Geography Archives: Jordan

  • Delphi’s Demands Provoke Auto Worker Resistance: Rank and Filers Strategize over Concessions

    After years of creeping concessions, United Auto Workers (UAW) rank and filers received an offer they had to refuse. When Delphi proposed to cut workers’ wages by two-thirds on October 8, the anger and anxiety wasn’t limited to those working in the struggling auto parts company’s plants — it spread to concerned workers across the […]

  • Culture and the Cashbox

    “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” — Bob Dylan The beginning of this year’s holiday season and the Major League Baseball offseason (when most of the trading and dealing of players occurs) has led me to ponder, once again, money and American popular culture.  The re-release of Bruce Springsteen‘s 1975 tour de force Born to Run […]

  • The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens

    The Lighter Side of Mass Murder Picture a necrotic, sinister, burned-out wasteland — a vast, dull mound of rubble punctuated by moments of bleak emptiness and, occasionally, smoking. Those of you whose imaginations alighted instantly on the Late Christopher Hitchens have only yourselves to blame, for I was referring to Fallujah.  The “city of mosques” […]

  • The Marketing Front: The Real Essence of Advertising

    In recent decades, many well-meaning thinkers and activists have peddled or purchased the idea that class conflict has somehow waned or been “de-centered” in the richer nation-states.  As workers in these countries have lost more and more power, and as vast tides of wealth have sloshed around in the form of automobiles, shopping malls, and […]

  • Ibdaa: Dancing the Spirit of Palestine

    [Lisa N. contributed all photographs below that illustrate Remi Kanazi’s essay. Lisa came back to the United States from her nine-month sojourn in Palestine two months ago. Over the last several years, she spent twenty-seven months in Palestine, working with Palestinians and Israelis struggling to end the Israeli occupation. She took some of the photographs […]

  • Bolivarian Venezuela

      [Click on the photos to see original images.] Part I. The World Festival of Youth and Students, August 8-15, 2005 Caracas, Venezuela, Seen from a Park Above Poor neighborhood — “barrio” — in Los Teques, the capital of the state of Miranda, near Caracas, where we spent our nights during the 16th World Festival […]

  • The New Model Army of Clowns:

    In the years since W’s re-election, activists around the world have re-examined their methods. Questioning the accustomed lesser evil electoral politics, the boring rallies, the bursts of direct action, and frustrated tears, a new cohort of political actors have emerged with a new series of playful approaches. They have turned to a uniquely distinct form […]

  • The Activists’ MC: An Interview with Rapper Son of Nun

    Most progressive-minded hip hop fans and culturally-inclined activists have not heard of Baltimore rapper Son of Nun yet. After listening to the Son’s first album, Blood and Fire, I can only say this: they will. Despite this being his first album, Nun — a high school teacher, activist, and organizer from Baltimore — is clearly […]