People in the United States may not be as rabidly anti-immigrant as we’ve been led to believe. An article posted on the Center for American Progress website in December, “The Public’s View of Immigration,” summarizes five recent U.S. opinion polls. Authors Philip E. Wolgin and Angela Maria Kelley find that while the media and the […]
Geography Archives: Asia
Countries in the continent of Asia
You Are Free People, Spreading Freedom
Speech at the Occupy Oakland Rally, 28 January 2012 “This Land! Don’t you feel it? Doesn’t it make you want to go out and lift dead Indians tenderly from their graves, to steal from them — as if it must be clinging to their corpses — some authenticity. . .” Those are the words of […]
Arundhati Roy, Anuradha Ghandy, and ‘Romantic Marxism’
a This is the full-text of the introductory remarks made by the author at the Fourth Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy on 20th January 2012 at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. I woke up this morning to the chirping sounds of the swallows. Arundhati Roy seems to have brought in those love-birds that […]
One State, Two States: Who Is the Subject of Palestinian Liberation?
One state or two? Boycott of Israeli goods or goods from the settlements? Is the lobby the genesis of American wrongdoing in Palestine or is it imperialism? The questions — regarding vision, strategy, and analysis — produce sharp cleavages on the Left. Indeed, generally ones much deeper than they need to be. And they remain […]
Dead Iraqis Occupy Wall Street
With the war in Iraq now officially over and the Occupy Wall Street movement less visible, life in New York was expected to return to normal. Instead, several recent passersby in Manhattan’s financial district have reported seeing thousands of deceased Iraqi civilians taking up residence at Zuccotti Park. The park served for two months in […]
Brazil’s Economic Policy: Does Not Compute
The Brazilian government bets that the domestic market will save the Brazilian economy: that the wage increase above productivity, apart from reducing inequality, will create demand for the Brazilian industry and will offset the overvalued exchange rate. In other words, the same recipe that produced good results under the Lula administration, it hopes, could be […]
Marines in Darwin: US Energy Imperialism and the South China Sea
During Barack Obama’s visit to Australia in November 2011, the US and Australian governments announced the establishment of a permanent Marine presence in Darwin, located on South East Asia’s doorstep. By 2014, some 2, 500 Marines plus associated hardware such as military aircraft, tanks, artillery, and amphibious assault vehicles will be based near the […]
Radical Potential in Every Community
Amy Sonnie and James Tracy. Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power. New York: Melville House Printing, 2011. ix-201 pp. $16.95 (paperback). Most current academic discussion of radical movements populated by whites is devoted to understanding ultra-right movements based largely on demands for less government intervention and nostalgia for a lost time in […]
The Agonizers
Eric Mann. Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. Beacon Press, 2011. “Agonizer” was the term an old girlfriend of mine from my vanguard organization days used to describe the branch organizer for the party. An apt description for someone tasked to do the thankless job of running meetings, setting schedules, and seeing […]
Indian ‘Republic Killing Its Own Children’ — Kishenji Fought for a Better World
India’s Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, West Bengal Chief Minister (also in charge of the province’s home affairs) Mamata Banerjee, Union Home Secretary R K Singh, and the top bosses of the security forces involved in the operation have all been bent on establishing one point: that the alleged encounter in the Burishol forest […]
Why Syria Matters: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad
Aijaz Ahmad: For one thing, Syria is the last remaining representative of Arab nationalism as it used to be understood historically. It still calls itself socialist. Even though it has implemented a great deal of neoliberal reform, the state sector is still dominant. It bans, literally bans, religion from politics. It will not recognize the […]
The People’s Democratic Struggle and the Struggle for the Environment: An Interview with Fred Magdoff
“The people’ democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together.” — Fred Magdoff Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University. He is a co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know […]
Lessons from a Long History of Dissent: From the Early Twentieth Century to Occupy Wall Street
World Peace Forum Teach-In, Vancouver, Canada, November 12, 2011 (Modified from Notes) We are at what social theorists call a “historic moment,” in which real change suddenly seems possible. It is therefore all the more important to learn from past struggles. One of the first lessens of a long history of dissent from the early […]
The Occupy Wall Street Uprising and the U.S. Labor Movement: An Interview with Steve Early, Jon Flanders, Stephanie Luce, and Jim Straub
The Occupy Wall Street uprising has taken the nation by storm, beginning in the Financial District in Manhattan and then spreading to cities and towns in every part of the country and around the world. The anger over growing inequality and the political power of the rich that has been bubbling under the surface for […]
Ennahdha-Qatar-United States: Dangerous Liaisons
For his first post-election trip, Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahdha party, visited the Emir of Qatar. No surprise — he has to thank his sponsors and reassure them on their investments. This visit is worrisome, since Ennahdha is now the leading political force in Tunisia. It is clear that the party is […]
Interview with Salim Lamrani: “The Economic Sanctions against Cuba Constitute the Principal Obstacle to the Development of the Country”
Salim Lamrani. État de siège; les sanctions économiques des États-Unis contre Cuba(State of Siege: The United States’ economic sanctions against Cuba). Prologue by Wayne S. Smith. Preface by Paul Estrade. Paris, Editions Estrella, 2011. 15 euros. CSF: You’ve just published a new book under the title État de siège. What exactly do you cover […]
Occupied Japan and Occupying Wall Street
1) Not long ago I heard a writer claim that her publisher had demanded that the word “manifesto” be replaced in the title of her novel. This is an Asian American woman who is feisty and strong-willed and political, who during readings calls out “blond boys” for flaunting the privileges of their maleness and their […]
I Woke Up One Morning and the War Was Over
America’s war in Iraq is over. The last U.S. troops will leave by year’s end, “with their heads held high, proud of their success and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.” So sayeth President Obama. A “sham of a mockery of a sham” is what Groucho would call […]
Occupy Wall St, Occupy Uruguay, Occupy Manila International Airport
In my last posting on #OWS, I related a series of conversations I’d had with global trade union activists on their perceptions of #OccupyWallSt. After the article appeared, several global labor activists contacted me with follow-up and feedback. Steve Faulkner, an International Officer at the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), wrote to say that […]
In 2012, Social Security Beneficiaries to Receive First Cost-of-Living Adjustment Since 2009
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent in September, and at a 4.8 percent annualized rate over the last three months. Core consumer prices slowed to 0.1 percent compared with 0.2 percent the previous two months. Rounding hid much of the measured fall in core inflation as prices rose at a 0.7 percent annualized rate […]
