Geography Archives: United States

  • Carl Oglesby’s Ravens in the Storm

    Carl Oglesby was once the president of the original Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  Before that, he was working for a defense contractor.  His last project with the company was to develop a method of delivering Agent Orange so that it would cover the Vietnamese jungle (and the humans therein) with the chemical as […]

  • The Black Jacobins 70 Years Later

      This year marks the seventieth anniversary of C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins: Touissaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution.  This classic account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803 is one of the greatest books in the twentieth century.  Its title refers to the Jacobins, the most radical element within the French Revolution who propagated, […]

  • 2008: The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization

    The ideology of neoliberal globalization has been on a roll since the early 1980s.  It was not in fact a new idea in the history of the modern world-system, although it claimed to be one.  It was rather the very old idea that the governments of the world should get out of the way of […]

  • Five Years Later, Direct Action to Stop the War Reemerges

    After more than a decade of military aggression and genocidal sanctions, on March 19, 2003, the United States launched its most recent attack against the people of Iraq.  The following day, the people of the world took to the streets in protest.  More than 20,000 turned out in San Francisco to take part in coordinated, […]

  • Africom Threatens the Sovereignty, Independence, and Stability of the African Continent: A Position Paper of the National Conference of Black Lawyers

    The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) concludes that the mission of Africa Command (Africom) infringes on the sovereignty of African states due to the particularity of Africa’s history and Africa’s current economic and political relationship to the United States.

  • Our Encounter with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

    It was a bright, hot July day in Yazd, an ancient, oasis city in central Iran.  The five members of our 2007 People’s Peace Delegation were following our tour guide to see one of the city’s famous Wind Towers, which boast a hundreds-years-old form of natural air-conditioning. I had fallen a bit behind the rest […]

  • Puerto Rican Independence Movement under Attack in New York and San Juan

    “It appears to us to be a reinitiation of the harassment of independentists.”1 — U.S. Congressman José Serrano, speaking to FBI director Robert Mueller An unexpected knock on the door . . . men in trench coats handing you a grand jury subpoena . . . .  If you’re involved in the movement for the […]

  • The NNIRR and Immigration Reform: Time for a Clear Alternative

    HOUSTON, TX.  The National Conference for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (January 18-20) organized by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) took place during a critical period in U.S. immigration history.  Over five hundred NNIRR members, activists, and organizers (including numerous immigrants and their organizations) came to the conference to share their experiences, […]

  • The Erosion of the University as a Public Sphere

      In the interest of promoting individual and economic freedom, neo-liberal states have simultaneously deregulated and reduced the role of government in various sectors, giving power to the free market to allocate goods and services.  The university has historically been exempted from this process based on the widely accepted notion that higher education is a […]

  • The South Carolina You Won’t See on CNN

      South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston.  In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly.  The cops beat the crap out of the protesters.  Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot.  And of course, of […]

  • The Cost of War

    Sign the DEFUND/REFUND Petition Defund the war in Iraq Refund human needs at home and in Iraq The estimated cost of the first four years of the Iraq War is $1 trillion. For what we have spent for just ONE DAY of the Iraq War, we could have funded: * 95,364 Head Start Places for […]

  • Silence Will Be the Best Response: Regarding a Dutch Movie-Provocation

    Mr. Geert Wilders will launch very soon a short movie, about which nobody knows anything, where it is said that he is going to unveil the true negative essence of Islam, the unhealthy character of the Prophet, or maybe the Qur’an’s insanities.  Whatever is the content, one understands it is a pure provocation!  Silence would […]

  • The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process

    About 3:00 am on Wednesday morning Jan. 23, well-coordinated explosions demolished the iron wall built by Israel to seal the southern border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (the Philadelphi axis).  Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed across the border and entered the Egyptian side of the town of Rafah, which had been bisected by […]

  • Who Rules Cincinnati?: Seven Corporations Dominate Cincinnati’s Economy, Society, and Politics, Leading to Poverty and Distorted Development

    A new study titled “Who Rules Cincinnati?” published on the Internet today argues that seven corporations have dominated the City of Cincinnati’s economy, society, and politics, leading to “distorted development” and “grotesque contrasts between rich and poor” with “a particularly damaging impact on the African American population.” The study, a compendium of information on Cincinnati-based […]

  • Confronting US Imperialism in Somalia

      Towards the end of 2006, US-backed Ethiopian forces, with the direct support of American air power, rolled into Somalia to oust the Union of Islamic Courts that had restored peace and security in much of southern Somalia during their brief reign of power. The illegal invasion and occupation of Somalia that installed a puppet […]

  • Reply to Stephen Zunes on Imperialism and the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict

    Are there valid reasons to question the ICNC’s role in contemporary U.S. imperialism? We think so.

  • Africom: The New US Military Command for Africa

    On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom.  Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a military command for Africa; instead, U.S. military activities on the African […]

  • The Failure of Climate Change Economics

    In 1896, the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius developed a theory to explain the likely impact of burning coal on the climate.  Arrhenius claimed that, due to human activity, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere would increase, creating an “enhanced” greenhouse effect.  His theory did not enjoy consensus in his time, but the scientific community […]

  • The Futility of Sanctioning Tehran

    Do facts matter in international relations?  One day after the latest US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) established with high confidence that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, President Bush stepped in front of the cameras to declare that the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. […]

  • After Bali: Time for a Different Kind of Climate Politics

    “We are ending up with something so watered down there was no need for 12,000 people to gather here in Bali to have a watered-down text.  We could have done that by email.” — Dr. Angus Friday, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States In a narrow and formal sense, last month’s Climate Change […]