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November 9, 2007 | Issue 652

FRONT PAGE

Blackwater's license to kill
Above the law--any law. That describes the status granted to the private security firm Blackwater USA when its mercenaries were hired to work for the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

NATIONAL NEWS

Making a bad law even worse
With the No Child Left Behind Act up for renewal in Congress, politicians are pushing proposals that will make an already bad law even worse.

Behind the debate over licenses for immigrants
In all the hoo-hah about Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, something got lost--the issue of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

U.S. stands by Pakistan's dictator
Although the State Department condemned Pervez Musharraf's move to suspend the constitution, all indications are that billions in U.S. aid will continue to flow to his regime.

Palestinians cut off from basic necessities
Israel has begun to restrict imports of gasoline and diesel fuel into Gaza as part of a new campaign of collective punishment against the population of 1.5 million Palestinians.

EDITORIALS AND COLUMNS

EDITORIAL
Execution machine switched off
The machinery of death in the U.S. has been halted while the U.S. Supreme Court decides on a case in which the constitutionality of lethal injection is at stake.

EDITORIAL
Who's being excluded from equal rights?
Thirty-three years have passed since legislation to end discrimination against gays in the workplace was first proposed in Congress--in 1974.

THE MEANING OF MARXISM
Standing on the shoulders of giants
At the heart of the Marxist tradition is the battle cry raised by Marx and Engels: "The emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the working class itself."

HISTORY AND TRADITIONS

Can there be a revolution in the U.S.?
Sharon Smith explains that socialism isn't alien to the working-class tradition in the U.S., but has played an essential role in working-class history.

ON THE PICKET LINE

Why TV and film writers hit the picket line
Television and film writers had hit the picket lines in Los Angeles and New York to demand their fair share of Hollywood's rapidly growing revenues.

Garbage bosses beat union in LA
A strike of Los Angeles-area garbage collectors against Waste Management went down to an unnecessary defeat when workers voted for a contract they had rejected two weeks before.

NEWS FROM OUR STRUGGLE

News and reports
Campaign to End the Death Penalty | Seattle forum for health care rights | No to war and occupation | Protest against Caterpillar

VIEWS AND VOICES

The final word has not been spoken
Journalist Giuliana Sgrena responds to an Italian judge's dismissal of the case against the U.S. soldier who fired on the car that carried her after she was released by Iraqi insurgents.

Views in brief
Blackwater cronies on the attack | Boston cops' brutality on display | The man who murdered a city

BOOKS AND ENTERTAINMENT

For-profit health care makes us sick
A Second Opinion makes a concise, convincing case for why we need to eliminate the for-profit health care industry in the U.S. and replace it with a single-payer system.

Searching for a world with some soul
With his album Magic, Bruce Springsteen paints an often haunting picture of the bitterness felt by millions of Americans who have been fed racism, lies and war.

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