Our lives are filled with innumerable choices, such as for the countless array of products for us to buy, assuming we can afford them. Our politics are often framed as a question of individual, not collective, choice such as the freedom to choose to have an abortion or the act of casting one’s vote in … Continued
Few things are more necessary than a roof over one’s head, and yet few things feel as precarious as housing. Rents have skyrocketed across the country, far outstripping wages, and homelessness has risen to an historic high. Fellow tenant organizers Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis argue that this is the latest chapter in a century-long … Continued
Medicines – we’re told by the pharmaceuticals industry – are expensive by necessity owing to the high costs of research and development. Yet, as with the vaccines for Covid, much research is publicly-funded, and much comes out of universities. And, as Nick Dearden argues, only 3% of new drugs even represent actual breakthroughs. Instead most … Continued
Why has the term complicity become so ubiquitous in recent years? Are we all complicit in the system that we live under? What use, or uses, does the notion serve? These are questions that legal scholar Francine Banner poses. She makes the argument that the term bears different meanings, sometimes holding the powerful to account … Continued
The harsh reality is that not all patients are treated equally, and racism has consequences on a person’s health and health care. An Associated Press wire story from 1966, contained Dr. King’s famous quotation regarding injustice in health care—“Of all the forms of in-equality, injustice in health, is the most shocking and in-human.” Join Nurse Rona and … Continued
Work changed dramatically during the Covid pandemic. Enormous numbers of people lost their jobs, while others were able to work remotely. And then there were so-called essential workers, whose in-person jobs put them at the highest risk. In response, many of them organized, often informally. Sociologist Jamie McCallum argues that the struggles of essential workers … Continued
Advancements in science are seen as symbols of human progress, but science has frequently served deadly ends. Historian Clifford Conner discusses how scientific research in the United States is deeply enmeshed with the military, and considers the purpose of trillions of dollars of spending on the military. Resources: Clifford D. Conner, The Tragedy of American … Continued
Rising rents, rising food prices, rising gas prices — the price of basic necessities has been going dramatically up. Pundits are wringing their hands, worrying about a return to the tumultuous 1970s, while the Federal Reserve has begun a series of interest rate hikes designed to slow the economy down, and potentially put people out … Continued
Brilliant political commentator, eloquent writer John Nichols has a new book: Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers—John wants accountability, for the hundreds of thousands of lives needlessly lost to COVID. PLUS: Raymond Nat Turner, poet. Hosted by Kris Welch.
Covid has laid bare the inequities of our society and the dysfunction of our medical system, which focuses at great cost on disease-treatment rather than fostering health. So contends epidemiologist Sandro Galea. He argues that the pandemic provides an opening to rethink medicine, along with housing, wages, and racial and social inequality, and to treat … Continued
