Subjects Archives: Movements

  • Mousavi Makes Five Proposals

      Former presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has issued a statement in which he condemned the disrespect of religious sanctities by some protesters on Ashura day (December 27) and made five proposals for resolving the current issues facing the country, the Tabnak website reported on Friday. The reformist politician also criticized some of the actions taken […]

  • Between a Rock and a Hard Place

      On December 31, 2009, a march and demonstration is planned in the Gaza Strip to protest the occupation and siege of the territory.  Tens of thousands of Gazan residents, joined by hundreds of marchers from the U.S. and around the world, are expected to take part in this historic act of civil disobedience. The […]

  • Gaza Aid Convoy Members on Hunger Strike

      Sunday 28 December 10.35am. Aqaba, Jordan The compound where our convoy members gather during the day, here in Aqaba, is full of activity.  In exactly an hour, more than 30 of us will begin a hunger strike in protest at Egypt’s refusal to allow the convoy entry onto its soil. Everyone else is making […]

  • The right of Humanity to Exist

    Climate change is already causing considerable damage and hundreds of millions of poor people are suffering the consequences.

  • Labor Movement?

    The 2010 Statistical Abstract of the United States (and especially Tables 574 to 650), published by the US Census Bureau, provides many statistics that can update understanding of today’s working class and possibilities of its movement.  The Abstract counts 154 million people as members of the US labor force in 2008.  Of these, 129 million […]

  • Senate Speech Heralds a New Social Movement

      This week, the sincere effort of millions of people across the nation once again proved effective in the face of determined opposition from the White House and Congress, as single payer health reform reached another milestone in its historic journey. When the Senate initiated its debate on health insurance reform, Senator Bernie Sanders offered […]

  • The Truth of What Happened at the Summit

    The youth is more interested than anyone else in the future. Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive. These are not dramatic phrases. We must get used to the true facts. Hope is the last thing human beings can relinquish. With truthful arguments, men and women of all ages, especially young people, have waged an exemplary battle at the Summit and taught the world a great lesson.

  • SMS Iran (after Gilles Peress)

      Every gathering with a foretold script.  The security barriers mark a neutered zone for dissent.  Finally though, there is this one day in Brooklyn.  The air is traversed (by bridge) and the marchers walk from one bank to another.  It isn’t a miracle but it is beautiful.  x number of women and men for […]

  • Sumac Kawsay/Buen Vivir

    Perhaps because I am a Brazilian, the first time I heard the expression “buen vivir,” I immediately thought of “boa vida,” a term which in our country is used pejoratively to refer to an easy, tranquil, and carefree life: no work, plenty of evening strolls, luxury at the expense of others, and zero political consciousness.

  • The Moment of Truth

    The news from the Danish capital gives a picture of chaos. After planning a conference with about 40 thousand people in attendance, the hosts find it impossible to honor their promise. Evo, the first of the two presidents of ALBA-member countries to arrive, stated some truths derived from the millennium-old culture of his people.

  • Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategy: Implications for the United States

    We want to draw your attention to a brilliant piece, “Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategy After Saddam,” just published by Kayhan Barzegar, an Iranian scholar and foreign policy analyst currently at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  We have previously posted about an Op Ed that Barzegar published on Iranian perspectives about […]

  • The Manama Dialogue and Iran’s Pivotal Regional Role

      But for Iran, the 6th Manama Dialogue would have failed to achieve its very objective, namely serving as a forum for debating regional security.  Held in Bahrain from 11 to 13 December, the occasion attracted Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki following a two-year absence from the annual event. Senior Iranian officials shunned the 2007 […]

  • Crisis, Populist Neoliberalism, and the Limits to Democracy in Mexico

    Forbes magazine recently placed two Mexicans, Carlos Slim and Joaquín Guzmán, high on their list of the most powerful people in the world.  Carlos Slim is the world’s third-richest man and CEO of a telecommunications company and Joaquín Guzmán is the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel.  While the purpose and the methodology of this […]

  • Mexican Electrical Workers Union Changes Strategy in Face of Calderón Government’s Intransigence

    The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) continues its fight for its members’ jobs and for the union itself, but now, two months since President Felipe Calderón’s liquidation of the state-owned Light and Power Company, seizure of the facilities, and firing of the 44,000 workers, and faced with the government’s intransigence, the union has been forced […]

  • US-Iran Talks: The Road to Diplomatic Failure

      The talks between the G5 plus 1 and Iran are careening toward a premature breakdown.  If they do fall apart, it will be due in large part to a serious diplomatic miscalculation by the Obama administration. Along with its European allies, the Obama administration seized on a plan that cleverly asked Iran to divest […]

  • Iran: Six Months Later

    It has been a hell of a year for Iran. Just last winter the nation’s elites were basking in 30 years of revolutionary triumph, launching satellites, enriching uranium, and holding neocon hawks at bay. Then, weeks of fervent presidential campaigning drew out the best and worst of Iranian society’s antagonisms, culminating in a poll exactly six months ago. Overnight the revolution’s orphans and cosmopolitan have-nots demanded their say. As a divided nation literally filled Tehran’s streets, cheerful jeering and honking horns turned into vigilantes with batons and street gangs with bonfires.

  • Nanotechnology: An Industrial Revolution?

      One of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing industries in the world today is based on nanotechnology.  The U.S. government spends $1.5 billion a year on nanoresearch funded by 25 federal agencies under the National Nanotechnology Initiative of 2003.  There are many new journals with “nano” in their titles and dozens more journals […]

  • Prueba de fraude electoral en Honduras

      The Real News tiene prueba de como el Tribunal Supremo Electoral de Honduras reportaron cifras equivocadas.  Cifras, se dice, han servido para consolidar el golpe de estado. Realizado por Jesse Freeston, desde Honduras.  In English: Jesse Freeston, “Honduran Elections Exposed” (The Real News, 6 December 2009). | | Print  

  • Obama’s Cynical Action was Uncalled For

    In the final paragraphs of a Reflection entitled “The Bells Are Tolling For the Dollar,” published two months ago, on October 9, I mentioned the climate change problem brought on humanity by imperialist capitalism. With regards to carbon emissions I said: “The United States is not making any real effort but accepting just a 4% reduction with respect to the year 1990.” At that moment, scientists were demanding a minimum of 25 to 40 percent by the year 2020.

  • A Middle Way: The Best Solution to the Nuclear Crisis

      Explaining about a draft agreement on nuclear fuel for the Tehran research reactor, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Manouchehr Mottaki noted: “The two sides decided to review the draft.  It is being reviewed in Vienna, and Iran will soon declare its viewpoint.”  However, some officials have already voiced their opposition to the recent nuclear […]