Naomi Klein Town Hall Seattle, WA 28 September 2014 Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future… Continue reading →
Chris Hedges Missoula, MT 3 February 2014 The demonic Captain Ahab in Melville’s epic novel Moby Dick represents a quest for power and domination that is a death wish. Hubris will doom Ahab and his Pequod crew, all perish except for Ishmael. Is there a larger lesson to be learned? Is the United… Continue reading →
Glenn Greenwald Town Hall Seattle, WA 17 June 2014 Imagine a gigantic vacuum cleaner scooping up all electronic communications. That’s what the National Security Agency does. Think you are safe from NSA snooping? That you can hide behind clever passwords? Think again. The Agency has the capability… Continue reading →
Richard Wolff Brecht Forum, New York, NY 9 October 2012 Cascading economic problems and crises, coupled with dysfunctional political responses, have plunged many societies into deepening turmoil. Capitalism, the dominant economic system of our time, has once again become the subject of criticism and… Continue reading →
Noam Chomsky Denver, Colorado 7 May 2013 The Magna Carta is the foundational document of the legal system. It crucially asserted that law is sovereign, not the king. Today, the term rule of law is invoked by whoever is in the White House. But you have to wonder what do they mean? There is one set of… Continue reading →
Thomas Linzey Eugene, Oregon 2 March 2013 Communities across the country, trying to stop a wide range of threats and unwanted projects such as gas drilling and fracking, mining, pipelines, factory farming, sewage sludging, landfills, coal shipments and GMOs, all run into the same problem: they don’t… Continue reading →
Barbara Ehrenreich Lecture, then interview by David Barsamian (This event was presented by the Lannan Foundation.) Santa Fe, New Mexico 13 March 2013 The rise in New York’s poverty rate as a result of the ongoing recession has pushed nearly half of the city’s population into the ranks of the poor or… Continue reading →
Dennis Kucinich Santa Barbara, CA February 8, 2013 The U.S. has the world’s most powerful military machine. Its navy controls the seas, its air force the skies. Almost 70 years after the end of World War Two, its armies occupy bases from Germany and Italy to South Korea and Japan. Its CIA-operated… Continue reading →
Paul Cienfuegos Missoula, MT March 1, 2012 Modern corporations trace their origins to the trading companies of imperial Europe more than three centuries ago. Their rise in power and influence has been a steady trajectory to the point where today they are the dominant institution in society… Continue reading →
by Robert L. Borosage Washington’s obsession with deficits is illogical for two reasons: first, there is no sign of accelerating inflation; interest rates are near record lows, as global investors seek shelter in US securities from economic turmoil abroad. We will never have a better opportunity to… Continue reading →
Michelle Alexander Santa Fe, NM September 12, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Michelle Alexander speak for herself here. Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race… Continue reading →
Juliet Schor Northampton, MA July 28, 2008 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Juliet Schor speak for herself here. Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard in the Department of Economics. She is author of many… Continue reading →
by Dave Lindorff Summer 2011 (appearing in Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, edited by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank) When Barack Obama was running for president, back in 2008, he was pretty definite about his seemingly progressive position on Social Security. While he… Continue reading →
Maude Barlow Denver, CO January 27, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Maude Barlow speak for herself here. Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of The Council of Canadians, Canada’s largest public advocacy organization, and the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, working… Continue reading →
Glenn Greenwald Socialism 2012 Rosemont, IL June 28, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Glenn Greenwald speak for himself here. Glenn Greenwald is an attorney and the author of How Would a Patriot Act?, Great American Hypocrites, and Liberty and Justice for Some. He is the… Continue reading →
Morris Berman Elliot Bay Bookstore Seattle, WA November 4, 2011 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Morris Berman speak for himself here. From the boarded-up storefronts to foreclosed homes to the homeless and unemployed, the signs of decay in the U.S. are all too apparent. The… Continue reading →
by Paul Buchheit Appearing in Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter Reprinted from CounterPunch. Paul Buchheit teaches Economic Inequality at DePaul University. He is the founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (Us Against Greed, Pay Up Now, and Rapping History) and the editor… Continue reading →
by Jack A. Smith editor, Activist Newsletter This year’s presidential campaign is taking place within an extremely conservative era in American political history that will substantially influence the domestic and foreign priorities of the next administration, regardless of whether it’s headed by… Continue reading →
Please watch this short video: Amazing speech of Iraq Veteran Against War. If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy…. The loss of Liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad…. –James Madison Continue reading →
walmart's effect What effect does Walmart have on American jobs? Thanks to Shy Girl for this infographic. Continue reading →
Max Rameau Eugene, OR April 19, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Max Rameau speak for himself here. Max Rameau is a community organizer. He is Executive Director of Movement Catalyst. He helped establish Take Back the Land, which organizes resistance to foreclosures and… Continue reading →
CHRIS WILLIAMS Interviewed by David Barsamian Santa Fe, New Mexico 20 March 2012 Chris Williams Interviewed by David Barsamian Santa Fe, NM March 20, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Chris Williams speak for himself here. Chris Williams is a long-time environmental activist… Continue reading →
By Jack A. Smith, Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter editor Less than six months before the November presidential elections in an exceptionally distressed United States the narrow, unpleasant parameters of political possibility are emerging. Two alternatives confront the American people, both to the… Continue reading →
Michael Moore New York, NY March 17, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Michael Moore speak for himself here. Michael Moore first brought his humorous and progressive analysis to mainstream audiences with the award-winning documentary Roger & Me. His Bowling for Columbine won an… Continue reading →
William Black Kansas City, MO November 29, 2011 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to William Black speak for himself here. William Black is Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board… Continue reading →
Gar Alperovitz Interviewed by David Barsamian Cambridge, MA January 19, 2012 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Gar Alperovitz speak for himself here. Gar Alperovitz is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative. He is… Continue reading →
interview with Richard Wolff by David Barsaminan New York, NY December 29, 2011 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Richard Wolff speak for himself here. Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a visiting professor… Continue reading →
Check out this brief and crucial history of the United States… In less than 23 minutes, you’ll get the big picture. Let your life be a friction to stop the machine. Continue reading →
by Paul Cienfuegos Eugene, OR May 16, 2011 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Paul Cienfuegos deliver this address here. Paul Cienfuegos lectures and leads workshops on dismantling corporate rule. He co-founded Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County in northern California. He’s based… Continue reading →
by Richard Wolff Santa Fe, NM September 13, 2011 available from Alternative Radio You can listen to Richard Wolff deliver this address here. Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a visiting professor at the New School in New York… Continue reading →
by Naomi Klein, the author of Shock Doctrine, currently working on a book about climate change. Her article originally appeared in The Nation. What the right gets–and the left doesn’t–about the revolutionary power of climate change. This is the most powerful article I’ve seen on explaining what’s… Continue reading →
by Richard Wolff Interviewed by David Barsamian Santa Fe, NM September 12, 2011 available from Alternative Radio Richard Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and currently a visiting professor at the New School in New York. He is the author of… Continue reading →
by Jodie Evans Interviewed by David Barsamian Boulder, CO August 7, 2011 available from Alternative Radio Jodie Evans is a veteran activist with more than 30 years experience in organizing for social change. She cofounded Code Pink with Medea Benjamin. They’ve also edited the book Stop The Next War… Continue reading →
by Fred Nagel, Rhinebeck, NY in a letter to the Woodstock Times September 22, 2011 Even for a politician who has made his career out of serving the rich and well connected, these must seem like dismal times. Back in Chicago, all Obama had to do was to obey the corrupt Democratic machine. And he did… Continue reading →
Part 2: Problems ahead for Obama? by Jack S. Smith, Activist Newsletter The New Yorker magazine published a memorable front cover a year after President Barack Obama assumed office. It was a four-panel cartoon-like drawing by artist Barry Blitt of a man walking on water, a reference to the Apostle… Continue reading →
by Thom Hartmann Published on Monday, January 26, 2009, by CommonDreams.org Thom Hartmann (thom@thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning New York Times best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk program, The Thom Hartmann Show. His most recent books… Continue reading →
by Ilyse Hogue August 10, 2011 This article appeared in the August 29-September 5, 2011, edition of The Nation. Most of the endless rehashing of the debt deal has correctly focused on the fact that corporate interests and Tea Party politics have prevailed again, at the expense of the middle class… Continue reading →
by Warren E. Buffett I have some comments at the end. Our leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us… Continue reading →
Here’s from my friend Fred Nagel Now is the right time to revisit the “lesser of two evils” theory of governance. As destructive as Obama has been to the interests of working people, the Republicans always appear to be just a little bit worse. And so it goes for the next election cycle, American… Continue reading →
by Stephen Bezruchka, speech delivered at Olympia Community Center Olympia, WA 29 May 2010 available from Alternative Radio Stephen Bezruchka is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. He worked for many years as an emergency physician in Seattle. His… Continue reading →
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. We, the People of the… Continue reading →
Over the past century, America’s rich made their millions and billions through the use of public assets shared by everyone. By virtue of those profits, they have not only a moral, but a rational obligation to pay more for the upkeep of public services. See this article. And see this article by… Continue reading →
Those accusations that Obama is a wimp getting pushed around by the right wing are false. It’s a bad-cop-good-cop game. See this article by Jeff Cohen. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — widely seen as “America’s Senator” — is so disgusted by recent White House actions that he called… Continue reading →
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: The problems today are not the the evil actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people. Linda Milazzo: Peace and non-violent solutions are beyond the capacity of this US government. We The People must govern. As an American, it is my… Continue reading →
The liberal, progressive base appears to have no breaking point with the Democrats here in Washington. And that’s true for—that’s also true for the liberal intelligentsia. They have no—when you ask them, “Do you have any breaking point? How bad do these Democrats have to be, even though the… Continue reading →
She comes to Washington at the request of Harry Reid to head a special congressional oversight entity, pursuant to the Wall Street collapse and bailout, does a sterling job, has a heavy cross-examination of Timothy Geithner in public. He didn’t like that, and he never forgot that. And she is—then… Continue reading →
by Ravi Batra in Truthout About eight years ago, there was frenzied and furious talk about WMDs, or weapons of mass destruction. Both the frenzy and the fury came from President George W. Bush and his administration, prior to the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and soon thereafter. The president’s… Continue reading →
See Democracy Now!. I find it tragic that we’re talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security in this environment, when we, first of all, don’t really need a budget-balancing plan right now. The budget-balancing plan we need in the future is really related to the rise in healthcare costs… Continue reading →
Check out Democracy Now! and ALEC exposed for insights on just how it seems the John Birch Society is finally winning. Barry Goldwater and Robert Welch would be very pleased. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), formed nearly four decades ago, has become, in its own words, “the nation’s… Continue reading →
by Chris Hedges, interviewed by David Barsamian Santa Fe, NM 18 May 2011 available from Alternative Radio Chris Hedges is an award-winning journalist who has covered wars in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central America. He writes a weekly column for Truthdig.org and is a senior fellow at The… Continue reading →
by Robert Jensen, speech delivered at the Monkey Wrench Bookstore, Austin, TX, 10 February 2011 available from Alternative Radio Robert Jensen is professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Citizens of the Empire, The Heart of Whiteness, and All My Bones Shake… Continue reading →
by Arun Gupta, speech delivered at the Red Emma’s Bookstore, Baltimore, MD, 15 April 2011 available from Alternative Radio Arun Gupta, journalist and activist, was founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper in New York. He’s a regular contributor to Alternet and Z. He also appears on Democracy Now… Continue reading →
by Allison Kilkenny in Agence Global for The Nation It seems like every week some serious publication puts out a new graph or pie chart that shows how the class divide is widening in America; and while citizens suffer under the crushing weight of austerity, the über-rich abscond with taxpayer-funded… Continue reading →
by Glenn Greenwald This talk, which was broadcast on Alternative Radio (Alternative Radio) was delivered on March 9, 2011, at Lone Star College in Kingwood, Texas Glenn Greenwald is an attorney and the author of How Would a Patriot Act? and Great American Hypocrites. In 2009, he received an Izzy… Continue reading →
This is from Al-Jazeera English by William I. Robinson, professor of sociology and global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara: The global economic crisis and the attack on immigrant rights are bound together in a web of 21st century fascism. “The crisis of global capitalism is… Continue reading →
This from Jeffrey D. Sachs at The Cap Times (Madison, WI): “The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries — those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich… Continue reading →
Check out this from Truthout. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is taking corporate welfare to unprecedented new levels. While the country watched the protests in Wisconsin spill into the State Capitol Building, Snyder was passing a controversial bill that many consider a direct attack on the… Continue reading →
Check out this from Huffington Post: The next time you’re gritting your teeth as you fill your tank with $4 gas, here’s something to consider: Your pain is their gain. The last of the Big Five oil companies announced first-quarter earnings Friday, so the totals are in. Continue reading →
Check out this article in Rolling Stone, with illustrative graphs: The budget has more of what Americans say they want — new taxes on the rich and cuts to defense — than either the GOP’s or the president’s budget. And it has none of what Americans say they hate: changes to the social compact that’s… Continue reading →
Check out this. Uh oh, but what about Medicare’s math problem: Taxes – benefits = trouble on NPR? Yeah, yeah, just look at the comments that follow: “America will never improve their inefficient, expensive health care system as long as it is based on runaway profits, and all Americans do not have… Continue reading →
See this short video. This is how a president should talk: To hell with wars, let’s feed and clothe the world with all the military money. How far we have fallen since the New Deal! Continue reading →
See Democracy Now! for a revelatory interview about what the Koch brothers are doing, with the capabilities they get from last year’s Supreme Court Citizens United decision. Last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision granted free speech rights to corporations and effectively removed… Continue reading →
Here is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders discussing the scofflaw tax evaders. Here is Sanders arguing on his own site: While hard working Americans fill out their income tax returns this tax season, General Electric and other giant profitable corporations are avoiding U.S. taxes altogether. With… Continue reading →
by Chris Hedges, a speech he made at Union Square in New York City in April 15, during a protest outside a branch office of the Bank of America: We stand today before the gates of one of our temples of finance. It is a temple where greed and profit are the highest good, where self-worth is… Continue reading →
by Chris Hedges in truthdig: The uprisings in the Middle East, the unrest that is tearing apart nations such as the Ivory Coast, the bubbling discontent in Greece, Ireland and Britain and the labor disputes in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio presage the collapse of globalization. They presage a… Continue reading →
Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? by Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone: America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. The official budget is public record and hotly debated: Money comes in as taxes and goes… Continue reading →
from Democracy Now!: President Obama has failed the American people. He hasn’t led. His job in our constitutional system is to help show a way forward and help to explain, help to say why we need to go this way, not to stand in the back and then announce how historic an agreement is…. That’s not his… Continue reading →
by William Greider in The Nation If people rob a bank, they go to prison; but when the banks rob the people? Bernie Madoff goes to prison because his victims were the elite. The victims of the Wall Street crooks, however, are mere paeons like us. With “authentic cooperation” those thieves get a… Continue reading →
from Democracy Now!. Reactionary Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), apparently a reincarnation of Herbert Hoover, is worried that we are transforming “our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.” Such were the arguments against Social… Continue reading →
by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz in Vanity Fair: John Steinbeck: “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” But maybe not forever… Americans have been watching protests against… Continue reading →
by Barry Grey in the World Socialist Web site: Ford CEO Alan Mulally received a pay package worth $26.52 million in 2010, a 48 percent raise from the previous year, according to a Friday filing by the US auto company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is in addition to a stock bonus… Continue reading →
by Chris Hedges at truthdig. Here is a suitable introduction to the article by Veterans for Peace activist Tarak Kauff: $$$$ for wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, $$ $ to support Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestine, $$$$ in bailouts to make those at the top of… Continue reading →
by Nina Totenberg at the endangered National Public Radio (where you can listen to the story and see a picture of the wrongly convicted man, who served 18 years for a crime someone else committed): When prosecutors violate the law to deprive a person of a fair trial, is vindication enough, or should… Continue reading →
by Ross Stephens, from Leawood, Kansas, as a letter to the editor in The Progressive Populist: In his State of the Union message, President Obama referred to the fact that the tax-rate for corporations in the United States is one of the highest, which is true. What he did not say is, taxes collected… Continue reading →
Your tax dollars at work Trillions for Iraq and Afghanistan Domestic spending freeze How is the war economy working for you? by Chris Hedges in truthdig: Power does not rest with the electorate. It does not reside with either of the two major political parties. It is not represented by the press. It… Continue reading →
by Stephen Lerner in The Nation: “Beck, right-wingers and Wall Street sympathizers went ballistic because they knew the ideas I talked about are far from being a secret leftist conspiracy; in fact, they’re in sync with the thinking of most Americans. In my talk, I raised a very simple yet powerful… Continue reading →
by Allison Kilkenny for The Nation: Corporate tax dodging has proven to be an incredibly unifying issue, one that actually unites Republicans, Independents and Democrats. Even papa bear Bill O’Reilly recently teed off on GE, which didn’t pay any taxes in 2010 despite making a whopping $14 billion in… Continue reading →
From Democracy Now!: As many as half-a-million protesters marched in London Saturday to protest Britain’s deepest cuts to public spending since World War II. The protests come after officials estimated corporate taxes would be reduced, even as the government tackles a $235 billion deficit and plans… Continue reading →
by David Kocieniewski in The New York Times. “The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.” Continue reading →
by Bob Herbert in The New York Times. “So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here… Continue reading →
Today is the 100th anniversary of this tragedy (travesty). Today preservation organizations, historians, artists, and labor activists commemorate the event, which inspired New Deal legislation protecting workers (including Social Security), now under attack. This is an excellent documentary. Of… Continue reading →
Here are several places to commemorate this tragedy on its centennial: The Nation and NPR1 and NPR2 and NPR3 and NPR4. Here’s from a comment of the excellent Nation article: All of the rhetoric about dirty theiving unions cannot stand the truth: Corporations will not police themselves when it comes… Continue reading →
Those companies and others say they’ll bring home billions in earnings—but only if they get a big tax break. Here is the whole story. U.S. multinationals have more than $1 trillion in profits stashed in overseas subsidiaries. Some of the companies with the most money squirreled away say they’re… Continue reading →
Here is a debate about this abominable decision waged by two respected constitutional lawyers. The first decade of this century opened with the Supreme Court’s coup in Bush v. Gore, and closed with a putsch granting First Amendment rights to huge corporations to spend as much as they want to buy an… Continue reading →
by Robert Freeman “Gentlemen, I warn you. Though the violence is not yet upon us, we are sleeping on a volcano.” ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, addressing the French parliament, January, 1848 In 1848, a series of revolutions convulsed Europe. From Berlin to Budapest, Venice to Vienna, Paris to Prague… Continue reading →
See this excellent article by Rebecca Solnit. Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be. Revolution is a phase, a mood, like spring, and just as spring has its buds and showers, so revolution has its… Continue reading →
For jobs, healthcare, education, mortgage relief, housing, infrastructure, environmental protection, veterans benefits, childcare, city and state budget relief–to restore vital social programs and to meet urgent human needs: Bring all the troops and war $$$ home now! Consider, as you file your 201… Continue reading →
Ralph Nader, the former presidential candidate and longtime consumer advocate, and Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, were interviewed on Democracy Now! (click here and here… Continue reading →
Stop the Republican attacks! from Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter by Jack A. Smith, editor of the newsletter Republican politicians in Washington, DC, and the nation’s state houses are virtually wilding in the streets. It’s as though they are drunk with power, even though the Democrats actually… Continue reading →
Dr. Eban Goodstein, director of the Center for Environmental Policy at Bard College and author of “Economics and the Environment,” who has coordinated climate education events at more than 2,500 institutions, explains the role green technology could play in the economic recovery: Academic Minute Continue reading →
Now going around on Facebook and elsewhere: A CEO, a tea party member, and a union worker are all sitting at a table when a plate with a dozen cookies arrives. Before anyone else can make a move, the CEO reaches out to rake in eleven of the cookies. When the other two look at him in surprise, the… Continue reading →