Archive | June, 2008

While I was preparing a reflection about McCain’s relationship with the anti-Cuban terrorist mafia in Miami and other related subjects of historical interest, fresh news was flowing about this character that is being projected by the empire’s hawks as Bush’s replacement: his visit to Colombia and Mexico which will begin tomorrow. It is not possible to avoid them since they confirm the opinions we have held.

  A historic event worthy of the Guinness Book may have occurred in Washington in the last week of June.  The worst “torture” president that the United States has ever had met the most corrupt and brutal president ever inflicted on the Filipino people.  Grotesque or farcical?  Bush is now credited with the horrendous deaths […]

A cease-fire went into effect in Gaza, offering some respite from the violence that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and five Israelis in recent months.  It will do nothing, however, to address the underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Intermittent spectacular violence may draw the world’s attention to the occupied Palestinian territories, but our obsession […]

On the eve of 1 December 2007, World AIDS Day, singer Joel Guilian, aka Joe, first released a video for the HSH-Cuba (Hombres que Tienen Sexo con Hombres, Men Who Have Sex with Men) Project of the National Center for Prevention of STIs and HIV/AIDS and the Ministry of Public Health in Cuba. Joe, “Junto […]

  Shasta Darlington, CNN Maylin Alonso, TeleSur Broadcast on the occasion of International Day against Homophobia (17 May) in 2008. | | Print

  As you know, there’s a talk of developing the Green Zone.  The Marriott Hotel chain is here, and I too am involved in hospitality.  I’m representing interests that are building a hotel. . . .  Five stars, a casino, gambling, and it’s going to be here in the Green Zone. The sponsors are a […]

He was born one hundred years ago in Valparaiso, in southern Chile, on June 26, 1908. His father, a middle-class lawyer and notary, was a member of Chile’s Radical Party. When I was born, Allende was already 18 years old. He was pursuing secondary studies in high school in his native city.

In his book entitled Silence of the Poor, French writer Henri Guillemin said that those who were the foundation of the victory of the Revolution of 1789, the urban and rural poor, including women, were excluded from politics by an electoral law giving the right to elect and be elected only to citizens who could […]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness.  What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably? And what good is speaking out about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel […]

  Two members from a rightwing Santa Cruz youth group were arrested outside the Trompillo airport on June 19 with a rifle, telescopic sight, and 300 rounds of ammunition in a purported assassination attempt on President Evo Morales.  In an unprecedented and highly questionable move, the accused were freed the very next day by a […]

Our revolution is in the stage of negotiation and our party sees compromise as another aspect of the class struggle.  The question has not yet been finalised whether the revolution will be accomplished through compromise or it will be pushed towards counter-revolution.  There is an incessant and fierce struggle between two different world outlooks that […]

Narrated by Viggo Mortensen.  Art by Mike Konopacki.  Video editing by Eric Wold.  The video is based on Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle, A People’s History of American Empire (Metropolitan Books, 2008). | | Print

Have you been to a University of California campus, hospital or student health center?  If so, a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 3299, helped you.  Some 1,300 service workers and 2,600 patient-care techs labor at Sacramento’s UC Davis Medical Center and the UC campus in Davis.  These university […]

  Click on the image to go to the video. Cf. Nermeen Shaikh, “Photographing Conflict to ‘Give a Voice’: Ron Haviv Discusses Recent Sri Lanka Project,” Asia Society, 12 June 2008. This video was released on the Web site of Asia Society. | | Print

Many capitalist roaders say the Left is out of touch with popular culture.  Well, I say NYET to that!  Here, for instance, is an episode of Sex and the City that I translated for my Marxist-Leninist study group, so that we may better throw off our Tiffany chains. [Scene I: Chic, Upper West Side restaurant] […]

Afshin Rattansi, former producer for Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN International, and Bloomberg Television, is currently based in Tehran, working for Press TV. | | Print

Introduction by Richard Fidler The following article, based on a speech given in December 2007 but only recently transcribed and published, is an important statement by a leading member of Evo Morales’ government on the political situation in Bolivia in the wake of the Constituent Assembly’s vote on a draft Political Constitution.  The draft Constitution […]

We know that people living in industrialized and wealthy countries spend, on average, 25 percent of their income on food. Those who live in nations which were condemned to economic underdevelopment by the former devote up to 80 percent of their income to this end. Many go physically hungry and endure immense social disparities. Unemployment rates are usually two to three times higher; infant mortality rates are even higher, and life expectancy is as little as two-thirds that which is reported in rich countries. This system is simply genocidal.

Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (CM).  With a book being favorably reviewed in the Canadian (and US and UK) media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Huffington Post, the UK Guardian, and the Asper-family owned newspapers (Ottawa Citizen and […]

Women in poor countries are bearing the brunt of the current food crisis.  Today we highlight some of the dimensions of the crisis as it affects women. The current food crisis is yet another reminder of the feminisation of poverty.  Women produce most of the food in poor countries, yet they have less access to […]