Geography Archives: Americas

  Stop Ohio Senate Bill 5.  It’s a job-killing, anti-worker attack on collective bargaining. * * * Update See “Ohio Labor: No on SB5!” (videos of a rally against SB5, Ohio Statehouse, Columbus, Ohio, 17 February 2011). For more information, visit <fightforafaireconomy.org>.   var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print  

We, the student and precarious workers of Europe, Tunisia, Japan, the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Argentina, met in Paris over the weekend of the 11th-13th of February, 2011 to discuss and organize a common network based on our common struggles.  Students from Maghreb and Gambia tried to come but France refused them entry. […]

Much like Mubarak, the former democratic reformer turned long-serving US dictator for the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, demonstrates what can happen to even stalwart defenders of capitalism when they are opposed by their citizens en masse.  Like Mubarak, Marcos previously provided a ray of hope for Western elites intent on quelling popular resistance within their own […]

What is happening in Egypt is of immense importance, not only due to the importance of the country but also due to the radicality of the demand.  The demand is not just that Mubarak should leave — that is a first step — but that the system be changed, putting an end to the neoliberal […]

In the usual roll call of religious communists, Father Thomas J. Hagerty — one of the central figures involved in establishing the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or the Wobblies) in 1905 — seems to have slipped off the radar, with nary an entry on the Marxist Internet Archive and the smallest comment on […]

Egyptians are celebrating the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, as I write.  Inshallah they will celebrate for a long time to come.  But leaderless crowds are not well placed to govern.  The triumph of the Egyptian people leaves the military in control.  Let us hope that Egyptians will find no reason to share the complaint of […]

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation today criticized the Obama Administration for giving Israel “too much love” in its FY2012 budget request to Congress.  The budget request, delivered today to Capitol Hill, contains a record-breaking $3.075 billion in military aid to Israel. “With the United States facing an ongoing budget deficit and debt, […]

The events of the last weeks are one of those historical moments where the lessons of many decades can be telescoped into a few brief moments and seemingly minor occurrences can take on immense significance.  The entry of millions of Egyptians onto the political stage has graphically illuminated the real processes that underlie the politics […]

  “The epicenter of the struggle for the public university in Latin America is Puerto Rico.” — José Carlos Luque Brazán, professor and researcher of political science and urban planning at the Autonomous University, Mexico City1 The social conflict taking place at the University of Puerto Rico is polarizing this island to such an extent […]

In 1915 the U.S. Marines invaded Haiti, occupying the country until 1934.  U.S. officials rewrote the Haitian constitution, and when the Haitian national assembly refused to ratify it, they dissolved the assembly.  They then held a “referendum” in which about 5 percent of the electorate voted and approved the new constitution — which conveniently changed […]

The US has not supported democratization in Egypt, or really anywhere else in the Middle East, because US policymakers would not like the outcome of democratic processes.  Policies made by governments that are freely elected by the people would not reflect, would not support, let alone enforce, the US polices that are unpopular, whether that’s […]

  The Association of Puerto Rican University Professors (APPU) on Wednesday called a 24-hour strike at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), vowing that there will be no classes on Thursday. The decision to strike was made as students held a protest on campus, after a fierce confrontation with riot police in front of the […]

  The Egyptian dictatorship, made in the USA, is still powered by an Israeli battery, but the battery is running low. . . . This cartoon was first published by Al Jazeera; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, “Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt” (New […]

  Excerpt: In 2010, there were 11 major strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting at least one shift, the second lowest annual total since the major work stoppages series began in 1947, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.  The series low for major work stoppages beginning in a calendar […]

Message from WSF 2011 “Neoliberal” globalization, thoroughly bankrupt, is now indeed on the defensive.  It has no legitimacy.  And people in revolt illustrate that.  In Latin America and Nepal, today in Egypt and Tunisia, and tomorrow elsewhere in the South, gigantic popular upsurges are felling regimes that were once at its service. Autocratic regimes are […]

  The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle marked a turning point both for political protest and for the ways in which the state attempts to control it.  Protesters developed new models of organizing (e.g. affinity groups and spokescouncils) and new tactics of direct action.  Governments, in turn, heightened security measures by denying protest permits, surveilling […]

There is much confusion about the current economic situation, among left media and organizations as well as in the mainstream media.  This is certainly understandable given its complexity.  But what many are referring to as causes are symptoms of a deeper underlying problem — in other words, sparks that produced the Great Recession by igniting […]

  Listen to the interview with Michael D. Yates: I know there’s a lot of pent-up anger.  If you take a country like Egypt, where people are suppressed, when they get an opportunity, a real opportunity, like what happened in the wake of the revolt in Tunisia, they will do things, they will take to […]

  While the eyes of the world are on Haiti’s illegitimate elections and the return of the deposed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, about 1.5 million displaced earthquake survivors continue to live in sub-human conditions.  In the absence of large-scale or systemic responses by the government, international community, or aid organizations, progressive civil society organizations are evolving […]

Egypt is throbbing with resistance.  Cairo is cloven between the forces of revolution and those of counterrevolution.  Hundreds of thousands of people — on Tuesday, February 1, well over a million — have been streaming each day into Tahrir Square, the largest plaza in the Arab world, located in the heart of downtown Cairo.  Army […]