Geography Archives: United States

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has taken note of the decision announced by the State Department of the United States to impose sanctions against our national company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in the context of the unilateral US policy of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, known as the Comprehensive Iran […]

  Dear Mr. President: We, the undersigned members of the Older Women’s Economic Security Task Force of the National Council of Women’s Organizations, write to request a meeting with you and the Vice President to discuss the impact of the budget on women and American families and how women can help address the economic problems […]

Libya is neither Tunisia nor Egypt.  The (Gaddafi) bloc in power and the forces fighting against it have no analogues in Tunisia or Egypt.  Gaddafi has never been anything but a clown whose vacuous thought is reflected in the famous “Green Book.”  Operating in a still archaic society, Gaddafi could get away with adopting successive […]

President Obama’s speech to the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on Sunday predictably offered lots of “red meat” for pro-Israel constituencies.  But, in heavily veiled language, the President also made an enormously important point about the evolving character of international relations in the 21st century and what that means for the United […]

Arguably the most important reason for the international interest in Iran is its strategically pivotal geography.  Like some of its Muslim neighbours, it has tremendous oil and gas reserves.  For the United States, the revolution in Iran was nothing less than a geopolitical shock. Revolutionary dynamics in the Arab World have recently rekindled the debate […]

  Tariq Ali: I don’t think sanctions work.  They are essentially a symbolic measure.  Usually when sanctions are applied against a country, they affect the poor people in that country more than the ruling elites, as we saw for years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.  They had imposed a bloody sanctions regime, […]

May 18, 2011 In an effort to define the dominant narrative about the ongoing Arab awakening and America’s role in the Middle East, President Obama will give what the White House is billing as a major address on Middle East policy.  However eloquently delivered, the address will not be able to overcome or compensate for […]

What follows below is about the economic and political significance of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK hereafter), the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.  It will say nothing about the merits (or lack thereof) of the charges against DSK.  All cases of alleged sexual assault brought against high-profile men place two equally important […]

  Over 800 homeowners, clergy, and workers converged in Columbus, Ohio to directly confront JPMorgan Chase and deliver a message that Wall Street banks need to pay their fair share and stop foreclosing on America. For more information, visit <npa-us.org>, <ohorganizing.org>, and <showdowninamerica.org>.   var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print  

  April 7, 2011 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500 Re: An open letter concerning the crisis in Libya Dear President Obama: In 2002 you made the following statement: “I don’t oppose all wars.  What I am opposed to is a dumb war.  What I am opposed to […]

  STITCH invites you to join us on a ten-day women’s delegation to Honduras as we assess the impact of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) five years later.  Our labor solidarity delegation to Honduras, PUSHING BACK: WOMEN SPEAK OUT ON TRADE will take place July 27-August 06, 2011. Participants will meet with women […]

Intervention in the Name of Stability Professor Noam Chomsky recently delivered an important address in Amsterdam entitled “Contours of the World Order.”1  A large part of the speech was devoted to the role of the United States in defending its area of absolute hegemony.  According to Chomsky’s excellent analysis, the US relates to all countries […]

  Excerpt: On January 11, 2006, the United States signed into law the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which entered into force between the United States and Bahrain on August 1, 2006.  In light of the ongoing brutal repression of peaceful protest carried out by the police and armed forces of Bahrain and the Gulf […]

But Support for Renewable Energy Policies Remains Key to Reaching Goals Renewable energy is likely to become the world’s dominant climate change solution by the middle of the century, according to a new study by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  It has the potential to be more competitive than nuclear power, […]

If carbon emissions from energy production are the problem, is nuclear power the solution?  After all, nuclear reactors split uranium atoms to generate heat; no fossil fuels are used on site, and no CO2 is released into the air from the power plant itself.  Plenty of voices can be now heard advocating construction of nuclear […]

What Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas’ “The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization of the Antiwar Movement in the United States, 2007-2009” (Mobilization 16.1; now linked to MRZine) shows is that, in the United States, the anti-war/peace movement is much narrower and more shallow than many believe.  Whereas there remains an enduring core of genuinely […]

The men who executed Bin Laden did not act on their own: they were following orders from the US Government. They had gone through a rigorous selection process and were trained to accomplish special missions. It is known that the US President can even communicate with a soldier in combat.… A few hours after accomplishing that mission in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, home to the most prestigious military academy of that country as well as important combat units, the White House offered the world’s public opinion a carefully drafted version about the death of Osama Bin Laden, the chief of Al Qaeda.… Of course, the world and the international media focused their attention on the issue, thus pushing all other public news into the background.

John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York.  The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth.  Monthly Review Press, 2010.  544 pages. Climate change is often called the greatest environment threat facing humanity.  The threat is very real.  Unless we cut carbon pollution fast, runaway climate change will worsen existing environmental and social problems, and […]

  To Tea Partiers and supporters of the Far Right, Madison, Wisconsin has become the latest “Shining City Upon a Hill,” where one of their courageous leaders, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, is waging a heroic battle to tame big government and balance the state’s budget.  American Exceptionalism has always defined liberty as keeping government off […]

Statement of Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes, at the Special Session of the Human Rights Council, on the human rights situation in Syria, Geneva, 29 April 2011 Mr. President: Cuba condemns the hypocrisy and double standards on which the convocation of this special session is based.  Human rights are not its genuine motive.  The motive is […]