the nation

Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy

My Socialist Party is hosting a forum next Monday in defense of Lynne Stewart, the famed civil rights attorney who is being sent up the river for “aiding ‘terrorists’ ” by defending their constitutional rights in our modern witch-hunt times. Tom Good has organized a very interesting panel, and it looks like yours truly will be offering a few opening remarks and introducing the speakers. I strongly encourage you to attend if you are free in New YOrk City this coming Monday night. This will be the party’s biggest event in the city this summer (we have some cool things cooking up for the fall). July 6, 2005 For Immediate Release P R E S S R E L E A S E FREE SPEECH FORUM IN DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS ATTORNEY LYNNE STEWART New York, NY – The Socialist Party is hosting a Free Speech Forum in defense of […]

Register for Selective Service Under Protest

With no end in sight to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military recruitment on the decline, a resumption of the military draft looms as a frightening possibility for young people. While many activists have been turning their attention towards anti-recruitment work, resistance to Selective Service registration has taken a back seat. A cursory search on Google reveals advice that is ridiculously simple-minded. It is unreasonable to ask a young man not to register for Selective Service if he wants to go to college. Anyone who wants to go to college, but cant afford to pay tuition out of pocket, has to resort to student loans. Anyone who applies for student loans must first file a Federal Application for Financial Student Aid. Under federal law, all men between the ages of 18 and 26 are ineligible for FAFSA unless they register for Selective Service. The simple math for this […]

Ghosts of Mississippi Demand Action for Today

The wheels of civil rights justice sure do turn slowly in America. With a curious vigor, authorities are seeking convictions for two of the most famous lynchings of the mid-twentieth century, while the U.S. Senate has recently apologized for not reacting to all those lynchings in a timely matter. Better late than never? “You’re still doing what you did in 1964,” protests Rita Schwerner Bender. Back in that Freedom Summer, Schwerner Bender and her then-husband, Michael Schwerner moved to Mississippi in order to register blacks to vote. They worked with a Queens College student named Andrew Goodman, and a local black activist named James Earl Chaney. These nosy Jews from New York and their uppity Negro friend drew the ire of the local Ku Klux Klan, whose support went all the way up to the local sheriff, who, on June 21, arrested the three men for speeding and allowed them […]

Florida Creates Poster Child for Reproductive Rights

Florida, America’s Wang, has been the most shameless corner of the vast right-wing conspiracy for years now. A phenomenon recently lampooned by Tom Tomorrow, policy makers in Florida pick the most ridiculous fights to stoke the flames of their supporters’ torch-and-pitchfork ensembles, even if the fights are completely contradictory to their own rhetoric. Now comes the latest, a judge has ruled that a 13-year-old girl cannot decide for herself to have an abortion. Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled that the girl is too young and immature to make the momentous decision to have an abortion by herself, plus, he claims he is concerned about the potential effect of an abortion on her physical and emotional health. Now, first of all, a full-term pregnancy and labor is a lot riskier for a little girl than a first-trimester abortion, and, secondly, if the girl is too immature to choose an abortion, how in […]

Beer: The Cause of, and Solution to, All of Life’s Problems

It turns out I have at least two things in common with Warren Buffett, the shrewd billionaire. We’ve both disliked Bush for some time, and now it seems that we’ve both been investing in beer in this lousy economy. Of course, my investment has been a pint at a time, while Buffett “has become a significant shareholder” in Anheuser-Busch. In my role as a trustee for the American Socialist Foundation, I’ve recently been focusing a lot of attention on some of the inherent weaknesses in the US economy. In our quest to responsibly invest a $100,000 bequest, ASF Chair Barbara Garson and I have been meeting with economists and investment advisors to pick the safest strategy. The outlook is bleak. Bush’s huge deficits, these stupid wars, the declining dollar and oil uncertainty all point to an economic crash. It could be tomorrow, it could be five years from now. We’re […]

May Day! May Day!

This May First, hundreds of thousands of activists will march through the streets of New York. This won’t be a traditional May Day parade, not even a watered down “Workers Memorial Day”. No, if anything, this “May Day” is more in the nautical vein of “Save us!” On that Sunday, United for Peace and Justice and Abolition 2000 will lead a march down First Avenue, past the United Nations, down 42nd Street and back up to Central Park for a massive rally against the war in Iraq and in favor of complete nuclear disarmament. It was two years ago, on May 1, 2003, that George Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, thrust his stuffed crotch in the general direction of a salivating press corp and declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. Of course, the war has just gotten bloodier and more hopeless in the ensuing time. Meanwhile, the United Nations […]

“Run for the shadows in these golden years…”

Now begins perhaps the biggest fight long-planned by the “Republican Revolution.” With his re-election and substantial majorities in both houses of Congress, not to mention a majority of states’ governors, Bush has more clout and more power than any Republican has had since Theodore Roosevelt. Social Security pisses off free market Republicans because it is one social welfare policy of the government that remains massively popular, despite 25 years “big, bad government” rhetoric. Of course, Bush is willing to risk his legacy over this fight. After Social Security goes the minimum wage, the rest of our Pell grants, Roe vs. Wade… They really aim to repeal the twentieth century. The plan, of course, reduces guaranteed benefits for future retirees. Workers can divert up to 4% of their payroll taxes to a limited number of government-chosen mutual funds, and, at retirement, must divert some of their money into an annuity which […]

Thinking Positively About Iraq’s Election

Just before the Iraqi election, the People’s Weekly World published a refreshingly even handed editorial that suggested that there are “no simple answers for the U.S. left” when it comes to our response. Now that the election is over, many on the left will criticise the new transitional national assembly as a puppet government of U.S. interests, lacking a clear mandate. But, to the surprise of many of us, a majority of eligible voters turned out to the polls, which is better turn-out than most U.S. congressional elections (and we don’t have to avoid machine gun fire, just the occasional police roadblock). This provides a real opening for us to get the hell out of there. It is up to Iraq’s new assembly to demonstrate its independence from its occupied forces. They can cancel Paul Bremmer’s sweetheart contracts with Halliburton and other corporate plunderers. They can nationalize Iraq’s oil resources. […]