Archive
Self-Defense for Whom?
In every state in the country, the right to self-defense is considered a mitigating factor in criminal prosecutions. If you use violence to defend yourself in an extreme situation, most Americans believe, the law should treat you gently. But not everyone gets to enjoy...
Why Does Pet Care Cost So Much?
Anyone who owns a pet knows that the cost of caring for old Fluffy or Fido has gone up considerably over recent years. Economists from Stanford and MIT have just published some research that details how dramatic this increase has been. Between 1996 and 2013, they...
What Trump Could Learn from Alexander Hamilton
By now you've probably heard that Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by fellow theater-goers at a performance of the musical Hamilton, an unlikely hip-hop sensation that tells the story of Alexander Hamilton and other founding fathers. Then, at the end of the...
Koch Kollege for Right-Wing Social Engineers
Breaking news: An amazing new school for political activists is training thousands of people to be community organizers. They're using Saul Alinsky's classic manual, Rules for Radicals. The Grassroots Leadership Academy gives how-to lessons in everything from mounting...
Tyrants of the World, Unite!
In OtherWords: November 16, 2016
This week in OtherWords, we're still processing the election results and what they mean for the years to come. A few of our writers even managed to find some silver linings. Jim Hightower, for example, notes that many progressive candidates and issues — like minimum...
Building a New Populism in the Era of Trump
Imagine you're standing in line for the American Dream. You work hard, sometimes in dangerous jobs. You lead a moral life. But the line is stalling, even moving backwards. Yet you see newcomers up front — some of them immigrants and people of color. Maybe you've...
This Doesn’t Sound Like Our Voice
We’re already starting to see how America's gamble on Donald Trump will pay off: with gifts to the corporations and billionaires he swore he’d put us above. One of Trump's first priorities is to repeal one of the only federal laws standing between us and Wall Street....
A Bigger AT&T Is the Last Thing We Need
The American mainstream media spent the last year normalizing and propping up a racist, xenophobic, misogynist candidate whose closest advisers include white nationalists and politicians with a track record of oppressing women, people of color, and the LGBTQI...
Sorry, I Can’t Give Trump a Chance
As Donald Trump plans his transition into the White House, some have called for "unity." Let's "come together," they say. Let's "give him a chance." I say no. When a man abuses his wife, you don't tell her to give him a chance. You don't tell her to try to talk things...
