Geography Archives: Americas

One of the least-known stories of the Irish who came to America in the 1840s is that of the Irish battalion that fought on the Mexican side in the U.S.-Mexico War of 1846-1848.  They came to Mexico and died, some gloriously in combat, others ignominiously on the gallows.  United under a green banner, they participated […]

Mexico stands at the brink of a social upheaval of major proportions after the Electoral Tribunal threw out most challenges by presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, leading him to call for the creation of a new government.  (See “Election Decision Favors Felipe Calderon of the Pan.”)  In the face of what he calls a […]

Seguramente, ésta será la última oportunidad en que pueda dirigirme a ustedes.  La Fuerza Aérea ha bombardeado las antenas de Radio Magallanes.  Mis palabras no tienen amargura sino decepción.  Que sean ellas un castigo moral para quienes han traicionado su juramento: soldados de Chile, comandantes en jefe titulares, el almirante Merino, que se ha autodesignado […]

  I am honored to write this preface to the Turkish edition of my book, Naming the System: Inequality and Work in the Global Economy.  I thank Neset Kutlug and everyone else who helped bring this edition to fruition.  I wrote the book with an international audience in mind, so it is gratifying to see […]

  A small kitten scampers up the steps of ivy-laden Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago.  Nearby, a mohawked student attempts to spear a stale, “dumpstered,” bagel mid-air with a PVC pipe.  He’s surrounded by dozens of other young radicals mingling in the school’s immaculate green courtyard, chatting about music, activism, and revolution.  Just […]

  In the Name of God Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Guests, “As-Salam-u-‘Alaikum” — Peace be upon you. Knowledge of the human soul has been one of the most significant debates in philosophical discourse throughout history.  A part of this tale was written in the Orient and another part in the Occident.  It is important to […]

  Michael Perelman, Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology, Monthly Review Press, 2006, 238 pages, $20.00 RAILROADING ECONOMICS: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology by Michael Perelman BUY THIS BOOK Railroading Economics by Michael Perelman is an indictment of economists.  But the indictment is not, thankfully, the familiar rehearsal of untenable […]

  Mineros de Escondida harán plebiscito para medir apoyo a renacionalización Los patos negros de la mina de cobre La Escondida, quienes recién acaban de superar una difícil huelga de 25 días, planean efectuar en Antofagasta un plebiscito ciudadano que mida el apoyo para iniciar el debate sobre la conveniencia de una renacionalización del cobre.  […]

1. Introduction This commentary is offered as a contribution to the ongoing debate on the Bamako Appeal.  On the 18th of January, on the day preceding the start of the Polycentric World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali, a conference was held in the same capital, commemorating the holding of the Bandung Conference 50 years back.  […]

Over at least the last decade, employers in the West have been able to enlarge profits dramatically by taking simultaneous advantage of the following three opportunities: raising workers’ productivity (computerization, etc.), merging to reduce costs (vertical and horizontal), and keeping wages from rising much or at all (outsourcing jobs and importing ever-cheaper consumer imports from […]

Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel’s colonization of Palestine.  Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the […]

  Young people in El Salvador protested last July 5th against a wave of price increases of electricity, public transportation, and gas.  The protest ended in blood, and, as a consequence, 26 year-old trade union leader, Daniel Ernesto Morales Rivera, was beaten and thrown in jail.  The following is an interview of his experience. JA: […]

After thirty-four days of relentless aerial bombardment and a ground invasion, Israel’s brutal assault on Lebanon’s civilian population has come to a halt, at least temporarily.  As the dust from the rubble of Lebanon’s ruined cities, villages, and infrastructure settles, and as bodies of victims are recovered and buried, and the human losses mourned by […]

To endorse the following statement, please send your name, location, affiliation and title (if any) to [email protected], or NYCLAW, PO Box 3620166, PACC, New York, NY 10129. U.S. Out of the Middle East New York City Labor Against the War August 11, 2006 For weeks, Israel has turned Lebanon into a killing ground, slaughtering and […]

  Paul LeBlanc Paul LeBlanc is what I have called an “organic intellectual,” a scholar and activist who has risen directly out of the working class.  Paul is the author of many books, including A Short History of the U.S. Working Class (Humanity Books, 1999) and Black Liberation and the American Dream (Humanity Books 2003), […]

Gary Tyler, at one time the youngest person on death row, turned forty-eight years old this July.  He has spent thirty-two of those years in jail for a crime he did not commit.  The case of Gary Tyler is one of the great miscarriages of justice in the modern history of the United States, in […]

I was at a conference titled Build the Left, Fight the Right this past June.  The speakers and workshops at the conference ranged from the war in Iraq to the immigrant rights movement in the United States.  One of the most interesting (and there were many) and hopeful (in terms of a brighter future for […]

What Happened on May Day? On May 1, 2006, the largest strike in US history took place, with over a million people on the streets in a powerful show of force.  The May Day strike represented a culmination of waves of marches across the country demanding full, immediate legalization for all undocumented immigrants, workers’ rights […]

Matti Bunzl‘s work entitled “Between Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Some Thoughts on the New Europe,” published in American Ethnologist (Vol. 32, No. 4, November 2005), is groundbreaking.  It is evident from the article, as well as the commentaries on it that appeared in the same issue, that, to understand contemporary Europe, we need to rethink some […]

POST-9/11 SCIENCE: AMERICANS ARE WORLD’S ONLY HUMANS (PU) Just in time for the 5th anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster, scientists have discovered that United States citizens — alone out of every other people on planet Earth — possess qualities identifying them as homo sapiens. The finding was announced today at the Center for […]