Geography Archives: Americas

More than 50 years now it is.  The propaganda and hypocrisy of the American mainstream media seems endless and unwavering.  They can not accept the fact that Cuban leaders are humane or rational.  Here’s the Washington Post of December 13 writing about an American arrested in Cuba: “The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen […]

  Monday, January 18th, 2010 6 to 7 pm, across from the Metropolitan Correctional Complex (MCC) 150 Park Row and Pearl Street, NYC On January 18th, as our nation commemorates Martin Luther King Day, for the slain civil rights leader who peacefully spoke out against war, racism, and injustice, members of THAW (Theater Artists Against […]

Following months of regular blackouts in some regions of Venezuela, the government has implemented energy-saving measures, requiring companies to submit plans to save 20% of their electricity usage, regulating the usage of lighting for advertising, and creating schedules of electricity usage for shopping centers, casinos, and bingo halls. The Ministry for Electricity‘s measures went into […]

National Front of Popular Resistance Will March Today against Withdrawal of Honduras from ALBA by TeleSur Rafael Alegría, a leader of the Front of Resistance against the Coup d’État, explained that the demonstration called for this Thursday will again demand the restitution of the constitutional president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, to power, as well as […]

Sadri Khiari, a Tunisian activist exiled in France since early 2003, is one of the founding members of the Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic (MIR) of which he is currently one of its principal leaders.  He has published, among others, Pour une politique de la racaille.  Immigré-e-s, indigènes et jeunes de banlieue (Éditions […]

Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96.  He had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22, with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign policy in Europe and Latin […]

  Steven Scully: How serious a threat do we face from Iran’s nuclear capabilities? Flynt Leverett: I don’t view it as a serious or imminent threat.  It is a problem that needs to be managed and dealt with, but it is not a threat.  What we know about the Iranian nuclear program is that Iran […]

  In the early morning hours of December 25, 2009, we lost a revolutionary voice.  Bob Kaufman, a life-long fighter for social and economic equality, succumbed after a protracted struggle with health complications stemming from a brutal attack in 2005.  He was 78. Bob’s assailant was a drug-addicted tenant in his West Baltimore home.  After […]

Unbeknownst to many progressives south of the 49th parallel, an interesting political experiment is unfolding to the north.  Quebec solidaire (QS), a recently formed left-wing party based in the seven-million-strong French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, is making significant inroads at the electoral level. Following the election of its first and only parliamentarian in December 2008, […]

AS the Revolution celebrated its 51st anniversary two days ago, memories of that January 1st of 1959 came to mind. The outlandish idea that, after half a century — which flew by — we would remember it as if it were yesterday, never occurred to any of us.

The transition out of feudalism to capitalism in Europe, mostly from the 17th to the 19th centuries, took multiple forms.  It was uneven as well, happening in different ways at different rates in different places.  Marx studied that transition’s various dimensions because they offered valuable lessons for the different transition he was interested in: out […]

Communiqué The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela expresses its most energetic condemnation of the attempts at destabilization promoted by the United States government against the government and people of Iran. The Bolivarian government is surprised that a group of governments, led by the US Empire, is repeating a campaign of violence to divide […]

Congress is almost certain to consider some sort of reform to the immigration system in 2010; when it does, we can expect a repeat of the “tea bag” resistance we saw at last summer’s town halls on healthcare reform.  The healthcare precedent “bodes badly” for immigration, Marc R. Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the […]

In the early 1970s the shah, via his intelligence organisation SAVAK, the CIA and the Israeli MOSSAD, sponsored a sustained “covert war” of Iraqi-Kurdish factions under the leadership of Mustafa Barzani against the Ba’thist leadership in Iraq which led to bombings of oil installations in Kirkuk and other infrastructural facilities with civilian use and subsequently […]

Click here to send a letter to the Egyptian government using our web form! A year after Israel’s vicious “Operation Cast Lead” assault against the Gaza Strip, which left over 1,400 Palestinians — including 355 children — dead, thousands more wounded and tens of thousands of homes destroyed while devastating Palestinian health care, educational and […]

I’m not at all somebody who wants to enshrine Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order as the new centerpiece in the old “what Marx said” religion.  But, really, I do stand by my conclusion that Baran and Sweezy’s 1966 book was the #1 social science book of the century, Marxist […]

Within weeks of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959, its leadership, with the enthusiastic support of black and mestizo Cubans, took steps to dismantle the most visible forms of racial discrimination on the island.  Within a couple of years the Revolution dismantled the economic underpinnings of racial oppression that had its roots […]

Dear Supporters of the Cuban Five, The year 2009 is coming to an end — it was a difficult one for the Cuban Five and their families.  On June 15, the U.S. Supreme Court, without any explanation, ignored the international call of 10 Nobel Prize winners, parliaments, members of the religious community, intellectuals, human rights […]

  Mark Fisher is the author of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? out recently from Zer0 Books.  As a blogger he writes K-Punk.  Capitalist Realism is one of the most acute diagnoses of contemporary politics as it is played out in one small island off the coast of Europe.  After skewering the marketisation of […]

I noted a couple of weeks ago the urgency of the condemnations being levelled at Iran (what The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss called the beginning of “the stupid season”). The hysteria appears to be mounting. Just a few of the latest incidents: We’ve been leaked the news that Barack Obama is almost powerless to stop Israel […]