Subjects Archives: Ecology

Senator McCain recently proposed opening up environmentally sensitive offshore zones to oil drilling in response to the recent jump in oil and gas prices.  He argues that increased offshore production will reduce dependence on foreign oil, in addition to lowering gas prices. However, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects that Senator McCain’s proposal would have […]

  Awash in oil, yet its people, for the most part, are destitute.  Nigeria discovered “liquid gold” half a century ago and today is the world’s eighth largest oil exporter.  But the country is plagued by corruption, inefficiency, underdevelopment, and an uprising in its Niger Delta — the area where most of its oil reserves […]

In April 2006, hundreds of thousands of immigrant rights protestors marched in cities across the United States.  They countered prolonged debates about the pros and cons of comprehensive immigration reform with a short but sweet affirmation, scrawled on placards: “No Human Being Is Illegal.”  Their direct assertion challenged the deeply entrenched practices of our government […]

  Paul Jay: Welcome back to our interview with Aijaz Ahmad, asking a question: “what would a rational US foreign policy for the United States look like?”  Aijaz, at the core of much of US foreign policy is the assumption that the United States needs its military prowess to defend its oil interests, whether it’s […]

Adam Hanieh, “Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power: Part 2,” MRZine, 19 July 2008. Over the last six months, the Palestinian economy has been radically transformed under a new plan drawn up by the Palestinian Authority (PA) called the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP).  Developed in close collaboration with institutions […]

In 2006, things seemed to be going badly for the U.S. military efforts in Iraq.  The Iraq war became a top issue in the 2006 Congressional elections in the United States.  It is generally agreed that the Republicans did poorly in those elections, largely because the U.S. electorate had become disillusioned with the viability and […]

Housing and securities prices are going down; food and fuel prices are rising.  How will these opposite trends affect our economy looking ahead? The real estate bubble (US capitalism’s latest toxic mix of profit-driven over-investment, over-lending, and financial fraud) is in full “bust” mode.  Residential and now also commercial real estate prices are dropping quickly. […]

A telling remark about US imperialism’s double standards was uttered by Clinton-era deputy treasury secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who a decade ago was the driver of reparations claims against pro-Nazi corporations, assisting plaintiffs to gain $8 billion from European banks and corporations which ripped off Holocaust victims’ funds or which were 1930s beneficiaries of slave labor […]

President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy.  In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the “Axis of Evil” — composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — […]

People’s War in the Philippines Q1: The Arroyo regime has vowed to destroy or reduce the CPP, the NPA, and the NDFP to an inconsequential level before she steps down in 2010.  Is this possible?  Prof. Jose Maria Sison before a painting of the people’s war in the Philippines at the NDF Information Bureau in […]

Women in poor countries are bearing the brunt of the current food crisis.  Today we highlight some of the dimensions of the crisis as it affects women. The current food crisis is yet another reminder of the feminisation of poverty.  Women produce most of the food in poor countries, yet they have less access to […]

The high level summit of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations held in Rome on Food Security ended on June 5th.  The conclusions of the gathering do not indicate a change in the policy trends which have been in force these last years and which have led to the current situation. […]

  In even the most exploitative African sites of repression and capital accumulation, sometimes corporations take a hit, and victims sometimes unite on continental lines instead of being divided-and-conquered.  Turns in the class struggle might have surprised Walter Rodney, the political economist whose 1972 classic How Europe Underdeveloped Africa provided detailed critiques of corporate looting. […]

The excavation of fossil fuels was a one-time bonanza: it provided cheap energy that temporarily quadrupled the earth’s carrying capacity in terms of human population.  Instead of an ever tightening immiseration of the working class and overthrow of the capitalist system, as expected by Marx, the one-time gift of fossil fuels led to a standoff […]

Over the past decade, a new rise of mass struggles in Latin America has sparked an encounter between revolutionists of that region and many of those based in the imperialist countries.  In many of these struggles, as in Bolivia under the presidency of Evo Morales, Indigenous peoples are in the lead. Latin American revolutionists are […]

  Buffalo, NY — Dr. Steven Kurtz, a Professor of Visual Studies at SUNY at Buffalo and cofounder of the award-winning art and theater group Critical Art Ensemble, has been cleared of all charges of mail and wire fraud.  On April 21, Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara dismissed the government’s entire indictment against Dr. Kurtz […]

  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is currently holding an emergency summit in Rome that will be focusing on the ongoing global food crisis, but rejuvenating and protecting agriculturalists does not seem to be on the agenda. In the past couple of months, the attention of the world has been directed at the issue […]

The dusty calles (streets) and campos (fields) in Immokalee, Florida are abuzz with the news of a fresh victory over a fast food giant: Miami-headquartered Burger King.  Those farmworkers/campesinos who remain in Immokalee — the tomato season there ended in April — will probably get their news through the low-powered radio station, Radio Conciencia, a […]

It is 14th Jeth, 2065, [Tuesday, May 27th, 2008] in Nepal, the day before the Constituent Assembly is to convene and declare Nepal a full Republic.  The king remains in his palace.  The form of the new government, who will lead it, whether the old parliamentary parties will join in a Maoist-led government or, as […]

  Anyone walking a month ago along Rothschild Boulevard, one of Tel Aviv’s central streets, was probably surprised to see some 200 Arab women along with Jewish artists and intellectuals, marching to demand the right to work in dignity.  Only a couple of days after the attack in Jerusalem, these women made their presence felt […]