Subjects Archives: Ecology

Where is Harry Chapin when you need him?  The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger — in this country and around the world. To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a […]

While on May 1st, Workers Day, our people are joyfully celebrating this year, which marks half a century since the triumph of the Revolution and the 70th anniversary of the creation of the CTC, our sister republic of Bolivia, committed to the health, education and guaranteed security of its people, is just a few days or even hours away from suffering dramatic events.

“What I find a bit reprehensible is the tendency of certain Western voices to . . . raising concerns about China’s attempt to get into the African market because it is a bit hypocritical for Western states to be concerned about how China is approaching Africa when they have had centuries of relations with Africa, […]

For some time now the rising cost of food all over the world has taken households, governments and the media by storm.  The price of wheat has gone up by 130% over the last year.1 Rice has doubled in price in Asia in the first three months of 2008 alone,2 and just last week it […]

  On Tuesday, the same day as the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Hillary Clinton promised to “totally obliterate” Iran should Tehran develop a nuclear weapon and use it against Israel. Her comments, which were aired on Good Morning America, come at a time of increasing tensions between the US and Iran amidst allegations of Iran’s involvement […]

  The following statement was started by the participants in the Climate Change|Social Change conference.  Anyone who agrees with it is welcome to add their signature, and an updated list of signatories will be issued on a regular basis (contact: <[email protected]>.). It is being distributed to environmental, trade union, Indigenous, migrant, religious and community organisations […]

John Bellamy Foster, Marxist ecologist and editor of Monthly Review, addressed the Climate Change I Social Change Conference on “Capitalism and Climate Change,” Sydney, April 11, 2008.  Foster’s talk was part of a panel discussing “Climate Change and Its Social Roots.”  The conference was organized by Green Left Weekly.  Below is Foster’s talk in five […]

Nicolas Sarkozy has gone out of his way to sound pro-American.  He made a special visit in 2007 to Kennebunkport to have a cozy meeting with George W. Bush.  Since neither spoke the other’s language, they must have had translators.  So perhaps I might be allowed to try to translate what has been going on. […]

Fernando Lugo, a bearded, left-leaning bishop, is expected to win Paraguay’s historic presidential election on April 20th, upsetting a 60-year rule by the right-wing Colorado Party.  While escaping the heat of the Paraguayan sun by sitting in the shade of an orange tree, farmer union leader Tomas Zayas explains, “If Lugo is elected, it will […]

It is now thirty years since the People’s Republic of China announced its market reform policy at the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1978, under the then new leadership of Deng Xiaoping.  The policy followed the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the purging […]

When Henry Kissinger opines in an op-ed in the Washington Post, it behooves us all to pay attention.  There is a message there.  Kissinger has always presented himself as the supreme “realist” proponent on U.S. imperial policy.  But he has also always taken care not to distance himself too far from the conservative political Establishment. […]

The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change.  Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices.  Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our atmosphere and […]

The world appears to be on the verge of an economic crisis and, if it turns out to be as serious as some think, one that could rival or exceed the great panics of the late nineteenth century and the decade-long Great Depression.  The crisis began with unscrupulous mortgage lending on an enormous scale, leading […]

The battle against US imperialism and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has once again been taken to the streets of Mexico City.  On the 31st of January, hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers came out in protest against the free trade onslaught that the people of Mexico have been subjected to.  This time, […]

Mónica Baltodano was one of the Guerrilla Commanders of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) during the long struggle against the Somoza dictatorship.  In 1979, she was part of the command structure in Managua that directed the insurrection in the Nicaraguan Capital.  During the subsequent revolutionary period in Nicaragua, she served as Regional Affairs […]

Max Elbaum will be on two panels at Left Forum 2008: “The State of the Anti-War Movement” and “Looking Back, Looking Forward: The Legacy of ’68.” — Ed. WAR/PEACE AT THE PIVOT If the U.S. can be forced to withdraw completely from Iraq, many more positive changes become possible. But if the U.S. continues its […]

A two-day national agrarian strike against a pending Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States ended on Wednesday February 20th, leaving four farmers dead after President Alan Garcia declared a state of emergency and ordered a violent crackdown.  Farmers are demanding financial support from the government in the face of a predicted increase in […]

Except for a hardy band of neo-con optimists and the official apologists of the Bush regime, almost everyone is agreed today that the United States has gotten itself into a nasty, self-wounding mess in Iraq where it is fighting a drawn-out guerrilla war it cannot win.  At the same time, a very large number of […]

Written hurriedly in Caracas February 2008 Background These are some brief impressions and reflections in the midst of a short visit to Venezuela.  For 10 days I traveled with a wonderful group of 23, mainly from the New York City area (with delegates from Washington, DC, Washington State, and myself from Vermont).  It was led […]

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 […]