4-chart handout Leopold How Wall Street Is Strip-mining America a review of Les Leopold’s Runaway Inequality: An Activist’s Guide to Economic Justice (New York: Labor Institute Press, 2015) by John M Repp On the back cover of the Runaway Inequality, from a shop steward: “Look, I’m not a reader. In fact, I hate to read. But I love reading this book. It’s written for people like me. I can’t put it down.” Runaway Inequality tells us that economic inequality is much, much worse that we think it is. The wage-gap ratio is the ratio between the income of the 200 highest paid CEOs of large American corporations and the income of the average non-supervisory worker at those companies. Leopold cites…

What the UN is Doing Now to Prohibit Ban Nuclear Weapons and How You Can Help by Lilly Adams   In March, 132 states took a pivotal step forward by participating in historic negotiations to ban nuclear weapons. The US was not one of these countries. Negotiations will form, “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.” (United Nations. Conference to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination. Online at https://www.un.org/disarmament/ptnw/)The US boycott of these negotiations is an embarrassing and irresponsible decision, but will not hinder the momentum of this global movement. Negotiations were set in motion after a UN General Assembly decision in late 2016. This is the culmination of 72 years of…

Letter to the Editor of the Lewis County Chronicle on the so-called justice system by Larry Kershner There have been recent calls to impeach President Trump for obstruction of justice. However, the whole American political and so-called justice system is itself an obstruction of justice. I recently had the pleasure of being a defendant in the federal court system. The current criminal legal system is designed not to produce what is right or just or fair. The current system criminalizes political dissent. Dissent which opposes and tries to change the dominant social order or policies of the government should be protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. The US criminal legal system is political, the clear intention of which…

Chicago and Martin Luther King, Jr:  What Can We Learn? by Mary Lou Finley  It was June of 1965, just three months after the march across the Selma bridge, when I headed for Chicago, a newly-minted graduate of Stanford University.    I had desperately wanted to work in the South for the civil rights movement during my college years, but one thing and another got in the way—mostly my parents’ objections. I was, however,  determined that when I graduated, I would find a way.  Meanwhile, one of my college classmates from our Methodist church group, two years older and already in Chicago as a volunteer for the West Side Christian Parish’s social gospel ministry, urged me to come to Chicago instead. …

Where Are We Going Politically? by Stan Sorscher              first published in Huffington Post, May 2, 2017, updated May 5, 2017 Governance is all about power relationships. Donald Trump’s first few disorienting months leave many people wondering what governing looks like any more. It’s time to look away from the political spectacle, and take a deep breath. Consider two opposing value statements.   “We all do better” Value Statement The purpose of our economy is to raise our standard of living. Here, “standard” applies to our community and our country. We value opportunity and fairness, stronger communities, shared prosperity, and investment in the future. All work has dignity. We are each other’s co-workers, neighbors, friends, relatives, and customers. We all do…

We Can Afford to Save the Planet by John M Repp We live on a beautiful blue and green planet full of life. The last 12,000 years has been an especially abundant and fruitful period for our planet and our species as the planet warmed and got wetter after the end of the last glacial period. But now we face a crisis, a crisis of our own making, human induced climate change. We must be clear, “to save the planet” is a metaphor. The planet will be here even if there is catastrophic climate change gravely effecting human civilization. We know many of the things we need to do to save ourselves: get off fossil fuels, change how we farm,…

United State’s Nuclear Weapons Policy is a Violation of International Law and the U.S. Constitution By Larry Kerschner Twenty miles west of Seattle is the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the United States. Most politicians in this country are under the strong influence of the well-paid war and weapons making lobbyists. However, the United States at Nuremberg urged that individual citizens have an affirmative duty to publicly disassociate themselves from a known violation of international law. Chief Prosecutor for the United States, Robert H. Jackson, later U.S. Supreme Court Justice stated “International law, as such, binds every citizen just as ordinary municipal law.” International law is the “supreme law of the land” under Article VI, Clause 2 of…

The 4 (or 5) Worst Market Failures in Human History   by Stan Sorscher                      first publisher September 4, 2013 in Huffington Post   I’m a capitalist for one reason: to raise living standards in my community. A familiar mantra of capitalism guides me: Markets are powerful and efficient. I’m also a realist, so I temper that mantra: Markets are powerful and efficient. And markets fail. Market failure is an established, well-understood field of study in mainstream economics. Generations of economists accept the basics of market failure. However, American economists turn their heads away at the mention of it, because it sounds like heresy. Consider the four biggest market failures in human history: Climate change: $40 trillion, so far Health care…