Geography Archives: Americas

  • North Korea: “Sanity” at the Brink

    Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation.  Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has […]

  • Iran: This Is Not a Revolution

    Political power is never good or bad, never really just or unjust; political power is arbitrary, discriminatory, and most of the time violent.  In Iran, the ongoing demonstrations sparked by the election results in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicate that such power can never really be monopolized by the state.  Iran’s civil society is fighting; […]

  • Mexico: As July Elections Approach, Voters Apathetic, Cynical

    What a change from three years ago.  Then Mexico’s left was on the march, from the resistance of the teachers and people in Oaxaca City to the mass demonstrations in Mexico City for Andrés Manuel López Obrador, candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).  In 2006, Local 22 of the Mexican Teachers Union […]

  • Brazil: Lula Says There Is No Evidence of Fraud in Iran and Wants to Visit the Country

      BBC Brasil Special Correspondent, Geneva President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said this Monday in Geneva that there is “no evidence” that there has been a fraud in the Iranian elections and affirmed that he wants to set a date to visit the country next year. “Look, the (Iranian) president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) received a […]

  • Ahmadinejad Supporter Speaks

      Embedded video from CNN Video LEMON: Well, the opposition is up in arms, but there are plenty of people cheering the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Earlier I spoke with an Ahmadinejad supporter.  He is a former political science professor at Tehran University and also a former adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) […]

  • Venezuela Denounces Campaign of Interference against the Islamic Republic of Iran

    The Foreign Ministry of Venezuela condemns the vicious and unfounded campaign to discredit the institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, unleashed from outside, to roil the political climate.  The ministry denounces the acts of interference in the internal affairs of Iran, designed to threaten and destabilize the Islamic Revolution. (MPPRE) Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela […]

  • The Iranian Elections and the Hysterical Media

    Here comes the hysteria and bold-faced lies.  In the wake of the Iranian election, various commentators and so-called reporters in the United States are reacting as if the end of the world was at hand.  Although nobody knows for certain and everyone only has the words of Western press pundits and an angry candidate to […]

  • SA Political Power Balance Shifts Left — Though Not Yet Enough to Quell Grassroots Anger

    With high-volume class strife heard in the rumbling of wage demands and the friction of township “service delivery protests,” rhetorical and real conflicts are bursting open in every nook and cranny of South Africa. The big splits in the society are clearer now.  Distracting internecine rivalries within the main left bloc — which saw off […]

  • Workers Creating Hope: Factory Occupations and Self-Management

    Introduction In most countries, political leaders and bosses are using the global economic crisis to once again unleash an attack on workers and the poor.  As part of this, we have seen corporations around the world trying to make workers pay for the crisis by retrenching tens of millions of people.  In the most extreme […]

  • Obama Has No Easy Task

    I remember that, when I visited the People’s Republic of Poland, during Gierek’s government, I was taken to Osviecim, the most notorious of all concentration camps. There I learned about the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis against Jewish children, women and senior citizens, which resulted from the implementation of the ideas contained in the book Mein Kampf written by Adolph Hitler. Those ideas had been implemented before at the time when the territory of the USSR was invaded in the quest for ‘living space.’ By that time, the governments of London and Paris incited the Nazi chief against the Soviet State.

  • Workers Blast Wells Fargo as a Roadblock to Recovery

      Chicago What are the banks doing with the bailout billions taxpayers gave them, to help us on the road to economic recovery? In the case of Wells Fargo and the Quad City Die Casting (QCDC) factory in Moline, Illinois, nothing good.  In fact the bank is a huge roadblock to recovery.  That’s why on […]

  • President Chávez Congratulates Ahmadinejad on His Reelection

    The head of state emphasized that the victory of his Iranian counterpart represents the sentiments of the Iranian people and their commitment to building a new world.  He conveyed the messages of congratulations sent by the other leaders of the Petrocaribe member states.  Ahmadinejad obtained more than 65 percent of votes. Presidential Press Basseterre, Federation […]

  • Ideas for the Struggle #4 Should We Reject Bureaucratic Centralism and Use Only Consensus?

    This is the fourth in a series of articles on “Ideas for the Struggle” by Marta Harnecker. 1.  For a long time, left-wing parties were authoritarian.  The usual practice was bureaucratic centralism, very much influenced by the experiences of Soviet socialism.  All criteria, tasks, initiatives, and courses of political action were decided by the party […]

  • The Envy of Goebbels

    Yesterday I was listening to the Round Table TV program when it analyzed, among other topics, Operation Peter Pan, one of the most repugnant acts of moral aggression carried out against our country. Patria potestas is an extremely sensitive issue. That was a repugnant low trick. One of the novels by Mikhail Sholokhov that I read some years later included a reference to that kind of slander which had already been used against the Revolution of October 1917.

  • Ahmadinejad Front Runner in Upcoming Presidential Elections; Iranians Continue to Back Compromise and Better Relations with US and West

    Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Iran before the June 12, 2009 Presidential Elections Executive Summary: In a new public opinion poll across Iran before the critical upcoming June 12, 2009 Presidential elections, a plurality of Iranians said they would vote for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranians also continue overwhelmingly to favor […]

  • Interview with Manushi Bhattarai, Nepali Student Leader

    Below is an Interview with Manushi Bhattarai.*  She is part of the Maoist Ticket that swept the student elections at Tribhuvan University — Nepal’s largest.  She discusses the revolution, recent political developments, the international situation, and the role of youth. Ben Peterson: Thanks a lot for meeting with me.  The All Nepal National Independent Student […]

  • Statement by a Group of Iranian Anti-war Activists about Iran’s Presidential Elections

    Monday 8 June 2009 We are a group of Iranian academic and antiwar activists in Europe and the United States who, in the past few years, have consistently defended Iran’s national interests in all areas including its right to develop peaceful nuclear technology.  Our varied activities in the face of anti-Iran propaganda by the neoconservatives […]

  • Obama’s Doublespeak on Iran

    On the US-Iran relationship, President Obama seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth.  From one side we hear promising messages of dialogue and a “new beginning” with Iran; from the other side provocative words that seems to be coming right out of the mouth of his predecessor, George W. Bush. For example, […]

  • Brazil: Revisited

    “A modern city, warts and all.” — Dennis Brutus Dawnlight seeps slowly into Sao Paulo skies as if reluctant to rediscover old betrayals or disclose new ones in Lula’s disappointed lands (IMF/World Bank scoundrels have tenacious as well as rapacious ravening claws) but trees silhouetted against pale skies against malodorous ditches assert irrepressible growth, undeterrable […]

  • July Delegation to Venezuela: Human Rights, Food Sovereignty, and Social Change

    A food sovereignty delegation from the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York visits La Vela de Coro, Falcón, Venezuela.  Video by Diego Gerena-Quiñones. The Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York invites you to join us in July for a 10-day trip to Venezuela examining advances in food sovereignty and other initiatives for social […]