“Want a better world? Get on board with the new labor movement” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on May 21, 2014. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.

Social change, and especially deep-going social change in a progressive, left and socialist direction doesn’t just “happen.” It requires, first of all, real, active, and politically far-seeing social movements on the ground.

And the labor movement — energized, growing, membership-driven, and class and democratic minded — is an essential cornerstone of those social movements.

“Ukraine, U.S. and Putin; who’s the bully?” first appeared on  PoliticalAffairs.net on April 9, 2014. Read it on PoliticalAffairs.net.

If the world breathed a sigh of relief when the Cold War wound down in the late 1980s, it started trembling as U.S.-Russia relations took a dangerous turn over Ukraine and Crimea. This is a very troubling development. If it continues in the present direction, the result will be damaging on a range of issues – nuclear weapons proliferation and elimination, Iran, Syria, terrorism, climate change, and domestic politics in the two countries, to mention a few.

If you listen only to the mainstream media and both Republican and Democratic politicians you get the impression that the perpetrator of this sharply negative turn is the power-hungry Putin, and that the trigger was Russia’s heavy hand in the Crimea.

Dado que vivimos en una época de improductividad económica, una creciente presión por la supervivencia del ser humano, el cambio de sensibilidad y de pensamiento de la gente, el comienzo de la ofensiva contra el capital corporativo a un nivel nacional y global y el continuo reagrupamiento del movimiento comunista a un nivel teórico y práctico, no es sorprendente que las características, la naturaleza y el papel del Partido Comunista de Estados Unidos en el siglo 21 sean un tema de discusión mientras avanzamos hacía nuestra 30ava Convención en Chicago.