Archive | November, 2009

Allen Ruff: What do working people need to know about this current economic crisis? Michael D. Yates: The first thing you need to know is that these kinds of crisis are built into the economic system.   There’s really I don’t think any way to avoid them.  Now, they’re gonna vary in terms of the degrees […]

  Introduction to Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People by Bertell Ollman The Invention of the Jewish People is divided into two parts.  The first is a long section on the theory of nationalism, whose main characteristic, according to Sand, is the tendency to invent a past that suits the current needs and […]

  Paper presented at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation conference “The Global Crisis and Africa: Struggles for Alternatives,” Randburg, 19 November 2009 There is an ecological crisis in the world and this crisis can be traced to capitalism.  There is deforestation due to the trade in timber.  There is climate change due to unsafe production methods. […]

  Leo Panitch and Colin Leys have just brought out the 2010 annual volume of the Socialist Register, Morbid Symptoms: Health under Capitalism, published by Merlin Press in London, Monthly Review Press in the US, and Fernwood Books in Canada.   The book provides a path-breaking assessment of health under capitalism, providing a systematic account of […]

“I’m a representative of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which was established in 1977 as a women’s organization struggling for women’s rights.  But, after the former Soviet Union’s invasion, RAWA got involved in resistance against the Soviets and the puppet regime of theirs.  After 1992, RAWA started to focus on anti-fundamentalist […]

“The health insurance companies are going to make an extra 70 billion dollars as a result of Americans being forced to buy their health insurance.  What company wouldn’t love this bill?” — Michael Moore, Toronto, 17 November 2009 Video via MichaelMoore.com. | | Print

Lynne Stewart in Jail! Protest Lynne Stewart’s incarceration! San Francisco Federal Courthouse, 7th and Mission, SF Monday, November 23, 5:00 pm Dear Friends of Lynne Stewart, I just got off the phone with Lynne Stewart a few minutes ago, that is, late Wednesday (early Thursday, November 19, New York time).  She bravely told me that […]

OK, so the Palestinian Authority will not unilaterally declare an independent Palestinian state.  In fact, the whole issue seems a misunderstanding.  Concerned that the US has backtracked on a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and that Israel was getting the world used to the “fact” that the settlements and the Wall, rather […]

I know Chavez well, and no one could be more reluctant than him to allow a showdown between the Venezuelan and Colombian peoples leading to bloodshed. These are two fraternal peoples, the same as Cubans living in the east, center and west end of our island. I find no other way to explain the close relationship between Venezuelans and Colombians.

For more information, go to ; ; and .  See, also, “Why Are We Destroying Public Education?  University of California Students and Staff Prepare for System-Wide Strike to Protest Cuts” (DemocracyNow! 17 November 2009). | | Print

  “[I]t may be surprising to learn that faculty salaries are not a major component of the total costs at most universities.  For instance, at my institution, Eastern Michigan University, faculty salaries make up only 24 percent of total expenses.  So where is the money going?” — Howard Bunsis Conclusion: Yes, these are bad economic […]

The 60-day delinquency rate in the 3rd quarter was 58 percent above the year-ago level. There appeared to be a sharp falloff in the housing market in October, as the November 30th expiration date for the first-time homebuyers tax credit approached.  As expected, this credit pulled home purchases forward, leading to a substantial increase in […]

  One side is the barely veiled alliance between Washington and Micheletti.  The other side consists of the Constitutional Zelaya Government, the National Front against the Coup d’Etat and the principal former presidential candidate linked to the latter who has decided to boycott the November 29 elections.  The candidate had formally taken his final position […]

What started as a focus on protests against military supremacy has silently led to a focus on support for civilian supremacy.  The retirement of Rookmangud Katawal, the ex-military chief and the main person who triggered the present crisis, has de facto diverted the attention of the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to support civil […]

Edgar White was born in Montserrat West Indies.  He has lived in the United States and England.  His plays have been successfully presented in New York, London, and Africa.  In the following autobiographical extract, he describes how his radical activities in the seventies led him to being sent down from Yale. for Cornel West It […]

  Abstract: Using Jowett and O’Donnell’s system of propaganda analysis, the present case study concentrates on America’s dominant propaganda messages, techniques, and media channels used in Iran during the time period between 1951 and 1953.  The chosen period is of historical significance since it entails the Iranian nationalization of oil crisis and the 1953 coup […]

This morning at 7:45 I was on the University of Illinois campus for a graduate student employee rally.  After a bargaining update, we moved in groups to begin picketing key campus buildings.  The Graduate Employees Organization (GEO), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), was going on strike after contract negotiations with the […]

  Director’s Statement I first had the idea to make a film about anti-Semitism when my earlier work Checkpoint was released.  In one of that film’s many reviews, I was called “the Israeli Mel Gibson,” not because of my good looks, but because the views I had expressed, critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, […]

  During my teaching career I’ve worked under nine different superintendents.  I’ve taught for nearly 30 years, so the average reign of a Milwaukee superintendent has been a little over three years, about normal for big city school districts. While some people, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, decry these short tenures as a […]

While former Illinois Senator Barack Obama mulls flushing another $40 billion a year in our tax dollars down the toilet in Afghanistan — that’s the estimated annual cost of sending 40,000 more troops for the next several years — graduate employees at the University of Illinois, a “land grant” public institution, are going on strike […]