Imperial rulers and violently fixated Cuban exiles need Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program to accelerate learning processes and not continue to repeat mistakes. Hey, on Cuba policy, it’s only been 48 years! Fidel Castro, in contrast, learned fast. He used Washington and Miami to improvise material for three chapters in future releases of Machiavelli’s […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
We Can Strengthen Worker Rights Now
The March 1 House of Representatives vote for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was an important milestone for legislation intended to help employees form and join unions, but that vote was as close as this bill would get to becoming law for the next two years. Even if the Senate had passed EFCA, neither […]
Stop Collaboration in Torture: Psychologists for an Ethical APA
Since the first pictures of Abu Ghraib, the collusion of medical personnel, including psychologists, in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Bagram, and CIA detention centers is no longer open to question: Mark Benjamin, “The CIA’s Torture Teachers,” Salon.com, 12 June 2007; Valtin, “Fact Sheet: Psychologist Participation in Torture,” Invictus, 6 July […]
Lessons from the Lal Masjid Tragedy
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For my first three days in Pakistan, no conversation could go more than a few minutes without a reference to the crisis at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) compound. I had landed in Islamabad on July 8, and by then it seemed clear that government forces would eventually storm the mosque and […]
The Fight of Our Lives: The War of Attrition against U.S. Labor
1. Introduction: The War We are in the fight of our lives. The hostile onslaught against U.S. labor that was launched after the Second World War and redoubled in the 1980s is entering a new phase that will profoundly influence the future of all working people in North America. How we respond to this latest […]
Rescue Plan: Single-Payer System Is the Answer to Health Insurance Woes
Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko indicts private health insurance and calls for its abolition. Sicko joins an American tradition that includes Lewis Hine‘s photographs of child laborers (1908) and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), two examples among many. But can Moore’s theme change our nation in 2007? Private health insurance, usually obtained […]
The Repressed History of the United States: Revolution, Egalitarianism, and Anti-imperialism [La historia reprimida de Estados Unidos: revolución, igualitarismo y antiimperialismo]
Recientemente, aprovechando un nuevo aniversario del nacimiento de George Washington, el presidente George W. Bush aprovechó para comparar la Revolución americana del siglo XVIII con la guerra en Irak. De paso recordó que el primero, como el último, había sido “George W.” La técnica de las asociaciones es propia de la publicidad. Según ésta, una […]
Achievements and Limits of the First United States Social Forum
The first US Social Forum wrapped up on Sunday, July 1 in Atlanta, Georgia. That it happened at all seems almost miraculous. It is hard to remember any previous comparable gathering of diverse currents of US social movements. This is not a particularly dynamic moment in their history — the anti-war movement is bland […]
Mass Political Withdrawal
In regular high-school rituals, teachers berate students for their disinterest in, mockery of, and/or failure to focus on “the important issues” in elections for student government. Students are forced to hear about cherishing their right to vote, taking the issues seriously, and participating fully. Most never do. Some notice that teachers likewise take little interest […]
The Delphi/UAW Agreement: US Labor Takes Another Hit
The June 29 announcement of the approval of a wage-cutting agreement between Delphi Corporation, an auto parts manufacturing giant, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) means that U.S. labor has suffered yet another defeat in the ongoing war of attrition that is being waged against working people around the world. Details of the pact have […]
Target the Weakest Link
CHAIN OF DISASTERS & THE WEAKEST LINK The only thing that Bush’s “war on terror” has spread faster than disaster and misery has been opposition to its means and ends. Six years into this self-righteously promoted crusade, Washington is more isolated internationally than ever. Within the U.S., the Commander Guy’s approval rating has fallen below […]
Darfur: Give Them a Megaphone Instead
Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church, long associated with human rights activism, hosted a fundraising rally for women in Darfur, on June 13. Billed as “Voices for the Voiceless,” the program featured speeches and fund-pitches by the program’s emcee, business developer Judith Price, and main speaker, peace activist and church leader Dr. Thelma Adair, with proclamations by […]
Leading Iranian NGOs Express Opposition to Sanctions, Military Intervention, and Foreign Interference in Iran
28 June 2007 On the 20th anniversary of the chemical bombing of the Kurdish city of Sardasht in western Iran, a crime committed by the puppet Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain and with full provision, support, and acquiescence of Western governments, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII), commemorates the forgotten victims […]
South Africa’s Role in Nigeria and the Nigerian Elections
Introduction From the very start, the recent Nigerian elections, which saw Olusegun Obasanjo placing his hand-picked successor Umaru Yar’ Adua into the Presidential palace, were mired in controversy. The ballot papers for the election, which were printed in South Africa, contained no counterfoils or serial numbers — features which would have made vote riggingdifficult. In […]
Setting Priorities Straight in the Struggle: On Iran and the Iranian Role in the Arab Region
Before we deal with the topic of the Iranian role in the Arab region, it is useful to recall the complexity of Iran and its different entanglements: For one, Iran is not a “Banana Republic,” and its regime is not a puppet or a client regime of Imperialism. Iran has a regional project and works […]
Sneak Preview: Sicko
Michael Moore, who documented the sociopathology of the U.S. in Bowling for Columbine and nudged the Bush dynasty down the path of extinction in Fahrenheit 9/11, has outdone himself with Sicko. In Sicko, Moore focuses on one of the most callous and shameful aspects of U.S. capitalism — market, or as a meticulous economist would […]
Stop the Raids! Street Protest Is the Source of Our Power
On Wednesday, June 6, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a sweep of homes in New Haven, Connecticut. They arrested 33 immigrant workers and set off a series of mass protests calling for the release of detainees and an immediate halt to federal raids. On Saturday, June 16, a mass mobilization […]
The Second Wave of Offshoring:Outsourcing U.S. White-collar Work to the Far East
Offshoring U.S. jobs to the Far East has been a major campaign in the war of attrition against U.S. labor that began in the post-World War II era, was redoubled in the 1980s by the neo-conservative forces under the regime of President Ronald Reagan, and continues unabated to the present day. The first wave of […]
Building It Now in Venezuela: Socialism for the 21st Century (Parts 1-8)
Michael A. Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize for 2004, and Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century, just published by Monthly Review Press. The videos were […]
An American Student’s Perspective on the Venezuelan Revolution
I recently returned from an eleven-day trip to Venezuela, traveling with fellow students from Rutgers University. The country has been the scene of intense political strife and polarization throughout the nearly ten years that Hugo Chávez’s government has been in power, and during our stay we witnessed various aspects of this conflict. We arrived […]
