Back when I was a boy in the 1950s, my parents would occasionally stop at a Marenisco, Michigan tavern called “My Friend’s Place” while traveling to or from our family’s summer cottage on nearby Lake Gogebic. Continue reading
We’re tired of politicians who gladly grant corporate lobbyists every taxpayer dollar they request, but indignantly claim that Medicare for everyone is too costly and just won’t work. (Wouldn’t they go stupidly mute if asked, “Can you show me just one Norwegian who went bankrupt from medical expenses?”) Continue reading
Some European Americans openly admit to being white supremacists. Their awful remarks can be seen on neo-Nazi websites. A greater societal danger, however, emanates from far more numerous crypto-racists who hide their bigotry behind dog-whistle code words. Continue reading
Imagine young members of an advanced celestial race on a future school field trip, with their cosmic craft zipping near Earth, now devoid of all activity. The intergalactic vehicle slows from warp speed and hovers above the former United States. An instructor tells the class that a vibrant society once existed there. Continue reading
The People’s Global Climate March turned out an impressive 400,000 participants in New York City a year ago. Its real significance, however, rested with the unprecedentedly broad constituencies rallying together under its huge umbrella. Continue reading
Time is a thief that sneaks up on us from behind and takes our youth, with no chance of any appeals for mercy changing the wrinkled, weary outcome. Continue reading
While hurrying home through an alley during what would become a major snow storm, I
heard meowing coming from . . . somewhere. Seeing nothing, I followed the repeated cries that suggested a very small, desperately fearful cat. Finally it appeared, almost completely covered and shivering. Continue reading
Imagine if America’s racial experience had occurred in reverse. What if our homeland had been “discovered” and “settled” by strangers who used genocide to achieve their colonial objective? What if our children were then taken from us to have their culture, language and very defining essence erased in distant boarding schools? Continue reading
As “undocumented aliens” enter this country, remember that the U.S. Southwest once belonged to Mexico. Those routinely slandered immigrants have a more valid historical claim for being here than we do. Their ancestors had a rich culture from present-day Texas to California while our forebears were huddling in crude huts across the Atlantic. Continue reading
Not content with Ferris Wheel-sized tax evasion loopholes that have given top corporations profit extravagance while American workers—the actual creators of our societal wealth—are stuck with part-time jobs providing lousy pay and no benefits, Fat Cat profiteers scheme to grow fatter still. Continue reading
Abortions are often necessary, and only each female, in her own unique circumstance, can determine what constitutes a legitimate abortion need. No one has the defensible authority to second-guess or demonize any woman who arrives at that conclusion. Continue reading
It’s been half a century since Freedom Summer civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney vanished in rural Mississippi, triggering a long search by the FBI to find them and determine exactly what happened. Continue reading
It was the kind of story that might have qualified as “crazy news” if the subject hadn’t been so tragically sad. You know, the sort of goofy stuff suited for amusing water cooler talk the next morning. Continue reading
Tea Party Republicans expose their false patriotism by routinely sabotaging American public welfare and the common good. Now they’ve taken that vicious proclivity to its worst extreme. Continue reading
In 1962, as a teenager, I visited Detroit for the first time. Continue reading
Originally published in early 2011, before the Wisconsin Uprising, Occupy Wall Street, Idle No More, and other subsequent people’s movements for basic justice arose, this piece addresses the solution to extreme societal unfairness, such as cruel cuts to food stamps (SNAP), that has only grown worse since then. Continue reading
In bars across America, troubled souls uneasily perch on synthetic-leather swiveling stools, vacuously staring at the nothingness between near and far focus, while big-screen digital televisions with the volume muted show SportsCenter. Continue reading
There’s a popular show on the National Geographic Channel called “Doomsday Preppers.” Continue reading
On December 17, 2010, a young Tunisian fruit vendor—whose entire life had been the cruel epitome of that awful lot shared by the impoverished, oppressed “wretched of the earth”—simply couldn’t take it anymore. Continue reading
During the past few days, riot police have cleared out Occupy encampments in several cities, culminating with the pre-dawn Nov. 15 raid on Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, where the 99% movement that’s swept America got its start. Continue reading
What began over two weeks ago as a relatively small protest against capitalist greed has grown into a dynamic uprising that could well become our Egyptian equivalent. Continue reading
Dollar stores are the miner’s canary of contemporary society. What happens to them will happen to us all. Continue reading
Memorial Day weekend was a real eye opener. Continue reading
In the earlier decades of the past century, before industrial unionism and FDR’s New Deal dramatically raised mass living standards, cold-water tenement slums, decrepit frame hovels, and barely sustainable family farms were where most working-class Americans lived. Continue reading
My father was an organizer for the Timber Workers’ Union in 1937, assigned to the richly forested Upper Midwest. Continue reading
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Donald Trump mires us more deeply in the Afghan burial ground for imperialism
Posted on August 29, 2017 by Dennis Rahkonen
When the former Soviet Union’s mighty Red Army defeated Nazi forces in the pivotal WWII battle of Stalingrad, not only was Hitler’s mad dream of a Thousand Year Reich crushed, an accompanying assurance was achieved that the Stars and Stripes, not the Swastika, would be flying from our schoolyard flagpoles today. Continue reading →