organizing events every day to assist the hunger strikers. read more

March 20, 2005

Listen to audio

In an attempt to call the attention of the United States Congress to the plight of poorer countries, a coalition of anti-poverty organizations has launched a new campaign called “Feeding Tubes for the Third World.”

The member organizations of the FTTW, http://www.fttw.com, have each attempted for years to gain the attention of an uninterested US government. Staff members of more than one of them read more

March 22, 2005
Has anyone noticed that the more the Bush Administration and its corporate allies promote their plan to partially privatize Social Security, the more the public opposes it? Is it any wonder the President kept his proposals vague until after the election?

A Harris poll released this week found the Bush proposal for Social Security opposed by 58 percent and approved by 35, while proposals on five less-talked-about issues had support or mixed results. Newsweek’s findings are read more