Stories about Thinking Politically.
On March 7, 2017 Lyda Krewson won the Democratic Party nomination for mayor of St. Louis City with only 32.0% of the vote. Ms. Krewson is white. Six black candidates split over two-thirds of the votes.
Should Bridge International Academies be allowed to experiment on African children? That’s the crux of a question academics, politicians and parents have been trying to answer for the last year.
Bridge, which is backed the World Bank, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg among other luminaries, has been at the center of intense controversies across Africa. Earlier this year, the Ugandan government ordered Bridge to close down 63 of its schools, citing the use of unqualified teachers working in unsafe premises at unregistered schools. Bridge refused to stop its operations and took the government to court. This month, the High Court ruled in favor of the government, but Bridge plans to challenge the ruling.
Strategic Thinking and Organizing Resistance
By Kim Scipes
The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen an amazing explosion of mobilizing to oppose him and his administration on oh-so-many levels. And that has been heartening.
But it is not enough.
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ascended to power in 1999, almost no one in the West, in Asia and even in most of the Latin American countries knew much about his new militant revolutionary anti-imperialism. From the mass media outlets like CNN and the BBC, to local televisions and newspapers (influenced or directly sponsored by Western sources), the ‘information’ that was flowing was clearly biased, extremely critical, and even derogatory.
Lying in bed Superbowl Sunday night, I saw the news of the spectacular win by the Patriots. Dozing off, I mused: Wouldn't it be a SuperDuperBowl if the “Patriots” played a team called the “Traitors?” But who would dub themselves “Traitors?”
I drifted into the strangest dream.
The recent controversy over claims of Russian hacking of the DNC during the 2016 presidential elections overlook the fact that the US government has been interfering in elections throughout the world for decades.
The recent "Brexit" vote threatens to throw Britain's economy into chaos. Kenneth Surin asks if it is possible that the left can take advantage of this situation to make a case for "Lexit"
Mark Harris speculates that the recent Women's March on Washington, as well as its' sister marches in other cities, is the beginning of a successful movement against capitalism in the US.
In autumn of 2012, the code of silence was very much in the news in Chicago. The trial of the civil suit brought against the city by Karolina Obrycka, the bartender struck and kicked by off-duty Officer Anthony Abbate in 2007, was unfolding before a jury in the federal courtroom of Judge Amy St. Eve.
One of Obrycka’s central claims was that Abbate assaulted her, secure in the knowledge he would be protected by the code of silence within the Chicago Police Department. In support of this claim, her lawyers presented expert testimony to demonstrate the department’s failure to adequately investigate and discipline police misconduct. On November 13, 2012, the jury returned a verdict in Obrycka’s favor. It awarded her $850,000 in damages and found that a pervasive code of silence within the CPD had allowed Abbate to attack her without fear of punishment.
