Monthly Archives: July 2011
Race and wealth distribution
If you believe the game of life in America is played on a level playing field please read on. AGB
Filed under economics, poverty, racial history
Is Rick Perry having second thoughts about The Response?
You may be wondering what happened to The Response, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Christians-only pray-for-America extravaganza. This article in the Texas Observer should bring you up to date. One word of caution. Although the Observer piece gives the impression that … Continue reading
Filed under American exceptionalism, Texas, The Religious Right, theocracy
Confederate license plates in Texas?
By Alan Bean Please check out the Progress Texas website and consider signing the petition which is explained below: The Sons of Confederate Veterans want to display the Confederate flag on Texas license plates. You can do something to stop … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Marlowe’s Mississippi
By Alan Bean Lara Marlowe generally writes for an Irish audience, but when she turns her attention to the American South it is wise to take notice. American journalists are generally reluctant to address our nation’s racial history honestly and … Continue reading
Reporter uncovers a judicial scandal in Louisiana
By Alan Bean This in-depth story in the Lafayette Independent, places the spotlight on ”a choir of convicts contaminating the judicial process in exchange for a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.” Specifically, it is about an assistant US Attorney named Brett Grayson, … Continue reading
Marlowe: The Unrepentant South
I first met Lara Marlowe of the Irish Times in 2004 when she was crisscrossing the country researching stories on George W. Bush’s America. Since then, she has been following the Friends of Justice blog and occasionally references my opinionated outbursts in … Continue reading
Filed under civil war, Neo-Confederacy, Race, war on drugs
Rick Perry’s curious bedfellows
By Alan Bean I got an email from Justin Elliott earlier this week inquiring about “The Will to Secede”, a post about Rick Perry’s ties to neo-Confederate groups I published a couple of years ago. The post, which to date has received just under … Continue reading
Movement building in an age of scarcity
By Alan Bean How do we organize in a world of steadily declining resources? It isn’t just that non-profit organizations are struggling to stay afloat; the economy of the United States has entered a period of decline that will not … Continue reading
Balko: Why ‘Caylee’s Law’ Is a Bad Idea
According to Radley Balko (now of the Huffington Post) 700,000 have signed a Change.org petition calling for a law that would require parents to immediately inform the authorities when a child dies. Balko thinks this is a really bad idea, and I … Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
A mayor and a prophet lock horns in a Southern town
By Alan Bean On Saturday, June 18th, Friends of Justice joined dozens of civil rights veterans in honoring the memory of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. For those who worked in Mississippi during the 1960s, the cruel and cowardly murder … Continue reading
