-
Circling the Wagons and Building Walls:Washington’s Immigration Policy
So Bush and company want to put thousands of armed troops on the border between the United States and Mexico. The supposed reason for this move is to stem the flow of immigrants coming into the US from the south. I have a feeling that this move will be probably popular in Congress and amongst […]
-
Immigration and Class
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, […]
-
Nativo López on May 1: “You Get What You’re Ready to Fight for”
NATIVO LÓPEZ is president of the Mexican American Political Association and a spokesperson for the Great American Boycott 2006 — a national day of action for immigrant rights on May 1. Nativo talked about the huge protests against anti-immigrant legislation and plans for May 1 with SARAH KNOPP, a teacher in Los Angeles and […]
-
Ruin, Rubble, and Race: Lessons on the Centennial of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
It’s as if the spotlight that Hurricane Katrina cast on the inequities of disaster relief never happened. San Francisco’s high and mighty are in full-throated self-celebration of the City’s “rising from the ashes” of the April 18, 1906 earthquake and fire. Forgotten are people like my great-great grandfather Lee Bo-wen who immigrated to San Francisco […]
-
A Note on Immigration and the U.S. Workers [Una nota sobre la inmigración y los trabajadores estadounidenses]
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 […]
-
Massachusetts Health Reform Bill: A False Promise of Universal Coverage
Listen to Steffie Woolhandler on Doug Henwood’s Behind the News radio show (6 April 2006). Read David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, “Mayhem in the Medical Marketplace” (Monthly Review 56.7, December 2004). It’s a stirring scene. The Governor, legislative leaders and leaders of Health Care for All standing in the State House Rotunda declaring […]
-
Minneapolis-St. Paul, 9 April 2006
Yiwen Cheng lives in Kansas City, and Stephen Philion lives in Minneapolis.
-
Latino Milwaukee
Click on an image to watch a slide show of the immigrant rights march in Milwaukee on 23 March 2006. SOURCE: Kristyna Wentz-Graff, “A Day without Latinos,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 23 March 2006 March 23, 2006 was a historic day for Milwaukee. It was a day of Latinos in a city that still thinks […]
-
Anne Braden, 1927-2006
Click on the image to watch video interviews with Anne Braden. The 6 March 2006 issue of the Louisville Courier-Journal reports the death at 81 of Anne Braden, the veteran Southern white civil rights leader and organizer of the fight for black integration and equality, and an American radical of untameable commitment who — […]
-
Antiwar Activists Arrested at House Appropriations Committee Hearing
Washington, D.C., March 9 — Two peace activists were arrested on March 8 for disrupting the House Appropriations Committee hearing on additional funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Mike Ferner and Ed Kinane of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, interrupted the hearing called to consider the $67 billion “supplemental” appropriation which was ultimately approved […]
-
Danish Cartoons: Racism Has No Place on the Left
I’ve just about had it. I cannot watch one more episode of the Daily Show which makes racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. I am sick and tired of people who see themselves as part of the left writing articles that put a liberal gloss over what is, in essence, a right-wing “clash of civilizations” […]
-
“As Free as the Words of a Poem”: Las Krudas and the Cuban Hip-Hop Movement
The fate of socialism after the fall of the socialist bloc will be determined, more than ever, by socialism’s capacity to sustain in theory and in practice the . . . idea that the intellectual’s adherence to the Revolution (like that of any other ordinary citizen), if the intellectual “really wants to be useful, […]
-
Las Krudas: Lesbian, Feminist, and Hip-Hop!
LAS KRUDAS Las Krudas <http://www.krudas.org/> is a Cuban hip hop duo, an interracial couple of HOT, HOT, HOT lesbians Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia Prendes. Their feminist lyrics and performance battles machismo and celebrates the power and beauty of women of color. In “Vamo’ a vencer la dificultad,” the track that opens their CD Cubensi, […]
-
In the Land of Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela — Under the elevated lines in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union has been waging a battle against poverty that has taken them to center stage of the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. Led by Cheri Honkala, a formerly homeless mother, the KWRU began by building encampments […]
-
Las Krudas: To Be Lesbian, Feminist, and Hip-Hop in Cuba!
Las Krudas is a Cuban hip hop duo, an interracial couple of HOT, HOT, HOT lesbians Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia Prendes. Their feminist lyrics and performance battle machismo and celebrate the power and beauty of women of color. In “Vamo’ a vencer la dificultad,” the track that opens their CD Cubensi, Las Krudas repeat: Sexo […]
-
Workers’ Rights ARE Human Rights — Not Just in the USA, but around the World
Click on the image for a larger view. Chicago, 2005 In the middle of a blizzard in Chicago on December 8, 2005, I stood with about 250-300 union members and supporters at the Haymarket Memorial, chanting, “Workers’ Rights Are Human Rights.” This was one of a number of rallies around the country that the AFL-CIO […]
-
Cuba and Venezuela: A Bolivarian Partnership
José Martí and Simón Bolívar, two of Latin America’s most respected independence fighters, recognized nearly a century ago that their homelands would never be free of imperial domination, until Latin America came together in solidarity as a united force. Martí and Bolívar’s insights remain relevant in the age of neo-liberal globalization. The colonizers of […]
-
Invisible Immigrant Workers in Our Midst
In October 2005, I ran into several Guatemalan guest workers in a village laundromat. My first guess was that they worked on a large dairy farm, but in my poor Spanish and their almost non-existent English, we managed to communicate, and they made me understand that their jobs were in new home construction! I […]
-
“We Will Educate Our Colleagues, the Policy Community, the Media, and Our Patients”: Physicians for a National Health Program Meet in Philadelphia
Physicians for a National Health Program held its annual meeting on December 10, 2005. Originally planned for New Orleans, it was relocated to Philadelphia after Hurricane Katrina. Founded in 1987, the organization has over 14,000 members nationally. PNHP advocates and educates for a single national health insurance plan: in the words of PNHP National Coordinator […]
-
“Airline Workers United” Forms to Fight Concessions Industrywide
Things seem to keep going from bad to worse for workers at Northwest Airlines (NWA). While striking mechanics and cleaners face a bitter winter after more than four months on the picket line, pilots, flight attendants, gate/ramp agents, baggage handlers, customer service reps, and other union workers face a fresh round of givebacks against […]