By Sean Posey
In the summer of 2008, a tidal wave of liberal and youth activists began to carry presidential candidate Barack Obama on a journey leading inexorably to the White House. Town halls and campaign stops attracted droves of admirers-with Obama taking on a persona more akin to a rock star than to a senator from Illinois. However, during a campaign stop in St. Petersburg, something unexpected happened.
Progressives won big in four arenas over the past two weeks. They played key roles in stopping a military strike on Syria, defeating Larry Summers’s bid to head the Fed, winning basic protections for 1.9 million home health care workers, and forcing companies to disclose the gap between their CEO and worker pay.
St Vincent PM wants Caribbean reparations group established
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, Friday March 15, 2013 – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is calling on Caribbean countries to establish a regional reparations committee, pledging to spend the rest of his life seeking compensation from the British for land, genocide against the Garifuna, and slavery.
CONGOLESE NUN RECEIVES HIGH U.N. HONOR
Sep. 17 (GIN) – A Roman Catholic nun who rides a bicycle deep into the bush in the north-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo to help female victims of war is to receive a top UN award for her courageous work.
Sister Angelique Namaika is a familiar site, pedaling down dirt roads to visit the women and to run a center she called Maman Bongissa in the village of Dungu. The center trains displaced women and girls in basic income-generating activities they could use to improve their lives.
Claudio E. Cabrera
Last week, I saw a video shared on my Facebook timeline that featured children in the Dominican Republic undergoing the same colorism study children in the 1940s underwent in America, where two black psychologists used dolls to study children’s attitudes on race. That same study has been replicated in recent years by numerous news networks to show how the issue of colorism is still a powerful one in our country.
By Helen Redmond
Many Americans who do not use illegal “drugs” assume exemption from drug war policies. But regardless of how much marijuana you do or don’t smoke, the U.S. war on drugs affects nearly everyone.
When the Egyptian army first began its offensive against the Muslim Brotherhood, many speculated that such an assault would likely be extended to the same revolutionaries who demanded — in massive demonstrations — that President Morsi be evicted from office.
There have been several signs that this has already begun, though most notably the government repression against striking workers at Suez Steel and the Scimitar Petroleum company, where the striking workers were accused of being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
By Paul Le Blanc and Michael D Yates
“A Freedom Budget for All Americans,” published in 1966 by the A. Philip Randolph Institute, demanded that the federal government put in place policies and programs that would eliminate poverty within ten years. Its authors demonstrated with clear and realistic assumptions about government taxes and revenues that this could be accomplished easily. The “Freedom Budget” was a direct descendant of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The organizers of the march and the architects of the “Freedom Budget” – people like A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr. – understood that ending poverty, achieving full employment, guaranteeing incomes, winning higher wages and providing good schools, national health care and decent housing would not happen without tremendous struggle, one that challenged not only the federal government but the basic structure of a capitalist economy. Their sensibility was democratic and socialist; it envisioned a society both egalitarian and controlled by the people themselves.
For tonight’s Conversation With Great Minds – I’m joined by Dr. Ron Daniels – President of the Institute of the Black World – 21st Century. Dr. Daniels has had a wide ranging career in politics and activism – previously serving as the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights – the Executive Director of Rainbow / PUSH – and the Deputy Campaign manager for Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign. In 1992 – he ran for President himself as an independent candidate.
By Rania Khalek
When Philadelphia public schoolchildren returned to their classrooms on September 9, 2013, there were fewer schools, fewer educators and fewer opportunities because of mass school closings and what amounts to financial starvation. It all started late in 2012, when the Philadelphia School District (PSD) revealed it would be shutting dozens of schools to fill in a $304 million budget gap.
Latinos bring negative stereotypes about black Americans to the U.S. when they immigrate and identify more with whites than blacks, according to a study of the changing political dynamics in the South.
The research also found that living in the same neighborhoods with black Americans seems to reinforce, rather than reduce, the negative stereotypes Latino immigrants have of blacks, said Paula D. McClain, a Duke University political science professor who is the study’s lead author.
They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off its coasts, the U.S. military is at work. Base construction, security cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments, special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all undeniable evidence of expansion – except at U.S. Africa Command.