Jim Caton lives in Southeast Michigan where he teaches English and works as a freelance writer. A graduate of Wayne Law School, he writes on matters of constitutional law, public policy and international affairs. He is currently at work on a book of economic and social criticism entitled Ass Backward.
Home to Roost On September 11th, 2001, I drove home from work along the freeways of southern Michigan looking for things. Absurd as it now seems, I kept an eye on the ten and twenty-story glass buildings clustered in Southfield. I scanned that unforgettably blue sky for any rogue airliner that might be evading the
When historians record the U.S. war with Russia, the events of this past week may look like a road sign that went unheeded. The bombing of Syrian forces, which Washington has called “accidental,” indicates a new level of recklessness in U.S. policy, escalating the war against Bashar al Assad’s government and inching closer to direct
What galls us most about Mylan Pharmaceuticals’ inflating the price of the EpiPen to bursting is the stark image it presents of the fix we’re in. Like distant trees in a midnight flash of lightning, the hands of our corporate masters are for the moment seen clear as crystal squeezing a human throat. Such flashes
In a unanimous ruling, a U.S. appellate court held Monday that U.S. citizens have no right to elect their governments. By a vote of 3-0 a panel of Sixth Circuit judges ruled against a complaint that challenged Michigan’s emergency manager law on constitutional grounds. Brought by a group of union officials, municipal officials and pastors,
This is the fourth and last installment of my interview with Jerry White, the Socialist Equality Party’s candidate for president. The interview took place August 30th in Detroit. In this installment, White talks about the revolutionary program of the SEP. I want to ask about the socialist program. Rosa Luxemburg said, “There’s no parliamentary road
We should not fall victim to the suggestions that race is an intractable problem in the United States or that racism is the cause of black poverty and of the frequent police killings of African Americans. The cause of these social ills is capitalism. It is essential to note that the black Americans who have
Jerry White is the presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party. The following is the third of four parts of my interview with White, which took place in Detroit on August 30. In this installment, White talks about the American auto industry and the race to the bottom for workers under global capitalism. You’re saying
Jerry White is the presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party. The following is the second of a four-part, abridged transcript of my interview with White, which took place in Detroit on August 30. In this second part, White discusses the pseudo-left nature of the Green Party and analyzes the candidacies of Bernie Sanders, Hillary
Jerry White is the presidential candidate of the Socialist Equality Party. The following is the first of a three-part, abridged transcript of my interview with White, which took place in Detroit on August 30. Born in Queens, New York, White is an intense but gregarious man. As the transcript shows, he does not speak in
A few years ago, as the economic crash of 2007 was sliding into our Great Recession, I wrote a satirical piece about an Orwellian government program that introduced virtual slave camps to the U.S. under the guise of easing unemployment, homelessness and debt peonage. The program was called COBRA, the Corporate-Operated Bankruptcy Recovery Act. COBRA