Category: Columns
2021-2030: The Renewal Decade
Protecting and regenerating the viability of our blue-green home is the essential work of the next few years. Everyone is needed and we each have a role to play. by Diana Donlon June 5, 2021 On…
Ending food insecurity in Native communities means restoring land rights, handing back control
Since the 1980s, an influx of fast food restaurants and convenience stores and an exodus of supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods across the U.S. have led to chronic disease disparities in low-income communities and racial minorities. This…
Michael Harrington
by Tom Gallagher Saturday, May 15, 2021 A talk given to the San Francisco Democratic Socialists of America. During the dark ages of American socialism, well before the first Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, a friend of…
NPR at 50 – Straying from its civic mission?
by Ralph Nader This month [May, 2021] is the 50th anniversary of National Public Radio (NPR). Knowing about my work back then with other advocates, to persuade Congress to pass legislation creating NPR and PBS, (which…
Are unemployed workers striking?
by Wade Rathke May 12, 2021 A small group of state governors have announced that their states may abandon the supplemental unemployment program way before its September expiration. The number of Republican governors making the announcement…
Highlander and Horton
by Wade Rathke May 8, 2021 New Orleans It was fun talking to Stephen Preskill about his new book, Education in Black and White: Myles Horton and the Highlander Center’s Vision for Social Justice, on…
Violent overthrow of government – DÉJÀ VU
by Wade Rathke May 11, 2021 New Orleans There are some in America who live in denial about our history, despite the fact it is riddled with violence and contemptuous of democracy. For them the…
Getting the lead out
by Wade Rathke May 20, 2021 New Orleans I’m not sure that there has ever been a day in America when people could say, “Let Newark lead the way!” If there was, it was a…
Remembering fresh eyes to horrible situations
by Wade Rathke April 30, 2021 New Orleans – We were lucky on our work to launch the ACORN Tenants Union in Atlanta to have a bunch of serious and committed young apprentice organizers with us…
A hard look at the Amazon Bessemer union election – Part I
by Wade Rathke April 10, 2021 Pearl River The results of the union election at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama are finally tallied and the scorecard by the numbers was 1798 voting NO to be…
A Hard Look at the Amazon Bessemer Union Election – Part II
by Wade Rathke April 11, 2021 Pearl River There’s no way to put sugar in your coffee. The union’s loss at Amazon is deeply disappointing. A victory would have been a huge blast of wind…
Restoring voting rights to former felons
by Wade Rathke March 17, 2021 New Orleans In these times when a number of states are trying to curtail voting rights for their citizens, the governor of Virginia made some news by speeding…
Weak cybersecurity puts all at risk
by Wade Rathke March 16, 2021 New Orleans If you are lucky, maybe you have a bit of savings for your retirement, like a 401(k) plan. Maybe if you are really lucky, you worked for…
Clogged pipeline for minority and women-owned businesses
by Wade Rathke March 15, 2021 Pearl River If the Jeffersonian story of America was the small yeoman farmer, the contemporary story of America is often of small businesses. These are the main streets…
Stop Stacey: We don’t think so
by Abby Zimet, Further columnist March 9, 2021 Almost 60 years later, the fight goes on. Georgia’s ” horror” of a new voter suppression law, dubbed “Jim Crow 2.0” and passed the day after Bloody Sunday,…
3/11 Pandemic Anniversary
by Wade Rathke March 11, 2021 New Orleans 9/11 has been a date fixed on the mental calendar of Americans for what will be twenty years this September of 2021. It is worth wondering whether…
Grand Old Party (GOP) vs. Party of Trump (POT)
by Wade Rathke March 10, 2021 New Orleans No matter what, it seems that when we are talking about Trump, it’s all about the money. In the latest stop on his revenge tour, his lawyers…
No energy regulation equals rip-offs
by Wade Rathke March 9, 2021 New Orleans Picture this, if you will. The crippled power grid in Texas triggered by the polar vortex bringing freezing temperatures and snow, left millions without power and others…
Shifting Sands on Police Tactics
by Wade Rathke March 8, 2021 New Orleans In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we heard from a former mayor and activist in the area. He wanted to do…
Politicians face off over ESG investing
by Wade Rathke Friday, March 5, 2021 New Orleans Free marketeers are caught in a crisis of contradictions. They want to pretend that market forces exist independent of any interference from government or other factors,…
Housing shortages and rental squeezes
by Wade Rathke March 4, 2021 New Orleans One story after another in the mainstream media is now focusing on the shortage of homes for sale in city after city. The curious American dream of…
President Biden says, “Join the union!”
by Wade Rathke March 2, 2021 New Orleans John Lewis of the United Mineworkers Union and one of the founders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the CIO behind the hyphen in the AFL-CIO, famously…
No venues, no sales, no money
by Wade Rathke March 1, 2021 New Orleans One week, we have the southern end of the polar vortex. The next week, it’s spring, while I’m still hacking away at freeze-damaged night-blooming jasmine, bougainvillea, and the…
Republican resistance, state by state
by Wade Rathke February 26, 2021 Little Rock After four years of Twitter torture, I understand how people seem to be following every little cough and sneeze in Washington these days, crossing their fingers for…
