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Monthly Archives: April, 2015

Poor denied healthcare while healthcare industry profits

Six Daughters of Charity Hospitals in California were poised for sale to a for-profit chain, Prime Healthcare, but the sale fell through in March. The State’s ...

Violence against the people—Or a transformed world

Every day we hear of a new police killing of an unarmed person, usually someone poor, young, of color or disabled. The police murdered 176 people in January and February 2015. Revelations ...

Common poverty: basis for class unity

Imagine you’re in a good job with good pay and benefits. One day you fall on the job. The injuries are so severe you...

Water is a human right, not a “commodity”

The Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) is organizing an event in Detroit, MI with a gathering of social movements. We are reaching out to all the ...

Meegan vs. Chicago Machine

Chicago is famous for many things—the skyline, deep-dish pizza, and Al Capone. But another thing the city is famous for (that her citizens are ashamed of) is that ...

“Chuy” Garcia vs. Mayor 1%: Fighting for the demands of the people

In a startling accomplishment on February 24, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia forced incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff, despite Emanuel being endorsed by ...

Marchers protest police murder of homeless man in LA

On March 3, I participated in one of many marches and rallies protesting the police murder of a homeless man, who was known in the Skid Row community ...

Justice for Antonio! Justice for Jessica!

Antonio Zambrano-Montes, 35, was killed by the Pasco, Washington police on February 10. He was killed after three officers chased him through a busy ...

Community outraged at police murder of teen

A community, led by young people, erupted in protest, as yet another teenager was murdered by police, this time in Madison, Wisconsin. Police say they ...

Jailed for fighting for Medicaid expansion

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal vowed in January at the beginning of the legislative session that he would not accept federal funding for Medicaid Expansion ...

Give people a house so they are not homeless

Except for when I was rehabbing from breaking my right leg, twice, and when I traded my indifferent housekeeping for room and board ...

Forum on Skid Row points the way forward

Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN) held its first Town Hall Community Meeting in February at the James Woods Center in the heart of ...

From “Middle-Class” to Homeless at 65

Growing up in New York in a comfortable “middle-class” family, CeliaSue Hect says they used to walk over homeless people on the sidewalks. She never ...

St. Louis homeless under attack

We’ve been in this community since 1975. It was a run-down neighborhood and gradually they started turning around the downtown, taking some of the ...

The ghost of Dred Scott awakens

Less than four miles from the intersection where Mike Brown was killed—a ten-minute drive down Florissant Ave—is the Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, ...

Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All by David Roediger

Review by David Cochran In 1859, abolitionist John Brown was crushed in his attempt to inspire a slave insurrection. While his plan was deemed quixotic...

The ending of the civil war and lessons for today

April marks the 150th anniversary of the ending of the Civil War. There is much we can and must learn from its beginning, its...

A Call to Action: The Civil Rights Movement Then and Now

On Saturday, February 21, 2015, I marched alongside hundreds of others in the March for Justice and Unity which began at the Los Angeles Police ...

Tea with Joe Hill

Joe Hill and I had tea
He let his biscuits soak
They say America is free
Man how they love to joke
Ask Sacco and Vanzetti

Too Big

Big Man Big Muscles Big Nose Big Lips Big Hands

Working class poem

I was born
Free and penniless
And just like you
They have been robbing me

“We can win this fight,” says Rev. Pinkney from prison

I, Michigan political prisoner, Rev. Edward Pinkney, am a victim of injustice. I was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 10 years for supposedly changing the date on five ...

Voices from Benton Harbor

“Several young men’s lives have been lost here. The last person they were seen talking to was a policemen. They ended up finding their body later. It's a ...

Elderly couple stopped for dark car windows

This couple was stopped by Georgia police. They were told their factory installed car windows were too dark. They were forced out of their car and ...

Resistance to police state growing

The underpinning of the rising police state is the changing economy and the mass poverty it produces. Given American history, it could not be otherwise that the victims ...