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I’ve long been challenged and inspired reading the WorldChanging blog. While it too often seems to offer consumerist solutions to ecological problems, it also has writers who realize the problem is bigger than this. Read the rest of this entry »

Jonathan Tasini, former president of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, has launched a new blog, Working Life. To start things off, he’s posted a provocative essay calling on the AFL-CIO and unions generally to forget about spending money on politicians who ignore us and spend it on organizing instead.
The comments have been interesting, and he’s posted some others here. On the political end, there is the usual range of opinion, from (and I’m making characterizations here) “you may be right, but you can’t possibly mean not backing the (Democratic) candidates in these states,” to “You hopeless reformist, you still think the Democrats are worth saving–and so does the Labor Party.” Another NWU leader, Kate Colgan, suggests that just organizing US workers is a pipedream, we have to think–and act–globally. There’s something to be said for that, but her approach seems a little top-down to my mind: Read the rest of this entry »

It is time to mourn the untimely passing of another fine journalist. Hunter S. Thompson died tonight, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife, Anita, was at the gym at the time, leaving his son, Juan to find his father’s body around 5:30 Mountain time tonight. The call came in to the Pitkin County Sheriff’s office at 5:52 pm. Read the rest of this entry »

Who would have thought this possible? The AFL-CIO website now has a section devoted to discussion of the Big Questions facing the labor movement:
You’ll find links to the various already-public proposals from SEIU, the Teamsters, CWA and a group of central labor council leaders, and a “Give Us Your Ideas” page with some check-the-box choices and room for 500 word essays on “The TWO greatest Strengths of today’s Union movement” and “The TWO greatest weaknesses. Read the rest of this entry »

Been spending the last hour or so poking around British leftist blogs and sites around the May 5 General Election. Definitely seems worthwhile to share a little of the journey.
Started over the The Guardian’s election blog, with assorted news and occasional cheeky commentary. If you’re interested, be sure to check out the PDF Electoral map for a geographic overview of where things are now. They have a daily campaign email too. Read the rest of this entry »

Anybody catch the Lehrer Newshour tonight? With Condi Rice going to Latin America this week to shmooze with Lula and her close personal friends the Butchers of Bogota, PBS hosted a discussion between two pro-imperialist Latino men over when the US should get tough with the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.On the “left,” former Clinton functionary Arturo Valenzuela argued that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is just a blowhard who pisses off Bush on purpose. Read the rest of this entry »

So sorry to have been MIA for so long, but I’ve been busy writing technical books, and getting a new day job in these last months. This now-final split in the AFL-CIO has been troubling me for awhile now, but today (just a few minutes ago, actually) I found something I could riff off of.
The best live coverage of this week’s AFL-CIO convention, and the simultaneous activity of the “Change to Win Coalition,” has been at Jonathan Tasini’s Worklife blog, so make sure you go visit there (if the link isn’t active here, just click the blogroll entry). The UAW’s (still) leading dissident, Jerry Tucker, has also been blogging at Monthly Review this week.
But it was this Reuters story that ptssed me off. On the surface, there may be some truths here, but let’s take a closer look. Read the rest of this entry »

Things finally seem to be turning, both in Iraq and in the US, against continued occupation. Not only do we have the US Senate resolution, Jack Murtha’s defection from the main line, and the hysterical response from the Republican right, now we have the Iraqi puppet regime beginning to see the light. The BBC is reporting this morning that Iraqi Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve long been challenged and inspired reading the WorldChanging blog. While it too often seems to offer consumerist solutions to ecological problems, it also has writers who realize the problem is bigger than this.
As evidence of the latter, take the time to read “Winning the Great Wager,” by Alex Steffan. Here are the money grafs:
We don’t say it in public, but we’ve placed a giant wager here on the future of the human race. The terms of the bet are this: we can move to a new model, a model based on a standard of sustainability higher even than that which we’d need today to fit within our 1.9 hectares per person, but which provides prosperity to billions more, a prosperity equal to or greater than what today costs 10 hectares per person. And we need to do it in 25 years. And we need to get it right the first time. And the cost of failure is the planet. Read the rest of this entry »

The folks at Electronic Intifada and Electronic Iraq have set up a test page for what could be the next target, and called it Hopefully, we won’t have to bring you… ElectronicIran.net. First and foremost, you will find a link to Seymour Hersh’s story in The New Yorker, but then again, you just found it here, didn’t you? Hersh was on the air this morning with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (and there I go again plugging this valuable resource). Read the rest of this entry »