It has been over twenty years since the police beating of the now deceased Rodney King and the explosion of the Los Angeles Riots which followed the acquittal verdict for the police officers. Last weekend, the police killed two more men within a span of 24 hours in Anaheim, California, home to Disneyland: Manuel Diaz, 25, and Joel Mathew Acevedo, 21. On July 21, Manuel Diaz reportedly ran away when a group of police confronted him in the street. He was shot first in the back of the legs, and later he was shot in the back of his head, as though he were undergoing an execution.

The city of Seattle, and more broadly the Northwest, takes pride in leading the nation in recycling and composting. However, the dark underbelly of recycling and related services is the relentless privatization of the industry and the systematic violation of labor rights.

In mid-July, one of Seattle’s largest public employees union endorsed a Socialist Alternative activist, Kshama Sawant, who is running for the Washington State House of Representatives from the 43rd legislative district.

The Kshama Sawant campaign welcomes the endorsement by the widely read Seattle weekly newspaper, The Stranger, in its July 18th issue.

We stand for building the strongest left-wing challenge to the Democrats and Republicans to speed up the process of workers breaking from big-business politics and beginning to build their own independent political voice and the creation of a party of workers and young people.

Around 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday, July 10th, a house where local activists from Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark group live was raided by a Seattle Police Department SWAT team. According to reports, police broke through the front door armed with automatic weaponry and used “flashbang” grenades. The police have said they were searching for “Anarchist materials” and clothing allegedly connected to the Seattle May 1st demonstrations. No arrests were made; only clothing was taken from the apartment. (http://kasamaproject.org/2012/07/10/swat-raid-organizers-of-occupy-seattle-and-e4e/)

In Florida alone there have been dozens of corruption scandals reported of legislators having direct investments in the companies contracted to run the private prisons or where the private prisons were putting the health or safety of their prisoners in danger to “cut costs.” The idea that privatization means some kind of meager financial benefit to taxpayers doesn't hold water.

Kshama Sawant is run­ning against incumbent Democrat Jamie Pedersen in the 43rd District for Washington State House of Representatives. Sarah White spoke with Sawant about why she’s running and how she’d address some of the issues that are facing working people in Washington State.

On Tuesday June 5, Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker became the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall elec­tion. His vicious anti-union attacks and budget cuts on social services had brought a historic movement of teacher sick-outs, protests, an 18-day occupation of the State Capitol and the possibility for mass strike action in early 2011.

I am running as an Independent and a member of Socialist Alternative to give a voice to the 99% during these corporate-dominated elections. The two parties of big business, Democrats and Repub­licans, have carried out budget cuts, attacks on civil liberties, and an assault on women’s rights, all while strength­ening corporate control in this country.

The 2012 elections are projected to be the most expensive on record. Already in 2008 we saw the first billion-dollar presidential race, with Obama’s campaign spending about $730 million while John McCain spent around $330 million. Together, Obama and Romney have already raised over $300 million and are predicted to surpass the billion-dollar mark by November, probably by a wide margin.

The battle over the Cruz family home, nestled in a well-kept working class neigh­borhood in south Minneapolis, emerged in May and June as the central struggle in the burgeoning nationwide anti-foreclosure movement.

As the 2012 presidential election draws closer, Republican candidate Mitt Romney continues to do something few thought possible: make Barack Obama look like a regular guy from Main Street.

Continued shrinking of the Arctic ice cap by global warming, oil prices rising to record levels, and recent Arctic output estimates of up to 130 billion barrels of oil (BBC, 8/31/2011) are driving moves to open up the arctic to oil drilling. Shell, along with other oil companies, is now scrambling to put in multibillion dollar bids to lease land in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The only thing standing in their way is the harsh environment and the need for President Obama’s approval.

Despite the tremendous hope placed in Barack Obama by millions of people, a glimpse at his first term reveals that he is unwilling to stand up for the interests of the millions because of his ties to the millionaires, big business, and capitalism. Here are ten reasons Obama does not deserve your vote in 2012.