Geography Archives: Americas

  • SEIU Buys Its Own Version of History

    In the last five years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization.  Some of SEIU’s negative publicity is a product of right-wing union bashing.  But a huge amount is self-inflicted — the result of conflicts with other […]

  • Gulf Arab Support for Attacking Iran: The Strange Case of the UAE

    The Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, is in the news for comments he made yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival — comments in which he apparently expressed some measure of support for a U.S. military attack on Iranian nuclear targets.  We have known Yousef since before his […]

  • Be Nice to America.  Or We’ll Bring Democracy to Your Country!

      Professor: The good news, class, is that the secret to understanding our country’s foreign policy is that there is no secret.  You simply have to understand that America strives to dominate the world for both economic and ideological reasons.  Once you understand that, much of the confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding our policy fades […]

  • The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation

      Paul Jay: So, in talking to people in Israel, one thing I hear constantly is the fight here is about national identity, it’s about the defense of the Jewish state.  I don’t hear very much about economics of Israel or the economics of occupation.  So how does national identity relate to the economics here? […]

  • Iran, Israel, and Air Defense: What, Exactly, Is the “Threat”?

    A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had sent Syria a “sophisticated radar system that could threaten Israel’s ability to launch a surprise attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”  The story cited reporting from “two Israeli officials, two U.S. officials and a Western intelligence source,” and was “confirmed . . . by […]

  • A Nuclear Revival?

      Justin Pemberton, dir.  The Nuclear Comeback.  DVD. New York: Icarus Films, 2007.  53 minutes. Are we on the brink of a nuclear revival?  Should we be?  The Nuclear Comeback, an absorbing documentary video, is titled declaratively but sprinkles question marks.  The Nuclear Comeback embarks on a tour of some of the high and low […]

  • Labor Talks Sense About Immigration.  What Comes Next?

    Something unusual happened on June 18: an important figure on the U.S. political scene spoke sensibly and realistically about immigration. The occasion was a speech at the City Club of Cleveland, and the speaker was AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.  The news wasn’t that labor was backing a rational, equitable reform of U.S. immigration laws; the […]

  • Nuclear Power: Implications of Loan Guarantees for Reactors with Foreign Control and Foreign Jobs

      As the United States government does what it can to halt Iran’s nuclear program, it may be suspected that it is seeking to build up its own nuclear industry, denying Iran the capacity to develop its own technology while pressuring it to open itself up for US technological export and to become dependent on […]

  • Interview with Dissident Israeli Intellectual Michel Warschawski: “Obama’s Priority Is Iran”

      Israeli intellectual Michel Warschawski said yesterday, at the European Social Forum in Istanbul, that he is certain that US President Barack Obama’s priority is a war against Iran.  Warschawski was taking part in a seminar on how the international Palestine solidarity movement can challenge Israeli impunity. Warschawski, founder of the Alternative Information Center in […]

  • Genocide Denial and Genocide Facilitation: Gerald Caplan and The Politics of Genocide

    In his June 17 “review” of our book The Politics of Genocide, for Pambazuka News,1 Gerald Caplan, a Canadian writer who Kigali’s New Times described as a “leading authority on Genocide and its prevention,”2 focuses almost exclusively on the section we devote to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.3  Caplan says virtually nothing about […]

  • Colombia: From Uribe to Santos

      Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 28 June 2010, shortly after the second round of the Colombian presidential elections on 20 June 2010. | Print  

  • Iran, Natural Gas, and EU Sanctions: “Is Europe Shooting Itself in the Foot (to Russia’s Benefit)?”

    Earlier this month, after the United Nations Security Council authorized new multilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic by adopting Resolution 1929, the member states of the European Union (EU) approved guidelines for expanding European sanctions against Iran.  Any new sanctions that the EU might apply against Iran on the basis of the new guidelines must […]

  • Capitalism’s Self-Destructive Spontaneity

    Under the Gold Standard the values of different currencies were fixed in terms of gold, which meant that the exchange rates between those currencies were fixed.  Exchange rate movements therefore could not be used to enlarge net exports and hence domestic employment.  At the same time governments were committed to the principle of “sound finance”, […]

  • Open Letter in Support of the Boycott of Arizona

      27 June 2010 The U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) endorses and supports the call for Boycott of Arizona on account of its manifestly racist laws, HB1070 and SB 2281. SB1070 calls for police officers to require documentation from people to establish resident status.  The law essentially requires police […]

  • Muros / Walls

      Production, Camera, Post Production: Janeth Berrettini.  Dance: La Serpiente – Abdiel Villaseñor, Laura Martínez, Yesenia Rivera.  Music: Hermann Bühler.  Mexico/ Switzerland, 2005/2006. | Print  

  • Iran Sanctions: An Obsession Explained in Five Acts and a Poem

      Act I In the second half of the 1990s, at the onset of his first term as Brazil’s president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, or FHC for short, faced a dilemma.  To honor his recent conversion to the Washington Consensus, he had to get rid of State companies to make money to pay the interests on […]

  • Climate Crisis: A Symptom of the Development Model of the World Capitalist System

      Speech to the Panel on Structural Causes of Climate Change, World  Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 20, 2010 Good afternoon, compañero presidente Evo Morales, thank you for this initiative, for this invitation, and for your hospitality. Thanks to the people of Bolivia and the people […]

  • BP — A Long, Bloody History of Reckless Greed

    BP, the company responsible for what is already the worst single-source environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, is the largest corporation in Britain, fourth largest in the world, and the world’s third largest energy company.  Over the course of its 100-year history, this company has caused a number of environmental and workplace disasters. But the harm […]

  • New York Times’ Larry Rohter, Military Coup Supporter, Attacks Film That Celebrates Triumph of Democracy South of the Border

    Letter to the New York Times, June 27, 2010 Larry Rohter attacks our film, “South of the Border,” for “mistakes, misstatements and missing details.”  But a close examination of the details reveals that the mistakes, misstatements, and missing details are his own, and that the film is factually accurate.  We will document this for each […]

  • Honduras: One Year after the Coup, Washington Continues to Fight against Democracy

    At dawn one year ago, on June 28, soldiers invaded the home of Honduran President Mel Zelaya and flew him to Costa Rica.  It was a frightening throwback to the days when military men, backed by a local oligarchy and often the United States, could overturn the results of democratic elections. It would also turn […]