Andre Vltchek Andre Vltchek is a Czech-born American writer who has written for Der Spiegel, Asahi Shimbun, the Guardian, and many other international papers. He has reported on the violence of the neo-liberal order from all over the globe, but especially from Indonesia, about which he has made a ground-breaking documentary: Terlena: Breaking of a […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Manderlay
Let me begin by getting the boilerplate that appears in every review of a movie by Lars von Trier out of the way: a) Lars von Trier is a provocateur whose films may very well be mere exercises in cynicism; b) Lars von Trier dares to make films about America without ever having visited the […]
Say Anything
A short time ago, Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein wrote a column starting, “I don’t support our troops.” It was a well-reasoned piece by most standards, though Stein unthinkingly repeats the urban legend about “peaceniks” spitting on troops returning from Vietnam. For his honesty, he received a hundred “hate e-mails” on his (unpublished) personal […]
Workers Fighting Back
Download the flyer: pdf; and doc! Guest Speakers: Jerry Tucker: Former UAW Intl Executive Board Member & co-founder of the New Directions Movement in that union and labour educator/activist; Dennis Delling: Long-time Delphi worker and participant in current struggle; Mike Vince: President, CAW Local 200 (Ford); Sam Gindin: Retired CAW staff and currently Packer […]
The Answering Machine
Paul Krell, UAW spokesperson, is not a person. Paul is an answering machine. Which explains why he can’t return calls and always says the same thing, i.e., “The UAW has no comment.” Since the UAW does not have a spokesperson per se, I don’t have to be concerned about stepping on anyone’s toes. Thus, I […]
Completing Marx’s Project: An Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz
Michael A. Lebowitz, the author of Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, argues that Capital, taken alone, is one-sided, given Marx’s intention to also write a book on wage-labor. The incompleteness of Marx’s work has helped produce a left whose theory is distorted and characterized by economism and programmatic narrowness. I […]
Workers’ Rights ARE Human Rights — Not Just in the USA, but around the World
Click on the image for a larger view. Chicago, 2005 In the middle of a blizzard in Chicago on December 8, 2005, I stood with about 250-300 union members and supporters at the Haymarket Memorial, chanting, “Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights.” This was one of a number of rallies around the country that the AFL-CIO […]
Remembering Clint Jencks (March 1, 1918 – December 15, 2005)
I met Clint Jencks in about 1959 when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley. He was getting his Ph.D. and was the teaching assistant in economics for our section. I knew of his history and was honored to get to know him. We spent many hours together talking about labor history and his own life. […]
King’s “Revolution in Values” Revisited
I. A Brooklyn federal court in March 2005 dismissed a civil suit filed on behalf of millions of Vietnamese against U.S. chemical companies charged with war crimes for having supplied the military with Agent Orange. The dismissal was on technical grounds, not on its merits; the contention that the chemical defoliants used during the […]
South Africa: An Odd Model for Bolivia
It’s odd that Bolivian president elect Evo Morales should have chosen South Africa as his first port of call in drumming up international support ahead of his January 22 presidential inauguration. In a televised speech during his recent visit to South Africa, Morales said he wanted to “learn from South Africa’s experience of nation-building.” But […]
Dismantling the Central American Gangs and Recovering a Lost Generation
Guatemala City, Guatemala Carlos, my driver, was a former federal policeman. He weighed a good two hundred pounds and was well over six feet. He was assigned to me by a local businessman whom I knew in Guatemala City after I explained that I wanted to visit some areas where I could see gang activity. […]
Through a Capitalist Looking-Glass:Standard and Poor’s Rates Latin America
Capitalism always stays focused on the bottom line — profit — but occasionally finds more than it is looking for. Such is the case with Standard and Poor’s recent research report, “Credit FAQ: The Impact of the Rise of the Left on Latin American Sovereign Ratings” (17 January 2006). While doing research to update the […]
Powerful Evasion
While it isn’t literally true that Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned (the violin wasn’t invented yet), he did build himself a glorious new palace atop the ashes. And he was one of the prime suspects in the great arson of 64 a.d. According the Roman historian Suetonius, “under cover of displeasure at the ugliness […]
Unity — In Memory of Rosa Luxemburg
There was a subtle difference in both groups this year — many said they noticed it. As in every year, tens of thousands of Germans visited the Memorial Site of the Socialists in an eastern section of Berlin and placed red carnations at the tall memorial stone honoring Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, or the […]
Pom Poko
In the past few years, Hayao Miyazaki has finally achieved recognition in the United States as a great filmmaker. Thanks to a deal between his Studio Ghibli and Disney, all of his films will be available in new, uncut English language DVDs; the New York premiere of his latest work, Howl’s Moving Castle, was the […]
Target: IranHere We Go Again
Since quoting Marx makes a writer appear both more educated and more serious, I figured I’d start this piece about Iran with a bit of Marxism . . . from Duck Soup. Ambassador Trentino: “I am willing to do anything to prevent this war.” President Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho): “It’s too late. I’ve already paid […]
Their Truth Is Marching On
Martin Luther King, Jr., arrested on 3 September1958, outside the Montgomery courthouse. Photo by Charles Moore. It’s Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday and, for the first time since 1977, I am remembering the man and his life in a town below the Mason-Dixon line. At the library I work, Blacks were denied entrance. Denied the […]
A Union Is Not a “Movement”(19 November 1977)
[The Los Angeles Times recently ran a series of investigative articles by Miriam Pawel on the problems of the United Farm Workers: “Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots” (8 January 2006); “Linked Charities Bank on the Chavez Name” (9 January 2006); “Decisions of Long Ago Shape the Union Today” (10 January […]
SDS: Why Now (Again)?
It is fascinating for me to think about SDS. In fact, it’s downright compulsory. I am gathering stories and pictures, trying to weave them into a script for an artist to make into a visual (or comic-book) history, mostly “from the bottom up,” i.e., the chapter standpoint. Sometimes the national leaders were good, sometimes they […]
Naming The System
Most of us grew up thinking that the United States was a strong but humble nation, that involved itself in world affairs only reluctantly, that respected the integrity of other nations and other systems, and that engaged in wars only as a last resort. This was a nation with no large standing army, with […]
