Featured Editorials

Human Rights Watch calls for legal gender recognition to be fundamental right

Submitted by Robyn on Mon, 02/15/2016 - 2:18pm

Kyle Knight and Neela Goshal have written an interesting essay on the rights...or lack of same...of transgender people around the world.

The process is as universal as it gets: when a baby is born, a doctor, parent, or birth attendant announces the arrival of a “girl” or “boy.” That split-second assignment dictates multiple aspects of our lives. It is also something that most of us never question.

But some people’s gender evolves differently, and might not fit rigid traditional notions of female or male.

That should have no bearing on whether someone can enjoy fundamental rights. But for transgender people it does—to a humiliating, violent, and sometimes lethal degree.

Hellraisers Journal: "Penned In By Fire!" Mine Disaster at Butte, Montana-10 Dead, 12 Missing

Submitted by JayRaye on Mon, 02/15/2016 - 12:54pm
Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Tuesday February 15, 1916
Butte, Montana - Miners Trapped by Fire, Rescue Attempts Ongoing

Newspapers across the nation this morning are reporting on the fire which erupted last night in the Pennsylvania Mine at Butte, Montana. We offer a few examples:

From Salina, Kansas:

PENNED IN BY FIRE
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Flames In Airshaft of Anaconda Mine
Imprisoned Miners At Butte.
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TEN VICTIMS KNOWN DEAD
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Other Workmen Have Not Been Heard From
Since the Disaster.
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Butte, Mont., Feb. 15.-At least ten miners lost their lives in a fire which started last night in the air shaft on the 12,000 [1200] foot level of a mine of the Anaconda copper Mining Company and which still was burning early today....

Butte, Montana, Pennsylvania Mine, ab 1900, Disaster of Feb 14, 1916.png
Pennsylvania Mine, about 1900
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From Working in These Times: Bill and Hillary Crossed a Picket Line on Their First Date

Submitted by JayRaye on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 8:35pm

From Working in These Times of Feb 9, 2016-

“On Bill and Hillary Clinton’s First Date in 1971, They Crossed a Picket Line”
by Zach Schwartz-Weinstein

According to the above article, Hillary Rodham and Bill Clinton, young law students at Yale, were members of the student’s Committee for Local 35 and their signatures were on a statement of support for the union a week before the strike.

Syrian war about to get catastrophically worse

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 4:17pm

If you thought the political and humanitarian situation in Syria couldn't be any worse, you are about to be proven horribly wrong.
Unless several nation pull back from the brink right now, the Syrian Civil War is about to turn into a region-wide war that could plunge much of the Muslim world into open warfare, and could possibly even lead to a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Yes, it really is that dangerous.

Hellraisers Journal: "This is not a war of Freedom." It is a war for "rulership of the earth.."

Submitted by JayRaye on Sun, 02/14/2016 - 12:54pm

The armies and navies which our strutting militarists plan to create here
are not intended for your defense and mine.
Their purpose..is to protect their commerce abroad and rob the workers here
of the last remaining vestiges of their rights under
the constitution and the laws.
-Frank Bohn

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Monday February 14, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: Frank Bohn on Preparedness

In the February edition of the Review, Comrade Bohn offered some thoughts on the issue of preparedness:

International Socialist Review, Feb, 1916, Preparedness, Frank Bohn,.png

PREPAREDNESS

A Speech Delivered at Carnegie Hall, New York, Jan. 5th, 1916
By FRANK BOHN
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