In a 1956 interview with Anna Louise Strong, Mao described American imperialism as a paper tiger. Of course, the military strength of the United States is unparalleled, especially because this country accounts for about half of worldwide military spending. Even so, the last three significant wars have shown that the country has been unable to […]
Geography Archives: United States
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 […]
Egypt’s Nour Party Leader: Onward to Salafi Pragmatism, Keeping Good Relations with US and Peace Treaty with Israel
Cairo — Emad Abdel Ghafour, the head of the Nour Party representing the Salafi school of Islamic fundamentalism, which is expected to make a great leap forward in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Mubarak regime, made the party’s foreign policy public, in an exclusive interview with Jiji Press. “We’ll strive […]
Labor Has a Legitimate Lien on Capital
When Steve Miller, the vulture capitalist who drove Delphi into the ditch of America’s dreams, declared, “Bankruptcy is a growth industry,” he was smiling, but he wasn’t joking. Bankruptcy in the US isn’t a sign of economic distress or mismanagement. It’s a business plan — calculated, cunning, and void of redeeming social value. American Airlines […]
Middle East Business Made Simple
US investments in the Arab nation ⇒ oil to the United States ⇒ US bombs and missiles against the Arab nation Mohamed Al-Zawawi, born in Benghazi, was a Libyan cartoonist. He died in Tripoli on 5 June 2011 at the age of 75. This cartoon was published, untitled, in Al-Thawra (The Revolution), date unknown, […]
Who Controls Capital? What Does Capital Control?
Who controls capital, and what does capital control? The concept of “capital” in this context must be corporate enterprise. By this metric the commanding heights of capital in the United States would be the Fortune 500 or 1,000, perhaps a thousand or so more, with an array of satellite firms numbering in the tens of […]
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 […]
Support Today’s Freedom Riders by Ending U.S. Support for Israeli Apartheid
Fifty years ago, Freedom Riders braved beatings and arson by supremacists intent on maintaining apartheid in the Jim Crow South. By challenging segregated transportation through nonviolent action, these African American and white activists set in motion a process that ultimately dismantled segregation. While the struggle for racial justice continues, at least this shameful chapter of […]
#OWS and the Young Trade Unionists
Cory McCray, Founder of the Young Trade Unionists, and George Hendricks, Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU) Rep and Vice President of the Young Trade Unionists (YTU) If you head down to the IBEW Local 24 Union Hall Auditorium on W. Patapsco Avenue in Baltimore on the first Tuesday of any month, you’ll encounter a meeting of […]
Qatar, Al Jazeera, and the Arab Spring
The leader of al-Nahda movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, made his first visit to a foreign country after the first post-revolution Tunisian elections. His choice was the State of Qatar. Analysts see many messages in this gesture but some Tunisians are troubled by the invitation he had extended to the Emir of Qatar. Although many do not […]
Debunking the Greek (and European) Crisis Narrative
In a recent debate the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination treated cutting the deficit as the panacea that would address the European crisis and prevent the United States from having a similar fate. This diagnosis is wrong but it is unfortunately not unique to the Republicans in this country. In fact, it is this […]
Occupy Your Education: A Note to Students about Changing the World
The current Occupy Movement has captured people’s imagination and refocused the national discussion on issues of economic injustice, social stratification, and corruptions of American democracy. Contrary to what some people might think, the Occupy Movement is not composed solely of “young, idealistic college kids.” People of many different ages, ethnicities, and ideological persuasions are […]
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 […]
Occupy Denialism: Toward Ecological and Social Revolution
This is a reconstruction from notes of a keynote address delivered to the Power Shift West Conference, Eugene, Oregon, November 5, 2011. All of us here today, along with countless others around the world, are currently engaged in the collective struggle to save the planet as a place of habitation for humanity and innumerable other […]
Occupy Wall Street: An Opening to Worker-Occupation of Factories and Enterprises in the U.S.
The Social Economy Context The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has clearly expressed the hopes and great potentialities of the working class both in the U.S. and globally. The 99 percent are speaking up and saying that they will no longer do the bidding of the 1 percent. In essence it is the revolt […]
Thousands of Children in the United States Endangered by Deportations
If the United States maintains the current pace of deportations, at least 15,000 children run the risk of becoming separated from their undocumented parents and placed in foster care, noted Prensa Latina. According to a report published by the Applied Research Center (ARC) on the 2nd of November, there are currently over 5,000 minors who […]
Legal Flaws in US Complaint Against Iran
The US allegation of an Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington is meritless as a matter of law, principally due to the egregious flaws and inexplicable discrepancies in the (amended) complaint in a federal court in Manhattan.
