Tomorrow is an important day for Venezuela. The elections to choose 165 members of parliament are taking place, and around this important event an historic battle is being waged. But at the same time, news about the weather is unfavorable. Heavy rains are drenching the land that was the birthplace of the Liberator. Excessive rains […]
Geography Archives: United States
The Policing of Political Speech: Constraints on Mass Dissent in the U.S.
Excerpt: To know that the United States is undergoing a highly orchestrated curtailment of personal and political liberties, one need not look further than police treatment of protesters in the streets. Those who speak out against government policies increasingly face many of the same types of weaponry used by the U.S. government in its […]
Venezuela: In Transition towards Socialism?
Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1 This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]
Palestinian Economic Dependency on Israel
Shortly after the 1967 Middle East War, many economic boundaries for transactions between the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel collapsed: both labor and goods could flow freely from the OPT to Israel and vice versa. At the same time Israel started to control the external borders of the OPT. A customs union was […]
Why Does Israel Still Occupy the Palestinians?
1. The Cost of the Occupation to Israeli Society The majority of Israel’s anti-occupation movement, unfortunately, does not focus on the rights of Palestinians to live free, but on the damage that the occupation causes to Israeli society (Sternhell, 2009). The arguments that the occupation is a major investment of resources that could be useful […]
Arguing Socialism
Michael A. Lebowitz, The Socialist Alternative (Monthly Review Press, 2010), 191 pp. Alan Maass, The Case for Socialism (Haymarket Books, 2010), 173 pp. Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (Verso, 2010), xviii, 394 pp. The economic crisis beginning in 2007 punctured the dominance of neo-liberal ideology, without completely overturning it. To accomplish that, and force […]
“Net Neutrality” Is Vital to Free Speech in the Internet Age
The mass media remains, in the 21st century, one of the most powerful forces blocking social and economic progress. It is because of the mass media that tens of millions of Americans are convinced that budget deficits are more important than the lives ruined by unemployment, or that Social Security won’t be there for them […]
Bradley Manning: American Hero
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public. This week, his supporters are holding rallies in 21 cities, seeking Manning’s release from military custody. Manning is in the brig for allegedly disclosing a classified video depicting U.S. troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in Iraq in July 2007. The […]
Mr. Ahmadinejad Comes to New York
As he has every year since becoming President of the Islamic Republic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is coming to New York this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Several important U.S. media outlets have either already conducted (MSNBC, ABC) or will conduct (PBS’ Charlie Rose and CNN’s Larry King) interviews with Ahmadinejad in connection with […]
Cubans Sign Books of Condolences for Lucius Walker
Among those who signed the books of condolences, leaving diverse expressions of love and respect, are students of the Latin American School of Medicine who are from the United States, the youth that the Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of Pastors for Peace, brought to Cuba. At the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos […]
Banks’ Monopoly Capital and Basel 3
The new regulations on banks’ capital requirements known as Basel 3, made known to the public in mid-September, are a major institutional boost to the monopolistic position of the largest banks.1 In the new framework the capital that banks must hold against lending activities has been raised from a ratio of 2%, established by Basel […]
They Plunder, or We Run a New Commonwealth
The sky has been overcast for decades. Since 1973 the income, working conditions, and life prospects of common people in the United States have been ground down. In 2008 the storm arrived. A huge recession poured down sheets of unemployment, took away health care from four million more people, and pushed the carrot of retirement […]
China, Iran, and Neocon Push for Secondary Sanctions
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based neoconservative “think tank” that has consistently promoted hard-line policies against the Islamic Republic, came out with what it describes as “a comprehensive report . . . identifying 10 major Chinese energy companies that continue to do business with Iran in spite of international sanctions.” According […]
The New Mercantilists
For several centuries — between the 15th and the early 19th centuries — mercantilist theories dominated the attitude to trade in Europe. This was the belief that an economy that had positive net exports (through exports being greater than imports) would be wealthier because it would lead to an inflow of bullion, or assets, and […]
The Flag, Captured
Arnaldo Testi. Capture the Flag: The Stars and Stripes in American History. Translated by Noor Giovanni Mazhar. New York and London: New York University Press, 2010. 165 pages, $22.95, cloth. There’s no shortage of iconic images featuring the United States flag — Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Spirit of ’76, Iwo Jima, and the moon […]
How Does the World Bank Function?
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) was established at Bretton Woods in July 1944, at the initiative of forty-five countries that had come together for the first monetary and financial conference of the United Nations. In 2010, it had 186 member countries, with Kosovo its latest addition (it joined in June 2009). The […]
Against the Stream: Interview with Gideon Levy
For decades Gideon Levy has used the platform provided by the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz to shine a light on the brutal realities of Israel’s occupation. His journalism, along with that of his colleague Amira Hass, has been an invaluable resource not only for Israeli readers but, through the Ha’aretz website, for international audiences seeking […]
The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups
On August 26, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed the existence of a draft UN report on the most serious violations of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo over an eleven-year period (1993-2003).1 The massive draft report states that after the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s takeover of Rwanda in 1994, it proceeded to […]
Tony Blair, Europe, and the Prospect of a U.S. Attack on Iran
In connection with the release of his memoirs, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given a number of interviews this week in which he endorses the first-use of military force to stop Iran’s nuclear development. Blair’s statements on the matter prompted us to reflect on where European policies toward the Islamic Republic are really […]
Savings, Investment and Growth: Theory and Reality
Neoclassical economic models are based on the assumption that investment is financed from household savings. Accordingly, capital accumulation will be maximized by policies aimed at increasing household savings rates and capital imports (“foreign savings”). These models also predict that capital should flow from rich to poor countries, attracted by higher rates of return. However, facts […]
