The Working Poor and Homeless in the US

Four Corners (2017)

Film Review

This Australian documentary challenges whether job growth in the US (25 million new jobs in ten years) really represents economic recovery. The film makes three important points: 1) the vast majority of new American jobs are minimum wage part-time jobs, 2) well-paid middle class jobs continue to vanish, and 3) approximately one-half of US workers live in poverty.

The film follows three families. The first, in Orlando Florida, consists of a single mother of three who works 70 hours a week for Dunkin’ Donuts and MacDonald’s. Earning $8 an hour, she and her family live in a cheap motel because they can’t afford rent. She sleeps 1-2 hours a night, and her mother-in-law provides childcare while she works.

The second family is a couple with two children who live in a homeless camp in the parking lot…

Dear colleague,

One of the most important features of improved Medicare for All — perhaps its defining feature — is the elimination of the profit motive in health care. For-profit providers, including hospitals, dialysis centers, and nursing homes, have been shown to provide inferiorcare at inflated prices. There is simply no place for corporate profit in a humane and efficient national health program.

But no industry is more emblematic of our broken system than private health insurance, which drains billions of dollars from our health care system and provides nothing of value to either patients or doctors. The most glaring symptom of this greed is the exorbitant compensation packages that insurance companies pay their CEOs.

While half a million Americans file for bankruptcy due to sickness and medical bills each year, insurance and pharma CEOs walk away with eight-figure incomes. According to a comprehensive review…

O româncă din diaspora, creatoarea de modă Alexandra Popescu-York, a trăit o experienţă nedorită în mult-aşteptata sa vacanţă în ţara natală, pe litoralul Mării Negre.Alexandra şi familia ei s-au confruntat cu codițiile de cazare supraevaluate de hotelierii români și, din nefericire, în urma îmbolnăvirii copiilor – toxiinfecție alimentară și enterocolită, cu cele din spitale. Poate că noi suntem obișnuiți cu lucrurile astea, dar e bine să aflăm de la alții că nu aceasta este realitatea…

„România, m-ai dezamâgit profund. Păcat!

Am obiceiul să mă entuziasmez în tot ce fac și ce îmi propun să fac. Am pornit de la motto-ul „Iubesc România!” și nimic nu mă va convinge contrariul. Așteptam să văd cu nerăbdare litoralul românesc, Mamaia cea plină de viață și mult lăudată. Pe lîngă faptul că 6 zile o cameră modestă la un hotel de 4 stele cu iz comunist costă 1000 de dolari, marea este contaminată…

by Nils Melzer edited by O Society June 26, 2019

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

On the occasion of the International Day in Support of Torture Victims

I know, you may think I am deluded. How could life in an Embassy with a cat and a skateboard ever amount to torture? That’s exactly what I thought, too, when Assange first appealed to my office for protection. Like most of the public, I had been subconsciously poisoned by the relentless smear campaign, which had been disseminated over the years. So it took a second knock on my door to get my reluctant attention. But once I looked into the facts of this case, what I found filled me with repulsion and disbelief.

Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon after the US had…