Archive | September, 2009

  • Solidarity: A Poem for the UCB Mass Strike Rally

    “Solidarity” is the name of the poem written by a University of California Berkeley student and read on 24 September 2009 at a mass rally of over 5,000 workers, faculty, staff, and community supporters in Berkeley, California. Produced by the Labor Video Project (P.O. Box 720027, San Francisco 94172; 415-282-1908; ; ).

  • Marching against G20

    On Friday, September 25, 2009, activists from environmental, youth, labor, church, poverty advocacy, single payer, and various anti-capitalist organizations carried out a march on the G20 Summit in downtown Pittsburgh.  The protest was estimated to be 5,000 strong. Filmed and edited by Jeb Sprague, for the Inter Press Service (IPS).  See, also, Sprague’s video commentary […]

  • Cindy Sheehan Speaks at Pittsburgh G20 Protest

    “We need jobs, we need health care, we need education, we need housing.  We don’t need the United Police States of America.” — Cindy Sheehan

  • Venezuela: Economic Crisis Sparks New Measures and Structures

    Faced with the growing impact of the global economic crisis, Washington’s intentions to establish seven military bases in Colombia, and growing challenges in solving structural problems, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reaffirmed the need to build a new state. Chavez explained: “We have inherited a capitalist state that serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and is […]

  • UC Workers Strike as Faculty, Students Boycott Classes

    University of California faculty, students, and workers rallied against state budget cuts and unfair labor practices at 10 campuses and five medical centers from San Diego to Davis on September 24. As a boycott of classes to protest teachers’ unpaid days off (furloughs) and students’ double-digit fee increases unfolded across the state, members of the […]

  • Protesting G20 in Pittsburgh, 24.09.09

  • NYT Slams Single-Payer

    NYT Fails to Include Advocates among ‘Diverse’ Experts The New York Times devoted some rare space on September 20 to discussing single-payer (or Medicare-for-all) health reform.  The result?  A one-sided account of why such a system couldn’t work. With a headline like “Medicare for All?  ‘Crazy,’ ‘Socialized’ and Unlikely,” readers probably had a sense of […]

  • A Revolution in the Making

    Last July 16, I literally said that the coup d’etat in Honduras “was conceived and organized by unscrupulous characters on the far-right who were officials in the confidence of George W. Bush and had been promoted by him.”

  • Interviewing Activists against G20 in Pittsburgh

    The 2009 G20 Summit in Pittsburgh will be held September 24th and 25th, attended by leaders from the most powerful countries.  This footage — of activists in Pittsburgh organizing against the G20 Summit, including labor, fair trade, living wage, community, and socialist organizers  — was filmed on September 23rd, 2009 at the teach-in at the […]

  • Why I Oppose G20

      Anastasia Pinto is executive director of the Center for Organizing, Research and Education in India.

  • Can Iran Beat Gasoline Sanctions?

    Can Iran beat gasoline sanctions?  The answer seems to be yes. On the front page of the Financial Times on 23 September 2009 (Javier Blas and Carola Hoyos, “Chinese Begin Petrol Supplies to Iran”): Chinese state companies this month began supplying petrol to Iran and now provide up to one-third of its imports in a […]

  • Center for Constitutional Rights Calls for Judicial Review of All Evidence When State Secrets Invoked

    Rights Group Critical of New DOJ Policy Promises September 23, 2009, New York — In response to news the Attorney General is establishing new policy on the question of the use of the state secrets privilege, the Center for Constitutional Rights issues the following statement: While CCR welcomes greater accountability in the Executive’s invocation of […]

  • How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?

    Now that President Zelaya has returned to Honduras, the coup government — after first denying that he was there — has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president.  This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the first phase of this new repression last night […]

  • UC Walkout

      On Thursday, September 24, an unprecedented coalition of UC faculty, undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, lecturers, and staff will engage in a system-wide walkout.  As UC Davis graduate students and lecturers concerned with the quality of all UC students’ education, we write to clarify the reasons for this walkout as we understand them. This summer, […]

  • Cut Loose: State and Local Layoffs of Public Employees in the Current Recession

      In the current recession, millions of Americans have lost their jobs.  Unemployment has increased nationwide to levels not witnessed since the 1980s.  Much of the job loss has occurred in private industries, but the public sector has also felt the sting of layoffs.  Decreasing tax revenues and expanding budget deficits have forced public officials […]

  • Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan

      Asia Society’s exhibition Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan (10 September 2009 through 3 January 2010) brings to New York some of Pakistan’s most significant, provocative, and influential artists in the first US museum survey exhibition of contemporary Pakistani art.  Hanging Fire is curated by Salima Hashmi, one of the most influential and well-respected […]

  • Now Is the Time to Restore President Zelaya

    22 September 2009 Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returned to Honduras yesterday; President Zelaya is under the protection of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa.  The coup regime immediately declared a curfew; Honduran military and police have surrounded the embassy, violently dispersing President Zelaya’s supporters. As Secretary of State Clinton has noted, the question of whether President […]

  • The Long Partition

      Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar.  The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.  xiv + 288 pp.  $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-13846-8; (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-51101-8. Over the last couple decades, histories of the partition of India and its consequences have proliferated.  But Vazira Zamindar’s study stands […]

  • Save Black History from Developers

    Dear friends, This is a national appeal for your help in the effort to save one of this country’s most important Black History sites — an effort that has now reached a critical stage. Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom was once the site of the second largest slave market in the United States.  In the three decades […]

  • The Serious Obama

    Bolivarian President Hugo Chavez really made a clever remark when he referred to the “riddle of the two Obamas.”