Our Economic Pain Is Coming from Big Industry CEOs, Not Public Employees' Unions

Conservative think-tanks and politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker have been leading an attack on public-sector workers. The crux of their argument is that the economy is a mess and a large part of the reason is that public employees are overpaid. On closer inspection, the evidence suggests a different culprit: private-sector employers. The problem is not that public-sector pay and benefits are out of control. The problem is that pay in the private sector has been stagnant or falling, health insurance coverage has been dropping, and traditional pensions have all but disappeared.

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Bill McKibben: Money Pollution -- How the Chamber of Commerce Dirties Our Skies and Our Democracy

In Beijing, they celebrate when they have a “blue sky day,” when, that is, the haze clears long enough so that you can actually see the sun. Many days, you can’t even make out the next block. Washington, by contrast, looks pretty clean: white marble monuments, broad, tree-lined avenues, the beautiful, green spread of the Mall. But its inhabitants -- at least those who vote in Congress -- can’t see any more clearly than the smoke-shrouded residents of Beijing.

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William Pfaff: New Regimes Have Reason to Resent America

The political scholar Walter Russell Mead recently alluded to more than a half-century of American “world-order-building tasks,” a formulation that I think most Americans would accept as describing the international obligations Washington assumed in 1945-46, and the policy the United States has undertaken since 1941, when it entered the Second World War against Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire.

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Van Jones: Introducing The 'American Dream' Movement

In the past 24 months, those of us who longed for positive change have gone from hope to heartbreak. But hope is returning to America -- at last -- thanks largely to the courageous stand of the heroes and heroines of Wisconsin. Reinvigorated by the idealism and fighting spirit on display right now in America's heartland, the movement for "hope and change" has a rare, second chance. It can renew itself and become again a national force with which to be reckoned.

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Vandana Shiva: Climate Change and Agriculture: Biodiverse Ecological Farming Is the Answer, Not Genetic Engineering

Industrial globalised agriculture is heavily implicated in climate change. It contributes to the three major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2) from the use of fossil fuels, nitrogen oxide (N2O) from the use of chemical fertilizers and methane (CH4) from factory farming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased from a pre–industrial concentration of about 280 parts per million to 379 parts per million in 2005. The global atmospheric concentration of CH4 has increased from pre–industrial concentration of 715 parts per billion to 1774 parts per billion in 2005. The global atmospheric concentration of N2O, largely due to use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture, increased from about 270 parts per billion to 319 parts per billion in 2005.

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5 Ways You Can Fight Citizens United

We never expected to be writing an article with this title. Aren’t united citizens a good thing? Civil Rights movement? Egypt? Madison? Yes, but that’s not the kind of people power we’re talking about here. What we want to fight is the disastrous 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (FEC) decision. Ironically, “Citizens United” is the name of a conservative advocacy group which receives corporate funding and works to promote increased rights for corporations. The Citizens United v. FEC case originally dealt with the question of whether or not airing Citizens United’s documentary about Hillary Clinton was an advocacy ad, and therefore subject to existing restrictions on election ads under the McCain-Feingold law.

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Further Fiscal Folly

The people insisting on cuts to social security and Medicare have revved themselves up and are now in high gear. They see their final victory on the horizon, with the possibility of a bipartisan deal involving substantial cuts to both programmes. They argue that the large deficits facing the country make it imperative that we address the long-term budget problem – meaning, the cost of these programmes – immediately.

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Dangers of Genetically Modifed Crops: The Destabilization of Agriculture. Health Hazards

Governments are being forced to protect farmers and citizens from genetically modified crops (GM crops) to combat biotech corporations’ stranglehold over farmers, and health scares from escalating pesticide use, according to a new report by Friends of the Earth International.

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The best influence money can buy - the 10 Worst Corporate Lobbyists

Why lobby the government when you can be part of it? Former Monsanto vice-president Michael Taylor is now a senior adviser to the US Food and Drug Administration – going from a corporation that aggressively promotes its genetically modified crops to a body that advises on food safety.

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Infant dolphins dying in high numbers

GULFPORT -- Baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines at 10 times the normal rate of stillborn and infant deaths, researchers are finding.

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