“A modern city, warts and all.” — Dennis Brutus Dawnlight seeps slowly into Sao Paulo skies as if reluctant to rediscover old betrayals or disclose new ones in Lula’s disappointed lands (IMF/World Bank scoundrels have tenacious as well as rapacious ravening claws) but trees silhouetted against pale skies against malodorous ditches assert irrepressible growth, undeterrable […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Towards a Great German Oil Empire
Dietrich Eichholtz. Krieg um Öl: Ein Erdölimperium als deutsches Kriegsziel 1938-1943. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2006. 141 pp. ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4; EUR 19.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-86583-119-4. Dietrich Eichholtz does not mince words. From the first page of this powerfully argued book, his underlying argument is clear: “The imperialist interest in oil played a role in the […]
The Constantly Widening Gap between Words and Deeds
There are political circles and commentators who live from minute to minute. For them, every squeak from a world leader is a virtual earthquake, a real revolution. This is especially true now that we are dealing with a US president, who is handsome, articulate, and even eloquent. The present level of manipulated excitement stems from […]
Cinema as a Democratic Emblem1
Philosophy only exists insofar as there are paradoxical relations, relations which fail to connect, or should not connect. When every connection is naturally legitimate, philosophy is impossible or in vain. Philosophy is the violence done by thought to impossible relations. Today, which is to say “after Deleuze,” there is a clear requisitioning of philosophy by […]
Unemployment Climbs to 9.4 Percent, Rate of Job Loss Continues to Slow Moderately
Though employment losses have slowed in May, many sectors have already lost large numbers of jobs over this recession and therefore have fewer jobs left to lose. The economy lost another 345,000 jobs in May. For the first time in a year, there were upward revisions to the past months’ data, with March and April’s […]
Obama Administration Seeks Supreme Court Review of Decision Declaring Patriot Act Provision Unconstitutional
Lower Courts Unanimously Declared Law Unconstitutionally Vague Washington, DC, June 4, 2009 — The Obama administration today sought Supreme Court review of a decision declaring a USA Patriot Act provision unconstitutional. The case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, originally brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in 1998, challenges the constitutionality of the law […]
Appeals Court Rules against Shell Nigeria, Allows Plaintiffs to Seek Further Information to Establish Connections to United States
New York, June 3, 2009 — Today, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court decision dismissing the Wiwa v. Shell plaintiffs’ claims against Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Ltd. (Shell Nigeria). The District Court had dismissed the case against Shell Nigeria on March 4, 2008, finding it did not have jurisdiction […]
Egyptian Public to Greet Obama with Suspicion
June 3, 2009 Questionnaire/methodology (PDF) A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds Egyptians continue to view US foreign policy quite negatively and see President Obama as closely aligned with it. At the same time, Obama has much better ratings than Bush had, and there are signs of thawing feelings toward the US. Asked how much confidence they […]
“Welcome, Obama”
Ashraf Omar is a socialist cartoonist from Egypt. This cartoon was published by Revolutionary Socialism, an Egyptian Web site, under a Creative Commons license. The title given by Revolutionary Socialism reads: “Caricature: Welcome, Obama” (Caricature: Marhaba Obama).
Chomsky on Obama Speech
June 4, 2009 Chomsky, whose recent books include Interventions and The Essential Chomsky, sent the following to the Institute for Public Accuracy this morning: “A CNN headline, reporting Obama’s plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads ‘Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.’ Perhaps that captures his intent, but more […]
Union Busting Getting Worse, Study Shows
A new five-year study reveals that private sector employer opposition to the efforts of American workers to form unions has intensified and become more punitive in recent years. Conducted by highly-regarded labor expert and Cornell University professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, the study concludes that employers are using much more aggressive tactics — including threats of […]
An Open Letter from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies to President Barack Obama on the Occasion of His Cairo Speech to the “Blacks” of the Twenty-first Century
June 2, 2009 Mr. President, The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) hopes that your speech to the Arab and Muslim worlds will contain practical steps to uphold your administration’s stated intention to seriously deal with the problems that have inflamed resentment and fostered a sense of humiliation among peoples, individuals, and ethnic and […]
Ideas for the Struggle #2 Not to Impose But to Convince
This is the second in a series of articles on “Ideas for the Struggle” by Marta Harnecker. 1. Popular movements and, more generally, various social actors who are engaged in the struggle against neoliberal globalization today at the international level as well as in their own countries reject, with good reason, actions that aim to […]
Nation-States as Building Blocks
Paul Nugent. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. xix + 620 pp. $99.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-333-68272-2; $35.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-333-68273-9. This is a masterful work of usable academic history. By sharply delineating diverse trends in scores of countries, it applies expert analysis to sub-Saharan Africa, “the continent which has been […]
El Salvador: The Beginning of a New Era
On Monday, June 1, 2009, El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country’s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America. Representing the FMLN (Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face […]
Obama’s Guantánamo Appeasement Plan
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama pledged to close Guantánamo within one year. The Republicans, led by Senators John McCain, Mitch McConnell, and Pat Roberts, immediately launched a concerted campaign to assail the new president. They claimed his plan would release dangerous terrorists into U.S. communities and allow released terrorists to resume fighting against […]
Lessons in Imperialism from Iraq’s Past
Peter Sluglett. Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 318 pp. $24.50 (paper), ISBN 978-0-231-14201-4. The current war in Iraq has had many ironic consequences, the least sordid being perhaps the belated interest in Iraq’s history. As Peter Sluglett confesses in the opening pages of the reissue […]
Mr. Abbas Goes to Washington
May 28, 2009 If the Oval Office guest list is an indicator, President Obama is making good on his commitment to try to revive the long-dead Arab-Israeli peace process. On May 18 President Obama received Israel’s new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; today he met with Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. As […]
Gross Domestic Product and Corporate Profits, 1st Quarter 2009 (Preliminary)
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009, (that is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to preliminary estimates released by the Bureau of […]
The Many Faces of Humanitarianism
Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism? The question sounds naïve, silly even. Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved. If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]
