Students occupied Wheeler Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, protesting a decision by university regents to raise fees (the equivalent of tuition) by 32%, bringing them to $10,302 per year for undergraduates.

In this terrible time of global economic crisis it is most timely that we seek ways to expand and broaden our slogan "workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite." While our slogan has been around for many generations, today it has more meaning than ever.

As the world looks to full stabilization and a rebound from the crisis due to the efforts of governments, it is clear that it is finance rather than the real economy that has benefited more from those initiatives. In fact, the turnaround in the financial sector, which was responsible for the crisis in the first instance, has been faster and more noticeable than that in the real economy.

The Senate voted 60-39 this weekend to begin debate on its version of the health care reform bill. According to early analysis, the new Senate bill would impose new regulations on the health insurance industry and create regional insurance exchanges that include a public insurance option.

The upcoming COP15 meeting in Denmark—so named because it is the 15th such international gathering of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—is the world's next big chance to take decisive multi-lateral action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions substantially enough to ward off cataclysmic climate change.

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: if you care about democracy and the rule of law, you need to care about women's ski jumping. This juxtaposition, straight out of a Hunter S. Thompson acid trip, relates to a court ruling in Canada that is both frightening in its scope and outrageous in its implications.

It recalled ancient Greek tragedies. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), founded in the 19th Century, is the country’s oldest party, and now its saddest one. On September 27th it suffered its worst election defeat since 1897, losing six million former voters and ending up with only 23 percent of the vote.

It is possible that any day now President Obama may decide to escalate the war in Afghanistan. Here in the U.S. and no doubt around the world, people will react in pain, anger and sorrow, knowing what tragedy and suffering will follow.

As the historic fight for health care reform passes to the Senate next week, and then to conference committee before final vote, a continued and expanded push is needed to prevent blockage of this key legislation.

As a Veteran of Operation Iraqi freedom, and a veteran of sorts of the anti-war movement within the US, it seems to me that the left as a whole has done a poor job of speaking to veterans over the last ten years.

The US Supreme Court refused this week to hear a case involving a lawsuit by Native American activists seeking to revoke the federal trademark status for the name "Washington Redskins." The decision came without comment and in the middle of Native American Heritage Month.

A Muslim family sits across of me in café, in a largely Muslim Asia country. An older woman shyly hunches over and desperately trying to avoid eye contact with the giant plasma screen TV, blazing loud music on the popular music video channel, MTV. The scantily dressed presenter introduces her ‘top song’ for the week.

According to the non-profit Earth Pledge, today some 8,000 synthetic chemicals are used throughout the world to turn raw materials into textiles. Domestically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that one-quarter of all pesticides used nationwide go toward growing cotton, primarily for the clothing industry.

The U.S. unemployment rate exceeded 10% in October for the first time in a quarter century. Nearly 16 million Americans who are able and willing to work cannot find a job. More than one out of every three unemployed workers has been out of a job for six months or more.

State lawmakers representing parts of Fulton and DeKalb Counties this week discussed key local issues sure to come before the 2010 Session of the Georgia General Assembly in January.

The theory goes that a warming-induced influx of cold, fresh water into the North Atlantic from melting polar ice caps and glaciers could shut down the Gulf Stream, an underwater channel of warm ocean water that winds its way north from the Caribbean and moderates temperatures in the northeastern U.S. and Western Europe.

In its ongoing campaign to pass health reform, the White House last week highlighted a new report from the Business Roundtable (BRT) on healthcare costs. The BRT, which is an organization for CEOs, concluded that on the issue of healthcare, "the status quo is not sustainable."

Every time the young stick-up man tugged at my companion’s purse with his left hand, she would pull back, causing the muzzle of the pistol he held in his right hand to swing back and forth. Its line of fire each time was directed across my chest and if he accidentally or deliberately squeezed the trigger this piece might never have been written.

There are two mantras trotted out frequently when the subject of unemployment comes up that President Obama would best not repeat. The first is that, yea, things are getting worse but not as fast as they were. The second – one that he seems taken with – is that joblessness is expected to be a "lagging indicator," that is, the "recovery" will, by its nature, come quicker than improvement in the jobs picture.

The last time I was on Laura Flanders's GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest -- some Washington, D.C., "progressive" -- argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn't know anything about Afghanistan.