John Funiciello

Kenyans are catching more fish, so they’re eating better and they’re making more money from fishing. So are some Somalis. Some of the poorest people in Africa are benefiting from a situation which has caused much hand-wringing among the developed world – the roving Somali pirates who range freely around the coastal waters of their…

There are few clearer examples of Republican hostility toward American workers and hatred of their unions than the recent mini-storm over the hold-up of Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the near-disaster of the failed Christmas bombing of a jetliner bound for Detroit. It only took a few minutes for…

Although the U.S. doesn’t come close to meeting the criteria of a failed state, there are many things about which citizens should be concerned. The Fund for Peace put out a set of criteria several years ago and has published a “failed states index” for five years, and probably the primary criterion is that a…

Most people agree that times are tough. Since the bailouts, times are not as tough for the banks, the stock market, the insurance companies, and the corporations that take our money and our jobs to other countries. But those who have been left out are in trouble. The signs abound: home foreclosures, unemployment lines, hungry…

A few years after America celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall, the Soviet Union collapsed and pundits celebrated with much fanfare the “victory” of capitalism over communism. Within a few days of the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the best known right-wing radio talk show entertainers, Rush “Oxycontin Boy” Limbaugh, was in…

There they go again. The country’s commercial interests – and the right-wing, if they aren’t the same – are getting themselves worked up over a proposed change in one of the country’s major labor laws and they don’t want to see it happen. We have two sets of such laws in the country, the National…

A recent analysis of three decades of data reveals that – surprise – lots of children in America will have been on food stamps at some time in their lives: 49 percent of all children and a whopping 90 percent of black children. This has to do with two things: Poverty and economic injustice. It…

Note: By the time you read this, the election will have occurred and we should know the outcome, but, no matter who is elected, the people of the 23rd C.D. will see some major changes in their own lives and the lives of their many small communities. Here are a few points that may not…

The nation’s premier anti-worker and anti-union institution, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was caught recently with its rolls down. Or up – however you want to look at it. Does the behemoth representative of Corporate America represent 3 million businesses, or does it represent 300,000? Or, does it represent 200,000? The question came up recently,…