Archive | February, 2006

“The only domestic terrorist attack here is the U.S. government’s attack on the people of Puerto Rico.” — New York State Assemblyman José Rivera1 In a move reminiscent of a U.S. Marine invasion of a foreign country, the FBI descended in droves on Puerto Rico on February 10.2  Without breathing a word of the invasion […]

MAKING FRIENDS WITH BLACK PEOPLE by Nick AdamsBUY THIS BOOK Comedian and writer Nick Adams wants to be called Black . . . not African-American.  “Once you get into hyphenating based on continent of origin,” he wonders, “where does it stop?”  For a thought experiment, Adams offers the conundrum of hyphenate marrying hyphenate: “My as-yet-unborn […]

  “Predictions are suspect.  But something new is happening. . . .” — Paul Buhle1 A people’s movement against the “class war from above” is beginning to crystallize across Thailand.  Students and unionized workers have suddenly emerged as a new force in the streets in helping to organize a broad-based people’s alliance to oust the […]

  The fate of socialism after the fall of the socialist bloc will be determined, more than ever, by socialism’s capacity to sustain in theory and in practice the . . . idea that the intellectual’s adherence to the Revolution (like that of any other ordinary citizen), if the intellectual “really wants to be useful, […]

RED SEAS: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica by Gerald HorneBUY THIS BOOK Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica.  By Gerald Horne.  New York University Press, 2005, 358 pp. The political connections of Harlem and the British West Indies have been […]

  The US Green Party called for divestment from Israel on 21 November 2005: The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized. . . .  The party […]

US liberals — left, right, and center — have always justified reformism on the grounds that it is realistic.  “Nothing more than a limited set of reforms is achievable in the present circumstances” has been their mantra.  They insist that efforts toward more basic “revolutionary” social changes would be successfully resisted by the capitalist establishment, […]

MANUFACTURING DISCONTENT: The Trap of Individualism in Corporate Society by Michael PerelmanBUY THIS BOOK Given the absence of criminal penalties for corporate misbehavior, society needs an alternative means to protect itself against corporate abuses.  Ideally, effective regulation might help to keep corporations in line, but the regulatory structure in the United States is embarrassingly weak. […]

It was comical, how Maury and his friend Red kept meeting each other, like in Idaho for potato or sugarbeet harvest, or Montana to fight forest fire, and then they’d drift off, going their own ways, and somewhere down the line they’d run into each other again. It got to be like a serial on […]

  NO COLD KITCHEN: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer by Ronald S. Roberts BUY THIS BOOK No Cold Kitchen is a biography of Nadine Gordimer by Ronald S. Roberts (published by STE Publishers).  As an activist, Gordimer played a vital role in the struggle against the apartheid.  In 1985, Gordimer declared: “I am a partisan […]

I only saw Sly and the Family Stone once.  It wasn’t the best of times for Sly, and my recall is very hazy, thanks to a combination of Henninger Bier and some very good Afghan hash that was making the rounds of the Frankfurt International Rock Festival the summer of 1973.  By the time I […]

Thanks to Michael Moore, the growth of a moderately-aroused left-liberal public since the invasion of Iraq, and the low manufacturing costs of DVDs, the politically-conscious documentary film has reemerged in the United States.  A central figure in this movement has been the seasoned producer-director Robert Greenwald.  Formerly known for TV epics like Flatbed Annie and […]

  LAS KRUDAS Las Krudas <http://www.krudas.org/> is a Cuban hip hop duo, an interracial couple of HOT, HOT, HOT lesbians Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia Prendes.  Their feminist lyrics and performance battles machismo and celebrates the power and beauty of women of color. In “Vamo’ a vencer la dificultad,” the track that opens their CD Cubensi, […]

Las Krudas is a Cuban hip hop duo, an interracial couple of HOT, HOT, HOT lesbians Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia Prendes.  Their feminist lyrics and performance battle machismo and celebrate the power and beauty of women of color. In “Vamo’ a vencer la dificultad,” the track that opens their CD Cubensi, Las Krudas repeat: Sexo […]

  Caracas, Venezuela — Under the elevated lines in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union has been waging a battle against poverty that has taken them to center stage of the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela.  Led by Cheri Honkala, a formerly homeless mother, the KWRU began by building encampments […]

The following is a conversation with Heinz Dieterich about his friendship with Hugo Chávez, irregular war, the new Venezuelan military doctrine, and an account of the Bolivarian revolution in Latin America. Heinz Dieterich is a sociologist and economist.  He has been a professor at Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City since 1977.  Since the 1990s, […]

It could be worse, I say to myself, as I buy my Trailways ticket, he could be on death row.  He could be dying in a prison infirmary; he could be getting beaten up by racist gangs.  Instead, Herman Bell is doing 25 years to life at a prison outside New York City, where we […]

Last Sunday, my fifteen year old daughter and I went to Querétaro, Mexico.  We were trying to visit Cristina Rosas Illescas at the state penitentiary of San José El Alto, five miles northeast of the state capital.  At the entrance, my daughter refused the guards’ orders to take her clothes off and let them conduct […]

What has been left out of reports and analysis in both the mainstream press and among anti-imperialists and leftists about the triumph of Evo Morales’ election as President of Bolivia is the role played by the three-decade international indigenous movement that preceded it.  Few are even aware of that powerful and remarkable historic movement, which […]

Las organizaciones sociales y populares más combativas y revolucionarias de Bolivia amenazaron con hacer renunciar al nuevo presidente Evo Morales, si éste no cumple con sus promesas de nacionalizar los hidrocarburos, elevar los salarios, dar tierra a los campesinos y erradicar el neoliberalismo. Por separado, una masiva asamblea de dirigentes de la Central Obrera Boliviana […]