[Marxism] New issue of Activist Newsletter

[JacDon]

The May 2, 2009, Issue the
ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER has just  been published

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW ARTICLES:
http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com

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CONTENTS
 
1. THE U.S. AND CUBA ‹ All is not as it seems in terms of the Obama
Administration's intentions toward Havana, and there's much more continuity
than change, but pressure on Washington from other Latin American countries
might force the White House to ease up, a little.
 
2. Editorial: THE POWER OF LABOR ‹ The labor movement is weak but it may
become stronger with passage of the Employee Free Choice Act if conservative
Democratic Senators don't doom this progressive measure.
 
3. CONSERVATIVES TRY TO BLOCK LABOR'S EFCA ‹ Big Business and the right wing
have launched an intensive campaign to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act.
This article explains what's a stake and refutes Republican allegations that
the legislation will "deprive workers of a secret ballot" and that an
increase in union membership will lead to greater unemployment.
 
4. HIGH POVERTY, LOW BENEFITS ‹ The OECD ranks the U.S. 28th out of 30
industrialized countries in terms of its poverty rate. Turkey and Mexico are
worse.
 
5. NEW STATISTICS FOR TROUBLED TIMES ‹ It's amazing how few people it took
to catapult the capitalist system into a serious global economic recession
that won't end soon.
 
6. REFLECTION ON PAST WARS ‹ Here's our May 16 Armed Forces Day special:
comments from five U.S. generals involved in different American wars during
two centuries, who upon retirement seem to have altered their belligerent
tone. 
 
7. REFLECTION ON PRESENT WARS ‹ Since Memorial Day May 25 often tends to
glorify ongoing wars while grieving for the dead of past wars, here's what
poet Bertolt Brecht has to say about war.
 
8. CHECK IT OUT ‹ Various items of interest with links to original sources.
 
9. CENTRIST DEMOCRATIC GROUPS VIE FOR POWER ‹ There are so many political
centrists in Washington as a result of the Democratic capture of Congress
and the White House that some of their number evidently think the town, or
at least the spotlight, isn't big enough for all of them.
 
10. QUOTES IN THE NEWS ‹ Animal rights; Gaza; world water shortage; Red
Cross torture report; and the 1919 general strike.
  
11. THE NEWS IN BRIEF ‹ Canada bars antiwar British parliamentarian;
American cops increase Taser use; U.S. finally indicts anti-Cuba terrorist;
Supreme Court rejects Mumia's appeal; increase in military domestic
violence; sentence reduced for Iraqi show thrower; red and processed meat
increase health risk; and jury backs Ward Churchill.
 
12. VENEZUELA'S MOVES TOWARD SOCIALISM ‹ The U.S. news media usually
presents a quite toxic version of political events in Venezuela, so here's
an antidote.
 
13. GAY RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA ‹ There have been some important advances.
 
14. MOSELEY: NATIONALIZE THE BANKS ‹ "If the big banks are 'too big to fail'
they should be public," writes leftist Professor Fred Moseley.
 
15. KRUGMAN: MONEY FOR NOTHING ‹ "There¹s no longer any reason to believe
that the wizards of Wall Street actually contribute anything positive to
society, let alone enough to justify those humongous paychecks," writes
liberal economist Paul Krugman.
 
16. STIGLITZ: BANK RESCUE MAY FAIL ‹ Another well known liberal economist,
and like Krugman a Nobel Prize winner, tells Bloomberg News that the Obama
Administration¹s bank-rescue efforts will probably fail because the programs
have been designed to help Wall Street rather than create a viable financial
system,
 
17. CHINA AT A CROSSROAD? ‹ Shanghai Professor Jian Junbo speculates whether
China will move left or right in the near future.

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW ARTICLES:
http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com
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