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Photo illustration by Dixie Salazar
By: Camille Russell
On December 1, after three months of deliberation and 10 war councils, President Obama announced an escalation of 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year. It was regretful to watch President Obama shatter the hopes and dreams of the millions of Americans who elected him last year.
We need to end our occupations and bring our troops home. The longer we stay in Afghanistan and Iraq, the longer it will take to get our economy out of the recession and get it moving …[Read the details]
This two-part series shows how a long American tradition of helping small farmers has, in the past few decades in the San Joaquin Valley, morphed into a massive government aid program for large industrialized agribusiness operations—a program that not only drives small farmers off the land but also perpetuates rural poverty because agribusiness requires huge numbers of low-paid, seasonal harvest workers, many of whom are undocumented workers who choose to stay in the United States. …[Read the details]
By: Mike Rhodes
You would think that Fresno City College, like other institutions of higher learning, would do everything in its power to support academic freedom and free speech. Our faith was shaken a couple of years ago when we asked the administration if we could place Community Alliance newsstands on the FCC campus. We were given the runaround and told that they were concerned the newspaper would be a littering problem. As if a possible littering problem trumps our right to free speech and the Constitution of the United States. We pressed them on it, and they relented.
…[Read the details]
By: Bill Fletcher
American workers need a labor movement grounded in social justice, not fractured, fighting unions.
(This article was originally published by In These Times at InTheseTimes.com. For more In These Times stories about the labor movement and workers’ rights, visit the magazine’s workers’ rights blog at WorkingInTheseTimes.com.)
What can one make of the civil war playing itself out inside the Service Employees International Union? “Civil war” is not far from an exaggeration. When the SEIU leadership decided to move against one of its largest locals—SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West—and place it into trusteeship early this year, …[Read the details]
By: Robert Gammon
(This article was originally printed in the East Bay Express.)
The organic dairy industry has fallen on rough financial times in the past year. Small farmers have been especially hard hit, as the recession prompts price-conscious consumers to buy cheaper alternatives. Yet despite the severe downturn, two giants of the organic milk industry are going strong. And the secret to their success appears to be a loophole in federal law that lets them market their milk as “organic” while raising their herds in a manner that critics say mocks the term.
Two companies have come to …[Read the details]
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