In my last posting on #OWS, I related a series of conversations I’d had with global trade union activists on their perceptions of #OccupyWallSt. After the article appeared, several global labor activists contacted me with follow-up and feedback. Steve Faulkner, an International Officer at the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), wrote to say that […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
A Moment of Awakening
The camp has grown since people dropped their tents on Saturday evening, amidst a hail of police batons and riot shields. By Wednesday, you could count well over 100 tents outside St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘People’s Assemblies’ are conducted on a daily basis, where suggestions for improvements are put forward. Khalil Gibran, Jeremy Scahill and George […]
The Assassination of Gaddafi
The news of the killing of Colonel Gaddafi in the battle to take Sirte marked one more episode in this NATO war in Libya and North Africa. The killing has all of the hallmarks of a coordinated assassination, synchronised between NATO aircraft and forces on the ground. The reports are that Gaddafi was attacked when […]
Why We Occupy, What We Know
Occupy Eugene rally, 15 October 2011 We are here as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which in a few short weeks has become a global movement in hundreds of cities around the world. We are part of the 99 percent not only in this country but the world. I have been reading the […]
Indignant in the USA
Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
John Bellamy Foster at Occupy Eugene
At the rally for Occupy Eugene, 15 October 2011 Photo by Rob Sydor Photo by Mickey Stellavato John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review. He is the author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism(with Fred Magdoff), The Ecological Rift, The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis, Marx’s Ecology, Ecology […]
Global Revolution
Iván Lira is a Venezuelan artist. | Print
Production Begins on Empire’s New Script “Iranian Conspiracy”
Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
Iranian “Plots” and American Hubris
Calls by Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary Hillary Clinton to “unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians,” in response to an alleged Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador in Washington, reflect a hubristic misapprehension of reality. The Obama Administration mistakenly believes it can exploit the accusations for strategic […]
How to Make an Ecosocialist Revolution
Meetings such as this play a vital role in building a movement that can stop the hell-bound train of capitalism, before it takes itself and all of humanity over the precipice. Building such a movement is the most important thing anyone can do today — so I’m honored to have been invited to take part […]
Understanding the Capitalist Economic Crisis
John Bellamy Foster: Economic crises are functional to the system in that a crisis helps capital readjust its imbalances, disproportions, as Marxian theories often say, and it sets the basis for a renewed period of expansion. So, regular business-cycle crises . . . help the system. . . . But, in addition to cycles . […]
U.S. Charge against Iran: Who Could Make That Up?
Dear friends, As you probably know, the Obama administration has just publicly charged that Iranian government agents have been plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Washington is now using this outrageous claim to try and rally support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, isolate it in the international arena, and […]
Letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, regarding the US Allegations against the Islamic Republic of Iran
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful No. 1110 11 October 2011 H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon Secretary General United Nations, New York Excellency, I am writing to you to express our outrage regarding the allegations leveled by the United States officials against the Islamic Republic of Iran on the involvement of my country […]
The Iran-Saudi Assassination “Hoax”?
I have been staring incredulously at my TV screen these past few hours as the story of Iran’s alleged assassination attempt of a Saudi diplomat in Washington unfolds in dramatic increments. Reporters keep repeating the theme “like out of a Hollywood script” as they eke out increasingly unlikely details about this “terror” plot. My immediate […]
The Dragon’s Shadow: China’s Banking System
On October 10, the Chinese government announced that it will increase its stakes in the four largest commercial banks, which are already largely public-owned. The move is designed to “support the healthy operations and development of key state-owned financial institutions and stabilise the share prices of state-owned commercial banks”. But why was this move considered […]
MINUSTAH: Keeping the Peace, or Conspiring against It?
Nou dwe sèl mèt bout tè sa a: We should be the only owners of this land. From an anti-MINUSTAH protest last month. Photo by Ansel Herz. This was Haitian protesters’ message at a demonstration last month against the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH. October marks an upswing […]
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya: Worthy Victims and Unworthy Victims
Trafalgar Square, London, 8 October 2011, Video by Harry Fear TV At the very moment we are here, the United States, Britain, and France are bombing a city in Libya called Sirte. There are 100,000 people. Day and night, residential buildings, clinics, schools have been hit with fragmentation bombs and Hellfire missiles. . . […]
Occupy Wall Street’s Inner-Peace Officers
Although the Wall Street Occupation is galvanizing about 84% of the marginalized 99%, no one stops to think that it’s the New York Police Department that helps to make this possible. If New York City cops hadn’t arrested over 700 peaceful marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge, and pepper-sprayed the unresisting eyeballs of various nonviolent protesters, […]
Occupy the Hood, Occupy Wall Street
“Well, why are people of color missing? There are a couple of easy answers to that.
Who Protects Civilians in Sirte?
Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. Cf. Tom Coghlan, “Sirte Civilians Accuse NATO of Genocide” (The Australian, 27 September 2011); “Libyan Children Killed by Rocket As They Rush to Leave Sirte” (AFP, 2 October 2011); Hadeel Al-Shalchi, “Fleeing Gadhafi Bastion, Bitter at the New Libya” (Associated Press, 4 October 2011); Rania El Gamal, “Sirte […]
