The free lending public library is a uniquely American invention. Neighborhood based, locally financed, open to all, the public library is a treasure that finds itself too often on the periphery of public policy and attention. Given the remarkable past and present of the public library that should change.… Read More
America’s leaders are right. America is exceptional. But not in the way they assert. History has blessed America with unprecedented advantages, but we have not used them wisely. We are indeed number 1 among nations in many areas, but these are areas where being number 1 is a sign of failure, not success. … Read More
The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor. Thomas Donohue, Former President AFL-CIO In the early 1980s Ricardo Levins Morales, an artist and labor activist in Minneapolis designed a bumper sticker with a simple eight-word message, “From the people who brought you the weekend. “ Since then, he’s sold tens of thousands. In 2007 … Read More
After winning an Oscar for Best Documentary for Inside Job, Charles Ferguson injected some much-needed real world relevance amidst the fabulously glitzy proceedings. … Read More
Dear football fan, The Superbowl is over. But the real combat is just beginning. This time it’s not Packers v. Steelers. It’s Workers v. Bosses. And for thousands of workers and millions of fans, this is the game that counts. In the game of football, the rules favor neither side. And they are enforced. Each team … Read More
I started to write a comment on President Obama’s State of the Union Address, and the Republican Party’s responses. But I quickly realized the difficulties in having to comment on someone else’s narrative. I’d end up with, at best, a worthy critique when what I wanted was an alternative narrative. So I decided to write one. … Read More
In the wake of the murders in Tucson, our leaders once again are calling for civility in public discourse. We forget that for almost 40 years we didn’t have to plead for civility. We demanded it. The story of how we did so, and why we stopped, illuminates the intersection of politics and culture. At the dawn of the broadcasting era, the government declared that the airwaves belonged to the public and fashioned rules to protect the public interest protect the public interest.… Read More
Today, 75 years and 4 months since Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, a Democratic president is ignoring his wisdom and abandoning his strategy for protecting the program from shifting political winds. If congressional Democrats go along with Obama on this, it could mark the beginning of the end of Social Security as we have known it.… Read More
The seeds of the current Canadian health system were sown in rural Saskatchewan in the early 20th century when small cities with no doctorsbegan to subsidize a physician to come and set up practice. Several communities then joined together to open publicly-funded hospitals.
In the 1930s, a new Canadian political party, whose name reflected its philosophy, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), came to powerin Saskatchewan.
