Subjects Archives: Movements

Scores of protesters in Cairo clash with Egyptian security forces in front of the Israeli embassy. They were gathering to urge Egypt to cut ties with Israel and also show support for the Palestinians’ Third Intifada. As tensions grew, security forces used live rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. According to Egyptian officials over 10 protesters were injured and 30 arrested.

  STITCH invites you to join us on a ten-day women’s delegation to Honduras as we assess the impact of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) five years later.  Our labor solidarity delegation to Honduras, PUSHING BACK: WOMEN SPEAK OUT ON TRADE will take place July 27-August 06, 2011. Participants will meet with women […]

  The sun had not yet risen in Cairo, as the Stay Human convoy began to prepare the departure for Gaza.  The journey about to be embarked upon was one filled with expectations and hope.  The importance of crossing the border at Rafah following the protests that brought down the Mubarak regime was on the […]

  Moscow against UN Security Council Taking Up Syria — Source MOSCOW, May 11 (Interfax) — Moscow is against the Syria issue being put before the UN Security Council, a Russian Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday. “Syria mustn’t be discussed in the Security Council, that is obvious,” the source told Interfax. China Calls on […]

  Following up on earlier efforts to highlight human rights abuses in Puerto Rico, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) hosted a high-publicity fact-finding delegation in San Juan on May 2 and 3.  The group, which included ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero, political scientist Angelo Falcón, actress/choreographer Rosie Perez, and recently retired baseball player […]

  Excerpt: On January 11, 2006, the United States signed into law the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which entered into force between the United States and Bahrain on August 1, 2006.  In light of the ongoing brutal repression of peaceful protest carried out by the police and armed forces of Bahrain and the Gulf […]

What Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas’ “The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization of the Antiwar Movement in the United States, 2007-2009” (Mobilization 16.1; now linked to MRZine) shows is that, in the United States, the anti-war/peace movement is much narrower and more shallow than many believe.  Whereas there remains an enduring core of genuinely […]

  Whatever your point of view, it would be difficult to deny that the referendum on South Sudan — unity or independence — was a historic moment.  Self‐determination marks the founding of a new political order. Nationalists may try to convince us that the outcome of the referendum, independence, is the natural destiny of the […]

The trajectory of the democratic movement in the Arab world was never going to be a straight line with clear goals and objectives.  The Arab regimes are not homogeneous; they have medieval Islamist monarchies, as in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, and secular but completely authoritarian regimes, both Western puppets like Mubarak and […]

I’ll be talking about the relationship between food and the uprisings.  I call them uprisings, I don’t call them revolutions, for a multitude of reasons that I will address. . . .  One of the most common assertions is that these uprisings were triggered, at least partly, by high food prices.  I would like to […]

  To Tea Partiers and supporters of the Far Right, Madison, Wisconsin has become the latest “Shining City Upon a Hill,” where one of their courageous leaders, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, is waging a heroic battle to tame big government and balance the state’s budget.  American Exceptionalism has always defined liberty as keeping government off […]

  Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 — In commemoration of the first of May — a day of workers’ struggle and international solidarity — the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade […]

  Freedom for the five Cuban patriots! Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 25 April 2011.  Cf. “U.S. Government Asked the Court to Deny Gerardo Hernandez’s Habeas Corpus Motion” (26 April 2011); “The U.S. Government Asked the Court to also Deny Antonio Guerrero’s and […]

Camille Otrakji is a Syrian political blogger based in Montreal.  Although he tends to keep a low profile, Otrakji has been, for the past several years, at the forefront of many of the most interesting and influential online initiatives relating to Syrian politics.  He is one of the authors and moderators at Joshua Landis’s Syria […]

  Two political analysts shared their view with Islam Online: the leadership of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” will not leave Syria unless it is asked to do so.  They say that it is not in the interest of Hamas to leave Damascus now. An Internal Affair London’s Al-Hayat newspaper claimed that Hamas decided […]

Kamal al Fayoumi, Mahalla Textiles Worker and Democratic Labor Party Activist: All of us, as workers, said that the revolution began on February 11 when Mubarak left.  When the head of the old regime stepped down, it was just the start of the revolution.  The revolution began only with the solidarity of all of Egypt’s […]

Let’s drink a toast to all those farmers, workers, artists and intellectuals of the last 100 years who without thought of fame and profit . . . worked tirelessly in their dream of a worldwide socialist revolution, who believed and hoped that a new world was dawning and that their work would contribute to a […]

  Given the atrocities currently committed in Syria and the spectacularly bad press this generates for the regime, one would think that issuing an effective petition calling for political change in this country would be an easy task.  All such a petition needs to do is to jump on the bandwagon of rapidly mounting protests […]

  Nicolas Sarkozy: “Boys, these are the pillars that support authentic democracies!” Barack Obama: “Well said, Sarko!” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: “This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . .” Ferran Martín, born in Barcelona in […]

This 2011 edition of “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” marks the 20th year the AFL-CIO has produced a report on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers.

This year is historic for workers’ safety and health. It is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where 146 workers — most of them young immigrant women — were killed, trapped behind locked doors with no way to escape. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the right of workers to safe jobs.