BERNIE SANDERS – Failure to act in response to the climate emergency will doom future generations to a very uncertain future. For the sake of our common humanity we cannot allow that to happen.
Category: November 2023
The Brotherhood of Billionaires
LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – In recent decades, a growing similarity has developed between the Chinese and U.S. economic systems. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s talk of “socialism,” the rapidly-expanding Chinese economy has become increasingly capitalist, with the private sector accounting for about two-thirds of China’s Gross Domestic Product in 2021. Not surprisingly, then, the two countries currently lead the rest of the world’s nations in their number of billionaires. This March, according to Forbes, the United States had 735 billionaires (worth a collective $4.5 trillion) and China had 562 (worth $2 trillion) out of a global total of 2,640.
Merkley Just Second US Senator to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire
JESSICA CORBETT – U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley on Monday became just the second member of the Senate to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, over six weeks into Israel’s brutal bombardment and ground operations that have killed over 13,000 Palestinians, including 5,500 children.
Russian artist sentenced to 7 years in prison for Ukraine war protest
CLYDE HUGHES – A Russian artist who admitted to passive acts to protest Moscow’s war against Ukraine was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army.”
The Israeli Attack on Palestinian Health Workers in Gaza and the Failure of the American Medical Association
RUPA MARYA and VIJAY PRASHAD – Amid Israel’s unprecedented attacks on healthcare workers and infrastructure in Gaza, the AMA censored a resolution proposed by its members to call for a ceasefire.
Talk to a Neighbor, Feel Better, Save Humanity
PAUL HELLWEG – It’s only through collective action that we can respond effectively to the problems that threaten our quality of life and potentially our very survival.
How the National Infrastructure Program Creates Jobs for Today and Tomorrow
DAVID MCCALL – President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on November 15, 2021, unleashing $1.2 trillion for tens of thousands of projects nationwide. It is upgrading transportation, communications, and energy systems while building back manufacturing capacity, generating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and investing in the middle class.
Reactor Plans Smashed by Costs
WILL WADE – NuScale Power Corp., the first company with US approval for a small nuclear reactor design, is canceling plans to build a power plant for a Utah provider as costs surge. The move is a major setback to the burgeoning technology that has been heralded as the next era for atomic energy.
Israel’s Military Is Part of the U.S. War Machine
NORMAN SOLOMON – In January 2019, House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi was recorded on video at a forum sponsored by the Israeli American Council as she declared: “I have said to people when they ask me — if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid, I don’t even call it aid — our cooperation — with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.” Even making allowances for bizarre hyperbole, Pelosi’s statement is revealing of the kind of mentality that continues to hold sway in official Washington. It won’t change without a huge grassroots movement that refuses to go away.
Seeing Through the Economic Bait and Switch
SONALI KOLHATKAR – The values of the U.S. public are not the same as those of the wealthy and corporations. It took a UN official—an outsider—to point out the dissonance. Furthermore, evaluations of the U.S. economy by the U.S. media and politicians are based on corporate prosperity while the UN’s evaluation is based on individual prosperity.
If You Love Nuclear Energy, Then You Love Nuclear Weapons
HARVEY WASSERMAN – There is no separation between nuclear power and nuclear war. The “Peaceful Atom” is a radioactive myth. The world’s fleet of atomic reactors is the happy-faced infrastructure for the global radioactive weapons industry.
Biden’s Failure on Gaza Could Cost Him the Election
STEPHEN ZUNES – By refusing to call for a ceasefire as civilian deaths rise, Biden is alienating young and left-leaning voters.
The War in Israel: Costs and Consequences
MEL GURTOV – That Netanyahu is the only top Israeli national security official who has not accepted any blame for the Hamas attack is indicative. Will postwar Israel again be plunged into political chaos? Will the far right be empowered or discredited because of the war? Will Israel after the war continue expansion of settlements and deprivation of Palestinians’ rights in the West Bank? One outcome of the extraordinary violence seems certain: The hope for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, not to mention a two-state arrangement, has been dashed for many years to come.
The Osage want you to know their story doesn’t end with Killers of the Flower Moon
GREG PALAST – Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon describes the struggles of the Osage people. Here’s why they are still fighting.