Los datos divulgados recientemente por el Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) confirman que la economía venezolana exhibió un crecimiento de 10,2% en el cuarto trimestre de 2005 en relación con el mismo período del año anterior, acumulando la novena alza consecutiva a partir del último trimestre de 2003. El resultado final del PIB en 2005 […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Does Pace University Support Free Speech?
On Monday, March 13, students from the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — joined by other students, professors, original SDSers, and CAN members from CCNY — launched one of the largest demonstrations Pace University’s campus had seen, against Pace’s denial of our free speech rights. The university, […]
The Challenge of Revolutionary Democracy in the Life and Thought of Rosa Luxemburg
“Rosa Luxemburg, imprisoned in the Breslau penitentiary, is able to continue working on her herbarium. Her secretary Mathilde Jacob, the only one able to visit her in prison, brings along the plants. ‘I can botanize once again, this is my favourite occupation and best way to relax. Since May 1913 I have pasted in about […]
Anne Braden, 1927-2006
Click on the image to watch video interviews with Anne Braden. The 6 March 2006 issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal reports the death at 81 of Anne Braden, the veteran Southern white civil rights leader and organizer of the fight for black integration and equality, and an American radical of untameable commitment who — […]
Antiwar Activists Arrested at House Appropriations Committee Hearing
Jeff Leys and Mike Ferner
Washington, D.C., March 9 — Two peace activists were arrested on March 8 for disrupting the House Appropriations Committee hearing on additional funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Mike Ferner and Ed Kinane of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, interrupted the hearing called to consider the $67 billion “supplemental” appropriation which was ultimately approved […]
Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate: Part 2
Dear Ms. Ebadi: Rostam Pourzal, “Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate: Part 1 “ (27 February 2006) Poet Khosro Naaqed, a prominent promoter of your reformist coalition, demonstrated in a published commentary last summer why a majority in Iran is now disillusioned with your “democracy” project. As you know, he speaks for almost all Iranian […]
Canadian Election Aftermath: New Actors, Same Play?
The more things change, the more they remain the same. This commonplace contains more than a little truth of what liberal democracy has become in Canada today. The daily political discourse might adopt a “compassionate conservatism,” a “social liberalism,” or even a social democratic “third way,” but all the parties agree that the benefits of […]
World Events (June 1953)
Large scale military spending can have but one outcome: an increase in the size of the military forces, an extension of their influence, growing participation of the military in the direction of public business, a greater emphasis on armed might as an instrument for carrying out federal policy. The interests of those who dominate the […]
Philippines: State of Emergency for the U.S. Empire
On the morning of February 24, 2006, President Gloria Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 (PP 1017), which declared a State of Emergency throughout the Philippines. Using identical words as those of Ferdinand Marcos when he declared martial law in 1972, Arroyo ordered the armed forces to suppress “any act of insurrection or rebellion.” Arroyo claimed there […]
Right-Wing Attack Dogs Go after a Colorado High School Teacher
A high school geography teacher here in Colorado — Jay Bennish who teaches at Overland High School in Aurora — is in trouble, attacked by the right, for things he said in an honors geography class after Bush’s State of the Union address. A student in the class taped the teacher’s comments (about twenty […]
Cartoon-Krieg: Politics as War by Other Means
Jyllands-Posten stood Clausewitz on his head. Its now infamous cartoons of Mohammed are not so much speech as acts. Acts of provocation and belligerence. They are the latest round of politics as war by other means. Make no mistake. Jyllands-Posten is not in the business of promoting the freedom of speech. Nor are the European […]
Open Letter to Iran’s Nobel Laureate
Dear Ms. Shirin Ebadi: The appeal you and Mohammad Sahimi addressed to “Western democracies” in the International Herald Tribune on January 19 disappointed this former admirer of yours. Your invitation to the current and previous imperial powers to intervene for human rights in Iran fails precisely on grounds of the noble principles you invoked to […]
Left-Activist Work Can Be Liberating
William Morris said, in an article that appeared in The Commonweal on 21 June 1889, “[I]t cannot be too often repeated that the true incentive to useful and happy labour is and must be pleasure in the work itself.” Morris’s remark pertained to a debate at the end of the nineteenth century on the nature […]
The Muslim in the Mirror
Few things are more frustrating than the doxa to which a hybrid and multifarious object such as “Islam” is all too readily reduced by formulaic provocation and paranoiac reaction. The current “cartoon war” between “militant” Muslims and “militant” liberals in the “West” is a case in point. Once again, people are led to view themselves […]
Call It Love or Call It Reason, But I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore
Click on the image to watch a preview of “Soldiers & Students” One of the largest youth antiwar organizations — the Campus Antiwar Network — is calling for a week of actions against military recruitment on March 13-19, 2006. Pepperspray Productions of Seattle recently released a DVD titled “Soldiers & Students” that features counter-recruitment actions […]
Danish Cartoons: Racism Has No Place on the Left
I’ve just about had it. I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing “clash of civilizations” […]
The Second Founding of Bolivia [La segunda fundación de Bolivia]
El 22 de enero del año 2002, Evo fue expulsado del Paraíso. O sea: el diputado Morales fue echado del Parlamento. El 22 de enero del año 2006, en ese mismo lugar de pomposo aspecto, Evo Morales fue consagrado presidente de Bolivia. O sea: Bolivia empieza a enterarse de que es un país de mayoría […]
A Track Runs through It:Why Railroad Workers and Trackside Communities Should Fight for Jobs and Environmental Justice Together
The United Transportation Union, which represents railroad conductors and some engineers, reports that negotiations with the railroad corporations had broken down over the issue of crew reduction. The carriers are demanding the implementation of one-person train crews for many routes on the US freight rail system. The current standard train crew is two, an engineer […]
Homo Economicus vs. Aam Aadmi: Crisis of Democracy
During the twentieth century, there were two major shifts in mainstream economic thinking. These two major changes were the Keynesian revolution of the 1930s and the return of orthodoxy on the back of the Rational Expectation and Monetarist school in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Each of the shifts was preceded by a […]
Venezuela Leads the Way: Welfare Mothers and Grassroots Women Are the Workers for Social Change!
There is screaming, hugging, chanting, and many shhhs; the group takes a momentary pause in their celebration to hear the news. A delegation of 70 women from all over the world, including, India, Uganda, Guyana, the UK, and the US, stand together in the community of La Padera, Venezuela, awaiting the details. Juanita Romero, also […]
