Women Face Triple Economic Burden

The economic burdens on women are triple—working in undervalued jobs, domestic work, and cutbacks in social services used by women.

In the first place, women’s work continues to be undervalued and underpaid. Women are half the labor force and continue to earn 76 cents on the dollar earned by men.

Palestine Solidarity/BDS Workshop on May 23

Thursday, May 23, 6:30pm in the Gold Room of the downtown Duluth Public Library

Since 1948 Israel has pursued an aggressive displacement of Palestinians from their homeland with political and financial support of the U.S. and the taxpayers of Minnesota.  The MN State Board of Investment owns over $23 million of Israel bonds. 

Immigrants Need Legalization Without Chains

Millions of undocumented immigrants and their families, friends, and allies waited with bated breath for the unveiling of the new proposal for Comprehensive Immigration Reform on Tuesday, April 16. Despite high hopes, the new bill includes many draconian provisions, such as more militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, new guest-worker programs and biometric employment verification, and a long, arduous, and expensive “pathway to citizenship.”

Gap Between CEO and Worker Pay Grows Even Bigger

How large is the pay gap between America’s CEOs and the rest of us? Try this: The “median” CEO earns the equivalent of your yearly pay, every day.

That’s what the latest edition of “Executive Paywatch,” the AFL-CIO’s website,using federal data, shows about the ratio of median executive pay and perks to the median income of U.S. workers. It’s now 354-1. In 1982, it was 42-1.

The Persecution of Lynne Stewart

Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a grave threat to her life, she sits in a prison cell at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a 10-year sentence.

Audrie Pott's Suicide Highlights Rape Culture

Eight days after allegedly being sexually battered while passed out at a party, and then humiliated by online photos of the assault, 15-year-old Audrie Pott posted on Facebook that her life was ruined, "worst day ever," and hanged herself.

For the next eight months, her family struggled to figure out what happened to their soccer loving, artistic, horse crazy daughter, whose gentle smile, long dark hair and shining eyes did not bely a struggling soul.

Mumia on the Real Martin Luther King

I come today to praise Dr. Martin Luther King not to berate him, for though he has become in our modern life perhaps America's only indigenous saint, it is useful to remember how utterly bedeviled he was in his final years of life, hounded as he was by the forces of the state. It is worthy for us to recall that the highest levels of government taped Dr. King's phone calls, monitored the privacy of his hotel rooms, steamed open his mail, and assigned anonymous informants to his every move. What we have forgotten in this era is how the second highest official in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one William Sullivan, wrote in a now notorious memo that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was "the most dangerous Negro in America."

The New York Times' Biased View of Teachers

A recent New York Times article, “Curious Grade For Teachers: Nearly All Pass,” finds incredulous the idea that, “In Florida, 97 percent of teachers were deemed effective or highly effective in the most recent evaluations.” 

The author goes on to cite similar percentages in other states and concludes: “The teachers might be rated all above average, like students in Lake Wobegon, for the same reason that the older evaluation methods were considered lacking.” In other words, the teachers score well because the measuring standard is flawed. And this conclusion is reinforced by the observation that teachers’ high marks were achieved “even when students were falling behind.”

Protesters Turn Out for Saturday Mail Delievery

Amidst swirling snowfall, 75 hearty Northlanders turned out for a protest on March 24 in support of postal workers and keeping Saturday mail delivery.  Following the announcement by the U.S. Postmaster General that six day mail delivery will end this summer, trade unionists and their allies around the country are trying to rally support to save Saturday delivery.

March 24 saw protests, like this one in Duluth, in dozens of cities around the country.  Cutting Saturday delivery will result in the loss of numerous jobs, result in less services for working people, and will make the Postal Service even more vulnerable to competition from high-cost private delivery companies.

Defend Postal Workers & Saturday Mail Delivery

The National Association of Letter Carriers invites the public to join in a “National Day of Action” Sunday, March 24, to show support for maintaining Saturday mail delivery by the U.S. Postal Service.

A rally will be held at noon at the corner of Lake Ave. & Superior St. in Duluth.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe announced Feb. 6 that the Postal Service would end Saturday delivery effective Aug. 5.

Target Urged to Boycott Crystal Sugar

Members of community groups joined locked-out workers from American Crystal Sugar at a rally on March 1 at the downtown Minneapolis Target store to demand the retailer boycott Crystal Sugar products.

Nineteen months ago, Crystal Sugar locked out 1,300 members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco & Grain Millers union at its sugar beet processing plants in Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa. Target is one of Crystal Sugar’s major customers, sold under the Market Pantry brand.

"In America" by Rachael Kilgour

Movement Rises Against XL Pipelines

The movement to oppose Keystone XL is huge in Canada. It ranges from activists and scientists to indigenous peoples of the threatened Canadian plains and boreal forests, where the tar sands are located. It includes rural farmers and ranchers, and important sections of the labour movement.

"Have a Heart Duluth" Flash Mob Action

Obama: Corporate Politics in Disguise

President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address on Jan. 21 represented a verbal departure from the record of corporate subservience that marked his first four years in office. His 2009 inaugural opened with, “I thank George Bush for his service to our nation,” a promise to the corporate elites who run the United States that Obama’s policies would differ little, if at all, from those of the previous Republican administration.

But this time, Obama’s speech writers, for the “historic record” and for those who retain illusions that the first Black president could actually become a champion of the poor and oppressed, portrayed Obama as a man of the people, vitally concerned with human rights, democracy, world peace, and prosperity for all—immigrants and gays included!