With his feet planted firm on the sand, Hank Iori squinted as he scanned the beach shoreline – spotting ramshackle homes, transplanted utility pipes, and scattered debris in every glimpse of his hometown Rockaway, Queens. “FEMA and the federal government have done a marvelous job cleaning up the blocks and getting sand off the streets, but that money dries up,” [...]
The protracted economic crisis that has entangled America since 2007 has produced an uproar of political reaction, galvanizing the public consciousness to demand answers to the bigger questions of our time: the role of government, the challenges of globalization, and the rapid rise of inequality have all been furiously debated. Furthermore, the pitch of political discussion and action has remained [...]
In recent decades, the United States has made it a priority to improve American education by “guaranteeing proficiency”—that is, bringing everyone up to par. President Lyndon Johnson’s Head Start Program, President George H.W. Bush’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and, most notably, the No Child Left Behind Act of President George W. Bush have exemplified this egalitarian ethos. These programs have resulted in [...]
According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, 743 US citizens out of every 100,000 are incarcerated, while Rwanda, Russia, and Georgia have the next three highest rates of 595, 568, and 547, respectively. This means that despite America, unlike Rwanda and Georgia, having had a stable government for centuries, it has 25 percent more inmates than those countries. America [...]
Electoral College reform has been debated since the institution’s inception, but there has always been little political will for change. The Democrats and Republicans appear to have held a tacit “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” agreement on the subject, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the American electoral system is broken.
If grassroots activists in the United States can build a unified movement, learning from their counterparts in Québec and Chile, perhaps the debate over education reform will translate to broader challenges to the neoliberal social order.
The total dollar amount spent on domestic counterterrorism has continued to climb ever since, and for fiscal year 2013, the Congressional Budget Office expects the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget to be $68.9 billion, or roughly $526 per household.
So we are left with a vivid understanding: Multinational oil corporations cannot be properly held accountable, and, if left unchecked, they are capable of strongly influencing United States foreign policy and policies on energy and climate change in ways that are inconsistent with government’s ultimate goal of promoting the well-being of the American people.
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold some but not all of the provisions in Arizona’s SB 1070, it is inevitable that the path toward immigration reform will involve a delicate dance between local and federal government. What can be changed, however, is whether members of both political parties work to creating substantive immigration reform.
Since his first encounter with police 65 years ago, Jazz has emerged as a prominent community activist in Harlem. He has earned four university degrees, participated in the lead-up to the 1971 Attica Rebellion in New York, and led a class-action lawsuit against New York State to end its practice of disenfranchising prisoners and parolees. At 71 years old, Jazz continues to organize, and has become one of the leaders of the fight against stop-and frisk.
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