Subjects Archives: Inequality

  • On the Global Waterfront: Race, Class, and the New Economy

      Join us for a discussion of race, class, and the new economy with E. Paul Durrenberger, coauthor with Suzan Erem of On the Global Waterfront: The Fight to Free the Charleston 5. On the Global Waterfront, new from Monthly Review Press, tells the present-day story of longshoremen in Charleston, South Carolina, who successfully confronted […]

  • South Africa: A Drive through a Xenophobic Landscape

      19 May 2008: Friends, this is simply an account of what I saw and experienced in a twenty four period.  It might be incomplete.  It is not an analytical piece as such, but I hope a small step towards trying to understand what had taken place in this city, in this country that I […]

  • One of the Biggest Civil Rights Cases Post-9/11 Is about to Take a Turn for the Worst

      Action Alert for Sami Al-Arian As we speak, the US government is manipulating the justice system to keep the high-profile prisoner Dr. Sami Al-Arian imprisoned indefinitely. Despite having never been convicted of any crime whatsoever, and despite being an upright citizen who dedicated his life to improving America, Dr. Al-Arian has been imprisoned since […]

  • Say No to Xenophobia

      As everybody in our country knows, the Congress of South African Trade Unions has been at the forefront of the campaign to create jobs and eradicate poverty.  For years we have fought to ensure that this struggle is taken seriously and remains at the centre of the national agenda. COSATU has done everything in […]

  • Predominantly Mexican Neighborhood to Host Dyke March [“Marcha por la diversidad sexual” en vecindario mexicano]

    Chicago, IL (14 de mayo, 2008) — La “Marcha por la diversidad sexual” tomara lugar por primera vez en su historia de 12 años en el vecindario de Pilsen, el cual es predominantemente mexicano.  Esta marcha, conocida en ingles como “Dyke* March Chicago” ocurre cada año en el vecindario de Andersonville, al norte de la […]

  • NYC Marijuana Possession Arrests Skyrocket, Illustrate NYPD Racial Bias, New Report Shows

      April 29, 2008 — The NYPD arrested and jailed nearly 400,000 people for possessing small amounts of marijuana between 1997 and 2007, a tenfold increase in marijuana arrests over the previous decade and a figure marked by startling racial and gender disparities, according to a report released Tuesday at the New York Civil Liberties […]

  • Our spirit of sacrifice and the empire’s extortion

    The first report I saw came from the Italian news agency ANSA on April 22.

    “La Paz, April 22.— A commission of deputies are to investigate the case of Bolivian scholarship student who died in Cuba, and whose body was repatriated without several vital organs, including the brain.

  • Playing the Race Card in the 2008 Presidential Election

    It is surely no surprise to readers of MRZine that, in a presidential election race in which an African-American man is not just the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination, but has a strong chance of winning the White House in November, racism has been front and center.  Four years ago, in his keynote speech […]

  • Leading Presidential Candidates Out of Step on Health Care

    “Do you support national (single-payer) health care insurance?” Click on the chart for a larger view. Sources: U.S. General Public: An AP-Yahoo! News survey of more than 1,800 people conducted Dec.14-20, 2007, by Knowledge Networks. U.S. Physicians: “Support for National Health Insurance among American Physicians: Five Years Later.” A survey of over 2,000 physicians, by […]

  • De Winter: Geert Wilders Is a Bigot

      AMSTERDAM – TV Producer Harry de Winter, President of the board of the foundation Een Ander Joods Geluid [Another Jewish Voice], today placed a remarkable advertisement on the front page of the newspaper Volkskrant.  De Winter puts Geert Wilders‘s criticism of Muslims in the same category as anti-Semitism. See below the de Winter ad […]

  • Barack Obama’s Speech on Race: New Challenges for Him, the Democrats, and Us

    Barack Obama’s speech on race, the greatest speech by a major American political figure in decades, elevates the discussion of race in America to a new level.  What makes this speech so powerful is not only what he said, but also what it requires us to ask and what it demands that we reply.  With […]

  • For the Prisoners of Guantanamo

    If I could be a bird I would fly to Guantanamo and perch on the barbed wire fence of Guantanamo prison and sing a song of praise of praise for your courage and sing a song of love march 18 2008; brooklyn; d.b. This poem by Dennis Brutus was posted to Debate, a discussion list […]

  • Immigration: The Facts Lead Us in a Different Direction

    In November 2007, the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors reducing immigration, released a report entitled “Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population.”   The report was covered widely in the media, and the author, Center staff researcher Steven Camarota, was given many opportunities to repeat his […]

  • Community Resistance to Immigrant Scapegoating in Prince William County

      Prince William County, Virginia has become ‘ground zero’ in the war against immigrants. Prince William has implemented a draconian policy targeting the immigrant community.  Mexicanos Sin Fronteras, a community-based, all volunteer organization, has been working tirelessly since last July to organize mass resistance. In October of 2007, the all-white Prince William County Board of Supervisors, […]

  • Talking Immigration with Mr. Block

    The comic strip adventures of Mr. Block first appeared in 1912 in publications of the Industrial Workers of the World.  With his thick, cubic head, Mr. Block, the creation of IWW cartoonist Ernest Riebe, typified a classic type of US worker: scoffing at the idea of working-class solidarity, Mr. Block always sided with his employers […]

  • North San Diego County Ready for Dialogue on Immigration

    The co-authors of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers have been facilitating dialogues on immigration at various places around the country since the book’s publication by Monthly Review Press in July 2007.  Below is a report on one of these dialogues, by co-author Jane Guskin.  Guskin will be on the panel “The Battle for […]

  • One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008

      The Largest Prison Population, the Highest Incarceration Rate The United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, including the far more populous nation of China.  At the start of the new year, the American penal system held more than 2.3 million adults.  China was second, with 1.5 million people behind bars, […]

  • Part-Time Professors: Little Pay. No Pensions. No Health Care. No Seniority. Now Organizing Unions.

    One at a time, the teachers came out of the sub-zero January cold and into the lobby of Wayne State University’s McGregor Hall in Detroit.  By the time the board of governors meeting began — where the teachers had three minutes total to detail their concerns — they were together in force. Before they went […]

  • The Failure of Human Rights Watch in Venezuela and Haiti

    The way Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the U.S. and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments.1 The Venezuela section of the report said nothing about ongoing attempts by the U.S. to overthrow the Chavez government.  It is a […]

  • Race, Poverty, and the Neoliberal Agenda in the United States: Lessons from Katrina and Rita

    Abstract The global economic system has come to be dominated de facto by institutions subscribing to and enforcing the neoliberal agenda.  Since the end of World War II, these institutions have sought not only to regulate but, in a manner reminiscent of classical colonialism, to control global resources facilitated by the emergence of the neoliberal […]