Immigrants to the developed world have frequently been blamed for unemployment, crime, and other social ills. Attempts to reduce or block immigration have been justified as necessary measures to protect “our way of life” from alien influences. Today, some environmentalists go farther, arguing that sharp cuts in immigration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions […]
Subjects Archives: Inequality
Haiti and the “Devil’s Curse”
Peter Hallward: The role that journalists tend to be comfortable with when it comes to talking about Haiti is the role of victim. If you ask why the Haitians are so poor . . . it has to do with three factors, all of which are functions really of Haiti’s independence and the strength […]
Humanitarian Aid
Open the Door! “Humanitarian Aid!” Sergio Langer is an Argentinean cartoonist. This cartoon was first published by Argenpress.info on 18 January 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print
Politics of the Earthquake: Respect the People of Haiti
In June of 2004, I went to Haiti with two other members of the Haiti Action Committee. We were there to investigate the effects of the political earthquake in which the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been overthrown by a coup orchestrated by the United States, France and Canada. What we […]
Wake Up, It’s Happening NOW!A New Immigrant Revolution Takes Shape
On January 1, five South Florida residents stopped eating in a protest action. They are demanding that the Obama administration take measures now to put an end to the deportations that are separating families — at least until Congress can provide more permanent relief by fixing our harsh immigration laws. The Fast for Our Families […]
No Guantanamos at Home or Abroad
Monday, January 18th, 2010 6 to 7 pm, across from the Metropolitan Correctional Complex (MCC) 150 Park Row and Pearl Street, NYC On January 18th, as our nation commemorates Martin Luther King Day, for the slain civil rights leader who peacefully spoke out against war, racism, and injustice, members of THAW (Theater Artists Against […]
A New Deal for Immigrants in 2010?
Congress is almost certain to consider some sort of reform to the immigration system in 2010; when it does, we can expect a repeat of the “tea bag” resistance we saw at last summer’s town halls on healthcare reform. The healthcare precedent “bodes badly” for immigration, Marc R. Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the […]
A Story of FIRE and ICE
This slide show is an online version of a small artist’s book that I made after coming across a video that documents an action by a group called Flagstaff Immigrant Rights Enforcement (FIRE) at an ICE management meeting. Tona Wilson is an artist in New York. Some of Wilson’s previous works may be viewed […]
Pro-single-payer Physicians Call for Defeat of Senate Health Bill
Dec. 22, 2009 A national organization of 17,000 physicians who favor a single-payer health care system called on the U.S. Senate today to defeat the health care legislation presently before it and to immediately consider the adoption of an expanded and improved Medicare-for-All program. While noting that the Senate bill includes some “salutary provisions” like […]
The Barefoot Doctors of Rural China
Cf. “In Mao’s era the health of the population was one of the country’s proudest boasts. But the market-oriented reforms of the 1980s and 1990s gradually shattered the country’s social safety nets, including its once famous healthcare system, making it difficult for many rural and urban residents to afford treatment. In reaction to this, […]
Iran’s Health Houses Provide Model for Mississippi Delta
A rocky, remote region of southern Iran may not seem the most likely place to look for a health care delivery model that would work in the U.S. But the remarkable success of Iran’s health house concept — in which small primary care centers are located in each community — is providing hope and […]
Selling Out Health Care Reform: Interview with Dr. Andy Coates
The battle for health care reform is heating up in Congress. The House has already passed one bill, and the Senate is debating another version. But as Dr. Andy Coates explains, both bills will fail in solving the health care crisis — and, in fact, place a greater financial burden than ever on working people. […]
On Being Detained by the Israeli Government
The NLG NYC Condemns the Israeli Government for the Detention of African American Political Activists 25 November 2009 The New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild condemns the actions of the Israeli government for its unlawful and racially motivated detention of two African-American political activists. On November 23, 2009, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, […]
Mexican Layoffs, U.S. Immigration: The Missing Link
On the night of October 10, Mexican police and soldiers occupied installations of Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC), the publicly owned electric company that provided power to Mexico City and the surrounding states. A few minutes later, center-right Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa decreed the company’s liquidation, merging it with the national power company, […]
Morbid Symptoms: Current Healthcare Struggles
Greg Albo and Colin Leys
Leo Panitch and Colin Leys have just brought out the 2010 annual volume of the Socialist Register, Morbid Symptoms: Health under Capitalism, published by Merlin Press in London, Monthly Review Press in the US, and Fernwood Books in Canada. The book provides a path-breaking assessment of health under capitalism, providing a systematic account of […]
Michael Moore Blasts House Health Care Bill
“The health insurance companies are going to make an extra 70 billion dollars as a result of Americans being forced to buy their health insurance. What company wouldn’t love this bill?” — Michael Moore, Toronto, 17 November 2009 Video via MichaelMoore.com. | | Print
Defamation
Director’s Statement I first had the idea to make a film about anti-Semitism when my earlier work Checkpoint was released. In one of that film’s many reviews, I was called “the Israeli Mel Gibson,” not because of my good looks, but because the views I had expressed, critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, […]
Freedom Dance Party
Saturday, November 14th, from 7 to 11 PM @ the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center for 1199 SEIU 310 W. 43rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Manhattan, NYC Dance performance by the Het Heru Healing Dancers and special surprise guests. Admission: $20 Food and beverages will be sold All proceeds go to […]
Say No to Health Care Legislation That Creates More Inequality
Kill so-called health care reform legislation UNLESS: 1) the public option is available to ALL; 2) the status quo ante is restored for private insurance coverage of reproductive decisions, including abortion; 3) public option coverage for individuals honors the complete reproductive rights of individuals; 4) the provision for government intervention into low income families […]
Questioning Assumptions about Gender and the Legacy of the GDR
If we examine the status of women strictly from the socioeconomic perspective, this portrayal of reunification [as the silencing in which traces of the East German social, cultural, and ideological framework were erased and replaced by the Western capitalist social, economic, and cultural framework] seems apt. Indeed, scholars persistently describe the reunification as a […]
