Subjects Archives: Ecology

Migration between countries occurs if and when it “resolves” social and especially class contradictions inside both of them.  One set of contradictions pushes people out of a country just as another set of contradictions in other countries pulls them in.  Finally, while migration “resolves” some social contradictions, it likewise engenders or aggravates others. These days, […]

Un espíritu del pasado está penando en América.  Pero ese espíritu no es un fantasma — es la emergencia de millones de mexicanos y méxicoamericanos, descendientes de los desterrados, a quienes se les negaron sus patrimonio en el suroeste de los Estados Unidos, y quienes están creciendo en poder y tienen hambre de justicia. La […]

The opening of the 39th Parliament of Canada on 3 April 2006 quickly revealed what should now be plain to all.  Under the Conservative Party leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canadians are faced with a government with an unambiguous right-wing agenda.  The outlines of the “Harperism” project can readily be discerned: there is a […]

  The view south-east across the bay from the hills of Las Hadas, the hotel zone in Manzanillo is especially beautiful in the evening as the sun sets and the white painted hotels and restaurants stretching for several miles sparkle in the sun, behind the curving beach.  It’s a major Pacific port for Mexico and […]

An insider’s analysis of what Corporate Bankruptcy Czar Robert Miller is cooking up for workers and communities in America by Delphi worker/UAW activist Gregg Shotwell, with an introduction by former UAW Executive Board Member, Jerry Tucker Gregg Shotwell is a machine operator for Delphi (formerly GM) — the world’s largest auto parts supplier.  He has […]

Si el pueblo trabajador en Estados Unidos ha de alcanzar unidad, autoconfianza colectiva e independencia política en el futuro próximo (¡y cuanto nos hacen falta!), la demanda del movimiento de los trabajadores inmigrantes de derechos plenos debe ser el primer punto en su agenda.  El pueblo trabajador en este país necesita darse cuenta de lo […]

Those hoping for left-wing unity in Germany have been on an emotional roller-coaster ride in recent months, with many dramatic ups and downs. The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) which has already renamed itself The Left (to which the letters PDS are usually added), has about 70,000 members, who are divided on many issues but […]

Los datos divulgados recientemente por el Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) confirman que la economía venezolana exhibió un crecimiento de 10,2% en el cuarto trimestre de 2005 en relación con el mismo período del año anterior, acumulando la novena alza consecutiva a partir del último trimestre de 2003.  El resultado final del PIB en 2005 […]

The more things change, the more they remain the same.  This commonplace contains more than a little truth of what liberal democracy has become in Canada today.  The daily political discourse might adopt a “compassionate conservatism,” a “social liberalism,” or even a social democratic “third way,” but all the parties agree that the benefits of […]

  The death of twelve persons on January 2 in Kalinga Nagar of Jajpur district in Orissa, when the police fired on adivasis (adi = original, vasi = inhabitants) protesting against state-directed displacement and demanding adequate compensation, once again demonstrates the impact of escalating “development” aggression on India’s aboriginal communities. According to the official version, […]

The following is a conversation with Heinz Dieterich about his friendship with Hugo Chávez, irregular war, the new Venezuelan military doctrine, and an account of the Bolivarian revolution in Latin America. Heinz Dieterich is a sociologist and economist.  He has been a professor at Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City since 1977.  Since the 1990s, […]

Click on the image for a larger view. Photo by Richard D. Vogel The NAFTA corridors system currently under construction will irreversibly divide the U.S. geographically, economically, and socially for the sake of profit.  The cumulative consequences of this “biggest engineering and construction project in the history of the U.S.” promise to be more damaging […]

Much is being made of George W Bush’s road-to-Damascus conversion on the need for alternative energy.  “America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world,” Bush said in the annual State of the Union speech given by US Presidents at the beginning of the year. Enthusiasts for renewable energy […]

In a recent Monthly Review article, Richard York and Brett Clark offer a historical analysis of how “ruling-class ideology gets smuggled into the damnedest places, including interpretations of the natural world.”1  The authors describe how ideology has shaped foundational concepts of natural history, enabling scholars to elaborate the theory of evolution in a way that […]

While it isn’t literally true that Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned (the violin wasn’t invented yet), he did build himself a glorious new palace atop the ashes.  And he was one of the prime suspects in the great arson of 64 a.d.  According the Roman historian Suetonius, “under cover of displeasure at the ugliness […]

  [The Los Angeles Times recently ran a series of investigative articles by Miriam Pawel on the problems of the United Farm Workers:  “Farmworkers Reap Little as Union Strays From Its Roots” (8 January 2006); “Linked Charities Bank on the Chavez Name” (9 January 2006); “Decisions of Long Ago Shape the Union Today” (10 January […]

In the late seventies, I joined the Peace Corps, fresh out of college with a degree in Plant and Soil Science.  Maybe I did it for for idealism, maybe for a youthful sense of altruism or adventure, maybe to escape a future of employment at Cargill or Monsanto, or all of these.  Whatever the reason, […]

Michael Steinberg, “The Architecture of Dreamworld 1: Like a Sex Machine” (31 October 2005); “The Architecture of Dreamworld 2: The Disarming Reflex” (17 November 2005) Hollywood has been declining for all of its history. The experts were writing off the medium in 1918. Audiences were probably grumbling that they no longer made films the way […]

Part 3: Systematic Bias “…an ingenious strategy for recycling natural disaster as class struggle” Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear Michael Hoover, “Rowboat Federalism: The Politics of U.S. Disaster Relief; Part 1: History: The Problems Are Inherent” (28 November 2005) and “Rowboat Federalism: The Politics of U.S. Disaster Relief; Part 2: Politics: The Electoral Connection and […]

  Despite union opposition in several countries, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) squeaked through the House of Representatives by only two votes on July 28, after passing the Senate a month earlier. CAFTA expands NAFTA-style free trade to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica — with the possible later addition of […]