The elections held in Honduras on November 29 were inherently flawed. Tens of thousands of troops and police officers manned polling stations and even distributed electoral literature. These forces have been responsible for killings, rapes, beatings, and detentions of people opposed to the coup. Media reports cited many people who said they did not […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Freeing the Truth: International Colloquium for the Cuban 5
Less than 100 miles from Guantanamo, 200 delegates from 54 nations and all seven continents converged in Holguín, Cuba between November 19-23rd. The occasion was the Fifth International Colloquium dedicated to five Cuban political prisoners who have been held for eleven years in prisons across the United States. I was one of the U.S. participants […]
The Progressive Quandary About SEIU: A Tale of Two Letters to Andy Stern
Abstract: The terrain of “progressive labor” in the U.S. has shifted dramatically in recent years. The two-million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — long associated with the remaking of labor as a force for social justice — has become embroiled in a series of controversies that have alienated past campus, community, and political allies. […]
Honduras: An Election Validated by Blood and Repression
The new self-titled humanist president has been a key supporter of the regime through five months of massive human rights violations. “They’ve imposed a coup regime on us. They’ve assassinated at least 34 of our companions since the coup that removed the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya Rosales. Nationwide, they’ve detained more than 5,000 […]
An Open Letter from Economists in Support of Financial Transaction Taxes
December 3, 2009 To Whom It May Concern: A modest set of financial transaction taxes could raise a substantial amount of needed revenue while having little impact on trades that have a positive economic impact. The cost of trading financial assets has plummeted over the last three decades as a result of computerization. This has […]
Of Islands and Their Sons
(For MAAS BOB, father of the Trade Union. And for Sam White who singlehandedly impregnated half of the women of Montserrat and so made beautiful cousins for me. Bless you and may you find peace.) My time is sunrise, dawns and mornings clean before the wickedness comes in. When I see the Montserrat sunrise I […]
On Political Economy and Political Theory
Jean Paul Sartre in the fifties made the somber remark that things were so bad at the Sorbonne in the 1920s that the University did not even have a Chair in Marxism. In asserting the fact at that time, he was of course assuming that things at mid-century had changed dramatically and that Marxism […]
Open Letter to President Obama: Concerning Your Complicity in the Farce Elections in Honduras and Your General Designs for Our America
November 29th Dear President Obama, Today is a blurry day for those of us with eyes on Central America, mister president. It’s blurry because we’ve watched herman@s suffering day and night over the last four months in that small country in the waist of America, Honduras, and now, after all the blood and toil, you […]
Military Families Respond to Announcement of Increased Troop Deployments to Afghanistan
Military Families Speak Out, an organization of over 4,000 military families opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, issued the following statement in response to last night’s speech by President Obama regarding Afghanistan. President Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by deploying another 30,000 troops has sent the message to military families […]
Native Orientalists at the Daily Times
“The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost minds of the ruled class, the more stable and dangerous becomes its rule.” — Karl Marx A few days back, I received a ‘Dear friends’ email from Mr. Najam Sethi, ex editor-in-chief of Daily Times, Pakistan, announcing that he, together with several of his […]
On Iran’s Plan for New Nuclear Enrichment Facilities
Daljit Dhaliwal: What do you make of Iran’s announcement to build ten new nuclear enrichment facilities? Ervand Abrahamian: It sounds impressive, but it should be taken as grandstanding for internal public opinion. Iran is trying to look tough: it’s going to stand up tall against the United States. The question is what Iran actually […]
The Old Man at Harpers Ferry
Truman Nelson. The Old Man: John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009. One hundred and fifty years ago, the state of Virginia executed John Brown for treason, murder in the first degree, and conspiracy to incite a slave rebellion. The execution did not proceed quickly: for nearly ten minutes federal troops paraded and […]
We Cannot Shop Our Way Out of the Problems
John Bellamy Foster is the editor of the socialist magazine Monthly Review and teaches sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written on numerous subjects, from political economy to Marxist theory. This year Foster published The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet. Max van Lingen is a student of political philosophy and […]
Washington Can Prevent an Israeli Attack on Iran
Only a few weeks after US-Iran diplomacy began in earnest, it seems to be heading towards a premature ending. Rather than tensions reduction, the world has witnessed the opposite. Iran is refusing to accept a fuel swap deal brokered by the IAEA, the IAEA has passed a resolution rebuking Iran, and Tehran has responded by […]
Elections in Honduras: Whitewashing the Coup
I came to Honduras to participate as a human rights observer of the electoral climate in a delegation organized by the Quixote Center. Several delegations converged, connecting some 30 U.S. citizens with dozens more from Canada, Europe, and Latin America. In the days prior to the elections we scattered to different cities, towns, and […]
Israel: Arab Women Workers Need Not Apply
Discrimination, not culture, keeps families in poverty. Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society’s opposition to women working. A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute […]
Coup Laundering in Honduras
Jesse Freeston: Only the governments of Taiwan and the United States have sent international observers, and the delegation funded by the US State Department arrived at the Electoral Tribunal at the same time the leaders of all six independent human rights monitors in Honduras were delivering their request that the elections be suspended. Dr. […]
United Antiwar Movement Tells Obama: No Escalation!
President Barack Obama The White House Washington, D.C. November 30, 2009 Dear President Obama, With millions of U.S. people feeling the fear and desperation of no longer having a home; with millions feeling the terror and loss of dignity that comes with unemployment; with millions of our children slipping further into poverty and hunger, your […]
Bogus Honduran Elections
November 29, 2009 The true divides in Latin America — between justice and injustice, democracy and dictatorship, human rights and corporate rights, people’s power and imperial domination — have never been more visible than today. People’s movements throughout the region to revolutionize corrupt, unequal systems that have isolated and excluded the vast majority in Latin […]
The Arrest and Torture of Syed Hashmi: An Interview with Jeanne Theoharis
Jeanne Theoharis is the author of an April 2009 article in The Nation, entitled “Guantanamo at Home,” which focuses on the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment of US citizen Syed Hashmi in a New York City prison with Guantanamo-like conditions. Theoharis holds the endowed chair in women’s studies and is an associate professor of political science […]
