Sarah van Gelder

If the mainstream media was confused about Occupy Wall Street in its early days in Zuccotti Park, they're bound to be completely befuddled this May Day.

May Day already has a lot piled on it. In pre-Christian Europe, May Day was a time to dance, light bonfires,...

What happens if the Supreme Court strikes down the "individual mandate" in the health care reform law?

Commentators ranging from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to Forbes Magazine columnist Rick Ungar agree: Such a decision could open the door to single-payer health care -- perhaps even...

What can be done to stop racially motivated violence?

For far too long, violence targeting young people of color has been tolerated, even condoned, in the United States. The killing of Trayvon Martin is part of a horrific history -- one that can only be stopped if all of us,...

7 signs the corporatocracy is losing its legitimacy ... and 7 populist tools to help shut it down.

You may remember that there was a time when apartheid in South Africa seemed unstoppable.

Sure, there were international boycotts of South African businesses, banks, and tourist attractions. There were heroic activists...

2011 was full of surprises, many of them the good kind. But which ones will matter in the coming year? Here are the YES! Magazine pick of trends to watch.

Who would have thought that some young people camped out in lower Manhattan with cardboard signs, a few...

The police raids of the past week are raising questions about the future of Occupy Wall Street. Without the Zuccotti Park encampment that was at the heart of the movement, will it fade away? Will harsh weather or police violence drive people away?

Not likely. It will almost certainly...

Many question whether this movement can really make a difference. The truth is that it is already changing everything. Here's how.

By Sarah van Gelder, David Korten, and Steve Piersanti

Before the Occupy Wall Street movement, there was little discussion of the outsized power of Wall Street and the...

The #OccupyWallStreet movement continues to spread with more than 1,500 sites. More and more people are speaking up for a society that works for the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent.

Here are 10 recommendations for ways to build the power and momentum of this movement. Only...

Young people locking arms, facing arrest on a cold, wet Seattle street -- it could have been the WTO protests that rocked the city more than ten years ago. Only this time, Seattle is just one of dozens of places where the movement for the 99 percent is...

A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices and some politicians like to refer to corporations as "persons." Few actual people, though, could get away with years of lawless behavior resulting in injuries and deaths, and the destruction of entire communities and ways of life. To do that takes the protection...

Michael Jannenga is a sheet metal worker who's often out of work, and his unemployment benefits will soon expire. Gene Bullock, a retiree, and his wife have remortgaged their house to keep their son, an unemployed computer engineer, and daughter, a divorced mother of two, from homelessness. May Sperder works...

With politics in D.C. hitting new lows, few progressives look to either the Obama administration or the two major parties for leadership in restoring the middle class and transitioning to a green, just economy. Instead, many are returning to a strategy that actually brought real progress during the last century:...

If there was any doubt about the broken state of our prison system, recent news should put it to rest.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy concludes that the Drug War is an expensive failure. The California prison system -- which the U.S. Supreme Court declared to...

At a time when millions of Americans are without work, the political debate has taken a bizarre turn. Instead of discussing how to make the public investments necessary to get Americans back to work, the political right has used the deficit "crisis" to push for cuts in...

The 10,000 young people who gathered in Washington, DC, for the third Power Shift came prepared to get things done. They traveled in groups from campuses, high schools, and neighborhoods across the country. They brought stories of campaigns to get local food on campuses, to shut...

Co-authored with Brooke Jarvis

In one sense, the struggle over union rights in Wisconsin is over. It took some breathtaking, possibly even illegal, shenanigans, but the union-busting "Budget Repair Bill" has been passed, signed, and celebrated. In other ways, though, the weeks of historic protests in and around...

Glenn Beck has made a startling discovery. People are working together to make change!

Beck used my recent article, "Wisconsin: First Step in an American Uprising?" as a backdrop during his Wednesday show on Fox News, where he talked in dark, hushed tones about the spread of the...

The uprising that swept Tunisia, Egypt, and parts of Europe is showing signs of blossoming across the United States.

In Wisconsin, public employees and their supporters are drawing the line at Governor Scott Walker's plan to eliminate collective bargaining and unilaterally cut benefits. School teachers, university students, firefighters, and others...

This post was co-authored by Brooke Jarvis.

"Just as media outlets have been used to create a pervasive sense of fear, they have also been used to convince people that conflict is inevitable. This leaves media consumers resigned to the notion that conflict will happen."

Those words could...

There was plenty of disappointment and hardship this year. But the year also brought opportunities for transformation.

It was a tough year. The economy continued its so-called jobless recovery with Wall Street anticipating another year of record bonuses while most Americans struggle to get work and hold on to...