Geography Archives: Vietnam

While much of the media focused in late May on another failed search for Jimmy Hoffa, the long dead former leader of the Teamsters union, the living members of the Teamsters had to contend with a union increasingly in disarray under the leadership of his son — James P. Hoffa, Jr. The current problems center […]

International intrigues and eventually war — with all its now daily horrors — flow partly from the highly unstable economics of global oil.  Not only has this been true for a long time, it promises to continue that way unless and until some mass movement ends it.  The report of US planning to bomb Iran […]

We have pledged to help reclaim the honor of the United States of America.  Accordingly, we call for the impeachment of the president of the United States, George W. Bush. Since lying in combat could needlessly cost the lives of fighting men and women, West Point graduates have been trained to live by a code […]

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, Iran must really adore the American model of state conduct.  Contrary to popular perceptions, the decision-makers in Tehran agree with their nemesis, Akbar Ganji, who recently told the Voice of America that the West was “the cradle of civilization.”  Two recent moves by Iran are especially noteworthy […]

The current debate in Congress over the war in Iraq has put the myth of victory and its opposite — surrender– back on the front pages.  These are actually more than myths; they are genuine misrepresentations of what’s happening in Iraq — lies, in other words.  It doesn’t really matter, though, because those who want […]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEOLIBERALISM by David HarveyBUY THIS BOOK Neoliberalism has left an indelible, smoldering mark on our world for the last thirty years.  Eminent Marxist geographer David Harvey, author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, 2005), spoke earlier this year to Sasha Lilley, of the radical radio program Against the Grain, about […]

Even before Iran was rocked by the mass uprising of 1978-79, I understood that moralists of all stripes shroud certain tragedies with unique reverence as a means of discouraging dissent.  Three decades later, Iran’s opposition movement — and occasionally Human Rights Watch — are grounded in orthodoxies of their own even as they struggles against […]

In one of her last essays published in the United Kingdom, the late Susan Sontag compared the pictures of tortured Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with the photographs “of black victims of lynching taken between the 1880s and 1930s, which show smalltown Americans, no doubt most of them church-going, respectable citizens, […]

STRANGE LIBERATORS: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit by Gregory Elich (with Michael Parenti’s Introduction and Mickey Z’s Afterword)BUY THIS BOOK I first met Greg Elich more than two years when we were both speakers at the One Dance People’s Summit.  We’ve since become friends and I was proud to write the afterword for […]

  Australian troops are back in Timor.  But this time, their imperialist agenda is a lot more obvious. In 1999, the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia.  The  Indonesian military and its puppet militias retaliated by wrecking the place and killing over 1,000 people.  Australian Prime Minister John Howard then sent in […]

WHO THE HELL IS STEW ALBERT? by Stewart Edward AlbertBUY THIS BOOK Stew Albert had one of his smart, funny ideas when he was thinking about a name for his memoir.  “My Sixties,” he said was going to call it.  He was in his late fifties when we kicked this one around and I thought […]

MAY 6, 2006, New York City Stew Albert Photo by Robert Altman © 2006 Stew Albert was our troubadour, poet, writer, our cherished moral center. On May Day 1971, in Washington DC during the May Day antiwar demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of activists to shut down the city, Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo […]

There’s a great tradition amongst the world’s citizenry that is perhaps best expressed in the words spoken by the late Berkeley radical Mario Savio.  During the Free Speech actions of 1964 that were aimed at the University of California’s repressive administrative dictates against student and staff political activity, Mario said:  There’s a time when the […]

Michael Hoover, “Whose Domain? Private Power, Public Policy, and Local Politics” (17 March 2006); “Zoned Out: The Politics of Community Exclusion” (8 April 2006) Until the 1930s, the U.S. government had little direct involvement with local governments. In altering that situation, the New Deal response to the Great Depression included direct grants of federal money […]

Robert Ellsberg is a well-known activist and author of numerous books, but most importantly, a tireless advocate for social justice and a witness to the lives of others whose integrity and purpose provide useful models.  His most recent book is Blessed Among All Women: Women Saints, Prophets and Witnesses for Our Times.  One of my […]

Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, the author’s mother, after the war in Austria.  She was in a Displaced People camp. Every night as we watched the news on television my mother would avert her eyes and raise her hand to block the screen when scenes from Vietnam flashed across it.  After a few moments the question would […]

The man who shocked the nation by changing his name has sold that name for cash.  Last month, Muhammad Ali™ was paid $50 million by CKX, an entertainment and licensing firm, in return for an 80 percent interest in his name and likeness. So, before Muhammad Ali™ becomes a corporate logo, let’s pause to recall […]

On April 30, 1970, Richard Nixon told the world that US forces were invading the country of Cambodia.  Within twenty-four hours of his announcement, the streets of many cities and towns around the United States and elsewhere were filled with angry protests against the US action.  On May 4, National Guard troops opened fire on […]

IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal (Hardcover) by Anthony Arnove (Introduction by Howard Zinn)BUY THIS BOOK Coherent.  That’s the one-word review of Anthony Arnove’s latest book, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal (New Press, April 2006).  Incoherent.  That’s what Washington’s policy in Iraq seems to be.  What makes Arnove’s book so important is that he dissects that […]

Michael Lerner, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005). Dearly beloved leftists and friends.  It’s 2006 and we’re gathered here together uncomfortably discussing why so few of us are […]