Mutualist journal club

How to speak Republican | Salon News: "Frank Luntz is a Republican word doctor who coaches conservatives to talk to Americans about 'personalizing' Social Security instead of 'privatizing' it. ...In a phone interview with Salon, Luntz discussed his dissatisfaction with the way the White House talks about the war in Iraq, his impressions of Barack Obama, and his beef with the progressive netroots."

I think that mutualists are pretty good at reaching out to all types of "regular folk"...at least on economic issues. Here's some more info on "speaking Republican"

SSRN-Transnational Labor Citizenship by Jennifer Gordon

Over at Salon's "How the World Works", Andrew Leonard has a review of Jennifer Gordon's paper Transnational Labor Citizenship, which advocates for unions to drop their protectionist and anti-immigrant activities, instead focusing on organizing immigrant workers before they enter the U.S..

It's a good idea for a country where "pro-labor" has come to be more closely related with nationalism than internationalism.

The Next Hurrah: When the liar is a friend

A great review of how (politicized) misinformation is spread through the Internet and Mass-media, and the effectiveness of attempts to combat it...based on a couple of case studies (one "right-wing" and one "left-wing") along with analyses of the motives behind the originators and spreaders of misinformation.

Another interesting article at Salon: How will the "local food" movement respond to mainstreaming?

The challenge facing local food | Salon Life

Over at Salon.com, there's a great blog about globalization and economic development in poorer countries: How the World Works - Salon.com

This particular article focuses on "micro-manufacturing facilities", particularly those being developed by the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group.