Archive | June, 2006

  • Ahmadinejad: Remaking Iran

    [The following profile of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first appeared in Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com) on 19 May 2006.  It shows that the President of Iran is winning the right friends (the economically disenfranchised, ambitious men and women of younger generations who are denied political power by the current clerical rulers, ordinary Iranians of middling sorts who […]

  • Jeremiah

    At noon in the hay sheds Lester and me, we kept mostly quiet and old Enos didn’t say much either.  Maury and Vern did almost all the talking.  Vern was a cowboy, an all-around Marlboro Man, calm and rugged, except that back then he smoked Camels.  And Jared, the man we called Preacher when he […]

  • COSATU Open Letter in Support of CUPE Resolution on Israel

      Introduction by Socialist ProjectThe passing of a resolution on 27 May 2006 by the Ontario Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in support of the Palestinian peoples has sparked a great deal of notice across the North American labour movement, and, indeed, the international labour movement.  Resolution 50 clearly states the case […]

  • Stirring the Pot: Remembering Stew Albert — 1939-2006

    WHO THE HELL IS STEW ALBERT? by Stewart Edward AlbertBUY THIS BOOK Stew Albert had one of his smart, funny ideas when he was thinking about a name for his memoir.  “My Sixties,” he said was going to call it.  He was in his late fifties when we kicked this one around and I thought […]

  • Voices from under Occupation

    5 June 2006 marks the 39th anniversary of the beginning of the war that led to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  In observation of this event, the Institute for Middle East Understanding talked with five prominent Palestinians who have experienced the occupation since it began.  We asked them for their […]

  • Eulogy for Stew Albert

    MAY 6, 2006, New York City Stew Albert Photo by Robert Altman © 2006 Stew Albert was our troubadour, poet, writer, our cherished moral center. On May Day 1971, in Washington DC during the May Day antiwar demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of activists to shut down the city, Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo […]

  • Port Militarization Resistance, Olympia, May 2006

      Click on a photo for a larger view. 23-25 May 2006 29 May 2006 On the eighth day of the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, the U.S.S. Pomeroy has docked to take the Stryker Brigade to Iraq.  The resistance escalates, the Port fence is shaken and nearly taken down before a riot squad enters the […]

  • Immigrants, Advocates Take Sides on Senate Guest-Worker Bill

      Andrew Stern, president of the 1.7-million-member Service Employees International Union, once likened the leadership of a mass movement to the crew on a sailboat.  What matters is the wind in the sails, he said, not the fight over who steers. The wind behind the movement for immigrant rights had reached gale force by May […]

  • Poet, Playwright, and . . . Radical?The Politics of Shakespeare’s Plays

    Shakespeare.  Undeniably one of the most well-known names in the world.  His plays are performed all over the planet in several different languages, and his collected works are read by millions (if not, in fact, billions) of people.  Thousands of theatre companies around the world are dedicated to his work and he is taught as […]

  • A Specter Is Haunting the AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program: The Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee

    The room had been arranged, the speakers ready — with a last minute, unannounced substitution of Wilfredo Berrios of El Salvador’s SUTTEL (telecom) union replacing Miguel Gonzalez Vargas from the Oil Workers Union of Venezuela who had not been able to come due to problems back home — and the only remaining question was, “Would […]

  • As Immigrants Strike, Truckers Shut Down Nation’s Largest Port on May Day

    During the countdown to the May Day immigrant walkouts, transportation industry commentators worried about the impact that immigrant strikes would have on the nation’s ports.  Many feared repeats of the 2004 and 2005 strikes by mostly immigrant Latino port truckers (or troqueros), which crippled freight traffic up and down the West Coast. Troqueros at the […]

  • Presbyterians of the World, Unite!

    In June 2004, the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), resolved to consider a phased, selective divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation.  Subsequently it came under intense pressure from Jewish organizations (and their allies) and will consider rescinding the resolution at the next General Assembly meeting on June 15-22 in Birmingham, Alabama.  To firm up […]

  • Queen Hussein

      The Palestinian gay and lesbian community has yet to leave the closet, but it’s on its way.  Today it’s possible to go to parties of gays from the Occupied Territories and see young residents of the West Bank perform drag.  They have not told their mother about this, but one day they intend to […]

  • Match Point

    “He’s not always as ambitious as he could be, and he’s better on dishonesty than he is with feelings of warmth . . . He’s a good guy, and he’s definitely an auteur.  Which is not to say that every film is an artistic success.”1                      […]