Hotel workers from Chicago supported and participated in a nonviolent civil disobedience action aimed at calling attention to the Hyatt Hotel chain’s working conditions on Thursday evening. The action was part of a nationally organized plan to target Hyatt and call attention to its lack of fairness and respect toward workers.

Leaving each successive generation better off than the previous one has been a central tenet in the “American Dream.” In the 21st century, that dream is no longer a reality.

One in five in our country does not have decent paying work. We have the greatest divide between rich and poor in 100 years. A secure retirement is now something that millions of people are quite worried about–thanks to the behavior of the people who were entrusted with the responsibility to manage the economy. The people are begging for reform. Yet, because of a combination of the corruption of the political system (aka campaign contributions) and a simple lack of common sense and decency, greed has not abated. The opposite: it has increased and resumed its rampage.

Schools could be where we teach kids about food, about valuing food, about enjoying food. Instead, underpaid cooks shovel industrial agriculture at kids who have to scarf it down with little thought to what they’re eating, how they’re eating, or who they’re eating with.

If Wikipedia status means anything, it at least means an idea or word has been said enough times to become a meme. And so, after all my work and the work of thousands of people, normal and fancy, over the past year, the Big Four is at least a meme.

The FY2011 budget proposal acknowledges we face problems. That’s progress. But what we still have to demand are bold solutions to meet the challenges we face.

Among the most troubling retreats, in my view, in the public discourse has been the adoption of the false idea that deep government involvement in the economy is a bad thing. It’s a retreat that too many Democrats have taken part in. The problem is the FACTS say otherwise. And the known left-wing organ, The Financial Times, illustrates the point today.

Putting the healthcare ‘excise’ tax in context.

What’s a job? Have you ever thought much about that question?

Wages (and the loss thereof) is at the heart of our economic crisis, yet we have done little to address this foundational issue. This post analyzes some perspectives on a universal Job Guarantee.