Archive | October, 2009

  • When the Climate Change Center Cannot Hold

    After the weekend in which 350.org and thousands of allies valiantly tried to raise global consciousness about impending catastrophe, we can ask some tough questions about what to do after people depart and the props are packed up.  No matter the laudable big-tent activism, let’s face it: global climate governance is gridlocked and it seems […]

  • Why No Government Jobs Program?

    From the official beginning of the current economic crisis in December 2007 to the present, the number of unemployed workers has risen roughly from 7 to 15 million members of the US labor force.  But there is no government program directly to hire these millions of the unemployed.  The Bush and Obama administrations quickly and […]

  • Why the Health Insurance Excise Tax Is a Bad Idea

      Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon). NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting.  At a time when many […]

  • Out of Place: Silencing Voices on Queerness/Raciality

      Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality (Raw Nerve Books) came out in July 2008.  The book presents an unprecedented compilation of critical articles by scholars and activists, which address the manifold ways in which questions regarding ‘race’ and racism are silenced in queer politics and theory.  Out of Place was very well received.  […]

  • Say NO to the New Racist, Sexist and Homophobic Dominican Constitution

    The government of President Leonel Fernández, with the support of the powerful Catholic Church and the far right (known as the Nazionalistas), will soon adopt a new constitution that will set the country back decades. The new constitution is part of a ruling class attack on working people in a desperate attempt to preserve the […]

  • Why We Need to Give This Rotten System the Heave-ho

    Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates.  The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know.   Monthly Review Press, 2009. Books that start out with quotes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth make me nervous.  Like many of my fellow workers, I have attended far more rock concerts — or pro wrestling matches — than […]

  • The Liberator

    Amidst misery, hunger, and desolation Somebody planted a flower in the mud A certain Bolívar, they call him the Liberator The Liberator Shouts for justice, land, and freedom Again resonate in South America A new revolution has begun And this time it’s advancing with conviction Agrarian reform and just redistribution Health, culture, and good education […]

  • Racism and the Censorship of “Gay Imperialism”

      Dear friends, Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation.  One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008.  An edited […]

  • How to Defeat Jundallah and Its Ilk

      Sunday’s suicide bomb attack on a conference hall in the Pishin region of Iran’s vast Sistan and Balochistan province is by all accounts a major blow against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the most important military and security institution in the country. It is now known that at least 42 people were killed […]

  • Cesar

      Author’s Note: This story was recently posted on CounterPunch.   Here I have corrected a couple of errors pointed out by readers.  The essay is taken from my book, In and Out of the Working Class.  I worked for the United Farm Workers Union during a sabbatical leave in the winter of 1977.   I […]

  • Bassidji and Me

      Click on the image to watch excerpts from Bassidji. In 2000, 16 years after my arrival in France, I decided to go back to live in Iran for a while to gain a better understanding of my country. In 2002, a combination of circumstances gave me an opportunity to attend a ceremony of national […]

  • Death Squads and Democracy

      Why would Philippine judges hamper a human rights investigation into a killing field where many human remains are found in Davao, victims allegedly of the infamous death squad?  Why would the members of the Commission on Human Rights be charged themselves?  Human Rights Watch says local authorities are obstructing the course of justice and […]

  • On the Dollar’s Decline

    If time lags matter, news of the dollar’s demise as the world’s principal reserve currency is grossly exaggerated.  That prediction has been periodically heard at least since the early 1970s when the United States brought the Bretton Woods arrangement to an end by breaking the link between dollar and gold.  As is obvious, whatever else […]

  • Troy Labor Council Resolution for a National March on Washington for Peace, Jobs and Healthcare Justice

    Whereas: The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, attacks on Pakistan, military aid to Colombia, Israel and many of the countries that use US aid for repression of indigenous and popular movements, are making the people of the US and the world less safe. And Whereas: These wars and military aid are bankrupting the people of the […]

  • Brazil, at Organization of American States, Accuses Honduran Coup Regime of “Torture”

    Washington, D.C. — The Brazilian government’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Ruy de Lima Casaes e Silva, accused the Honduran coup regime of “torture” in its ongoing attacks on Brazil’s embassy in Honduras. Ambassador Lima Casaes described an elaborate series of measures taken by the Honduran security forces surrounding the Embassy to cause […]

  • An Alternative Vision of Healthcare:The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project Visit to Venezuela: An Interview with Netfa Freeman

    In June, the People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project visited Venezuela in order to assess the state of its healthcare system.  The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project models itself on the Cuban community-based approach to healthcare, and has established a project along those lines in a small neighborhood in Washington, DC.  The visit was […]

  • Palestinian Authority against Palestinian Liberation and International Solidarity

    The decision to behave in Geneva like the made-in-Oslo Palestinian Authority (PA) was but an extension of the Israeli occupation was the final nail in the coffin of international solidarity with the Palestinian cause in its customary sense.  Those who took this decision knew this.  International solidarity was confounded by the questions stirred by the […]

  • You Need to Watch Lou Dobbs: Or the Dobbsian Economy of Racism

    I can barely watch Lou Dobbs.  His attacks on Latino immigrants continue to escalate, and there is increasing evidence that there is a correlation between anti-Latino media like that of Dobbs and hate crimes against the Latino population. But we need to watch him, and in this instance I am using “watch” in the sense […]

  • The Iran Versus U.S.-Israeli-NATO Threats

    It is spell-binding to see how the U.S. establishment can inflate the threat of a target, no matter how tiny, remote, and (most often) non-existent that threat may be, and pretend that the real threat posed by its own behavior and policies is somehow defensive and related to that wondrously elastic thing called “national security.” […]

  • Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report

    The following open letter (Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report) was initiated by Jews Say No! and signed by hundreds of individuals and organizations worldwide.  The letter was also sent to Justice Goldstone.  Click here to sign onto the letter. Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report The primary author of the recently released […]