We lost Fidel. We gained a history of examples and wisdom. The story of Fidel is beyond words — we cannot describe it with words alone. So I would like to just give a testimony. He used all his wisdom, knowledge, leadership, and dedication to build, over 60 years, a united and organized people, who […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
How Employers Limit Worker Rights, Using the Power of Government and Market Forces
The escalating attack on worker rights in the United States has taken several forms in recent years. In some American states, right-wing politicians have passed laws denying public employees such as teachers, janitors, police, and firefighters the right to organize into unions and bargain collectively. Some of these laws strip recognition and power from existing […]
Job Loss, the Clintons, NAFTA, and a New Progressive Labor Rights Agenda
Today’s post discusses the way that neoliberal policies embraced by the Democratic Party resulted in job loss in key states. Bear with me: there are facts and figures here that make the case. Tomorrow, I will continue to discuss these issues in the context of “domestic” job displacement. The third post will discuss a progressive […]
Spanish Recollections: the 80th Anniversary of the International Brigades
In one hurrying day, eighty years ago, in Albacete, a center of Spain’s La Mancha region, a few officers somehow created quarters for five hundred men arriving the following day, then five hundred more, and more. Soon three or four thousand, somehow organized in units despite a mad variety of languages, were issued a motley […]
Interview with Steve Ellner: Is the Bolivarian Revolution a Populist Failure?
In part II of our interview with Steve Ellner, the Universidad de Oriente professor discusses a range of contentious issues in Venezuela, including the efficacy of state social programs such as the CLAPs, rentierism, and the Maduro government’s controversial Mining Arc, as well as the role of international solidarity. Part I of the conversation can […]
1966, 1917, and 1818: ‘Let a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend’
This year marks 50 years since Mao and his close comrades launched the Cultural Revolution in China. Next year, 2017, will be 100 years since the February and October revolutions in Russia. And, 2018 will mark the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx (1818-1883), whose works were a compelling source of inspiration for the Russian […]
Migration as Revolt against Capital
The fact that a large number of refugees, especially from countries which have been subjected of late to the ravages of imperialist aggression and wars, are desperately trying to enter Europe is seen almost exclusively in humanitarian terms. While this perception no doubt has validity, there is another aspect of the issue which has escaped […]
Interview with Steve Ellner: Democratization of PSUV Is Key to Chavismo’s Future
Distinguished Venezuelan history and politics professor Steve Ellner visited Caracas from September 26 to October 7 to teach an intensive seminar at the Venezuelan Planning School, titled “The Role of the Venezuelan State in the Transition to Socialism.” Venezuelanalysis‘s Lucas Koerner sat down with the long-time Universidad de Oriente professor to discuss a range of […]
Open Letter to San Francisco State University President Leslie Wong:Uphold the MOU with An-Najah University and Support Professor Abdulhadi!
To add your signature to this open letter in solidarity, please sign at <bit.ly/2dtPmzP>. Open Letter to San Francisco State University President Leslie Wong: Uphold the MOU with An-Najah University and Support Professor Abdulhadi! Members of the Delegation with faculty and students from An-Najah University. In March 2016, nineteen of us were part of a […]
The Significance of the Protest Encampment in Puerto Rico
The Protest Encampment at the entrance of the Federal Courthouse in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico against the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (cynically called “PROMESA”), as well as the Wall Street Junta that said law imposes, constitutes an important act of popular resistance. In addition to the dictatorial Wall Street Junta, PROMESA […]
Brexit and the EU Implosion: National Sovereignty — For What Purpose?
The defense of national sovereignty, like its critique, leads to serious misunderstandings once one detaches it from the social class content of the strategy in which it is embedded. The leading social bloc in capitalist societies always conceives sovereignty as a necessary instrument for the promotion of its own interests based on both capitalist exploitation […]
The Truth About the Coup in Brazil
Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), is a social movement founded in 1984. For more information, contact Cassia Bechara at cassia@mst.org.br>.
Now Is No Time to Wait
With the failure of the attempted coup of 15 July, the true danger begins now: an attempt to transform the de facto presidential system into overt fascism with the support of a racist and reactionary militant mass movement buoyed by the rhetoric that the “coup was thwarted by popular resistance” “#NATO partner #Erdoğan uses […]
Coup Acts to Repress Brazil Landless Movement
On May 31, Valdir Misnerovicz, an important and effective organizer of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil, was arrested while teaching a class on agricultural coops in Veranópolis, a city in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The arrest did not stem from his lectures, but from his activism. To organize […]
Strike at the Helm? Clamors from a Makeshift Raft
In a cabinet meeting in October 2012, months before his death, Hugo Chávez declared that the Bolivarian process needed to make a radical change of course, literally calling for a “golpe de timón” or “strike at the helm.” From that moment forward the slogan “golpe de timón” began to circulate in the most varied contexts […]
The Cuban People Will Overcome
Remarks by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, during the closing of the 7th Party Congress It constitutes, compañeros, a superhuman effort to lead any people in times of crisis. Without them, the changes would be impossible. In a meeting such as this, which brings together more than a thousand representatives chosen […]
The only force that can combat imperialism today is a worldwide struggle of workers
Marxism as a philosophy of praxis is inescapable, since it sums up the revolutionary potential for human emancipation and sustainable human development.
We Stand with Palestine in the Spirit of “Sumud”
At a moment of growing resistance to state violence and injustice the world over, a delegation of nineteen anti-prison, labor and scholar-activists from the United States traveled to Palestine in March 2016. Our delegation included former U.S.-held political prisoners and social prisoners, former Black Panther Party members, prison abolitionists, trade unionists and university professors. We […]
Are Sanders and Fair Trade a Threat to the Global Poor?
On April 24, 2013, some 1,134 people died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza complex outside Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The building housed factories where low-wage workers, largely women, stitched garments for the U.S. and European markets. For several years before the disaster a number of U.S. opinion makers — notably New York […]
For a “Third Reconstruction”: An Interview with Bill Fletcher, Jr.
As the 2016 electoral game here ratchets up to nasty polemics, the US media is mainly focused on the carnival atmosphere of the Republican Party candidates. (The Democratic Party infighting is only now beginning to boil over.) Meanwhile, the Obama administration, free from scrutiny, continues its airstrikes in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and […]
