Charles Blow on Trayvon Martin

Bill Maher
The burden that young black men carry in the USA

Healthiest Foods You Should Be Eating

You probably already know that you're supposed to be eating fish twice a week. Fish are a lean, healthy source of protein -- and the oily kinds, such as salmon, tuna, sardines, etc., deliver those heart- and brain-healthy omega-3 fats you've probably also heard you should be getting in your diet. 


Quinoa is a delicately flavored whole grain packed with fiber and protein and, to top it off, it only takes 15 to 20 minutes to cook. That combination of fiber and protein has an extra value too: research shows that the two together can help you feel full for longer.

The Happiest Countries -Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands

Income of course matters to everyone, especially the poorest. As the report shows, the richest countries are a lot happier than the poorest. The four happiest are all in Northern Europe, and the four least happy are in Sub-Saharan Africa. On a 0-10 scale, the average life evaluation score is 7.6 in the first four countries and only 3.4 in the last four.

But income is only one among many factors that explain the variation in happiness among people.  Income explains only about one-twentieth of the variation within nations that can be explained statistically, and across countries it explains about one-eighth of the explained variation. The other factors besides income can be divided into those that are mainly social and those that are mainly personal.

Countries differ hugely in the strength of their networks of social support ("If you were in trouble do you have relatives or friends you can count on to help you whenever you need them?"). They also differ in the degree of corruption in government and business, and of course in personal freedom and security.  All these factors matter a great deal.  So too does the state of the labor market.  High and stable employment is extremely important.  Therein lies the case for active labor market policies, job training, and various innovations in working hours flexibility.

Turning to more personal factors, a crucial one is mental health. A person's mental health many years earlier is a better predictor of his current happiness than his current level of income.  Mental illness comprises more than 40 percent of disability in advanced countries, according to the World Health Organization. Yet even in rich countries, it is estimated that only around one-fourth of the mentally ill are in treatment.

Physical health is also a major factor affecting happiness.  It has to be a major priority in poor countries, and in rich countries for people in retirement.

Not surprisingly, individual values are also important. People who care more about other people are also themselves on average happier.  Other things equal, people who single-mindedly chase higher incomes are less happy.  And psychologists and neuroscientists can now show that training in altruism increases a person's happiness.

The 99% spring

Standing Up For Democracy 

The Gated Community Mentality

Self-contained, conservative and overzealous in its demands for “safety.” Gated communities churn a vicious cycle by attracting like-minded residents who seek shelter from outsiders and whose physical seclusion then worsens paranoid groupthink against outsiders. These bunker communities remind me of those Matryoshka wooden dolls.  A similar-object-within-a-similar-object serves as shelter; from community to subdivision to house, each unit relies on staggered forms of security and comfort, including town authorities, zoning practices, private security systems and personal firearms.

"Trayvon Martin Was Ours" - Author Alice Walker On How Killing is Symptom of Unaddressed Racism

"Trayvon Martin Was Ours" - Author Alice Walker On How Killing is Symptom of Unaddressed Racism

Apple's factories in China are breaking employment laws

An audit of Apple's Chinese factories details "serious and pressing" concerns over excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, health and safety failings, and management interference in trade unions.

In the most detailed public investigation yet into conditions at Foxconnfactories in China, which assemble millions of iPhones and iPads each year, the independent Fair Labor Association found that more than half of employees had worked 11 days or more without rest.

More than 43% of workers reported experiencing or witnessing an accident at the three plants audited. Foxconn is China's largest private-sector employer, and its activities have turned the coastal town of Shenzhen into the electronics workshop of the world.

Health and safety breaches found by auditors and published on Thursday included blocked exits, lack of or faulty personal protective equipment and missing permits, which the FLA said was remedied when discovered.

Rep. Bobby Rush Ejected from House Floor for Donning Hoodie

Rep. Bobby Rush Ejected from House Floor for Donning Hoodie

Life was much easier when apple and blackberry were just fruits.

Foods that Contain the Highest Amount of Pesticides

Top 12 Foods You Should Eat Organically (From lowest to highest amount of pesticides)

1. Apples: They contain 42 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 42 pesticide residues, there are 7 known carcinogens, 19 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 6 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 17 honeybee toxins.

2. Cherries: They contain 42 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 42 pesticide residues, 7 known or probable carcinogens, 22 suspected hormone disruptors, 7 neurotoxins, 8 development or reproductive toxins, and 18 honeybee toxins.

3. Green Beans:  They contain 44 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 44 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 22 suspected hormone disruptors, 11 neurotoxins, 8 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 18 honeybee toxins.

4. Collard Greens:  They contain 46 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 46 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 25 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 8 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 25 honeybee toxins.

5. Spinach:  It contains 48 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 48 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 25 suspected hormone disruptors, 8 neurotoxins, 6 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 23 honeybee toxins.

6. Sweet Bell Peppers:  They contain 49 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 49 pesticide residues, there are 11 known carcinogens, 26 suspected hormone disruptors, 13 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 19 honeybee toxins.

7. Lettuce:  It contains 51 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 51 pesticide residues, there are 12 known carcinogens, 29 suspected hormone disruptors, 9 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 21 honeybee toxins.

8. Blueberries:  They contain 52 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 52 pesticide residues, there are 8 known carcinogens, 24 suspected hormone disruptors, 14 neurotoxins, 7 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 21 honeybee toxins.

9. Strawberries:  They contain 54 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 54 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 24 suspected hormone disruptors,11 neurotoxins, 12 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 19 honeybee toxins.

10. Kale:  It contains 55 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 55 pesticide residues, there are 9 known carcinogens, 27 suspected hormone disruptors, 10 neurotoxins, 10 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 23 honeybee toxins.

11. Peaches:  They contain 62 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 62 pesticide residues, there are 10 known carcinogens, 29 suspected hormone disruptors, 12 neurotoxins, 11 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 25 honeybee toxins.

12. Celery:  It contains the most at 64 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 64 pesticide residues, there are 13 known carcinogens, 31 suspected hormone disruptors, 12 neurotoxins, 14 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 20 honeybee toxins.

Honourable Mentions 

- Broccoli: It contains 33 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.

- Cucumbers: They contain 35 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.

- Grapes: They contain 34 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.

- Potatoes: They contain 37 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.

- Tomatoes: They contain 35 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program.

5 Foods that Contain the Lowest Pesticide Residues

Bananas: They contain 12 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 12 pesticide residues, there are 4 known carcinogens, 7 suspected hormone disruptors, 2 neurotoxins, 5 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 2 honeybee toxins.

Grapefruit: It contains 11 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 11 pesticide residues, there are 4 known carcinogens, 4 suspected hormone disruptors, 4 neurotoxins, 4 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 2 honeybee toxins.

Almonds: They contain 9 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 1 known carcinogens, 4 suspected hormone disruptors, 3 neurotoxins, 0 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 4 honeybee toxins.

Asparagus: It contains 9 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 1 known carcinogens, 7 suspected hormone disruptors, 4 neurotoxins, 3 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 5 honeybee toxins.

Onion: It contains 1 known pesticide residues found by the USDA Pesticide Data Program. Out of the 9 pesticide residues, there are 0 known carcinogens, 0 suspected hormone disruptors, 0 neurotoxins, 0 developmental or reproductive toxins, and 0 honeybee toxins.

Michelle Alexander -The New Jim Crow

Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation’s “triumph over race.”  Obama’s election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America. 

Obama’s mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that “the land of the free” has finally made good on its promise of equality.  There’s an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you.  If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you.  Trust us.  Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars.  You, too, can get to the promised land.

Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand.  Racial caste is alive and well in America.

Most people don’t like it when I say this.  It makes them angry.  In the “era of colorblindness” there’s a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have “moved beyond” race.  Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:

*There are more African American adults under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

*As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

* A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery.  The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.

*If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life.  (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste -- not class, caste -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status.  They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

Excuses for the Lockdown

There is, of course, a colorblind explanation for all this: crime rates.  Our prison population has exploded from about 300,000 to more than 2 million in a few short decades, it is said, because of rampant crime.  We’re told that the reason so many black and brown men find themselves behind bars and ushered into a permanent, second-class status is because they happen to be the bad guys.   

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years.  Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades -- they are currently at historical lows -- but imprisonment rates have consistently soared.  Quintupled, in fact.  The main driver has been the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone accounted for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population between 1985 and 2000, the period of our prison system’s most dramatic expansion.

The drug war has been brutal -- complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods -- but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought.  This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates.  In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth.  Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data.  White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.

That is not what you would guess, though, when entering our nation’s prisons and jails, overflowing as they are with black and brown drug offenders.  In some states, African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.

This is the point at which I am typically interrupted and reminded that black men have higher rates of violent crime.  That’s why the drug war is waged in poor communities of color and not middle-class suburbs.  Drug warriors are trying to get rid of those drug kingpins and violent offenders who make ghetto communities a living hell.  It has nothing to do with race; it’s all about violent crime.

Again, not so. President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war in 1982, when drug crime was declining, not rising. President Richard Nixon was the first to coin the term “a war on drugs,” but it was President Reagan who turned the rhetorical war into a literal one. From the outset, the war had relatively little to do with drug crime and much to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a grand and highly successful Republican Party strategy of using racially coded political appeals on issues of crime and welfare to attract poor and working class white voters who were resentful of, and threatened by, desegregation, busing, and affirmative action. In the words of H.R. Haldeman, President Richard Nixon’s White House Chief of Staff: “[T]he whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”

A few years after the drug war was announced, crack cocaine hit the streets of inner-city communities.  The Reagan administration seized on this development with glee, hiring staff who were to be responsible for publicizing inner-city crack babies, crack mothers, crack whores, and drug-related violence.  The goal was to make inner-city crack abuse and violence a media sensation, bolstering public support for the drug war which, it was hoped, would lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. 

The plan worked like a charm.  For more than a decade, black drug dealers and users would be regulars in newspaper stories and would saturate the evening TV news.  Congress and state legislatures nationwide would devote billions of dollars to the drug war and pass harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes -- sentences longer than murderers receive in many countries. 

Democrats began competing with Republicans to prove that they could be even tougher on the dark-skinned pariahs.  In President Bill Clinton’s boastful words, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.”  The facts bear him out.  Clinton’s “tough on crime” policies resulted in the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.  But Clinton was not satisfied with exploding prison populations.  He and the “New Democrats” championed legislation banning drug felons from public housing (no matter how minor the offense) and denying them basic public benefits, including food stamps, for life.  Discrimination in virtually every aspect of political, economic, and social life is now perfectly legal, if you’ve been labeled a felon.  

Facing Facts

But what about all those violent criminals and drug kingpins? Isn’t the drug war waged in ghetto communities because that’s where the violent offenders can be found?  The answer is yes... in made-for-TV movies.  In real life, the answer is no. 

The drug war has never been focused on rooting out drug kingpins or violent offenders.  Federal funding flows to those agencies that increase dramatically the volume of drug arrests, not the agencies most successful in bringing down the bosses.  What gets rewarded in this war is sheer numbers of drug arrests.  To make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow state and local law enforcement agencies to keep for their own use 80% of the cash, cars, and homes seized from drug suspects, thus granting law enforcement a direct monetary interest in the profitability of the drug market.

The results have been predictable: people of color rounded up en masse for relatively minor, non-violent drug offenses.  In 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, only one out of five for sales.  Most people in state prison have no history of violence or even of significant selling activity.  In fact, during the 1990s -- the period of the most dramatic expansion of the drug war -- nearly 80% of the increase in drug arrests was for marijuana possession, a drug generally considered less harmful than alcohol or tobacco and at least as prevalent in middle-class white communities as in the inner city. 

In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time -- a new Jim Crow system.  Millions of people of color are now saddled with criminal records and legally denied the very rights that their parents and grandparents fought for and, in some cases, died for.

Affirmative action, though, has put a happy face on this racial reality.  Seeing black people graduate from Harvard and Yale and become CEOs or corporate lawyers -- not to mention president of the United States -- causes us all to marvel at what a long way we’ve come.  

Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that’s with affirmative action!

When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our “colorblind” society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure: the structure of racial caste.  The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.

This is not Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream.  This is not the promised land.  The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.

© 2012 Michelle Alexander

Crush the US (Un)Justice System

“What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”

The woman was Susan Burton, who knows a lot about being processed through the criminal justice system.

Her odyssey began when a Los Angeles police cruiser ran over and killed her 5-year-old son. Consumed with grief and without access to therapy or antidepressant medications, Susan became addicted to crack cocaine. She lived in an impoverished black community under siege in the “war on drugs,” and it was but a matter of time before she was arrested and offered the first of many plea deals that left her behind bars for a series of drug-related offenses. Every time she was released, she found herself trapped in an under-caste, subject to legal discrimination in employment and housing.

The 99% Spring

Corporate Accountability

It’s time to step up.

This is no accident. It is a result of rampant greed—the deliberate manipulation of our democracy and our economy by a tiny minority in the 1%, by those who amass ever more wealth and power at our expense.

Too Crooked to Fail: Matt Taibbi, Fraud are the Secrets to Bank of America’s Success

Taibbi describes how the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly propped up the financial institution, which received a $45 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008.  Bank of America has also received billions in what could be described as shadow bailouts. The bank now owns more than 12 percent of the nation’s bank deposits and 17 percent of all home mortgages. Taibbi also recounts how fraudulent practices by Bank of America and other companies ravaged pension funds.

Matt Taibbi on the Explosive Resignation of Goldman Sachs Executive Greg Smith

Financial reporter Matt Taibbi talks about Goldman Sach’s history of denigrating its own clients, as recently highlighted by former Goldman executive Greg Smith’s explosive resignation letter in the New York Times. Decrying what he called Goldman’s "toxic" culture, Smith said bosses at the firm called their clients "muppets" and strove to maximize profits at the expense of client interests, adding: "It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off." Goldman Sachs is now reportedly scanning internal emails for the term "muppet" and other evidence that employees referred to clients in derogatory ways. "This gives ... people in the industry, institutional investors, tremendous pause: why would I want to do business with this company if this is their attitude towards me?" says Taibbi. "They’re thinking how much can they get out of me, and not how much money they can make for me." 

Black Power, then and now

"We're not ever to be caught up in the intellectual masturbation of the question of Black Power. That's a function of people who are advertisers that call themselves reporters."

Angela Davis has drawn connections between the Black Power and Occupy Wall Street movements.

PHOTO BY LUKE THOMAS

The Story of Occupy Wall Street, Told by the People

How Occupy Wall Street went from a small group of New York protesters to a broad people's movement.
"People were upset about the economy, people were upset about the foreclosure crisis, people were upset about the bailouts, and about the fact that it looked like elected officials were working for big business rather than for the people who they’re supposed to be working for," says activist Max Rameau from Take Back the Land.  

Afghanistan and American Imperialism

Afghans have been excluded from the judicial process after the shooting that left 16 dead. No wonder anti-US feeling is growing

Naomi Klein -Collective Insanity

Occupy Wall Street changed the conversation in the US
Canada & the Kyoto Protocol

Robert Fisk: Madness is not the reason for this massacre

I'm getting a bit tired of the "deranged" soldier story.

This was the same nonsense used to describe the murderous US soldiers who ran amok in the Iraqi town of Haditha. It was the same word used about Israeli soldier Baruch Goldstein who massacred 25 Palestinians in Hebron – something I pointed out in this paper only hours before the staff sergeant became suddenly "deranged" in Kandahar province.

Obama on Prolonged Detention

Liberals were so mesmerized by Obama’s rhetoric, the promises he had absolutely no intention of fulfilling, that they overlooked the fact he is a front man for the same forces behind George Bush.

Occupy the Mind - Rick Wolff

Progressive Moral Agenda for the 21st Century

May 1st - General Strike

May 1st -General Strike

Dark matter

women in science

Peru: A league of their own

A few years ago, Juana, an indigenous peasant, organised a football team for women in the Andes, opening a path to her community's participation in politics for the first time. 

Across Mexico: Chasing an impossible dream

Latin American migrants risk life and limb to reach the US border in search of the American dream. Every year more than a million men and women from countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua attempt to cross the river that forms a border between Guatemala and Mexico. Their immediate aim is to enter Mexico illegally, but they have another destination in mind - the US. Once in Mexico, they must cross the entire Mexican coast in order to reach the border with Texas. It is a journey of about 4,000km and one that begins at the Arriaga train station. The freight trains are the only means of transport for these migrants. Thousands take them every day - each trying to find his or her own spot on the roofs or the axles between the coaches. But it is a dangerous journey towards what some call "the impossible dream" and only 40 per cent of all those who attempt it make it to the US border. With no way of knowing where the trains are heading, some make the mistake of climbing aboard trains heading in the wrong direction - towards the Guatemalan border. Others are caught by police who regularly stop the trains in the middle of the countryside and round up all those hitching a ride. But for some, the dangers prove far greater. One Mexican shopkeeper explains: "I've seen lots of accidents ... people who fall off the train and die because the train runs them over. People who get their legs cut off too."

Real Time with Bill Maher

The South Will Rise Again

Cornel West like a blues man

When you fell in love is a leap of faith

Mafalda

Mafalda no murió nunca, aunque Quino, preocupado por la pérdida de frescura y originalidad, dejó de crear sus tiras periódicas en 1973. Para entonces, el poderoso personaje —redicha, curiosa, solemne, inconformista, cabal— se había emancipado del creador, aunque lamafaldamanía alcanzaría proporciones universales en las décadas siguientes, con la publicación de sus libros en todo el mundo y la lluvia de honores y distinciones al dibujante. Como todos los grandes, Quino es humilde. “Es una persona absolutamente bondadosa y muy tímida que nunca intenta ser el más brillante”, subraya uno de sus mejores amigos en España, el dibujante Peridis. Del creador destaca su capacidad para inventar un mundo, “más difícil que hacer un personaje”, y su coherencia: “En Quino se da una total correspondencia entre lo que piensa, lo que cuenta y lo que dibuja; y jamás ha renunciado ni a ese estilo ni esa ideología”. Peridis siente debilidad por Manolito, que hereda de su padre tendero simpleza y tacañería y opina que “nadie puede amasar una fortuna sin hacer harina a los demás”. En los niños de Mafalda se reflejan vicios y virtudes adultas. Expresan con abrumador sentido común lo que han olvidado por alguna parte los mayores. “Yo, lo que quiero que me salga bien es la vida”, dice el metafísico Miguelito. “¿No sería hermoso el mundo si las bibliotecas fueran más importantes que los bancos?”, interpela Felipe, el más soñador. “No es cuestión de herir susceptibilidades, sino de matarlas”, sentencia Susanita, esa niña rancia, que repele porque siempre recuerda a alguien. Y el gran Guille: “¿No es increíble todo lo que puede tener dentro un lápiz?”. Colofón de la genuina Mafalda: “Como siempre; apenas uno pone los pies en la tierra se acaba la diversión”.

Judith Butler, Hélène Cixous & Avital Ronell - The Notion of Affinity

Affinity and disruptive kinship

Ludwig Wittgenstein

 Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes 
Leo Tolstoy -Gospel in Brief William 
James -Varieties of religious experience

Foreclose on Bank of America

“There are two things every American needs to know about Bank of America.  The first is that it’s corrupt… It is a giant, raging hurricane of theft and fraud… The second is that all of us, as taxpayers, are keeping that hurricane raging.”

— Matt Taibbi breaks it down for us. Read More

Over 70 Vermont Towns Want Corporate Personhood Amendment

Town resolutions and small 'd' democracy challenge Citizens United and 'Corporate Personhood'

Vermont Town Meetings Model People-Driven Democracy

Vermonters rally at their state capitol on January 20 to protest Citizens United and support Sen. Lyons' call for an amendment to overturn it.

Redefining Black Power

Fannie Lou Hamer got involved in the civil rights movement when she volunteered to attempt to register to vote in 1962. By then, 45 years old and a mother, Hamer lost her job and continually risked her life because of her civil rights activism. Hamer recounts her beating at the hands of two other black prisoners on the orders of her white jailers.