December 14, 2010 We did it! Teamsters across the country hit the pavement and collected the signatures we needed to accredit our campaign for General President. The election rules required that we turn in 33,437 signatures. Our goal was 40,000. Today, our campaign turned in more than 50,000 signatures to the Election Supervisor. It […]
Geography Archives: United States
Puerto Rico Student Strike Intensifies, Public Education and Civil Rights at Stake
Coincident with massive, at times explosive, student protests in Rome and London, the University of Puerto Rico has again become a flashpoint with a student strike beginning Tuesday that turned the main campus into a militarized zone of police, riot squads, and SWAT teams, complete with low-flying helicopters and snipers. What began as a conflict […]
Order Reigns on the Internet
Scarcely a day after the WikiLeaks disclosures of U.S. State Department cables the U.S. political establishment went ballistic. Some called for the assassination of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson, Julian Assange, whereas others wanted to amend the 1917 Espionage Act to target the website. Targeted “denial of service” attacks shut down the web site, and then the political […]
Secret Anti-Palestinian House Resolution to Be Voted on Today
The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation revealed today the text of a secret anti-Palestinian resolution to be voted on by the House of Representatives later in the day. The full text of the draft resolution, not yet made public officially, is reprinted below.* The resolution, introduced by Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the […]
A New Bandung?
Would you say that you’re among the pessimists who regard the five decades of African independence as five lost decades? I’m not a pessimist and I don’t think that these have been five lost decades. I remain extremely critical, extremely severe with respect to African states, governments, and political classes, but I’m even more […]
Lift Sanctions against Iran: Interview with Hooman Majd
Hooman Majd: Most average Americans, if they only follow the news on Iran the way it is presented, wouldn’t even know that there is a parliament, wouldn’t even know that there are three branches of government in Iran, like America: there’s the executive; there’s the legislative, which is the parliament; and there’s the judiciary. […]
Television in Venezuela: Who Dominates the Media?
It is commonly reported in the international press, and widely believed, that the government of President Hugo Chávez controls the media in Venezuela. For example, writing about Venezuela’s September elections for the National Assembly, the Washington Post‘s deputy editorial page editor and columnist, Jackson Diehl, referred to the Chávez “regime’s domination of the media. […]
Egyptian Elections and US Foreign Policy
Reed Lindsay: It’s election day in Egypt, the second round of parliamentary balloting. But in this working-class suburb of Cairo, few people seem to care. “There are no free and fair elections. All the opposition parties withdrew. A lot of us are unemployed. So why should we vote?” “All we are seeing is corruption, […]
The Healthcare Is Too Damn High
“If you’re really worried about the deficits, then you should be really worried about health care costs.” Alan Barber is Domestic Communications Coordinator of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Cf. “The cuddly creature on the left sounds a lot like the US media, and the one on the right does a pretty good […]
Can We Be Feminist and Religious?
“We aim to show that religion does not have to be a dividing force between feminists.” A shorter version of the video may be viewed at <vimeo.com/16522936>. | Print
Waiting for Flying Saucers?
UAW President Bob King and his corporate partners at GM, Ford, and Chrysler-Fiat will blame the competition they’ve rigged on workers and relentlessly degrade them into believing they are worth less and less as profits rise. That’s not a guess, it’s the drill. History lessons must be revised before the profiteers of war and labor […]
Ex-offenders and the Labor Market
Executive Summary: We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders’ prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that […]
Why Should Iran Trust President Obama?
In the run-up to a new round of nuclear talks between the P5+1 and Iran on Monday, Western commentators are re-hashing old arguments that the Islamic Republic is either too politically divided or too dependent on hostility toward the United States for its legitimacy to be seriously interested in a nuclear deal. From this perspective, […]
Korea: Still an Unknown War
Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2010. Cloth, $24.00, pp 288. Any time that a book appears by Bruce Cumings, one of our foremost scholars on Korea, it merits attention. His latest book, The Korean War, is particularly welcome given the recent sharp increase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula. […]
Fire in My Belly
wo * * * “When he died in 1992, David Wojnarowicz, artist and writer with AIDS, left a body of work about the disease that remains unrivaled for its power and beauty. On December 1, 2010, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC celebrated World AIDS Day by capitulating to the demands of […]
The College Conundrum: Why the Benefits of a College Education May Not Be So Clear, Especially to Men
Excerpt (Endnotes Omitted): At least since the early 1990s, the share of young people earning a four-year college degree has not increased as quickly as many economists would like. A higher share of young people today have college degrees than at any point in our nation’s history, yet many economists remain concerned that the […]
Cancun Climate Conference: Some Key Issues
A year after the chaotic Copenhagen summit, the 2010 UNFCCC climate conference begins in Cancun. Expectations are low this time around, especially compared to the eve of Copenhagen. That’s probably both good and bad. The conference last year had been so hyped up beforehand, with so much hopes linked to it, that the lack of […]
If China Wants to Pay for Our Vacations, Should We Let Them?
Trade disputes with China have been heating up lately, but there really is no reason for the hostility. Essentially the dispute boils down to the fact that China wants to subsidize the consumption of people in the United States and elsewhere, by propping up the value of the dollar. This is raising objections from the […]
The FBI and the Murder of a Black Panther: From COINTELPRO to Post 9/11 Repression
It was cold in the tiny, windowless interview room at the Wood Street Police Station. I looked across the wooden table at the large-boned woman with a short Afro who was shaking and sobbing. . . . “Fred never really woke up,” she said. “He was lying there when they pulled me out of […]
Contrary to Media Spin on WikiLeaks Release, Iran Is Hugely Popular among Arabs
The media spin on the latest batch of WikiLeaks revelations gives the impression that, next to Israel, it’s the Arab states that are most energetically pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. In terms of the real threat to Iran, that’s definitely putting the cart before the horse. In the first place, the Arab governments mentioned […]
