Geography Archives: Americas

  As Christian leaders from the United States, we traveled to the Islamic Republic of Iran at this time of increased tension believing that it is possible to build bridges of understanding between our two countries.  We believe military action is not the answer, and that God calls us to just and peaceful relationships within […]

Stephen Fleischman, A Red in the House: The Unauthorized Memoir of S.E. Fleischman.  New York: iUniverse, 2004.  366pp, $24.95 paperback. This review is late in coming because it has taken a couple of years for me to understand who this Fleischman fellow is, with the tough, brilliant commentaries on various issues in CounterPunch and elsewhere.  […]

All roads may have once led to Rome, but, for the Palestinian people, all roads lead to checkpoints.  The latest checkpoint to block the Palestinians is not manned by Israel but the ostensible mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Quartet (which is composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United […]

Cada poder hegemónico en cada tiempo establece los límites de lo normal y, en consecuencia, de lo natural.  Así, el poder que ordenaba la sociedad patriarcal se reservaba (se reserva) el derecho incuestionable de definir qué era un hombre y qué era una mujer.  Cada vez que algún exaltado recurre al mediocre argumento de que […]

The latest news from the Big Three (Chrysler, Ford, and GM) automakers is bad.  As of Valentine’s Day — how appropriate for North American workers to receive another shot to the heart — the permanent force reduction now exceeds 100,000.  Most of the jobs eliminated are hourly workers, UAW and CAW union members in fact […]

  Germany is the world’s leading exporter and the third largest industrial economy, following Japan and the United States.  German multi-nationals are drowning in supreme opulence, yet the wages of German workers remain severely depressed.  The Wall Street Journal, engaging in low-intensity class struggle labor journalism, confirmed in its January article “German Unions See Leverage […]

Teachers College Press and the Gottesman Libraries are pleased to invite you to aBook Signing & Discussion What does it mean to be “patriotic” in the U. S. after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001?  And how have the prevailing notions of patriotism — loudly trumpeted in the American media — affected education in […]

  An interview with Luis Jalandoni, chairperson of the National Democratic Front-Philippines Negotiating Panel, follows E. San Juan, Jr.’s analysis. The February visit of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples, Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, reconfirmed the barbarism of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s de facto martial-law regime in the Philippines.  Stavenhagen bewailed the worsening pattern of […]

There is now a strong consensus among climate scientists that human activities are the primary forces responsible for the observed warming of the earth’s atmosphere.  The recently released fourth assessment report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that warming is “unequivocal” and human […]

For those among us who hoped that 2007 would be a more orderly year in world politics, the current trends have been frustrating.  Over the past few weeks, the Bush administration has pursued the escalation of two major international crises. The first major crisis is taking place in Somalia, where the Ethiopian Army and its […]

We humans are basically big furless animals who make tremendous demands on energy and materials for staying warm in cold places and cool in hot places.  It wouldn’t hurt any of us to recognize this biological fact.  Right now I’m burning big chunks of stove wood, to keep warm at zero F.  We possess, each […]

  Need a crash course on the present state of the world?  Want to untangle the terminology, separate the victims from the victimizers, understand the dynamics of unilateralism, and deduce what can be done about it all?  I’d like to introduce you to a small literary arsenal. A good place to begin is the book […]

The period 2003-2006 saw the passing of some of the truly remarkable artists in pop music.  It’s Black History Month, so it’s only fitting to remember the mighty Black pioneers and creators of blues/soul/R&B who’ve left us physically, but never spiritually or creatively: Ray Charles, Hank Ballard, Lou Rawls, Wilson Pickett, Little Milton, Clarence “Gatemouth” […]

There’s something happeningWhat it is ain’t exactly clearBuffalo Springfield, 1966 Are we in the midst of a momentous turn in world politics?  Donald Rumsfeld has been shuffled out of the Pentagon.  Daniel Ortega, Washington’s nemesis from the Sandinista Revolution of the late 1970s, is back as President of Nicaragua.  Hugo Chavez has been triumphantly re-elected, […]

Con su ritual de acero sus grandes chimeneas sus sabios clandestinos su canto de sirena sus cielos de neón sus ventas navideñas su culto de Dios Padre y de las charreteras con sus llaves del reino el Norte es el que ordena pero aquí abajo, abajo el hambre disponible recurre al fruto amargo de lo […]

Hace diez años, en contradicción con la ola posmodernista, desarrollamos en Crítica de la pasión pura la idea de la moral como una forma de consciencia colectiva.  De la misma forma que un cardumen o un enjambre actúa y se desarrolla como un solo cuerpo, de la misma forma que James Lovelock entendía Gaia — […]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. […]

Now that I have mastered the art of writing for social change, I have decided to become a famous literary agent!  Of course, before I open my own agency, I’ll need to practice editing.  Luckily, the right manuscript recently came to my attention, and I have just finished crafting this cutting-edge feedback. Dear Karl Marx […]

  Milenko Srećković is a spokesperson for the Balkan anarchist movement FreedomFight and is one of the editors of the webzine www.freedomfight.net. Q: Could you start by telling us a bit about the alternative media initiative you are involved with? A: FreedomFight is an anarchist, alter-globalist movement created in Serbia in 2003.  The FreedomFight movement […]

  Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth has helped dramatize the enormity of the global environmental crisis.  The scale of the threat posed by industrially induced global warming, and the short time in which to take meaningful action to prevent catastrophic consequences, makes the question of how to combat global warming arguably the most urgent […]