Sept. 29, 2007

As we go to press, the United Auto Workers has called a time out in its strike against General Motors pending membership ratification of a new contract. It’s expected that the contract will be ratified quickly. While we do not yet know the full terms of the contract, it most likely contains concessions. In today’s political climate, and in the face of capitalist globalization, the balance of class forces often makes it a victory if unions can just hold on.

This week the nation observed the 50th anniversary of the struggle to integrate public schools in Little Rock, Ark. It came just one week after 50,000 protesters converged on Jena, La., to protest the criminalization of six African American youths for daring to stand up against lynch nooses hung on a tree at their high school. It is especially outrageous that one of the Jena Six, Mychal Bell, remains in jail even though an appeals court threw out his conviction.

Mad as hell
Astounded
Jena 6 struggle continues
The elephant in the room

This is the response I had when reading the first draft of the reauthorization proposals for No Child Left Behind put forth last week in the House: Nice try, you are beginning to figure out how deeply flawed the law is, but maybe you weren’t paying attention when educators told you what needed to be fixed. Go back to your notes, figure it out, and let us know when you do.

I am a psychologist and I’m mad as hell about the recent decision by the American Psychological Association (APA) to continue to let psychologists collaborate with the CIA and the military in their torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other U.S. facilities.

Two news items related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last week revealed, each in its own way, the harshness of the Israeli occupation.

The current struggle between Bolivia’s newly empowered indigenous people and poor against the country’s old, ousted power brokers seemed headed for an impasse when the two sides took a breather.

Faith Johnston’s “A Great Restlessness: the Life and Politics of Dorise Nielsen” is an absorbing political biography of one of Canada’s long-forgotten Communists who fought for the rights of women and children and played a role in shaping Canada’s postwar social legislation.

A POEM: Always Jewish, lately Palestinian