Subjects Archives: Movements

Too Late to Have Free Elections This Month, She Says from Washington Washington, D.C. — Bertha Oliva, the head of Honduras’ most well-known and respected human rights organization, called on the Obama administration to denounce the “grave human right violations” in Honduras. “How can it be that the United States government is silent while Hondurans […]

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and unemployment data we released this morning. In October, the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983, and nonfarm payroll employment declined by 190,000.  Since the start of the recession, payroll employment has fallen […]

  Lecture delivered at the Economic and Black Labor Forum, the Philadelphia Community Institute for Africana Studies, 22 October 22 2009 The present Great Recession is the latest and largest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  During the Great Depression over half of all African-American men were unemployed.  The present Great […]

  Ilana Feldman.  Governing Gaza: Bureaucracy, Authority, and the Work of Rule, 1917-1967.  Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. xii + 324 pp. 84.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-4222-9; 23.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-4240-3. Governance at some level is collectively and discursively conducted in the sense that the whole of society has a share in the making of its […]

Washington, D.C. — News of a deal that would effectively end the coup d’etat in Honduras and restore democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya to office would be a “victory for democracy in the hemisphere” resulting from the continued resistance of the Honduran people and pressure from Latin American governments, Center for Economic and Policy Research […]

  It is with deep sadness and concern that we announce the shooting death of Imam Luqman A. Abdullah, of Masjid Al-Haqq (Detroit, MI).  Imam Luqman was a representative of the Detroit Muslim community to the “National Ummah” and the general assembly (Shura) of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). The Federal Bureau of […]

  In 1992, I was a thwarted, guilt-ridden and depressed revolutionary, living underground with my lesbian partner and two-year old daughter in St. Louis.  I was part of a tiny group that had gone underground at the beginning of the 1980s, responding to the collapse of the mass movements after the end of the Vietnam […]

  Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon). NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting.  At a time when many […]

  Why would Philippine judges hamper a human rights investigation into a killing field where many human remains are found in Davao, victims allegedly of the infamous death squad?  Why would the members of the Commission on Human Rights be charged themselves?  Human Rights Watch says local authorities are obstructing the course of justice and […]

Whereas: The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, attacks on Pakistan, military aid to Colombia, Israel and many of the countries that use US aid for repression of indigenous and popular movements, are making the people of the US and the world less safe. And Whereas: These wars and military aid are bankrupting the people of the […]

The festivities associated with the 7th ALBA Summit, held in the historic Bolivian region of Cochabamba, showed the rich culture of the Latin American peoples and the joy elicited in children, young people and adults in general by the singing, the dancing, the costumes and rich expressions of the human beings of all ethnic groups, colors and shades: aborigine, black, white and mixed people. We could see there thousands of years of human history and precious culture that explain the determination with which the leaders of various Caribbean, Central and South American peoples convened that summit.

If Obama was awarded the Nobel for winning the elections in a racist society despite his being African American, Evo deserves it for winning them in his country despite his being a native, and his having delivered on his promises.

  Note to New York Times Readers In his November 18th article “Some Organizers Protest Their Union’s Tactics,” the New York Times‘ Steven Greenhouse cites a couple of sentences from this letter and links to it.  While it is good to see the New York Times examine important debates within the U.S. labor movement, for […]

The cashier was a WalMart supervisor, a black man in his 30s, crisp in the company’s blue tee-shirt uniform.  While he served the customer ahead of me, he did double duty by instructing a clerk next to him, a black woman in her 20s. “You must take your break no later than two hours after […]

(Darkened stage.  Jaunty whistling and cell-phone texting is heard, along with the footsteps of Converse sneakers on a dusty, small-town road.  Suddenly, the screech of heavy tires, then a sickening thud and a groan.  Lights up on the original American Gothic couple, sitting on the porch of their dilapidated house, up the hill from the […]

  “What I want to know more than anything is how they began to be activists.” — Johannes Wilm Johannes Wilm is a revolutionary socialist activist, anthropologist, computer geek, trade unionist. . . .  In this 90-minute documentary, Johannes Wilm interviews young Honduran activists against the coup, especially activists of such organizations as the Revolutionary […]

  Erasto Reyes, trade unionist and representative of the Honduras Resistance Front returned this Wednesday to the European Parliament as part of his European solidarity visit.  Reyes requested concrete support from the Parliament. In a press conference he declared that: “Parliament must denounce and vigorously condemn the coup which took place in Honduras.  We ask […]

  The news coming out of Geneva these days is indeed very shocking and depressing.  The Abbas government, whose term in office expired long ago, has succumbed to pressure being exerted by Hillary Clinton and Avigdor Lieberman to defer any and all discussion of the Goldstone report on the war crimes in Gaza until next […]

  I wish to congratulate you on your election and reiterate to you our confidence on your capacity to unerringly conduct our works and deliberations. Likewise I would like to recognize the excellent work developed by Father Miguel D’Escoto, President of the recently concluded session.  The ethical dimension and the political scope of his presidency, […]

  We have the power to stop the catastrophic budget cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs — but to save public education in California requires coordinating our actions on a statewide level. We invite all UC, CSU, CC, and K-12 students, workers, teachers, and their organizations across the state to participate in and collectively build the […]