-Advertisement-

250 Years

some of the ways we have been defined as a country — and are creating new definitions — especially involving the rights of women, labor, and immigrants

Law Professor Talks About Why People Power Must Take Back Control of the Economy

In a compelling keynote talk at the Minnesota Co-op Summit in Duluth, Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout noted that allowing monopolies to control the economy "is an outrageous and crazy way to build a society." She said the anti-monopoly movement needs to join with the co-op movement — one of Minnesota’s nation-leading strengths. “If we take this moment, we can build something beautiful and new and resilient — a world of necessary people who aren't scared, who are free, planting cooperatives thick as trees all across America.”
Read more

Commentary: Making Declarations for Our Independence

If government is destructive, the Declaration declares: “It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”
Read more

Minnesota’s Workforce Rights Over Time

A partial timeline of labor rights involving immigrants, women, strikes, and legislation
Read more

Part 3: The Personal Story Shared by Stacey Abrams

This essay is adapted from the talk Stacey Abrams gave at the…
Read more

The Long Struggle for Voting Rights

A history of voting rights, compiled by the League of Women Voters of Minneapolis
Read more

Grief for the Country We Are — and Hope in Our Potential

"The propaganda many people seem to have bought into is that it is the lower classes — not the upper classes — who are leaving us hungry. The frenzied microscope points to misuse of tax dollars at the lowest of levels. Too many of our neighbors seem to be ignoring the fraud perpetrated at the highest levels. How did we get here?"
Read more

Planting Seeds in Times of Darkness

Winona LaDuke shares four concepts for a sustainable future. "On a worldwide scale, Indigenous people represent about 5 percent of the world’s population but steward 75 percent of the world’s biodiversity. We are successful in protecting these lands because we are committed to the land, to life, and to moderating our own behavior so that life can continue. That’s how we can hang out in an ecosystem for a thousand years and it’s still healthy. Indigenous knowledge and values help preserve life."
Read more

Karin Wille: My Roots in Feminism

Author and long-time feminist lawyer Karin Wille shares more than 100 years of women's rights, from the personal perspective of generations of women in her family.
Read more

Commentary: Emilia Gonzalez Avalos Speaks About Human Rights Violations Report

"This year, they will dress themselves in white, red, and blue, and ask us to celebrate 250 years of America. So let us read our own founding document: 250 years ago, people declared independence from [the British] government. These are their words, not mine. 'Send hither swarms of officers to harass our people, a government that kept standing armies without the consent of our legislatures, a government that made the military superior to civil power.'"
Read more

The Electoral College Tantrum That Got Me Sent Home From School

"The remarkable thing about the United States is not that our institutions are perfect. It is that generation after generation we continue debating how to make them better. Democracy has always been an unfinished project."
Read more

BOOKS: Erika Lee’s Introduction to U.S. Xenophobia

"Xenophobia has helped siphon working-class resentment away from corporate greed and economic inequality and direct it toward immigrants. Scapegoating foreigners has also helped undermine interracial labor movements that challenge the worst corporate abuses.”
Read more

“250 Years”: How We Could Reduce Crime Better

"We must create systems that allow people to rebuild and rehabilitate. Just like poverty can drive crime, deprivation inside prison creates that same cycle. When you have nothing, you do what you have to do to survive. Survival mode is not rehabilitation.” ... Research over decades “has repeatedly shown that incarceration is among the least effective and most expensive approaches to crime prevention.”
Read more

-Advertisement-

Insights About Co-Operatives

Policymakers, Indigenous leaders, and Black collective participants discussed the long-time benefits of a collaborative, co-operative system at the Minnesota Cooperative Summit in Duluth. "Community wealth is collective."
Read more

In Chile, a Group of Women Embroider to Keep Memory Alive 

The Bordadoras have influenced my thoughts on the politics of memory, the power of textile art, and the significance of the space that a group of people gathered together creates.
Read more

Collective Power Is Key

There are insights in these pages about how collective solidarity builds far more for our health, prosperity, and happiness than any single government agency or corporate structure can provide.
Read more

Commentary: What is the Save Our Bacon Act in the Farm Bill?

The cutesy-named "Save Our Bacon Act" was introduced in Congress in July to support large corporations to strip states of the power to set their own standards for the food sold within their borders, and to nullify laws voters have already passed to protect people and animals.
Read more

Protesting Details at the Appleton Prison

Core Civic will earn a billion dollars from the sale and subsequent contract, while we pay the bill. Not a bad scam if you can get it, likely the biggest fraud this state has ever seen.
Read more

Bulletin Board: A Running Tally of Posts From Other Sources

Read more

The Lineage of a Minnesota 15 Activist

In the late 1930s, after hearing Dorothy Day speak in…
Read more

Ohio Advocacy Group Is Tracking ICE Agent Violence Against Women

An analysis by The 19th indicates that — of a list of 152 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection who have faced administrative disciplinary action or criminal penalties for allegations of violent crimes— 73 percent of the people were categorized as being criminally charged or convicted and sentenced related to sexual offenses. Fifty percent were categorized as being criminally charged or sentenced related to crimes against minors.
Read more

UPDATED: Voices and Images From the Solidarity Celebration

  At a Solidarity picnic on August 8, many groups came…
Read more

RESOURCE: New Tool for People With Medical Assistance to Check 2027 Federal Requirements

People with Medical Assistance can find out now if they will need to meet 2027 federal work reporting requirements with a new tool from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Read more

Commentary: Indivisible Opposes ICE Detention Center Opening in Minnesota August 11

Indivisible Twin Cities is outraged and horrified that ICE and CoreCivic have signed a contract allowing CoreCivic to operate a detention camp in Appleton, Minnesota. CoreCivic just announced its new contract with ICE in Appleton will begin Aug. 11
Read more

Bridging the Political Divides: Rural Women Running

Rural women running for political office this year gathered in a park near the Mississippi River in central Minnesota. Here is some of what they said. "It is going to be fast, and it is going to be hard, but we can get this done. I am done hearing that women cannot win, because look at us here.”
Read more