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Belden Fields is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana and an editor/facilitator/writer for the Public i, the newspaper of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Center. His scholarly work has focused on French politics, social/political movements in France and the United States, and human rights. He is the author of Student Politics in France (Basic Books), Trotskyism and Maoism: Theory and Practice in France and the United States (Autonomedia and Praeger), Education and Democratic Theory (with Walter Feinberg, SUNY Press), and Rethinking Human Rights for the New Millennium (Palgrave-Macmillan). He is also a peace and a human rights activist.
SHARE Tuesday, April 13, 2021 Th e 2021 Illinois Criminal Justice Reform Bill: First in the Nation to Abolish Cash Bail
This year the Illinois Legislature passed a bill that was sponsored by the Black Caucuses in both houses that hopefully will make for a more equitable and rights-respecting way citizens (and non citizens) are policed, charged, and held in custody. The most drastic change, indeed a first in the nation, is the abolition of cash bail. But there are many more significant changes in the omnibus, over 600-page, bill.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, October 22, 2020 Police Unions: Solidarity and Accountability
While the police have unions, these unions generally do not exhibit solidarity toward other unions. In fact, their violence has often been directed against other union members protesting against anti-union policies. And police unions have been a major impediment to achieving nondiscriminatory policing in this country. Certain policy and structural changes, all opposed by police unions, would be necessary to achieve the above
(29 comments) SHARE Saturday, October 13, 2018 The French Can Teach Us Something About Health Insurance
This article looks at how French health insurance covers everyone in a more cost-effective way than the American private for-profit system that excludes millions. It makes clear the need for Medicare for All.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, December 26, 2016 A Letter to Friends in France after Being Trumped
An attempt to explain to friends in France how this electoral outcome came about in the U.S.A. and a plea to not let a similar outcome happen in the French presidential elections in May 2017.
(7 comments) SHARE Friday, February 12, 2016 France: The Power of Le Pens
This article relates how a far right-wing family, the Le Pens, have transformed a small openly anti-Semitic and racist movement into a political party that is attracting strong national support to the point of threatening to take the French presidency, with enormous implications for Europe as a whole.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2010 New York City/Champaign, Illinois: Policing and Race
Compares racial profiling and the excessive use of force, including deadly force, against unarmed black people in Champaign, Illinois, home of the University of Illinois, and New York City.