How 1968 changed me forever

In 1968, I was living on the South Side of Chicago at 67th and Paxton streets, right off Jackson Park, and I was working on my Ph.D. in philosophical theology at the University of Chicago ( UChicago ). Living in a basement apartment for $50 per month, including all...

Capitalism with a heart?!

In 1983, in the midst of the Contra War against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua that had overthrown the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza, a Franciscan nun from Milwaukee introduced me to the concept of co-operative economics. I was in Nicaragua participating in...

“Survival of the Fittest:” Making America Great Again

  The first time I was told I did not ‘fit’ was in third grade. Before nodding off and drooling on her desk, Sr. D. bitterly complained, as she stared me in the eye, about having to teach us Italians and Blacks—unfit to be in her class, fit only for...

Free the Word

When I was a youngster, I wanted to be a writer for a newspaper, or a U.S. Senator. I avidly read the papers I delivered to my clients and passionately participated in the politics of the times, reporting on Adlai Stevenson for president rallies for the Kingsley House...