Subjects Archives: Movements

Last October 2nd we discussed the international price of our fuel consumption. I am under the impression that its significance attracted the attention of many leaders and cadres.

  Seeing how the Democrats seem incapable of figuring out the boondoggle Bernake and Paulson are in the process of engineering, I thought I might outline a modest proposal for a fair resolution to the present financial crisis. Buy two trillion dollar toxic sub-prime at 40 cents on the dollar; disaggregate, repackage and sell back […]

My name is Dan, and I’m a Republican.  Though it’s been almost eight years since I voted GOP, the shame and regret haunt me daily.  Just the sight of ‘W’ mugging for the cameras on the evening news is enough to fill me with despair. It all started innocently enough.  I tried my first shot […]

I did not want to write a third consecutive reflection, but I can not leave that for Monday.

There is one accurate response to Bush’s “democratic capitalism”: Chavez’s democratic socialism. There wouldn’t be a more accurate way to express the big contradiction that exists between North and South in our hemisphere, between the ideas of Bolivar and those of Monroe.

In a brief 15-minute speech, the President of the United States made some assertions that, had they come from the mouths of any of his adversaries, they would have been described as atrocious and cynical slanders against the economic system of his country which he named “democratic capitalism”.

  On September 18, 2008 Human Rights Watch released a report entitled “Venezuela: Rights Suffer Under Chávez.”   The report contains biases and inaccuracies, and wrongly purports that human rights guarantees are lacking or not properly enforced in Venezuela.  In addition, while criticizing Venezuela’s human rights in the political context, it fails to mention the […]

  Our country is facing a dramatic situation.  We have suffered the wrath of two powerful hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, in just eight days.  These natural disasters have seriously affected food production and essential sectors of the economy throughout the country.  Although very few human lives were lost, a massive amount of houses, schools and […]

Throughout the past eight years of the Bush administration, North and South America have politically and economically been heading in opposite directions.  While Bush waged wars, curtailed civil liberties, and spread neoliberalism, South Americans stopped corporate looting, ousted corrupt presidents, and developed economies for people instead of profit.  Journalist Nikolas Kozloff’s new book, Revolution! South […]

  On the tenth of September, one day before the 35th anniversary of the death of Chilean President Salvador Allende, Evo Morales, the Bolivian head of state, declared US Ambassador Philip Goldberg “persona non grata.”  This is not a contrived symbolic decision.  It came after the sabotage of a gas pipeline in the Department of […]

Israel’s enduring use of Palestinian collaborators to entrench the occupation and destroy Palestinian resistance was once the great unmentionable of the Middle East conflict. When the subject was dealt with by the international and local media, it was solely in the context of the failings of the Palestinian legal system, which allowed the summary execution […]

The big weekend blowout in Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) demonstrates how to cut off your nose to spite your face.  In a series of small, smaller, and smallest secret gatherings, the party leaders — facing a disastrous seepage of members and voters because of their switch rightwards in recent years — got rid of […]

Canadian socialist Jeffery R. Webber interviewed Oscar González, Coordinator of Organization of Social Movements for Popular Power in the Mérida branch of  the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) – Mérida, Venezuela, September 5, 2008. JRW: First, can we start off with your name and position in this organization? Oscar González The PSUV headquarters in […]

  Thousands of SEIU members are expected in San Jose this Saturday, September  6, to protest spreading corruption and Andy Stern’s latest grab for control over SEIU’s third largest local (which has helped blow the whistle on scandalous behavior elsewhere in the union). The rally is being organized by United Healthcare Workers (UHW) and allied […]

  I left my home in the United States to spend the summer in the West Bank, where I was attacked by Israeli settlers late last month.  As a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, I went to the South Hebron Hills to help keep young Palestinian children safe from Israeli settlers intent on hurting […]

In the months leading up to the Republican National Convention, the FBI-led Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force actively recruited people to infiltrate vegan groups and other leftist organizations and report back about their activities.  On May 21, the Minneapolis City Pages ran a recruiting story called “Moles Wanted.”   Law enforcement sought to preempt lawful […]

  Which is better — craft unions or industrial unions?  The debate is as old as the labor movement itself, and one that resists simple answers. Craft unions organize workers along occupational lines.  Industrial unions join everyone who works for one employer, or one industry, into one union. The argument surfaces in the dispute between […]

As headlines focus on conventions and running mates, the third anniversary of Katrina offers an opportunity to examine the results of disastrous federal, state, and local policy on the people of New Orleans.  Several organizations have released reports in the past week, examining the current state of the city, and grassroots activists have plans to […]

  On Saturday, after 32 hours on the high seas, I sailed into the port of Gaza City with 45 other citizens from around the world in defiance of Israel’s blockade.  We traveled from Cyprus with humanitarian provisions for Palestinians living under siege.  My family in Michigan was worried sick. They are not naïve.  They […]

In a historic vote on 15 August 2008 in Kathmandu,  Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka Prachanda), chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), was elected first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, where now a “Maoist leads from the top of the world.”  Prachanda garnered 80% of the votes cast in the […]

Lloyd D. McCarthy, “In-Dependence” from Bondage: Claude McKay and Michael Manley Defying the Ideological Clash and Policy Gaps in African Diaspora Relations (Africa World Press, 2007). Claude McKay and Michael Manley may seem like strange bedfellows for a study in 20th-century politics.  Though both born in Jamaica, a generation apart, they could hardly have pursued […]