Geography Archives: Americas

  • The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis This Time

    Paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Meetings in Atlanta, August 16th, 2010. There are many explanations for the crisis of capital that began in 2007.  But the one thing missing is an understanding of “systemic risks.”  I was alerted to this when Her Majesty the Queen visited the London School of Economics and asked […]

  • Venezuela: Chávez’s Party Wins Elections But Ends Up Short of Two-Thirds Majority

    Hugo Chávez’s party the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) obtained 95 deputies in the 165-member unicameral National Assembly — in other words 58% of the seats.  The opposition captured 64 seats, 39% of the National Assembly, denying the Chávez government and its supporters the two-thirds majority that they sought.  In the Latin American Parliament […]

  • The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S.

      Excerpt: To know that the United States is undergoing a highly orchestrated curtailment of personal and political liberties, one need not look further than police treatment of protesters in the streets.  Those who speak out against government policies increasingly face many of the same types of weaponry used by the U.S. government in its […]

  • If I Were Venezuelan

    Tomorrow is an important day for Venezuela.  The elections to choose 165 members of parliament are taking place, and around this important event an historic battle is being waged. But at the same time, news about the weather is unfavorable.  Heavy rains are drenching the land that was the birthplace of the Liberator. Excessive rains […]

  • Mexico: On the Right Track

      Statements of condemnation cannot take away immense sadness. . . . “Mr. President, another mayor got murdered, and he’s the tenth this year.” “Sure, sure, but we’re on the right track.” Eduardo Soto is a Mexican cartoonist.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  According to La Jornada, more than 100 mayors, […]

  • Venezuela: In Transition towards Socialism?

    Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1  This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]

  • If I Were Venezuelan

    Tomorrow is an important day for Venezuela.  The elections to choose 165 members of parliament are taking place, and around this important event an historic battle is being waged. But at the same time, news about the weather is unfavorable.  Heavy rains are drenching the land that was the birthplace of the Liberator. Excessive rains […]

  • Palestinian Economic Dependency on Israel

      Shortly after the 1967 Middle East War, many economic boundaries for transactions between the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel collapsed: both labor and goods could flow freely from the OPT to Israel and vice versa. At the same time Israel started to control the external borders of the OPT.  A customs union was […]

  • Arguing Socialism

    Michael A. Lebowitz, The Socialist Alternative (Monthly Review Press, 2010), 191 pp. Alan Maass, The Case for Socialism (Haymarket Books, 2010), 173 pp. Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (Verso, 2010), xviii, 394 pp. The economic crisis beginning in 2007 punctured the dominance of neo-liberal ideology, without completely overturning it.  To accomplish that, and force […]

  • The World Cannot Run the Risk of a New Conflict like the One in Iraq

    Excerpts: In recent years, the Brazilian Government has invested heavily in South America’s integration and peace.  We have strengthened our strategic partnership with Argentina.  We have reinforced Mercosul, including through unique financial mechanisms among developing countries. The establishment of the Union of South American Nations — UNASUL — aims at consolidating a genuine zone of […]

  • Why Does Israel Still Occupy the Palestinians?

    1. The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society The majority of Israel’s anti-occupation movement, unfortunately, does not focus on the rights of Palestinians to live free, but on the damage that the occupation causes to Israeli society (Sternhell, 2009). The arguments that the occupation is a major investment of resources that could be useful […]

  • The Language of Power: Interview with Jean Bricmont

    Jean Bricmont is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and is a member of the Brussels Tribunal.  He is the author of Humanitarian Imperialism and co-author, with Alan Sokal, of Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science.  He has written critically about ‘humanitarian interventionism’ since the Kosovo war in 1999.  In […]

  • Scoundrel Time at Kaiser

    The stereotypical union battles of the past were fought by burly working-class heroes, on the picket line and the proverbial “shop floor.”  Think of tough-looking guys, wearing scally caps (and wielding baseball bats, when necessary), while marching through the streets of the San Francisco in 1934.  Their enemies were many — the long-shore bosses and […]

  • “Net Neutrality” Is Vital to Free Speech in the Internet Age

    The mass media remains, in the 21st century, one of the most powerful forces blocking social and economic progress.  It is because of the mass media that tens of millions of Americans are convinced that budget deficits are more important than the lives ruined by unemployment, or that Social Security won’t be there for them […]

  • Bradley Manning: American Hero

    Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public.  This week, his supporters are holding rallies in 21 cities, seeking Manning’s release from military custody.  Manning is in the brig for allegedly disclosing a classified video depicting U.S. troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in Iraq in July 2007.  The […]

  • Mr. Ahmadinejad Comes to New York

    As he has every year since becoming President of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly.  Several important U.S. media outlets have either already conducted (MSNBC, ABC) or will conduct (PBS’ Charlie Rose and CNN’s Larry King) interviews with Ahmadinejad in connection with […]

  • Those Trapped Chilean Miners Are So Goddamn Lucky!

    Over the course of the past week, several stories have appeared in the U.S. media that seemed to celebrate, without an iota of sarcasm or self-criticism, the bright and happy futures of 33 coal miners who have been trapped underground in the San Jose mine, in utterly unbearable conditions, for six weeks — and who […]

  • Cubans Sign Books of Condolences for Lucius Walker

      Among those who signed the books of condolences, leaving diverse expressions of love and respect, are students of the Latin American School of Medicine who are from the United States, the youth that the Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of Pastors for Peace, brought to Cuba. At the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos […]

  • They Plunder, or We Run a New Commonwealth

    The sky has been overcast for decades.  Since 1973 the income, working conditions, and life prospects of common people in the United States have been ground down.  In 2008 the storm arrived.  A huge recession poured down sheets of unemployment, took away health care from four million more people, and pushed the carrot of retirement […]

  • Banks’ Monopoly Capital and Basel 3

    The new regulations on banks’ capital requirements known as Basel 3, made known to the public in mid-September, are a major institutional boost to the monopolistic position of the largest banks.1  In the new framework the capital that banks must hold against lending activities has been raised from a ratio of 2%, established by Basel […]