The American Historical Association (AHA) is the most prominent professional organization for American historians. Its annual meeting, held recently in Atlanta, featured abstruse panels and presentations with titles such as “Disciplined Bodies and the Production of Space, Place, and Race: Atlanta’s Latino Day Laborers at the Cusp of the Twenty-First Century” and “The Desire […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Waste, Fraud, and Abuse: Another Day at the Pentagon
When I was a teenager apprenticing at being a trade unionist and a left winger both, two of my favorite books were Labor’s Untold Story and History of the Great American Fortunes. I recommend them to any readers desiring a review of our own history as working people here in the United States. Both are […]
The Dark Side of Bolivia’s Half Moon
Evo Morales climbed into his presidential jeep, ducking a barrage of sticks, debris and insults thrown from members of right wing civic groups in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Cameramen and livid activists chased him until police filled the streets with tear gas. Bolivia’s first indigenous president, a former coca grower and self-described anti-imperialist, was not welcome […]
Voltaire and Islam [Voltaire y el islam]
En su vehemente proceso al islam y al estatus de inferioridad legal y de sumisión de la mujer que prevalece en la mayoría de países musulmanes, Telima Nesreen, Ayaam Hirsi Ali y otras emancipadas de su credo religioso han evocado y evocan repetidas veces el nombre del autor de Cándido: “Permitidnos un Voltaire . . […]
Bolivia’s Government Faces Right-Wing Offensive: Popular Forces Struggle for Unity against Attacks
A chain of events triggered by the passage of a new agrarian reform law, part of Bolivian president Evo Morales’ “agrarian revolution,” has brought to sharp relief the drive by the right-wing opposition to overthrow Morales’ government, even if it means pushing Bolivia into civil war. On November 28, in front of thousands of cheering […]
A President’s White Hair [Los cabellos blancos de un presidente]
Recientemente, el presidente de Brasil, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, fue homenajeado por la revista Istoé, que lo eligió Brasileiro do Ano. Significativamente, la revista entregó otras distinciones: IstoÉ Dinheiro e IstoÉ Gente, que puestos en su propio contexto podrían significar dos premios redundantes. El texto de AFP, repetido por una docena de diarios del […]
A Counter-Revolution in Military Affairs? Notes on US High-Tech Warfare
When Colonel Harry Summers told a North Vietnamese counterpart in 1975 that “[y]ou know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” the reply was: “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.1 News stories surrounding the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq proclaimed the arrival of a long-promised “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA), a […]
The Limits of Abolitionism: British Imperial Policy in Egypt
“We cannot admit rivals in the East or even the central parts of Africa . . . to a considerable extent, if not entirely, we must be prepared to apply a sort of Munro [sic] doctrine to much of Africa.” — Lord Carnarvon1 The original Monroe Doctrine initiated in 1824 prevented European interference in the […]
Of the People: A Conversation with Howard Zinn
G.M.S.: Here in Tucson, Arizona, 70 miles from the border, we are feeling the effects of President Bush’s deployment of National Guard troops at the U.S. border. The first hundreds arrived last summer, and 2,500 are expected to be in our “Tucson Sector” by August. Moreover, the Border Patrol is to grow from 12,400 […]
Endgame:The Biggest Police Operation in U.S. History
The recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that paralyzed Swift and Company across the heartland of America were part of Endgame, a massive immigration enforcement operation launched by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003. Ultimately, it promises to be the biggest police operation in U.S. history. The stated objective of Endgame is […]
A New History [Una nueva historia]
Así como en teología el mismo Cristo sirve para justificar la acumulación de capitales o para suprimir al prójimo en nombre del amor, así también la historia de los oprimidos sirve para crear mitos e ideoléxicos incuestionables, a la medida del poder de turno: el patriotismo, la libertad, la salvación del mundo,nuestro derecho de aplastar […]
Chávez Calls for United Socialist Party of Venezuela: Rank-and-file Committees to Be Building Blocks for New Organization
When supporters of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez rallied in the Teresa Carrena theatre in Caracas to celebrate their presidential election victory on December 15, 2006, “there were cheers in the back half of the theatre,” writes Michael Lebowitz, “but few in the high-priced seats.” This was not because Chávez spoke of going forward to socialism […]
Leveraging the Academy: Suggestions for Radical Grad Students and Radicals Considering Grad School
Romanticized, demonized, celebrated, denounced — among activists in the United States and Canada, academia is all of these things. It is a gate-keeping institution that shapes and is shaped by relations of power and privilege. It is a site of intense struggle: those who are structurally excluded battle for access, while those who study there […]
The Iraq War and America’s Economic Imperialism
Several weeks ago, with much media fanfare, the James Baker-Lee Hamilton Committee submitted to President George W. Bush its long-awaited, bipartisan report on the U.S. war in Iraq. On balance, the report provided Bush with a face-saving strategy for pulling out all U.S. combat forces by the beginning of 2008. The Baker-Hamilton report favors an […]
Justice for the Omaha Two
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa are not names familiar to most Americans. The longest-serving political prisoners in the United States, these two former Black Panthers have spent more than thirty-five years behind bars for a crime they did not commit — the 1970 murder of Omaha, Nebraska, police officer Larry Minard. The American media […]
The Movement for a Democratic Society: A Founding Conference
February 17, 2007 New School New York City All welcome! SDSers at the New School, led by Patrick Korte, will be hosting and joining in the events of February 17, an all-day conference to confirm a sister organization for the revived Students for a Democratic Society: the Movement for a Democratic Society. The program is […]
Worker Centers Increasingly Are Forging Alliances with Unions
This August, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), a network of over 140 worker centers that organize mostly immigrant day laborers, entered into an agreement that would allow worker centers to apply for membership with local and state federations of the AFL-CIO. The agreement could signal a new chapter in the way organized labor […]
SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Position on Immigration
Members of the Service Employees (SEIU) in Northern California are demanding just immigration reform. That’s not too surprising. For the past two decades, SEIU has been one of organized labor’s strongest advocates for immigrant rights. This campaign, however, pits SEIU members not against anti-immigrant employers or politicians, but against their union’s top officials. Dubbing their […]
The Freedom House Files
“Freedom House is an independent non-governmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.” — Freedom House Freedom House is a small but influential organization based in Washington and New York with more than 120 offices around the world and an annual budget of US$19 million.1 Calling itself “America’s oldest human rights group,” […]
Interview with Heinz Dieterich: “In Venezuela, Conditions for Building Socialism of the 21st Century Have Been Created” [Entrevista a Heinz Dieterich “En Venezuela se han creado condiciones para construir el Socialismo del Siglo XXI”]
P. Profesor Dieterich, ¿Usted inventó el concepto “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”? R. Sí. Lo elaboré a partir de 1996. Fue publicado junto con la teoría correspondiente en forma de libro, a partir del 2000 en México, Ecuador, Argentina, Centroamérica, Brasil, Venezuela y, fuera de América Latina, en España, Alemania, la República Popular de China, Rusia […]
