Prisoners in Colombia have recently gained new visibility. Prisoner protest actions are one factor. Another is discussion at the Havana peace talks of prisoners as victims of armed conflict. November 2014 marks the two-year anniversary of talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government. Beginning on October 20, hunger strikes […]
Subjects Archives: Inequality
Capitalism, Inequality and Globalization: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century
I. The Piketty Argument Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century embodies an immense amount of empirical research into the distribution of wealth and income across the population for a number of advanced capitalist countries going back for over two centuries. In particular Piketty has made extensive use of tax data for the first […]
Call for Solidarity with Kobanê
On Monday, October 6th, ISIS forces entered the autonomous Kurdish canton of Kobanê in Western Kurdistan (North Syria) following a siege which began on September 15th. Defending Kobanê are the skilled but ill-equipped People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), who are up against The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), […]
US Intervention Is Not Humanitarian and Will Not Protect the People of Iraq
Here we go again, the US is using a humanitarian catastrophe to implement imperialist objectives and pour petrol on fire. It is sickening to see Obama and the Western media shedding crocodile tears for the Iraqi people, after the US-led occupation pulverised Iraq as a society and killed a million of its people. It […]
Barbie’s Gay-Pride Shocker!
“Get out! Get out of here and never come back!” shrieked an enraged Barbie, as she hurled a tiny bedroom slipper in my direction. The dainty missile careened off an itty-bitty bust of Ken, then shattered the frame that held a photo of Barbie’s best friend, Midge. “Take your Gay Pride and shove it!” Barbie’s […]
Eduardo Galeano on Open Veins of Latin America . . . and Other Stories
As you may know, Larry Rohter of the New York Times spun this story as if it were a “God That Failed” episode. So, here it is in English, for the record. — Ed. In 1998, I interviewed the writer Rachel de Queiroz (1910-2003), and she confessed to me that she felt “mortal antipathy” […]
Regarding Barnard Administration’s SJP Banner Removal
On March 10th, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine hung a banner on Barnard Hall. The banner was placed after members of C-SJP went through the required bureaucratic channels and processes in order to give voice and presence to our week-long events as part of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), a global period of action and […]
Private Prisons Are Unconstitutional
A new report by In the Public Interest, available at www.inthepublicinterest.org/article/criminal-how-lockup-quotas-and-low-crime-taxes-guarantee-profits-private-prison-corporations, documents the increased use of private prisons to house the large and growing population of incarcerated Americans. We have the highest incarceration rate in the world, five to seven times that of comparable countries. See my article “Lawyers, Jails, and the Law’s Fake Bargains,” […]
The Epochal Crisis, Unequal Ecological Exchange, and Exit Strategies
John Bellamy Foster: My talk is called “The Epochal Crisis.” The term “epochal crisis” was introduced by Jason Moore to deal with periods in which economic and ecological crises intersect or merge. We are certainly in the greatest epochal crisis in the history of the world. . . . Now, we can also talk about […]
Orange Is Not New, and Prison Is Not Our Best Color
Twenty-five years ago, I, a hapless reporter on assignment, went to the DC Jail and met the woman who was to be my life’s partner. I interviewed her about her political bombing case; we fell in love; I visited her in various prisons for 11 years; she was released; we’re now spending the rest of […]
The Name of Peace Is Justice: Voices of the FARC-EP
The summer of 2012 brought news of dialogues between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) which would begin in November of the same year. These new conversations are of great importance for the Colombian people and for the continent as a whole. What is at stake is nothing […]
KCK: The Gezi Resistance Is a Message for a New Turkey
The KCK (Union of Communities in Kurdistan) Executive Council said that the Gezi Park protests, which began as social resistance, have sent a message calling for a new, democratic Turkey. The KCK called on the Kurdish people to take initiative, saying that the Kurds should fulfill responsibility by working with the democratic forces in Turkey […]
Facing Off: The Integration of Capital v. the Integration of Peoples in the Americas
João Pedro Stédile, second from left, speaks to the Peasant Movement of Papay in Haiti. Photo: Beverly Bell. João Pedro Stédile is an economist, co-founder and co-coordinator of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) of Brazil, and leader among Latin American social movements. He gave the following talk to hundreds of Haitian farmers at the 40th […]
Gay Liberation and the Taboo on Male Homosexuality
The following comments were made at a panel on the topic “Sexual Taboos and the Law Today” May 19 at a conference titled “Which Way Forward for Psychoanalysis?” and sponsored by the Society for Psychoanalytic Inquiry at the University of Chicago. While Freud and psychoanalysis were a focus on the event, other themes running throughout […]
The Revolution Against Homophobia in Cuba
“I think that the freedom that we have . . . is the freedom not to repeat things, it is the freedom to discover what is the path we have to build within our context, our history and culture, our aspirations, our sense of belonging, our ideology, what we love most.” — Mariela Castro Espín […]
Bradley Manning Blows Chance to Have Gay Wedding
Gay greetings, LGBT-town! I’m your out-and-proud lesbian pundit. You may recognize me from my latest blog entry, “How Gay Was My Condo.” Today, I bring you a hard-hitting work of in-depth political analysis re: Private First Class Bradley Manning. It seems some malcontents on the Board of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade have suggested Private […]
Immigrant Workers Are Organizing in New York — With or Without Immigration Reform
Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York. Standing in a picket line on a busy sidewalk outside a Trade […]
Celebrating Ethnic Cleansing
We went on “Israeli Independence Day” to Rabin Square, Tel Aviv, to celebrate the “ethnic cleansing” along with the people of Israel. We distributed maps prepared by Zochrot documenting the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the beginning of Zionism to 67. Reactions? The “best” you can find on the Zionist streets. Here […]
Imprisoned Oil Workers’ Strike Leader Roza Tuletaeva Starts Hunger Strike
On 22nd April, Roza Tuletaeva, one of the activists from the Zhanaozen oil workers’ strike, started a hunger strike. She has taken this extreme step because she has been refused essential medical aid at the women’s prison colony in Atyrau, where she is currently serving a lengthy jail sentence. She was arrested after the […]
Drones, Sanctions, and the Prison Industrial Complex
In the final weeks of a six-month prison sentence for protesting remote-control murder by drones, specifically from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, I can only reflect on my time of captivity in light of the crimes that brought me here. In these ominous times, it is America’s officials and judges and not the anarchists […]
