Archive
Torturers? Who, Us?
There are today a number of honorable Western governments seeking to punish the perpetrators of torture. Unfortunately, the Obama administration isn’t among them. This failure of will is doubly lamentable because the best-known contemporary torturers happen to be from the United States. It’s still a bit hard to conjure up President Barack Obama’s rationale for protecting the guilty parties. But whatever that reason may be, it hardly seems worthy.
The Lineup: Week of April 4-10, 2011
In this week’s OtherWords editorial package, we’ve got three Tax Day op-eds–including one by Chuck Collins that tells Congress where to find $400 billion a year in revenue–and a cartoon by Khalil Bendib lampooning GOP budget priorities
Hey Congress, Want $400 Billion in New Annual Revenue?
Have you heard? America is broke, according to many governors and lawmakers.
Fair Taxation Requires More Brackets at the Top
So many governors are hammering their budgets with a “we’re broke” message these days that it’s amazing our country hasn’t shattered into a thousand separate islands. More and more, however, rational voices are correctly asserting that we’re not broke.
Finally: Fairer Tax Reporting
Employers have reported the income all Americans earn from regular jobs to the Internal Revenue Service since World War II. Starting this year, U.S. taxpayers and their brokers finally have to do the same thing with the income earned from capital gains.
Delivering for America, Six Days a Week
You may not realize how much small towns and rural areas depend on the mail until someone puts it like this: “Folks who die after midnight on a Friday could be buried before their relatives read about the death in my Monday edition.”
Detroit’s Ruins
Poor Detroit. The bad news never stops. The once-proud miracle of capitalism is the urban equivalent of a homeless family living under a bridge, digging in dumpsters for scraps.
Japan’s Earthquake Jolts Shreveport
The corporate chieftains who’ve relentlessly pushed American factories and middle-class jobs offshore rationalize this globalization of production by declaring that it’s all about efficiency, as though that’s the highest value to which a civilization can aspire.
Where Will We Find the Money?
‘Stability’ a Fig Leaf for Dictatorship
It’s a tricky time to be secretary of state. You have to praise democracy out one side of your mouth while promoting “stability” out the other. You praise democracy because that’s what the United States does. Your promote stability because that’s what our policymakers really want.
