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American Labor: Prospects and Possibilities
Starbucks workers at over 100 sites greeted Spring and the company’s new CEO by walking off the job. Some pundits hail this action as a reflection of labors’ growing new strength. Public approval of unions is at a fifty year high, petitions for union elections are on the upswing, and the recent well-publicized organizing victories […]
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How Chelsea Manning’s Court-Martial Laid the Groundwork for Julian Assange’s Prosecution
Adapted from Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange Private First Class Chelsea Manning received the harshest punishment any United States military officer or federal government employee has ever received for leaking classified information to the press. Colonel Denise Lind, the military judge presiding over her court-martial, sentenced Manning to thirty-five years at […]
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Circus Politics Are Intended to Distract Us
There is nothing more dangerous than a government of the many controlled by the few. — Lawrence Lessig, Harvard law professor It is easy to be distracted right now by the bread and circus politics that have dominated the news headlines lately, but don’t be distracted. Don’t be fooled, not even a little. We’re being […]
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Trashing Asylum: The UK’s Illegal Migration Bill
He was standing before a lectern at Downing Street. The words on the support looked eerily similar to those used by the politicians of another country. According to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Stop the Boats was the way to go. It harked back to the same approach used by Australia’s Tony Abbott, who won […]
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First, They Spied on Protesters. Then Churches. You’re Next
I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return. […]
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The Ghost of Hugo Grotius: The UN High Seas Treaty
Ever so rarely, the human species can reach accord and agreement on some topic seemingly contentious and divergent. Such occasions tend to be rarer than hen’s teeth, but the UN High Seas Treaty was one of them. It took over two decades of agonising, stuttering negotiations to draft an agreement and went someway to suggest […]
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The Right to Be Let Alone: When the Government Wants to Know All Your Business
Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. —Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis There was a time when the census was just a head count. That is no longer the case. The American Community Survey (ACS), sent to about 3.5 million homes every year, […]
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When the Government Thinks It Knows Best
Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. — Simone Weil, French philosopher, “Reflections on War“ It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, […]
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