“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and bruised itself. We’ve been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned on by public opinion and deceived by politicians. But, not withstanding all of these, organized labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of its realization as the setting of the sun!”
Eugene Debs, 1910

I know, but it’s really tough now!

Apocalypse has been given a bad name. The Seventh Day Adventists are still around. The Nike sneaker cult failed to open Heaven's Gate. The new millennium brought us George W. Bush, not Jesus H. Christ. And everybody's terrified of "drinking the Kool-Aid."

But our species is living beyond its means. If we continue down this path, the planet, our food supplies, our climate, and life as we know it will collapse. If we bring population growth, consumption, and pollution under control, the damage already set in motion will play out for centuries, but complete catastrophe will likely be averted.

Nobody likes to be told that the end might be near. Either it is or it isn't. And the question is resolved by a personal lifestyle choice. Do I wish to be a pessimist or an optimist? Of course, optimist is far more popular. Even most predictors of apocalypse have actually believed they were predicting a good thing. The world was to be replaced with something better. Even our best environmentalists who understand the radical changes needed for survival guarantee they will happen. Harvey Wasserman says he simply believes in happy endings.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance–a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
Danielle L. McGuire,
Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Rosa Parks is often referred to as the Mother of the modern civil rights movement. Historically she has been depicted as a prim, virtuous, diminutive lady who was merely too tired after a long day at work to move from her seat. Had she been Catholic she surely would have been canonized by now; St. Rosa, the patron saint of bus riders. Forty-two years old at the time of the bus boycott, she was described by Martin Luther King Jr, as “. . the victim–emphasis mine–of both the forces of history and the forces of destiny. She had been tracked down by the Zeitgeist–the spirit of the times.”

Our electric from American Electric Power came back on Thursday (July 5th) about 8 p.m. So we and our neighbors were about six days without power. We have been learned from the media that hundreds of thousands of households in AEP’s region of responsibility were without power following the big storm. The power outage coincided with a record-breaking heat wave that covered the mid-west.

Needless to say, we felt great relief when the air-conditioners and lights came back on. This catastrophic event, alas, is not the last of such severe weather events.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies monitors global surface temperatures on a continuing basis. In a report made available in January of this year, Goddard Institute scientists found that the year 2011 was the ninth hottest year on record, that is, since 1880. Nine of the ten hottest years have occurred since the year 2000. According to an article by Douglas Main for the Christian Science Monitor (July 3), "the first five months of 2012 have been the hottest on record in the contiguous United States." Temperatures in June and July are surely going to buttress this warming trend.

On a busy street
Of a large Midwestern city
In the summer heat
Of 2003
I unfurled a sheet
Hung from my apartment window
Eighteen feet
That said OPPOSE THE WAR

And the cars rolled by
They said die faggot die
We’ll be back for you later
And Nuke Iraq was their battle cry
As my people called me a traitor

But I say treason
One man’s treason
One man’s treason
Is another man’s love

Then I took a seat
Tuned up my guitar and
Played them something sweet
‘Bout giving peace a chance
And if they stopped to chat
Gave them free press magazines
Said please read that
And please OPPOSE THE WAR

Well some said right on
But then they were gone
To their jobs and kids and their gardens
And the war came and went
To the next government
While the previous team all got pardons

Treason
What is treason
What is treason
But another's man's love
“We love you!”
“Stay Out!”
Yesterday, Americans sent two very important and very different communications to our friend Dr. Wee Teck Young, a Singaporean physician and activist who lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan. The “We love you!” was a press release announcing that the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) had awarded him their “International Pfeffer Peace Prize” in recognition of his contributions to peace working with dedicated young Afghans in Kabul. The “Stay out!” was from the American government, refusing him a visa to enter the United States with these young people, in the furtherance of this work. It seems all too likely that the actions and choices which have earned him his well-deserved award are the same factors that persuaded U.S. consular officials to deny him entry to the United States. The question is whether we can be a voice to affirm that his work, and the work of the young Afghans working with him, has value in the United States, where awareness of the costs of war, and of the lives of ordinary Afghans, is desperately needed.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political and economic bands which have connected them with an industry and a bureaucracy that have held sway over their lives, and to assume an equal station among the peoples of the earth, living free from permanent war in an equal station to people of other nations as the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

June 28th marked an important day in history for women’s health. The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act enables millions of women, who previously were ineligible or did not have the economical means, to have access to quality and affordable healthcare. This includes full coverage of birth control and other preventative services, such as cancer screenings. The ACA also ensures that healthcare premiums for women, which have been significantly higher than men in the past, will be much lower and affordable. Given the recent outpour of conservative political dogma against women’s healthcare and rights in general, the passing of this act is a huge step forward for women and other groups that have neglected by the government in the past. Access to affordable healthcare is a vital basic human right and I am proud that the U.S. is taking steps to offer medical justice for all citizens.

John Eley, aged 63, is due to be executed in the US state of Ohio on 26 July for a murder committed in 1986. The prosecutor who obtained the death sentence, one of the judges who passed it, and the detective who obtained Eley's confession, oppose his execution.

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