- Worst. Park Name. Ever. (6/1/2006) - The charming statue of an befuddled capitalist foot soldier, who had gone missing like so many other men in ties with attache cases after 9/11, has returned to the former Liberty Plaza around the corner from Ground Zero. The park is now named after one John E. Zuccotti. Who the fuck is John E. Zuccotti, you ask? Is he a fireman who died that day, or perhaps a waiter at Windows on the World or… …
- Overpopulation, or Overconsumption? (5/31/2006) - Ward Sutton, who was much funnier when he was drawing cartoons that lampooned rock-n-roll culture, makes an extremely dubious point about overpopulation and the "culture of life" in this week's "Sutton Impact." In it, Sutton mourns the loss of greenspace and farmland in his hometown to "exurban" housing developments, blames overpopulation and then mocks the right-wingers who want to ban contraception. While the effort to ban contraception is ridiculously puritanical and begs for mockery and… …
- Fascist Rock (5/25/2006) - One of fascism's most insidious tendencies is to warp history with revisionist interpretations. The National Review's recent list of the 50 conservative rock songs of all time is a contemptible attempt to claim protest music for the forces of reaction. Freedom is, indeed, slavery and rock is Republican if you believe these pinheads. I see no more than twelve actually conservative rock songs here (and that's being generous with Sammy Hagar's weenie complaint about the… …
- Union Beer (4/27/2006) - When it comes to beer, there is only one factor that's more important than price and taste: is it union? Molsons, Miller, Anheuser-Busch, Pabst are all good union products. Always look for the union label, comrades, even when getting loaded. Beer drinkers, I regret to report that Yeungling is on the Unfair list. Management at Yeungling are busting the longtime union for their workers, Teamsters local 830. They cut off negotiations long before the recent… …
- The Death and Life of Urban Planning (4/25/2006) - Hearing of Jane Jacobs' death, I am reminded that Elana borrowed my copy of "Death and Life of Great American Cities" and never returned it (and people wonder why I'm stingy about lending out books and CDs). She does work in policy, and I'm just a union organizer. I would like to read it again, though. When I was in my final semester at Queens College, I was able to indulge a budding interest in… …
- Bernie (4/9/2006) - Still clearing out my archives, I found this picture of Bernie Sanders speaking at the Socialist Party's National Convention in 1983. At the time, Bernie was the newly elected independent Mayor of Burlington, VT. He had been a notorious left-wing activist and political gadfly, but he launched a serious populist campaign against corporate power and inequality and was rewarded by the support of the people of Vermont. After a successful stint as Mayor, Bernie ran… …
- Being “Wrong” in the Socialist Party (4/9/2006) - I recently quit as editor of The Socialist, the magazine of the Socialist Party. After just two issues, I found the intolerance and general stupidity of many of the Editorial Board members that I had to work with too frustrating to continue. There's real work that has to be done for the movement, and I am no longer willing to waste my time on fruitless endeavors. I'm thinking about leaving the party altogether, but that's… …
- Pages From a Worker’s Life (4/3/2006) - My studies have provoked in me a keen interest in the Trade Union Education League, and its founder, William Z. Foster. The T.U.E.L. was a rank and file movement in the 1920's to organize millions of workers in the basic industries along industrial lines (that is, in "one big union"). Where this differed from the Industrial Workers of the World was a dogged insistence on working within the existing AFL craft unions and "amalgamating" them.… …
- Searching for Comrade Obermeier (3/28/2006) - On September 9, 1947, federal agents stormed the offices of Hotel & Restaurant Employees Local 6 and arrested the president of the union, Michael J. Obermeier, on politically motivated immigration charges. Obermeier had been the president of Local 6 for the last ten years, and a militant union leader for food workers in the city since 1922, having organized hundreds of hotels and restaurants and thousands of poor, immigrant, minority and female workers in the… …
- I Want Candy (3/27/2006) - When I was younger, my favorite treat at the candy shops in the malls was the red licorice shoelace. I'd tie them into knots and gobble them up before I'd make it to the parking lot. I have been craving them for some time, and I think I may never taste them again. The problem is that, a number of years ago, some genius and his focus groups decided to change the formula for the… …