Arizona state employees’ unions were caught off guard this week with news that the state’s Republican-controlled Senate was passing a series of bills which, amongst other provisions, would completely ban unions from engaging in any negotiation which affects the terms of a person's employment with State, county or city government. [Italiano] read full story / add a comment

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people’s resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, "Keep smiling girls!" read full story / add a comment

Occupy supporters must re-orient their organizing from mass, symbolic actions – such as “mic-checking politicians” and waving signs at CEO’s - to more targeted campaigns designed to win real, immediate gains for ourselves.
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Occupy Wall Street has taken the nation by storm. It has spread to nearly every major metropolitan area in the country, attracting hundreds of thousands to its confrontational, directly democratic structure. Since its inception earlier this year, protests have steadily become more militant – beginning with the occupations of public parks, and moving on to attempted general strikes and direct attacks on the banks. read full story / add a comment

La strategia sindacale di appoggiare il Partito Democratico si schianta… di nuovo. [English] read full story / add a comment

L'ultimo libro di Paul Mattick Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Future of Capitalism ("Affari come al solito: la crisi economica e il futuro del capitalismo"), è stato pubblicato dalla Reaktion Books. L'autore si è incontrato con John Clegg e Aaron Benanav del periodico "Endnotes". [English] read full story / add a comment

Paul Mattick, Jr.’s most recent book, Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Future of Capitalism, was just published by Reaktion Books. In late April, he sat down with John Clegg and Aaron Benanav of the journal "Endnotes". [Italiano] read full story / add a comment

A report released this week by the Associated Press detailed extensive Tritium leaks at Nuclear Power facilities across the U.S., bolstering some critic’s arguments that Nuclear power is not a viable means of providing safe, sustainable energy.

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The official business union strategy of supporting the Democratic Party falls flat on its ass... again. [Italiano] read full story / add a comment

Le notizie di questo mese sulla morte di Osama bin Laden hanno scatenato festeggiamenti diffusi: migliaia di americani, affascinati dall'idea dell'uccisione del criminale più ricercato dagli USA, hanno festeggiato l'avvenimento riunendosi in luoghi pubblici e sventolando la bandiera americana. [English] read full story / add a comment

“Late Sunday night local time, two U.S. helicopters from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and carrying Team Six SEALs flew in low from Afghanistan… The raid began on the smaller of two buildings in [Bin Laden's] compound, where [Bin Laden's] couriers were believed to live. The raid then moved to the larger three-story building.

“Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was Osama Bin Laden’s son Khalid and a woman. Two women were injured. Children were present in the compound but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that bin Laden was asked to surrender but did not. He was shot in the head and then shot again to make sure he was dead.” read full story / add a comment

Union leadership in Madison, Wisconsin, call workers away from protests to return to work. read full story / add a comment

A short overview of the benefits of a new organizing model coming out of Seattle, Washington. This article discusses the benefits of forming a Solidarity Network in your home town. read full story / add a comment

World Premiere of Red Emma offers an intense look into the life and ideas of Emma Goldman. read full story / add a comment

Mercedes Herrerra is a 39-year-old Mexican immigrant living in Houston, Texas. Working primarily for staffing agencies, she first started cleaning houses and sports facilities in 1996. Paid meager wages, working long hours and travelling some distance to get to new job sites, her staffing agency charged her as much as $100 per week for gloves, and cleaning supplies.

As if the massive charges for basic cleaning supplies weren’t enough, her employers found other ways to skim more cash off of her hard work.

“She was never paid for overtime. Her employers would tell her, “There is no overtime. After 40 hours you work for someone else.” read full story / add a comment

Mike Skinner, co-founder of the Afghanistan-Canadian Research Group and a researcher at the York Centre for International and Security Studies in Toronto, believes a simple question is being left out of the debate about Canada's continued military involvement in Afghanistan: ”Why are we there?” It is a no-brainer to ask this but there are no easy answers it appears.

To understand the goals of Canada's role, he said, we need to examine the forms of intervention under current consideration as alternatives to Ottawa's combat mission in Kandahar. During extensive travels in Afghanistan in 2007, Skinner studied firsthand Canada's intervention, assisted by Afghan-Canadian reporter Hamayon Rastgar, and has written widely on this question. The two men formed, along with fellow-researcher Angela Joya, the Afghanistan-Canadian Research Group.

When considering the example of Canada's supposed “humanitarian” aid projects, which the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois propose as an alternative to a military mission, Skinner emphasises the limitations of the approach and the bad feelings it can engender.

“Canadian aid agencies in Afghanistan have to follow the orders of the military,” he says. “Aid is meted out as rewards to co-operative communities and withdrawn from others as punishment.”

It was not always the case. “Canadian development and aid agencies – like Care Canada and the Red Cross – had been working in Afghanistan, through all the upheavals in government, the Soviet occupation, and then, after 1992, the Mujahedeen period, and, after 1996, under the Taliban regime. They operated in very difficult conditions, negotiating with the government in power,” Skinner says. read full story / add a comment

Mentre si riconferma quella tradizione di attenuare le leggi per fare un favore alle corporations, cosa per la quale l'amministrazione Obama si è fatta una pessima fama, giungono resoconti in base ai quali le banche e le istituzioni finanziarie possono perseverare nelle stesse operazioni ad alto rischio e nelle stesse pratiche di investimento che ci hanno fatto cadere in recessione. [English] read full story / add a comment

Continuing in the tradition of watered down, pro-corporate legislation that the Obama administration is becoming infamous for, new reports are surfacing that banks and financial institutions may continue to get away with the same risky trading and investment practices that landed us in a recession.

Like the watered down health care reforms, or the pathetic Credit Card Act, the recent Dodd-Frank financial regulations signed into law by Obama are quickly showing themselves to be more or less useless for American workers. read full story / add a comment

Les élections présidentielles haïtiennes du 28 novembre seront un travesti de démocratie. Non seulement le peuple haïtien est encore à se remettre des effets du séisme du 12 janvier et des pressions diplomatiques des États-Unis, mais le gouvernement se prépare en plus à priver un grand nombre d'électeurs de la possibilité de voter. read full story / add a comment

Riot police attacked students in Dublin Weds Nov 3rd with dogs, armoured vehicles and horses after the students protesting against government cuts occupied the Department of Finance and threw eggs at the Dail. Upwards of thirty students occupied the Department of Finance in the center of Dublin with a couple of hundred supporting them in the streets outside.
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