On this episode, President Obama raises the roof at the AFL-CIO annual convention, discussing his positions on issues like workers' rights, the environment, jobs, health care reform and education.

On this episode, we play our recent interview with Teresa Albano, editor of the Peoples World, peoplesworld.org. Albano discussed the PW's editorial philosophy, it's role in reporting on labor and democratic struggles, and some of the big changes it is undergoing this fall.

At approximately 11:30pm on Thursday, September 10, 2009, a gay bar in Atlanta, the Atlanta Eagle, was raided by the Atlanta Police Department (APD).

The goal of every activity in the struggle of our party outside the country is to have a bearing on the events inside Iran, and to secure more active participation in the process of political struggles of masses and labor movement in the country. Therefore, drawing up the movement (action) of the party simply reflects the content and intent of a party with close to 70 years history of very effective struggle in the destiny of our country.

Atlanta City Council candidates, including incumbents, challengers, and candidates for open seats answered questions at a forum held by Georgia STAND-UP Alliance at the IBEW Auditorium on Tuesday, September 01, 2009.

Political progressives must speak out critically against the rituals of political life that so disenfranchise and mystify us. Along with the use of fear to induce submission (as was discussed in a prior blog essay), spectacles surrounding the deaths of prominent figures captivate our collective attention in ways that derail our political projects.

Considering all of the political complexities of the new era we have entered, President Obama has done a remarkable job in his short time in office. Those of us on the left need to look ahead and refuse to let differences with some of the President’s decisions keep us from seeing the historic and positive changes that are happening.

wo days after taking office, on January 22nd of this year, President Barack Obama issued a remarkable executive order to address some of the worst civil liberties abuses of the Bush administration. The order, among other things, forbade the CIA from running prisons outside the United States or engaging in other practices that had brought the US government into such disrepute.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was the accepted view among many social scientists that, as ethnic assimilation advanced, ethnic group identities would fade away. But in fact, ethnicity continued to impact significantly upon political life. Why was that?

We have to differ with many local and foreign analysts who have tried to understand the situation in Honduras by imposing pre-existing parameters and by using basic concepts of the Marxist dialectic without any scientific criterion.

Human rights are taking a beating in Honduras in the aftermath of the June 28 coup d'etat which sent left-wing President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya into exile. Although the corporate controlled media are not reporting it, the de-facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti is employing heavy handed tactics to silence opposition activists and media.

In June 1999 the Danish Parliament decided to form a commission to investigate if the Danish intelligence service had acted according to the law and to what the Danish government had stated publicly.

The capitalist crisis is worldwide engulfing every capitalist country on every continent. While the crisis impacts in some ways on the economies of the socialist countries, it is not the same as a capitalist crisis. The main impact comes from the fact that the socialist countries are part of international trade relations and therefore imbalances in trade may occur.

Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the single largest act of domestic terrorism in US history in Oklahoma City in 1995, stands only as the most well-known right-wing militia member.

Civil rights and labor organizations this week praised the introduction of the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA) by a bipartisan group of Senators.

Linking the corporate-financed misinformation campaign behind the Republican's anti-health reform push to the "birther" conspiracy, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, encouraged the media to report the facts about health reform on a conference call with reporters last month.

To little fanfare, the federal minimum wage rose to $7.25 per hour July 24th. It was the third scheduled raise in the minimum wage since 2007. A higher federal minimum wage is the best kind of economic stimulus for working families, say workers’ rights advocates and even some business owners.

It’s been a long nine days in the YCL School. We held classes on Marxist Methodology, Socialism, Strategy and Tactics, the fight against racism and more. It has been a lot and I hope speaking dialectically that each of us is a different person than we first started. It’s all about the negation of the negation and everything is dialectical.

A group of apparel makers with business interests in Honduras, in a July 27th letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, endorsed the administration's call for restoration of democracy and basic civil rights and liberties in that country.