Media

Here we go again. Another round of the game we call Congressional Creep. After months of haggling and debate, Congress finally passes reform legislation to fix a serious rupture in the body politic, and the president signs it into law. But the fight’s just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law.

Corporate accountability campaigns are gaining steam and already racking up victories.This week has seen several stunning victories for direct citizen action. On Wednesday, Coca-cola renounced its membership on the private enterprise board of ALEC, stating that:

Lucky enough to attend college, I sat in a first-year seminar meant to expose students to a variety of both subject matter and viewpoints.  To this day I tell people about two books from that course that changed my life.  One of those books was the very first overtly feminist book I ever read, Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift.  This book transformed how I talked about the world and, thus, how I perceived it and engaged it.  I became a feminist because caring was a kind of work which was ubiquitous, undervalued, and gendered and, as such, a matter of justice.

Whenever oil prices increase and the trip to the pump becomes noticeably more painful, the mantra is repeated over and again: prices are set by supply and demand and the only remedy is to change that relationship.

The right trots out its favorite slogan, “drill baby drill,” to the undoubted delight of the oil companies.  This line of discussion conflates market pricing with energy independence, usually employing the metaphor of a U.S. president bowing to a Saudi prince with unmanly obsequiousness.

Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney's father George Romney, former chairman of American Motors, on the cover of TIMEMitt Romney famously wrote an op-ed in the New York Times a few years back called, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

The competing plans proposed by California's Jerry Brown and Molly Munger (both "committed liberals," says the hometown paper) are a rare thing: two distinct visions of how to raise revenue and strengthen essential state programs. Both the governor and Ms. Munger, daughter of the illustrious Berkshire Hathaway Vice-Chairman, advocate raising taxes.

The economic consulting business is experiencing quite a boom. A continuing battle rages between the banks and the public’s interests over implementation of the Volcker Rule provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial sector reform legislation.

This is the fourth interview in the Black History Month series "Perspectives on Black Politics in the Age of Obama." It has been selectively edited for print, but the full audio will be available at wbai.org. The other interviews can be found at demos.org/rakim-brooks.

The young participants in Shake-A-Leg Miami’s Saturday program — mostly kids with physical and developmental challenges — arrive at the aquatic facility in Coconut Grove around noon each week to find some 30 students from MAST Academy waiting for them. Those high school volunteers come to organize kayak rides, basketball games and lunch. Yes, the Shake-a-Leg participants benefit tremendously. But those who gain the most are perhaps the volunteers, themselves.