Geography Archives: United States

  “[I]t may be surprising to learn that faculty salaries are not a major component of the total costs at most universities.  For instance, at my institution, Eastern Michigan University, faculty salaries make up only 24 percent of total expenses.  So where is the money going?” — Howard Bunsis Conclusion: Yes, these are bad economic […]

  One side is the barely veiled alliance between Washington and Micheletti.  The other side consists of the Constitutional Zelaya Government, the National Front against the Coup d’Etat and the principal former presidential candidate linked to the latter who has decided to boycott the November 29 elections.  The candidate had formally taken his final position […]

Edgar White was born in Montserrat West Indies.  He has lived in the United States and England.  His plays have been successfully presented in New York, London, and Africa.  In the following autobiographical extract, he describes how his radical activities in the seventies led him to being sent down from Yale. for Cornel West It […]

  Abstract: Using Jowett and O’Donnell’s system of propaganda analysis, the present case study concentrates on America’s dominant propaganda messages, techniques, and media channels used in Iran during the time period between 1951 and 1953.  The chosen period is of historical significance since it entails the Iranian nationalization of oil crisis and the 1953 coup […]

  During my teaching career I’ve worked under nine different superintendents.  I’ve taught for nearly 30 years, so the average reign of a Milwaukee superintendent has been a little over three years, about normal for big city school districts. While some people, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, decry these short tenures as a […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its November 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We last commented on events in Nepal in our May editorial, following the attempt of the ceremonial president to exercise royal authority by “countermanding” the decision of the […]

  North versus South Cf. SOURCE: Financial Times, 18 October 2009 Laz (Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez) is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Juventud Rebelde. | | Print  

  I read volume 1 of Marx’s Capital while working on a production line in a food factory.  I don’t mean I read it during my tea breaks, I read it while “working” on the line.  I had an injury and was doing a ‘quality control’ job which entailed sitting next to a conveyor watching […]

  Saturday, November 14th, from 7 to 11 PM @ the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center for 1199 SEIU 310 W. 43rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Manhattan, NYC Dance performance by the Het Heru Healing Dancers and special surprise guests. Admission: $20 Food and beverages will be sold All proceeds go to […]

Alfred W. McCoy.  Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State.  Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. In the build-up to the Iraq and Afghan wars, liberal humanitarians and neoconservatives alike bantered on and on about the necessity of empire and its capability of removing tyrannical […]

Prabhat Patnaik.  The Value of Money.  New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008/New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.  Excerpt: “Introduction.” Prabhat Patnaik is an eminent and prolific economist who has worked creatively for 40 years at the intersection of Marxian and Keynesian theoretical traditions.  In addition to his writings on Marxism and Keynesianism per se, he has […]

President Obama will go to Asia and has promised to say something about the exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the U.S. dollar.  It would be good if some enterprising journalist asked him why the United States is worried about the Chinese dumping their dollars, and why U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said […]

Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome? There is something very Captain Renault about it.  We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption.  How ungrateful can they be? But perhaps we should consider […]

On 3 November 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted 344-36 in favor of House Resolution 867, making it Congress’ official response to the 575-page Report submitted by Justice Richard J. Goldstone to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the conclusion of a “fact-finding” mission on the Gaza conflict.  The Resolution does little […]

The End of Poverty? is a kind of bookend to Capitalism: A Love Story: if Michael Moore’s movie examines how private enterprise operates at home, writer/director Philippe Diaz ‘s documentary explores what happens when that economic system is exported to the Third World.  As scathing exposes of exploitation these nonfiction films share much — ironic […]

  Kill so-called health care reform legislation UNLESS: 1) the public option is available to ALL; 2) the status quo ante is restored for private insurance coverage of reproductive decisions, including abortion; 3) public option coverage for individuals honors the complete reproductive rights of individuals; 4) the provision for government intervention into low income families […]

“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 […]

Recent press speculation suggests at least even odds that, sometime in November, President Obama will give a speech announcing that he intends to send tens of thousands of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010.  Not a temporary “surge,” but a permanent escalation.  While certainly it’s good news — at least temporarily — that AP […]

The Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009 In 1982, I published a book, jointly with Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, and Andre Gunder Frank, entitled Dynamics of Global Crisis.  This was not its original title.  We had proposed the title, Crisis, What Crisis?  The U.S. publisher did not like that title, but we […]

If you were to wander about campus asking students at Purdue about the distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois in Chicago who was invited to speak at Purdue, or about the Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Class, Race, and Gender Inequality’s inaugural presentation on the challenges facing urban schools, […]