United States

I attended Powershift 2009, which brought 10,000 young people together in Washington DC to demand serious action on climate change, and have a few observations to make about the North American youth climate movement.
Protests against Proposition 8, the California referendum that robs same-sex partners of marriage rights granted in a state Supreme Court decision earlier this year, began the day after the November 4 vote and continued through the rest of the week.
In the world of Washington insider politics, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
People all over the world have waited for the end of the hated far-right-wing administration of US President George Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney. However, what will an Obama presidency bring with it? US Socialist Worker held a round table with a range of activists and left-wing authors on this topic. Below are some heavily abridged excerpts of some contributions. All contributions, in full, can be found at http://socialistworker.org.
While celebrations over Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential elections dominated US streets, gay rights supporters rallied against the banning of same-sex marriage in California.
The deepening financial calamity exposes how the “fundamentals” of the economy impact on working people in the US, particularly African Americans. The so-called unfettered free market system has been a failure.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain has let the dogs loose. Apparently, he’s decided that if winning the White House means whipping up the right wing into a racist frenzy, he’ll lead the charge.
Independent presidential candidate and anti-corporate activist Ralph Nader led a protest of hundreds in front of the New York Stock Exchange against the US government’s US$700 billion Wall Street bail-out package on October 16, according to an AFP report that day.
Bankers in Chicago are angry with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
Many people are understandably frustrated when they try to make sense of the world financial crisis based on what they read in mainstream newspapers.
The below October 1 article was written by Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner currently on death row in a US prison. Mumia is a radical African American journalist and activist who has been wrongfully imprisoned since 1981 over the shooting of a police officer. He writes weekly columns from death row. For information on his case, and to get involved in the campaign for his freedom, visit http://freemumia.com.
On the fateful evening of September 18, when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chair Ben Bernanke pulled together a closed-door meeting to discuss the rapidly unfolding crisis plaguing the financial system, congressional leaders feigned shock and horror at its severity.