Category: Shamus Cooke

The Fight for $15 Finally Comes to Portland

By Shamus Cooke Like the Occupy movement before it, the “fight for $15” came to Portland as a transplant. Portland activists watched events in Seattle with a skeptical eye, but Seattle’s “fantasy” of $15 was transformed into an emerging reality, now replete with the support of the Mayor and City Council who are working on a plan to…

Labor’s Call to Action: The Grand Bargain Betrayal

By Shamus Cooke The labor movement is in terminal crisis. After decades of declining membership the union movement has been targeted for destruction: private sector union membership is near eradication, and now the corporations are on a public-sector mopping up mission, using the city, state, and federal budget deficits as an excuse to target public…

Tax the Rich or Privatize the State?

By Shamus Cooke   The Great Recession and its possible continuance has brought the issue of privatization to the forefront of American politics. But most Americans aren’t even aware that this debate is happening, because the media and politicians aren’t using the word “privatization”. Instead, less threatening substitutes are used to ram through a corporate…

The Next Stage in the Destruction of Syria

by Shamus Cooke The U.S. media has made its intentions clear: the ‘rebels’ attacking Syria’s government must have more support to advance Syria’s “revolution.”  This was the result of the much-hyped advance of Syria’s rebels into the country’s two largest cities, which the western media portrayed as a defining moment in global democracy. But “journalists”…

Climate Change and the Next U.S. Revolution

By Shamus Cooke The U.S. heat wave is slowly shaking the foundations of American politics. It may take years for the deep rumble to evolve into an above ground, institution-shattering earthquake, but U.S. society has changed for good. The heat wave has helped convince tens of millions of Americans that climate change is real, overpowering…

Book Review: Occupy the Economy

By Shamus Cooke Any book with “Occupy” in the title should be read with great skepticism. Richard Wolff is prepared to attack such suspicion in his book “Occupy the Economy, Challenging Capitalism”. The book has an additional challenge that invites extra suspicion: Richard Wolff writes as an unabashed socialist, and socialists have an awful track…

Job Crisis Denial

By Shamus Cooke Before any problem can be fixed it must first be acknowledged. The jobs crisis stays in the shadows, out of mind, and consequently unaddressed. This is allowed to happen because those in power – Republicans and Democrats – both have political reasons to remain silent. When the jobs crisis is discussed, the…

Obamacare Victory Prescription for Left Defeat

by Shamus Cooke The political victory for President Obama in the Supreme Court has created an interesting shift in American politics. More important than the blow against his Republican opponent has been the re-energizing of Obama’s base–a loose coalition of liberals, labor and leftists. Many in these groups were lured into supporting Obamacare because of…

Fighting for the Soul of the Carpenter’s Union

by Shamus Cooke All working people should pay attention to the egregious assault on union democracy happening in the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of the Carpenters Union, covering all Carpenter’s Locals in Oregon, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, and Montana. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters has a proud history and should take immediate action to overturn a…

The U.S. Labor Movement at the Crossroads, in the Crosshairs

by Shamus Cooke The labor movement had better do some deep soul searching, and fast. Although the defeat in Wisconsin is the horrible end to a local drama, the corporate winners hope to turn their victory into the beginning chapter of a national novel. The opening sentence was perhaps written recently in San Diego and…