contributions

A group of 43 prominent left and movement activists and progressive individuals today issued an appeal to others on the left to join in the effort to defeat the Bush administration’s bid to continue in power in next year’s Presidential election.
For the sake of peace, democracy, social justice and racial equality, George W. Bush must be defeated in 2004. We believe that he can be defeated and that the left, facing this unprecedented challenge, has a significant, even crucial role in (…)

Bring Our Children Home Now
Nancy Lessin, AlterNet September 22, 2003 Viewed on September 22, 2003
Editor’s Note: Nancy Lessin, the co-founder of Military Families Speak Out, a rapidly growing antiwar group organized by family members of soldiers posted in Iraq, gave the following speech at a congressional hearing organized by Congresswoman Maxine Waters on Sept. 9. We want to thank congresswoman Maxine Waters for giving us this very special opportunity to bring our message to members of (…)

Fewer get workplace health plans Premiums rise, coverage drops over decade
By Kimberly Blanton, Globe Staff, 9/19/2003
Americans who receive health insurance through their employers have dropped to less than one- half of all workers from about two- thirds a decade ago, according to a report on the nation’s health coverage released yesterday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Health specialists said the decline in employer-sponsored health coverage stems from soaring insurance (…)

by Kim Phillips-Fein
Late last week, Yale clerical and maintenance workers who had been striking for three weeks won a contract that will transform the standard of living of clerical workers at the university, as well as future retirees. Under the new contract, the average salary of Yale clerical workers will rise from $33,000 to $42,220 over the next eight years. The average pension for a Yale worker after twenty or more years of service has been $7,450; under the new contract, many (…)

By Greg Palast, GregPalast.com September 19, 2003
It’s tragic but true. All New York mourns the last remaining neurons of Thomas Friedman’s shrinking brain, apparently lost in a bubbling hot tub of deep self-inflicted fatuity today.
The evidence is in Friedman’s loony-tunes comment, "Our War with France," in this morning’s Paper of Record. You can only conclude the man’s mind has been flambéd or deeply French Fried.
What got Friedman’s brain a-boilin’ is the impertinent suggestion by (…)

By Herbert C. Kelman, 9/20/2003
THE ISRAELI Security Cabinet’s decision to "remove" Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is ominous. Though the stated justification for the decision is the assertion that Arafat is an obstacle to peace, it actually seems to be designed to ensure the failure of the peace process envisaged by the road map.
This is not a time for passivity, subtlety, or ambiguity in Washington’s response. Vehement US opposition to such a project is essential to (…)

Stretched Thin, Lied to & Mistreated On the ground with US troops in Iraq
by Christian Parenti
Published in the October 6, 2003 issue of The Nation An M-16 rifle hangs by a cramped military cot. On the wall above is a message in thick black ink: "Ali Baba, you owe me a strawberry milk!"
It’s a private joke but could just as easily summarize the worldview of American soldiers here in Baghdad, the fetid basement of Donald Rumsfeld’s house of victory. Trapped in the polluted heat, (…)

US Plan for Global Domination Tops Project Censored’s Annual List
By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet September 17, 2003
We know a lot more now about the dangers and disasters of U.S. empire building in Iraq - the ongoing bloodshed on the ground, expansion of terrorist activities, the huge budget busting costs of occupation, the stretching and undermining of the military, and the increased sense of fear and insecurity that many Americans feel as a result of the invasion and its potential for (…)

WashTech News
By Jeff Nachtigal
San Francisco - Bay Area high-tech workers upset about the unrelenting rush of U.S. jobs to foreign countries staged a noisy sidewalk protest yesterday morning at a conference promoting the practice of shipping U.S. jobs abroad in order to save on labor costs.
Picketing on the sidewalk in front of a glittering new Hyatt Regency hotel just south of the San Francisco Airport, nearly 50 protestors armed with signs and ardent voices cried, "Offshore CEOs" (…)

The Financial Times (UK)
September 18, 2003
Europe must not buy Bush’s line
By Michael Peel
Nobody should imagine it will be an easy conversation when Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroder meet in Berlin for lunch on Saturday. There has been a lot of bad blood between the big three leaders of the European Union in the past 18 months. It will not disappear in a day.
It was the inability of the British, French and German leaders to agree on any common stance on Iraq (…)