All Views Articles for 2012-headline-2012
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Dave Johnson Deficits Were On Purpose To Cause This “Crisis” Before ‘W’ got in and made changes in taxes and military spending we were paying off the debt . Bush said the deficits that resulted from his changes were “ extremely positive news .” (Yes, that is... Read more |
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Stefanie Penn Spear Story of the Year: It’s Global Warming, Stupid My favorite headline of 2012 was “ It’s Global Warming, Stupid ,” which appeared on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek on Nov. 1, just days after Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast. Read more |
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Michael Hudson The Financial Elite's War Against the US Economy Today’s economic warfare is not the kind waged a century ago between labor and its industrial employers. Finance has moved to capture the economy at large, industry and mining, public infrastructure... Read more |
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Tina Gerhardt In Praise of Environmentalist Becky Tarbotton, 1973-2012 "We need to remember that the work of our time is bigger than climate change. We need to be setting our sights higher and deeper. What we're really talking about, if we're honest with ourselves, is... Read more |
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Daniel Wilson Putting It In Drive: What's Next for Idle No More Across the country, in shopping malls and in the streets, thousands are rallying and round-dancing and serving notice that they will be Idle No More (INM). Messages of support from around the world... Read more |
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Lawrence Wittner Gun Control and Arms Control In a number of ways, gun control issues are remarkably similar to arms control issues. Read more |
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Medea Benjamin Ten of My Favorite Things about 2012 There are many things to be thankful for in 2012, starting with the fact that the world didn’t end on December 21 and that we don’t have to witness the inauguration of Mr. One-Percent Mitt Romney... Read more |
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Ivan Eland Bending to Military Contractors The strength of the military-industrial complex (MIC) was made readily apparent by President Barack Obama’s latest proposal to House Speaker John Boehner to avoid the fiscal cliff. Other than raising... Read more |
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Fran Quigley How Human Rights Can Save Haiti Last month, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced a new initiative to address the cholera epidemic in Haiti. The plan includes a variety of measures, most notably the building of... Read more |
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Richard Eskow The Top 12 Political Fallacies of 2012 Our nation was gripped by so many fallacies and delusions in 2012 that the whole Mayan calendar end-of-the-world thing didn’t even make the list. Read more |
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John Nichols Social Security Is Off the Table... For Now Preserving Social Security should never have been all that difficult. Read more |
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Paul Buchheit Why It's a Privilege to be a Progressive in 2013 We enter the new year with a degree of optimism, because Americans, except for Congress and the uninformed, are beginning to realize that cooperation transcends self-centeredness as a means of... Read more |
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Joanne Brookfield Meet the Woman Battling Japan's Whaling Fleet in Antarctic Ocean Japanese hunters won't kill a single whale this winter, Sea Shepherd activists vow Read more |
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Peter Rugh Radical Mental Health in an Era of Mass Shootings The mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 young school children and seven adults (including the shooter himself) has not only reignited the debate over gun control in the United States, but... Read more |
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George Zornick The Guide to Going Off the So-Called Cliff Congress and the White House are scrambling to reach a deal to avert the expiration of the Bush tax rates, the enactment of deep budget cuts, and several other measures scheduled to take effect on... Read more |
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Jim Hightower A Fracking Surprise in Texas How ironic: Fracking recently got fracked! This brutish technique for extracting natural gas from deep within the Earth, led by such profiteering giants as Exxon Mobil and Halliburton, has rapidly... Read more |
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John Nichols 2012 Outlined America’s New Political Reality The great lesson from 2012 is that America is no longer an evenly divided country. Read more |
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Glenn Greenwald Who Paid for the Log Cabin Republicans' Anti-Hagel NYT Ad? The gay GOP group confirms the ad was funded by outside donors, but refuses to identify them or their cause Read more |
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Naomi Wolf Revealed: How the FBI Coordinated the Crackdown on Occupy New documents prove what was once dismissed as paranoid fantasy: totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent Read more |
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Philip Caper Deja-vu All Over Again: A Chance to Lead About a year ago, facing a budgetary shortfall, the Maine legislature had a knock-down, drag out fight over Governor LePage’s proposal to attempt to save $250 million by throwing 65,000 Maine... Read more |
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David Macaray Longshoremen’s Strike Averted as Public, Media Hypocritical on Labor Rights On December 28, a potential strike by the ILA (International Longshoremen’s Association), representing East Coast dockworkers, was averted when union negotiators agreed to extend the contract for... Read more |
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Ralph Nader Make Civic Engagement a Priority in the New Year Many people view the New Year as a time for resolutions -- losing weight, exercising more, staying in better touch with friends, taking up a new hobby. Here's something you don't often hear of when... Read more |
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Trevor Timm Congress Disgracefully Approves the FISA Warrantless Spying Bill for Five More Years, Rejects All Privacy Amendments On Friday, after just one day of rushed debate, the Senate shamefully voted on a five-year extension to the FISA Amendments Act , an unconsitutional law that openly allows for warrantless... Read more |
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Peter Dreier New York Times' Xmas Present to Corporate Lobby Group Fix-the Debt: A Puff Piece The New York Times should be embarrassed. On December 24 it gave a Christmas present to the corporate-backed lobby group Fix the Debt with its front-page Business section puff piece about the... Read more |
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Johnny Barber Wounded Knee 122 Years Later December 29th marks the 122nd anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It is a story that remains fresh in the lives of many indigenous peoples across America. Each generation is taught to never... Read more |
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Laurie Penny Russia's Ban on US Adoption Isn't About Children's Rights The row between Russian and the US on adoption ruins lives and leaves both countries looking sordid Read more |
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Christopher Brauchli Slaughters' Solutions Such as do build their faith upon Holy text of pike and gun. — Samuel Butler, Hudibras, pt.I Read more |
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Yifat Susskind 3 Steps to Build Resilience Through Your Giving You are a person who cares. You see injustice and people suffering, all over the world, and you know it’s not right. You go looking for some way to fix it, but you know you can’t do it alone. So you... Read more |
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Matthew Rothschild Why the “Fiscal Cliff” Bores the Snot Out of Me Enough already! I can’t take it anymore. I can barely write the words “fiscal cliff” without dosing off. And I’m not alone here. Utter the term to insomniacs and out they’ll go. Read more |
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Ralph Nader 17 Solutions for a Better America in the New Year It’s easier than you think. That’s the way I start discussions and interviews about my new book titled, “ Seventeen Solutions. ” The “solutions” were selected for their long-overdue practicality,... Read more |
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Alex Kane Since When is the Left Embracing Chuck Hagel, a Nationalist, Establishment Figure? The neoconservative smear campaign against former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel has caused a crop of liberals and progressives to jump to his defense. But others further on the left have questioned... Read more |
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Ray McGovern The Larger Question of Chuck Hagel The Israel Lobby is hell bent on sabotaging President Barack Obama’s tentative plan to appoint former Sen. Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. And – with Obama now dithering about this selection –... Read more |
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Liz Ševčenko Guantánamo Bay's Other Anniversary: 110 Years of a Legal Black Hole Even if President Obama finally fulfills his promise to close the detention camp, America's ambiguous Cuban dominion goes on Read more |
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Krystalline Kraus 'Idle No More' Actions Taking Place Across Canada There is a rich history of resistance against colonialism in North America-Turtle Island. In Canada alone, there are stories of victories from Batchewana Bay First Nation to the Oka uprising to the... Read more |
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Samuel Metz Why Claiming US Has 'Best Health System' Is a Sick Joke The 'best' health care depends on your perspective Read more |
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Juan Cole Schwarzkopf and US Hegemony in the Middle East Gen. Norman H. Schwarzkopf is dead at 78 . He died of pneumonia. Read more |
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Paul Krugman Starbucks' CEO and a Double Shot of Misunderstanding One of the enduring fantasies of the pundit class – most dramatically demonstrated by the ludicrous Politico piece on What Insiders Know – is that all we need to fix our economic problems is to get... Read more |
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Robert Reich Cliff Hanger: Why Republicans Don’t Care What the Nation Thinks Are House Republicans – now summoned back to Washington by Speaker John Boehner — about to succumb to public pressure and save the nation from the fiscal cliff? Don’t bet on it. Read more |
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Glenn Greenwald GOP and Feinstein Join to Fulfill Obama's Demand for Renewed Warrantless Eavesdropping The California Democrat's disgusting rhetoric recalls the worst of Dick Cheney while advancing Obama's agenda Read more |
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Dean Baker Washington Post Pushes Mayan End of the World Story on "Fiscal Cliff" Yes, the Washington Post is getting very worried that it will have egg all over its face if January 1 comes with no budget deal and we don't get its promised recession. Read more |
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Antonia Montes Obama Should Grant Amnesty to Immigrants Before the end of the year, presidents often consider grants of pardon and amnesty. This year, Pres. Obama should grant amnesty to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America, excluding those... Read more |
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Wenonah Hauter How Big Business Poisons Academic Research The energy industry and Big Agribusiness are distorting academic research by wielding corporate influence. Read more |
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David Macaray Are We Approaching the Twilight of the Labor Movement? By now, most people realize that private sector union membership in the U.S. stands at about 7-percent, which means that 93-percent of all private sector jobs are non-union. Which makes those... Read more |
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Fran Korten Four Steps to Less Wasteful Communities The individual actions we take to reduce waste are important. But to stem the avalanche of stuff, we also need system-wide solutions Read more |
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Trevor Timm Why We Should All Care About Today's Senate Vote on the FISA Amendments Act, the Warrantless Domestic Spying Bill Today is an incredibly important vote for the future of your digital privacy, but some in Congress are hoping you won’t find out. Read more |
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Am Johal Justice at Stake: Chief Theresa Spence Inspires a Nation Launched in the shadows of Parliament Hill two weeks ago, the hunger strike by Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence goes on. There is little to be heard from the federal government or Prime... Read more |
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Robert Reich The Only Way Left to Beat GOP Fanatics: Call Their Bluff and Go Over the Fabricated "Cliff" President Obama is cutting his Christmas holiday short, returning to Washington for a last attempt at avoiding the fiscal cliff. But he’s running headlong into the Republican strategy of fanaticism. Read more |
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Ronnie Cummins New Year’s Revolution: Connecting the Dots, Coming Together and Fighting Like Hell As a longtime writer and activist campaigning for decades on food and farming issues, most recently Prop 37, the California Ballot Initiative to label genetically engineered foods, I am reminded... Read more |
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Amy Goodman Pull the Global Trigger on Gun Control While the final funerals for the victims of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre have been held, gun violence continues apace, most notably with the Christmas Eve murder of two volunteer firefighters... Read more |
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Lee Fang The NRA and Gun Companies Stand to Profit From Newtown Tragedy Last year, shortly after the shooting of then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a financial analyst asked Mike Fifer—CEO of one of the largest gun companies in America—if the incident would lead to a... Read more |
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Zainab al-Khawaja Bahrain, a Brutal Ally ISA TOWN, Bahrain - EARLIER this month, Aqeel Abdul Mohsen, 19, was shot in the face for protesting against Bahrain’s government. He was covered in blood, with the lower side of his face blown open,... Read more |
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Glenn Greenwald Obama's Gift to Al-Qaida, Support for Tyranny, and FBI Monitoring of Dissent Numerous individual events from this week alone signify important trends in US government policy Read more |
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Jim Hightower Ballot-measure Democracy a Notable Success in 2012 This being the season of giving, it's worth looking back at some special gifts from November's election that received little acknowledgement at the time. Read more |
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Dean Baker There Is No Santa Claus and Bill Clinton Was Not an Economic Savior The truth is often painful but nonetheless it is important that we live in the real world. Just as little kids have to come to grips with the fact that there is no Santa Claus, it is necessary for... Read more |
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John Atcheson Christmas, Winter Solstice, A Time of Renewal, and the Beginning of End of the World As We Know It Scholars agree that the timing of Christmas has more to do with the end of winter than the birth of a savior. The evidence that people celebrated the death of winter is literally everywhere. Five... Read more |
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Michael Wolff The Truth About Zero Dark Thirty: This Torture Fantasy Degrades Us All Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal's film claims to be 'based on a true story' but no non-fiction writer could take such liberties Read more |
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Michael Nagler Newtown: How We Can Heed The Warnings The wisest man I had the privilege of knowing in my life once said, “There is no nation, no matter how powerful, that cannot be destroyed by hate.” Read more |
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Michelle Chen Flammable Material: How Garment Workers Can Respond to the Tazreen Factory Fire In a fashion industry where trends change by the minute, the lives of the workers who make the clothes are often valued as cheaply as the products they create. The devastating fire at the Tazreen... Read more |
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Ted Rall Six Weeks After Reelection, Obama Sells Out Liberal Democrats After the election Kerry Eleveld wrote a piece for The Atlantic titled “ Why Barack Obama Will Be a More Effective Liberal in His Second Term .” “In response to their initial disappointment with the... Read more |
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Naomi Klein As Chief Spence Starves, Canadians Awaken from Idleness and Remember Their Roots I woke up just past midnight with a bolt. My six-month-old son was crying. He has a cold – the second of his short life–and his blocked nose frightens him. I was about to get up when he started... Read more |
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Muna Mire Idle No More: Women Rising to Lead When it's Needed Most Chief Theresa Spence is now on Day 13 of her hunger strike. Too weak to leave the teepee she is living in on Victoria Island, a mere stone's throw from Parliament, she called for a round dance... Read more |
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Paul Krugman When Prophecy Fails Back in the 1950s three social psychologists joined a cult that was predicting the imminent end of the world. Their purpose was to observe the cultists’ response when the world did not, in fact, end... Read more |
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Steve Connor 'Frankenfish' Approval Could Open Floodgates for Other GM Animals An American license to permit the commercial development and sale of genetically modified salmon could open the door on a new era of GM animals designed for human consumption, although at present... Read more |
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Izzeldin Abuelaish Compassion, Not Anger, Is Best Response to Sandy Hook Massacre I know what it's like to lose children in violent circumstances, but we cannot support a culture of fear Read more |
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Paul Buchheit The 12 Days of a Capitalist Christmas On the first day of Christmas my employer gave to me ONE penny for every $3 the richest 130,000 Americans make. It's been a national tradition since 1980. Read more |
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Rebecca Solnit 2013 as Year Zero: For Earth and For Us This last year put the crisis in perspective, this coming year our battle begins Read more |
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Chris Hedges The Final Battle Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization... Read more |
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Richard Eskow Ask a Democrat: On Social Security, Which Side Are You On? This is a moment of moral clarity. Right now there are only two sides in the Social Security debate: the side that says it’s acceptable to cut benefits – in a way that raises taxes for all income... Read more |
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Robert Parry NRA Suggests a Police State The irony of the NRA’s crackpot idea for protecting America’s children by dramatically expanding the use of armed guards is that the proposal would push the U.S. further down the path toward a police state, threatening the “liberties” that the NRA claims it wants to ensure Read more |
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Timothy Canova Not Another Wall Street Puppet The president should appoint a Treasury secretary who will go to bat for the middle class. Read more |
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Laura Finley Building a Peaceful Future for Our Children Read more |
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César Chelala Russia's Demographic and Public Health Crisis For the last two decades, demographics and its effect on Russian society and future development prospects have been at the center of the discussions on that country. There is now universal agreement... Read more |
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Jesse Hagopian Tec-9’s for Teachers? Arming Educators Gets a Failing Grade Chalk in one hand and a handgun in the other. As a high school history teacher with a Masters in Education, I never imagined some politicians and other cultural “leaders” would be urging me to add “... Read more |
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Ralph Nader The Commercialization of Family Family is the foundation of our American society. In many ways, the family unit is one of the last bastions of decency holding out against encroaching corporate commoditization -- the corporations... Read more |
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Christopher Brauchli Banks and Persons My object all-sublime, I shall achieve in time- To let the punishment fit the crime. — Gilbert and Sullivan, The Mikado It was just an unfortunate coincidence that the reports were almost juxtaposed-... Read more |
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Michelle Chen Despite Exemptions, Police and Firefighters Show Labor Solidarity in Michigan Right-to-Work Battle Michigan’s new right-to-work law has has struck a savage blow to America’s labor movement in its heartland. Unions across the state have thronged to Lansing to oppose the attack, which makes union... Read more |
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Robert Parry The Right’s Second Amendment Lies A big obstacle to commonsense gun control is the Right’s false historical narrative that the Founders wanted an armed American public that could fight its own government. The truth is that George Washington looked to citizens militias to put down revolts and maintain order Read more |
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Cenk Uygur Obama Will Ride to the Rescue... for Republicans The Republicans have put themselves in a holy mess with this Plan B debacle. They now have less than zero leverage. They are a national laughingstock. A majority of the country now thinks they are "... Read more |
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Mark Weisbrot US Military Needs to Leave Afghanistan and Stop Widening Drone Strikes There is perhaps no time in American history when our leaders have fought a war with so little support. More than 60 percent of Americans want out of Afghanistan. Even at the peak of the anti-Vietnam... Read more |
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Glen Ford The Ultimate Logic of a Society Built on Mass Murder It’s not a sudden madness, but a long history of mass murder come full circle. Read more |
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Paul Krugman Playing Taxes Hold ’Em: 'GOP Crazies' Save Progressives from Obama (Again) A few years back, there was a boom in poker television — shows in which you got to watch the betting and bluffing of expert card players. Since then, however, viewers seem to have lost interest. Read more |
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Ira Chernus Are the US and Israel Heading for a Showdown? No One Thinks So, But It Just Might Happen Read more |
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Randall Amster An Open Letter to the Children Dear Children, Read more |
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Rose Ann DeMoro Washington's Austerity Plan Threatens the 50 Million Americans Already in Poverty Our nurses see dire need every day in the ER, but the growing gulf of inequality in the US has made such deprivation ubiquitous Read more |
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Medea Benjamin Will Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid Stand Up to the NRA? When CODEPINK, MoveOn and representatives of other organizations marched into Senator Harry Reid’s DC office on Tuesday, December 18, they wanted a simple answer to a simple question: Does the... Read more |
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Jonathan Cook Murdoch, Petraeus and the US Media Matrix Carl Bernstein, of All the President’s Men fame, has a revealing commentary in the Guardian today, though revealing not entirely in a way he appears to understand. Read more |
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Carl Bernstein Why the US Media Ignored Murdoch's Brazen Bid to Hijack the Presidency Did the Washington Post and others underplay the story through fear of the News Corp chairman, or simply tin-eared judgment? Read more |
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Ralph Nader Newtown’s Moral Authority for Action Po Murray, a mother of four children in Newtown, Connecticut, the location of the shooting rampage that took the lives of 20 youngsters and six adults, met with about forty of her townspeople in the... Read more |
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Mary Bottari To Turn the Tide Against the NRA, Leadership Needed at the Top You know you are not going to be seeing the brightest bulbs on TV defending America's loose gun laws the weekend after the mass slaughter of children. Even the NRA had gone dark, taking down its... Read more |
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Jim Hightower Welcome to 'Michiganistan' Michigan is no longer a state. It is now “Michiganistan,” an autocratic czardom in the hands of Emperor Rick Snyder. Formerly the Republican governor, Snyder has been enthroned by the GOP’s lame-duck... Read more |
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Mary Grant Water Is Invaluable A range of private players in the water arena, including water service companies like American Water, are part of a relatively new corporate effort to coordinate public outreach about the “Value of... Read more |
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Angi Becker Stevens In Search of Solidarity: Vastly Different Responses to Michigan's "Right to Work" and Attacks on Right to Choose This past Tuesday, I was among the more than 10,000 men and women who descended on Michigan's state Capitol to protest the signing of "Right to Work" legislation that will likely have disastrous... Read more |
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Stephen Leahy At the Edge of the Carbon Cliff UXBRIDGE, Canada - The most important number in history is now the annual measure of carbon emissions. That number reveals humanity’s steady billion-tonne by billion-tonne march to the edge of the... Read more |
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Sadhbh Walshe Breaking the Hold of Corporate Welfare on America's Incarceration Industry With stricken budgets, many states have been cutting prison populations. But vested interests are resisting prison closures Read more |
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Joe Brewer What If All the World’s Debt Just Went Away Just for fun, imagine if all debt were wiped away when the Mayan Calendar ends this Friday… Read more |
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Danielle Nierenberg 13 Resolutions to Change the Food System in 2013 As we start 2013, many people will be thinking about plans and promises to improve their diets and health. We think a broader collection of farmers, policy-makers, and eaters need new, bigger... Read more |
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David Morris Should Tax Payers Subsidize Charitable Contributions? A few surprises about giving in America Read more |
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Mark Morford Death To All Guns Is it time? Can we just say it outright? Let’s try it: Guns are, socially and ethically, devastating. Worthless. They add nothing of positive, intrinsic value to a culture, a people, a country. They... Read more |
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Bryce Covert In Fiscal Cliff Deal, Don’t Chain Grandma to Smaller Social Security Checks Read more |
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John Atcheson Wanted: A President With Bush's Balls, Obama's Brains and Biden's Heart Uhmm. Don’t look now, Mr. President, but you’re taking a mandate and turning it into mush. Ordinarily that might not matter much. The importance of the goings on inside the Beltway are notoriously... Read more |