WALL STREET JOURNAL– For the second time, Icelanders voted down a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands billions of euros lost in the island nation’s 2008 financial collapse—at once a bold popular rejection of the notion that taxpayers must bear the burden for bankers’ woes and a risky outcome that will complicate Iceland’s efforts to rejoin global markets. The … Read More
RAW STORY– Bolivia is preparing to pass a new law that could lead to citizens challenging environmental destruction in court. A Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra (The Law of Mother Earth) would grant nature the same rights as humans, according to The Guardian. The country will establish 11 new rights for nature, including: the right to exist, the … Read More
GUARDIAN– The United States said Monday it is “deeply concerned” about the rising trend of disappearances and arrests of human rights activists in China after one of the country’s most famous artists was detained. Ai Weiwei, 53, an avant-garde artist who helped design the futuristic Bird’s Nest stadium at the Beijing Olympics, has been missing since he was stopped Sunday … Read More
COMMONDREAMS – When we study Marx in my graduate social theory course, it never fails that at least one student will say (approximately), “Class struggle didn’t escalate in the way Marx expected. In modern capitalist societies class struggle has disappeared. So isn’t it clear that Marx was wrong and his ideas are of little value today?” I respond by challenging … Read More
LA PROGRESSIVE– “More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation.Alexander, currently a law professor at Ohio State, … Read More
