Geography Archives: Mexico

“It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.” — Edward Said On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “oppose unequivocally […]

Too Late to Have Free Elections This Month, She Says from Washington Washington, D.C. — Bertha Oliva, the head of Honduras’ most well-known and respected human rights organization, called on the Obama administration to denounce the “grave human right violations” in Honduras. “How can it be that the United States government is silent while Hondurans […]

  The Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 2009 I feel both honoured and gratified to be offering the 7th Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture.  This gives me the opportunity to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Tony for his unwavering support and friendship over the years.  When I […]

(for Hafiz) The stillest fall of all is the fall from grace.  No louder than a feather falling in a forest, and yet we fall.  There are many ways to kill a man.  Gun and knife will work well but to make a man irrelevant will also do, and what better way to ignore an […]

Among the conventional wisdom that we hear every day in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice, and strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital. Guess which country is […]

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to call for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. The vote was cast at the 192-member General Assembly with 187 in favor, three against and two abstentions. This is the 18th year that the General Assembly voted to urge an end to the US embargo. […]

  Author’s Note: This story was recently posted on CounterPunch.   Here I have corrected a couple of errors pointed out by readers.  The essay is taken from my book, In and Out of the Working Class.  I worked for the United Farm Workers Union during a sabbatical leave in the winter of 1977.   I […]

In June, the People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project visited Venezuela in order to assess the state of its healthcare system.  The People Before Profit Community Healthcare Project models itself on the Cuban community-based approach to healthcare, and has established a project along those lines in a small neighborhood in Washington, DC.  The visit was […]

The following open letter (Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report) was initiated by Jews Say No! and signed by hundreds of individuals and organizations worldwide.  The letter was also sent to Justice Goldstone.  Click here to sign onto the letter. Jewish Appeal to Support the Goldstone Report The primary author of the recently released […]

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), made up of approximately 43,000 active and 22,000 retired workers in Mexico City and surrounding states, is fighting for its life.  The union’s struggle has rallied allies in the labor movement and on the left in Mexico and solidarity from throughout the country and around the world, but, if […]

  Dear Indian Reader, Not that I would ever, ever consider you to be a dummy — heaven forbid!  After all, you are no US citizen of the (George Dubya) Bush years now, are you?  🙂  You are no placid ignoramus, incapable of pointing to ‘Eye-rack’ on a map, utterly untouched by any knowledge of […]

Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico.  The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the […]

The Mexican Preventive Police (PFP) are preparing to occupy the facilities of the Central Light and Power Company in Mexico City in an attempt to break the militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), according to a union press release.  The union warns that the quasi-military occupation of the plants could come within a week. The […]

Dear friends, This is a national appeal for your help in the effort to save one of this country’s most important Black History sites — an effort that has now reached a critical stage. Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom was once the site of the second largest slave market in the United States.  In the three decades […]

  President Hugo Chavez at the Venice Film Festival Chávez asiste a la proyección del documental Al Sur de la Frontera en Venecia Chávez: Sólo la unión nos hará libres y humanos, verdaderamente humanos Trailer of South of the Border (Directed by Oliver Stone)

Seven weeks after the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras, the divide between the United States and Latin America continues to grow — although you might not get that impression from most mainstream media reports. The strategy of the coup regime is obviously to run out the clock on President Zelaya’s remaining […]

“Amnesty” has become one of the dirtiest words in U.S. politics.  Immigration opponents use it to attack any plan — however restrictive and punitive — to regularize the status of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.  Immigration advocates avoid the word, substituting euphemisms like “a path to citizenship.” Amnesty’s big problem […]

The people of Honduras have now suffered more than 40 days of military rule.  The generals’ June 28 coup, crudely re-packaged in constitutional guise, ousted the country’s elected government and unleashed severe, targeted, and relentless repression. The grassroots protests have matched the regime in endurance and outmatched it in political support within the country and […]

It’s been a busy and interesting week regarding developments in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the U.S. First, there were reports in the Mexican media on July 29 that an investigation by officials from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police into the murder of U.S. independent journalist Brad Will affirmed the conclusions drawn by the Mexican Federal Attorney […]

Brasilia, 4 August 2009, ABN — The government of Brazil rejected on Tuesday the idea of holding elections in Honduras under the de facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed into power after the coup d’état on the 28th of June. That is the message sent by the principal international adviser to the […]