On Wednesday, July 15th the United States Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted 13-10 to approve the Affordable Health Choices Act (AHCA). Sadly this is yet another occasion which demands we take a very close look at the fine print.

When Barack Obama was still a candidate in the Democratic primaries, he promised a new era if he were elected. Among his promises for “change,” he said his future administration would be one of the most transparent in history: “an unprecedented level of openness in government.” Well, we’re still waiting, and will most likely be left waiting for a very, very long time.

US foreign policy is dictated by its role as an imperialist power. Some of the most glaring cracks are opening in the Middle East. Obama is being forced by the objective conditions to change the specific approach of US imperialism without changing the general course whatsoever.

California is facing the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression. The “Governator” is now threatening to order 200,000 state workers to take a third furlough day off per month without pay. The state is going to cut aid to county and local governments, causing them to layoff employees, cut services and raise taxes on working people.

With the much ballyhooed “first 100” days of Barack Obama’s Presidency long past, we are starting to see signs of disillusionment from many of his more vocal supporters. Obama, the man who was supposed to usher in a new era of “change,” is now increasingly being seen as “more of the same.”

For decades, the mantra “Capitalism = good” and “Socialism = bad” was driven into our heads. But even the most sophisticated apparatus for influencing public opinion – the mainstream media – cannot mold opinion as powerfully as experience itself. From the dizzying heights of the boom to the economic implosion of the last 10 months, dramatic events are shaking up and transforming the way Americans look at the world around them.

Over the last few decades we have seen the official unemployment figures massaged and fiddled time and time again in order to make them seem more 'acceptable' in the official reports and, of course, the newspapers. Michael Roberts has a look at the real rate of unemployment in the US.

The Workers' International League held its first National Marxist School over the weekend of June 13th and 14th. As part of the School, a public event was organized jointly with Hands Off Venezuela, to discuss the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the lessons for Latin America.

Despite what Obama calls a “glimmer of hope,” the economic crisis continues to unfold and reduce living standards everywhere. This is bad enough news for working people in general, but how do things fare for Black Americans. Has Obama been the “change” that so many hoped for?

The theoreticians of Big Business and their political leaders believe that workers should not expect higher wages and benefits, but must work harder for less and the labor leaders echo their argument.  However, no class will give up its rights and privileges without a fight and this includes the working class.  The working class will fight back; but the question is not only how to fight back, but how to fight back and win.

President Obama has just passed the 100 day mark of his term in office. What a difference a few weeks makes! Even though GM and Chrysler have already been given millions in public money, Chrysler has now been allowed to go bankrupt. All of its plants will be idled until it emerges from bankruptcy. And despite putting forward the option of a UAW “ownership stake” in GM and Chrysler, Obama is at the same time addressing auto workers with the cold vocabulary of Wall Street: Viability, Profitability and Liability. And these words are not hollow.

A recent survey shows that the United States may be becoming both less religious generally and less Christian specifically.  This may come as a shock to some, as over the past decade, the Religious Right has for many people come to represent the public face of the country.  This has been spurred on and encouraged by the cries coming from many liberals over the past few years of an impending “theocracy.”  However, the facts on the ground are quite different, as the American Religious Identification Survey, performed by Trinity College in Hartford, CT, recently proved.

Month after month, we report a seemingly endless stream of dismal economic figures. Behind these numbers are millions of Americans who are beginning to ask themselves a very important question: is the instability of capitalism really the only alternative?

In an uncharacteristic break from the focus on “Obamamania,” the mainstream media recently cast a cautious spotlight on the plight of America's “newly homeless” and a phenomenon that should send a chill through anyone even remotely familiar with the history of the Great Depression: the return of the shanty town.