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Is It a State of Crisis Yet?
It’s time for the antiwar movement to take the US threats against Iran and Syria very, very seriously. Not only are stories of such threats appearing at an increasing rate in antiwar journals and websites, they are now a topic of concern on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, […]
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Acceptance of Torture in the United States
Without much examination of the concept, Americans are quick to declare that they live in a civilized society. Indeed, many Americans believe that their country is the most “civilized” country in the world. Without much digression on the arrogance of such a belief, it is sufficient to say that at least the rest of the […]
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Labor: Eyeless in America
Whoopee! The Change to Win Coalition has established itself in the labor movement! Happy Days are here again! Andy Stern’s going to lead us to the promised land! And the overwhelming response by American workers: yawn. At the time when American workers — indeed, US society as a whole — so much need a new […]
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Remembering Evelyn Wiener
Evelyn Wiener died October 8, 2005, at 91, surrounded by her friends and comrades. Her earliest memory was her parents’ two-week celebration of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Hiding her age to join the Young Communist League at 14, she was the Manhattan District Organizer for the American Communist Party in the 1940s. A childhood […]
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The Masters Make the Rules for the Wise Men and the Fools
One law for the rulers and another for the ruled. So decided English Chief Justice Bingham in his 1998 ruling granting the mass murderer (and former dictator of Chile) Augusto Pinochet immunity. His exact words were: “The applicant is entitled as a former head of state to immunity from civil and criminal proceedings of the […]
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Constructing Co-Management in Venezuela: Contradictions along the Path
[Below is a talk that Michael A. Lebowitz gave at el Encuentro Nacional de Trabajadores Hacia la Recuperación de Empresas (the National Meeting of Workers for the Recovery of Enterprises), organized by la Unión Nacional de Trabajadores (UNT, the National Union of Workers) in Caracas, Venezuela, 22 October 2005. The meeting was preparatory to el […]
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Three Films and a Nation
The number of films on national figures like Gandhi, Ambedkar, Savarkar, and Bhagat Singh, as well as films like Lagaan and Gadar, in recent years point to an interest in revaluation and reinterpretation of history, especially that of the freedom struggle, in India. That this has happened in the last few years needs an explanation. […]
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Strike for Peace: An Interview with Brian Bogart
Activist Brian Bogart asked himself: “Our top industry has been the manufacture and sale of weapons — and we’re a peace-loving nation?” Inspired by this paradox, Bogart created Strike for Peace . . . described on its website as an attempt “to highlight for everyone’s sake the dominant role of the military industry in America’s […]
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Iraq’s Constitution: the Dream of “New Imperialism”
In “new imperialism,” it is said, the American economy needs more instability abroad to maintain the health of its capital at home. Long before discourse on “new imperialism” became popular in the West, Palestinian intellectuals in refugee camps arrived at this very conclusion by simply reflecting upon the wretched conditions of their own existence. […]
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In Berlin — New Faces with Old Policies?
Everything has changed! Nothing has changed! Barring unexpected difficulties, a new coalition has been formed in Berlin. Gerhard Schroeder, confident, even arrogant until his final days as leader, has been replaced by the first woman in German history to head a government, and she’s an East German at that, though she has never yet pushed […]
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Cuba Today: A Nation Becoming a University
Introduction Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, this beautiful island in the Caribbean has aroused passions everywhere in the Americas. Since its inception, the revolution has had a profound impact on the popular classes throughout Latin America and haunted the political elites and wealthy classes in the United States […]
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Two Forms of Resistance against Empire
Today the planet is an immense gulag. The resources of the periphery of the empire — the great majority of human beings — are channeled towards the imperial centre — the richest countries — in the manner of a colossal funnel. There are now in the world two practical routes of resistance to the US […]
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Thinking and Acting Locally: Institutional Flaws of the Electoral System in Afghanistan
Much of the discussions surrounding the Afghan legislative elections on September 18, 2005 has centered on poll-related violence, logistical obstacles, and potential frauds. Lost in the discussions is a problem of much greater significance to the future of Afghanistan. The institutional arrangements of Afghanistan’s political frameworks are incapable of solving its most debilitating problem — […]
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History Can Guide Us: Toward a Third Reconstruction
“Then came this battle called the Civil War, beginning in Kansas in 1854, and ending with the presidential elections of 1876, twenty awful years. The slave went free, stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again towards slavery. The whole weight of America was thrown to color caste.”1 — W.E.B. DuBois, Black […]
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The Euro — Going Global, Making Trouble: Why the Europeanization of “Modell Deutschland” Does Not Make a World Currency
Going Global Supporters and even critics of the European Monetary Union (EMU) often see its policies — its rejection of Keynesian demand management that was written into the Maastricht Treaty and later transformed into the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), as well as its monetarist belief in the priority of anti-inflationary policies over any other […]
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Becoming Conscious of Our Own Strength: Gabriele Zamparini Listens to Voices of Dissent
An Italian-born former law student, Gabriele Zamparini moved to the States in 1998 where he worked as an Italian teacher and freelance journalist. It was post-9/11 when Zamparini got the idea to make a documentary about “the fast growing, grassroots peace movement” he was witnessing in America. The result was a seven-part film series called […]
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Flexibility for Whom?
MANUFACTURING DISCONTENT: The Trap of Individualism in Corporate Society by Michael PerelmanBUY THIS BOOK Imagining the workplace as a network of voluntary relationships has dire political implications. For example, in 1997, a California state agency, the Industrial Welfare Commission, bowing to employer pressure voted to reinterpret an overtime regulation dating back to 1918. For almost […]
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An Interview with John S. Saul
[John S. Saul is professor emeritus of politics at York University in Toronto. He is the author of many highly-acclaimed books on the politics of southern Africa, including Recolonization and Resistance: Southern Africa in the 1990s, Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword, The Crisis in South Africa, and A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism […]
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An Homage to Walter Benjamin: Arcades, Barricades, and Public Sex
The exiled German philosopher Walter Benjamin, 48 years old, portly and with a heart condition, joined a hiking tour group in Banyuls-sur-Mer on the French side of the Pyrenees on September 24, 1940. He had no backpack, only a briefcase. He let the group return without him and spent the night on the open hillside. […]
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Farmed Salmon: Marinated in Toxics, Stuffed with Profits
The farmed salmon industry has recently been dealt yet another blow as the world learns about the contaminated product it offers for the public’s dinner plates. In June, 2005, a multi-national aquaculture company, Stolt Sea Farms, confirmed that nearly 320,000 of its farmed salmon from British Columbia were contaminated with the illegal fungicide “malachite green” […]