Mark Magnier, London March 24, 2012 DELHI: India’s parliament erupted in hoots and jeers after a draft report by government auditors estimated the national treasury lost 10,670 billion rupees ($197 billion) by selling coalfields to private excavation companies in sweetheart… Read More ›
Economy
Review of “The Hunger Games”
Introduction The Hunger Games (2012), based on the book of the same name by Suzanne Collins, is not an easy film to watch. It follows the story of an adolescent girl named Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) made to fight in a… Read More ›
There Are 24 Empty Houses for Every Homeless Person in America
18.6 Million Empty Houses in America That is what the census says. Andrew Leonard in Salon notes that it is a bit misleading, that “4.7 million are for “seasonal use” only, the Census tells us — unoccupied vacation homes, in… Read More ›
Modern Chain Gangs: the Profitability of Prison Labor Today
States are increasingly utilizing prison labor to plug budget holes, but public employee unions aren’t happy. BY: Russell Nichols The Cañon City Correctional Complex in southern Colorado is a veritable city of prisoners. More than 8,000 inmates are housed in… Read More ›
The World is a Ghetto: Global Slums – Out of Sight and out of Mind: Deterioration of the Human Condition
It has been estimated that more than one to two billion human beings live in slums or shanty towns all over the world. One in every three people in the world will live in slums in the next coming twenty… Read More ›
Homeless mother who sent six-year-old son to better school in the wrong town jailed for five years
By Graham Smith A mother who pleaded guilty to fraudulently enrolling her six-year-old son in the wrong school district has been sentenced to five years in prison. Tonya McDowell sent her son to an elementary school in Norwalk, Connecticut, instead… Read More ›
Should Occupy Use Violence?
I Dunno, Should the Cops? by KEVIN CARSON Back in the mid-1980s, when the African National Congress was still fighting the South Africa’s apartheid regime, I recall Secretary of State George Schultz testifying before some Senate committee. He clutched his… Read More ›
Free Market Health Care: True Stories by Michael Parenti
I recently wrote an article about my personal experiences in dealing with the medical system while undergoing surgery (“Free Market Medicine: A Personal Account”). In response, a number of readers sent me accounts of their own experiences trying to get… Read More ›
Native Nations Make Own Cigarettes to Avoid N.Y. Tax
By THOMAS KAPLAN ONEIDA, N.Y. — The trucks lumber past cornfields and dilapidated farm houses, pull up to a onetime bingo hall and unload their cargo: boxes of tobacco imported from the Carolinas. Inside, employees of the Oneida Indian Nation… Read More ›
The “Feminism” of Maggie Thatcher
Celebrating the Self-Empowerment of Elite White Women by GAIL DINES I usually like watching Meryl Streep, but I seriously hope that she doesn’t win an Oscar on Sunday for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. I couldn’t stand the thought of… Read More ›
Myths About Socialism: Is It Really Just a Matter of Corporate Greed?
Unlike other political philosophers, Karl Marx did not simply dream up an ideal society or concoct ad hoc solutions to the social problems he saw in his time. Marx was an observer who devoted far more of his time and energy… Read More ›
Cuba Embargo Turns 50
by PETER ORSI HAVANA — When it started, American teenagers were doing “The Twist.” The United States had yet to put a man into orbit around the Earth. And a first-class U.S. postage stamp cost 4 cents. The world is… Read More ›
Cuba’s Cure
Why is Cuba exporting its health care miracle to the world’s poor? by Sarah van Gelder Cubans say they offer health care to the world’s poor because they have big hearts. But what do they get in return? They live… Read More ›
Michael Parenti: Free-Market Medicine — A Personal Account
by Michael Parenti When I recently went to Alta Bates hospital for surgery, I discovered that legal procedures take precedence over medical ones. I had to sign intimidating statements about financial counseling, indemnity, patient responsibilities, consent to treatment, use of… Read More ›