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FOIA Request Seeks Copies of Emails Between Harvard University Police and Cambridge Police

17 November 2014 - 11:48am | superuser
by Sarah Cadorette

Subject to the lore of the cruel hazing rituals of its secret societies, and the backdrop for dozens of movies about the seedy underbelly of Ivy life, Harvard University is no stranger to controversy. But what local activists have noticed in the past few years is a more systemic and dangerous issue: the militarization of Harvard’s campus, and its tendency to arrest anyone who dissents from their version of veritas.

Three recent incidents expose the extent to which Harvard will go to protect its reputation, though these are not the first, or only, examples:

Warming Up to Solar and the "Energy Transition"

12 September 2014 - 2:38pm | superuser
by Dave Burt

The energy transition. The words roll off the tongue, but what does it really mean ? Is it possible to move towards an economy based on renewable energy and to cool down global warming ?

The prospects for a new energy economy are growing, but old patterns of thought and practice around the energy industry are hindering this growth. Investment in solar and wind has gone way up in the last 5 years. It doesn't seem too long ago that these were seen as "boutique" energy provisions, nothing that would really get funded.

There is a Right and There is a Wrong: I Stand with Palestine

18 July 2014 - 11:26pm | superuser
by Doug Enaa Greene

As I write this, the Israeli Defense Forces have begun a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. I am a  secular Jew, and myself along with millions of other Jews, hear that the state of Israel which claims to speak and act in our name - is now indiscriminately bombarding and murdering Palestinians. What stand should we take? What is the right and the wrong?

Students Walk Out and Demand Climate Justice

4 April 2014 - 11:02pm | superuser
by Bobby Wengronowitz

Like most of the couple hundred young people rallying at the State House Monday morning, I have never experienced a month with globally-averaged surface temperature below the 20th Century mean. 

So while Governor Deval Patrick’s Global Warming Solutions Act is without a doubt excellent legislation, we young people need more. What we need from the Governor—and we will be strong supporters as he considers elected office again down the road—is a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Big Developers Scam Tax Subsidy Meant for Low-Income Housing

26 February 2014 - 3:14am | superuser
by Shirley Kressel

Many of Boston’s biggest and most profitable developments enjoy decades-long property tax exemptions under a state law, Chapter 121A, created in 1945 to subsidize affordable housing in distressed areas.  

Chapter 121A was amended in 1960 to apply also to commercial and luxury housing projects on sites the Boston Redevelopment Authority declares “blighted.”  Only about three dozen large projects have received 121A tax agreements, but they have – and will continue to - cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Climate Activists Seek Supporters for The Open Letter

7 September 2013 - 7:08pm | superuser
by Jordyn Bonds (Advocate)

The Open Letter


Dear Xi Jinping (China), Barack Obama (USA), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (Indonesia), Vladimir Putin (Russia), Manmohan Singh (India), Angela Merkel (Germany), Stephen Harper (Canada), Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia), David Cameron (UK), & Enrique Peña Nieto (México) —

JWJ at 25: A “New Idea” From 1980s Still Alive & Kicking Today

31 August 2013 - 11:35pm | Searly
by Searly

In the run-up to their convention in Los Angeles Sept. 8-11, top AFL-CIO officials have welcomed closer ties with non-labor groups and associations of workers’ who lack bargaining rights. In an interview with USA Today this summer, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka claimed that formal partnerships with the Sierra Club and NAACP would soon be forthcoming.

Syria: The Next US War?

2 September 2013 - 8:39pm | superuser
by Victor Wallis (Independent)

Faced with a government which, purportedly on our behalf, repeatedly undertakes unilateral military attacks, it is not enough for us to merely express our revulsion at war. We need to understand the pattern to these aggressions, to make clear what drives them, and to see the underlying policy as part of a larger agenda which cares little more for us than it does for its overseas victims.

Vigils and Vigilance - Fires Building Collapses and Gross Negligence in the Bangladesh Garments industry

24 June 2013 - 7:42am | superuser
by The Members of the Bangladesh Workers Solidarity Network (Independent)

Local efforts to challenge global capitalism and worker exploitation

When news of the Rana factory collapse that killed over 1200 people on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh in April 2013 spread around the world, many were outraged. Only a few months prior, in Nov. 2012, the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh had claimed more than 100 lives. Such accidents seemed to be regular - yet unstoppable - fatal occurrences.

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