In my earlier post I expressed the fear that the formation of the new Change to Win labor coalition might split the labor movement so much that in its already weak state it would fragment. It’s impossible to predict one way or the other, but I’m slowly coming around to a more hopeful view and I’ll give my reasons below. First of all, I should re-emphasize that I am somewhat naive and untutored on the US …

The Financial Times was recently caught purveying a new kind of advertisement on its web site — invisible ads! (New York Times, Alternate Link) The ads consisted of links to other commercial sites, printed in white on a white background. Harmless you might think, but think again. The ads aren’t for human visitors to the sites, but for web search engine programs like Google that travel the web and rank some pages by (among other …

Yesterday’s averted plot to kill US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (Washington Post) shows that anti-US forces in Afghanistan (and in Pakistan, the alleged base of the assassins) are getting smarter. No longer are they targeting the puppet, Afghan president Hamid Karzai, but the man who holds the strings.

Still in confirmation hearings in the Senate for the post of Ambassador to Iraq, Khalilzad leaves behind a legacy of dirty dealings and democracy thwarting in Afghanistan. …

Mike Griffin, the new administrator of NASA, recently made a candid admission of one of the most important unspoken purposes of NASA and other government agencies that fund science and technology research. That is, testing technologies, techniques, and theories risk free before they are given to corporations to make a profit.

(I work for a NASA-funded lab at Caltech, so technically Griffin is like the CEO of the company that employs me. I didn’t go to his …

The formation of a new coalition of 5 unions within the AFL-CIO looks like it may have serious consequences for the US labor movement. I admit to being out of my league when it comes to the politics of labor, but from what I’ve been reading, if the “Change to Win coalition” follows through with its threat to leave the AFL-CIO, it is probably not going to benefit US workers in the long run. Labor in …

What do the rich gain from debt relief?

Not to say that it is bad that the wealthy nations of the world have agreed “to stop demanding payments from 18 of the poorest countries in Africa” (Under the Same Sun), but why did they do it? Why is Paul Wolfowitz on the same side of this issue as Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, the patron of Jubilee 2000? I can think of four reasons.

Popular pressure/it …

The “Downing Street Memo” confirming that the Bush administration was intent on invading Iraq as early as July 2002, 8 months before the actual invasion, is finally getting some coverage in the mainstream US media. The US self-censorship on the memo was so bad, according to the London Times, that “ombudsmen of The Washington Post, The New York Times and National Public Radio…have questioned the lack of attention the minutes have received from their organisations.” Most …

The late breaking announcement that the US and UK have agreed on the cancellation of the debt for 18 mostly African countries should be seen as the successful culmination of years of activism. At the same time, it would be foolhardy not to see this as only a small piece of a larger struggle fought by democratic forces against the corporate imperialism of the United States and its allies.

The British government-sponsored Commission for Africa …

We rarely see progressive activists, especially men, deal with the issue of pornography, but they should. One writer who has influenced me on this subject has been Robert Jensen, a friend and colleague who makes the case that pornography is not only sexist and subtly racist, but that it is damaging to heterosexual white males, the primary customers. By purchasing or renting pornography, you become “someone who is willing to buy women for sex, someone who …

I now own politicalconscience.net, so the “official” URL for this blog is now http://www.politicalconscience.net. The old address will still work, too. Everything is on the same host, so nothing should change.

I guess that means this is a “real” blog and I have to write “real” posts…

Jim