Category Archives: Politics

City Business is Whatever the Community Cares About

Posted on 05/03/2024 by Dua Aldasouqi

Americans have been in the streets since October 8 demanding an end to the US-backed Israeli attack on Gaza. They’re at sporting events and camping out in front of top politicians’ homes. They were at tree-lighting and caroling events over the … Continue reading →

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Why I Called Herschel Walker Coonish: The Right of Black People to Call Out their Traitors

Posted on 12/31/2022 by Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

Editors’ Note: This article has been held until after the Georgia runoff election so there would be no suggestion of a political endorsement. Since Donald Trump’s incursion into US politics in 2015, deprecation and intimidation have become pervasive. Trump and … Continue reading →

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The Assault on the Pretrial Fairness Act

Posted on 11/04/2022 by Carol Skalnik Leff

Last month, News-Gazette columnist Jim Dey headlined “hysteria” over the provisions of the 2021 Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA), which will go into effect in January, including the end to cash bail. Predictably, but illogically, Dey located the hysteria on the side … Continue reading →

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The Move toward Socialism in the United States

Posted on 11/04/2022 by Jim Barrett

People on the Left are understandably preoccupied with the growing strength of fascism, white supremacist and antisemitic rhetoric and violence, and the growth of extreme right-wing groups. There is no doubt that these developments represent an obstacle to badly needed … Continue reading →

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Champaign Can End its Housing Discrimination

Posted on 09/18/2022 by Housing Working Group of the Champaign-Urbana Democratic Soc

As previously reported in the Public i, housing discrimination in Champaign is a chronic issue. Following on the “tough on crime era,” since 1994 Champaign has allowed landlords to reject tenant lease applications based on their conviction record—in excess of … Continue reading →

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The WTO Vaccination Charade

Posted on 09/21/2021 by Paul Mueth

It’s not an accident that the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the site for the battle over the pandemic and the health of the world. Many critics of corporate control of international trade, and of most of everyday life, have … Continue reading →

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Posted in Big Pharma, COVID-19, Foreign Policy, International, pandemic, Politics, Public Health, World-wide death and suffering | Comments Off on The WTO Vaccination Charade

$0 Campaign Against Utility Shutoffs Wins $1.48 Billion in Relief

Posted on 05/26/2021 by Allan Axelrod

While there are large movements to cancel rents and mortgages across the country, such as Rent Strike 2020 and the COVID-19 + Homes Guarantee demands, there are comparably smaller movements to protect the integrity of those demands. As The Intercept, … Continue reading →

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Turn Off the Spigot: Money vs. Med4All

Posted on 02/08/2021 by Pat Simpson

The COVID pandemic has exposed the flaws in the US health care system as never before, reinforcing longstanding arguments for creating an expanded Medicare for All system in the country. The Public i has previously published articles (see June, November … Continue reading →

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TRUMP EMBRACES 19th CENTURY ENERGY PLAN WHILE THE REST OF THE WORLD LOOKS AHEAD

Posted on 06/17/2017 by Pam Richart

On June 1, 2017, President Trump made it official: the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. The 2015 Accord is an agreement among 195 countries to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change … Continue reading →

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Trump and the Resurgence of Antisemitism

Posted on 01/19/2017 by Michael Rothberg

I composed the following reflections-in-progress in the first week after the election in order to address the sudden prominence of antisemitism in mainstream American politics. Unfortunately, nothing that has happened since then leads me to think that these tentative thoughts … Continue reading →

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#BlackLivesMatter Founder Opal Tometi Visits C-U

Posted on 03/11/2016 by Brian Dolinar
Posted in African Americans, Politics, Women | Comments Off on #BlackLivesMatter Founder Opal Tometi Visits C-U

The Greek Crisis: Beginning of the End for European Unity?

Posted on 07/08/2015 by Richard Esbenshade

Protesters burn an EU flag during an anti-austerity demonstration in Thessaloniki, Greece. Practically since the moment of its victory in the January 25 elections, Greece’s Syriza party has been locked in a struggle with the “troika,” the triumvirate of the … Continue reading →

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“I’m Not Anti-Union”: Governor ALEC and the Hostile Takeover of Illinois (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on 07/08/2015 by Ricky Baldwin

  (Ricky Baldwin is a Senior Field Organizer for  SEIU 73, activist with Jobs With Justice, and occasional contributor to Labor Notes, Z Magazine, and Dollars and Sense.) Part One described multimillionaire Gov. Rauner’s stealth attack on the poor and … Continue reading →

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Groundswell Organizing and Obama’s Executive Action on Immigration

Posted on 01/30/2015 by Aaron Johnson-Ortiz

After President Obama signed his executive action on immigration last November, immigrant activists commended the president for his decision, which might help up to 4 million undocumented immigrants normalize their status, and at the same time emphasized that this action … Continue reading →

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Academic Freedom and the Board of Trustees at the U of I: A Historical Perspective

Posted on 11/13/2014 by Belden Fields

At the panel on academic freedom and free speech across disciplines held in the Beckman Institute on Monday, September 29, one of the panelists, Professor Colleen Murphy, said that the project now must be to make sure that the way in … Continue reading →

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Central Illinois Jobs With Justice’s Statement on the Termination of James Kilgore by the University of Illinois, Urbana

Posted on 06/24/2014 by Public i

Central Illinois Jobs with Justice (CIJWJ), a coalition of labor, faith-based, and secular civic organizations that advances the interests of the  unemployed and working people in both the public and private sectors, condemns the  termination of  James Kilgore and calls … Continue reading →

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A Faculty Union at UIUC Part 1

Posted on 06/07/2014 by David Prochaska

The UI Chicago faculty union signed its first contract in April 2014. In Urbana the Campus Faculty Association (CFA) submitted in mid-May the necessary number of cards to create a full-time non-tenure track (NTT) faculty union (part-time NTT’s are excluded … Continue reading →

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Hungarians Debate their Nuclear Future

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Richard Esbenshade

On the weekend of February 1-2, thousands of Hungarians took to the streets to oppose the government’s plans to double the capacity of the country’s only nuclear power plant, with construction and financing by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The plant, at … Continue reading →

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Remembering Manni Brun

Posted on 03/27/2014 by Belden Fields

In January, this community lost a woman to whom it owes a great deal. Marianne (Manni) Brun passed away on January 6th. Manni and her husband Herbert, who was a professor of music composition, came to the university in 1963. … Continue reading →

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The Economic and Political Context of Student Debt

Posted on 01/31/2014 by David Green

Alan Collinge, author of “The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History and How We Can Fight Back,” recently spoke to students at Lincoln Hall on the UI campus. His argument is detailed, persuasive, and heartbreaking; it … Continue reading →

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