Subjects Archives: Movements

  A coalition of Mexican unions and social movements has been calling for a continental workers’ campaign for a living wage and social justice in the three NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) countries.  The original call was made in November 2006 (see Richard Roman and Edur Velasco, “Mexican Workers Call for a Continental Workers’ […]

“La Hojilla,” a program on the Venezolana de Televisión TV channel, took it upon itself to select, for months up to March 5, information and phrases that precisely reflect the imperialist plan to do with Chávez what was done with Milosevic after the genocidal war of Kosovo: to try him in the International Criminal Court.

WHOA — I just found out that the Left Forum — a conference attracting thousands of progressive activists and scholars — is happening this month in Manhattan.  That means we pinkos and queers get one last chance to liberate society through thought provoking workshops and panels!  I sure hope the Forum’s organizers snap up my […]

  To buy a DVD of Aristide and the Endless Revolution (Dir. Nicolas Rossier, 2005), visit <www.aristidethefilm.com/>. | | Print

These words will be published tomorrow, on February 29. A great many tasks lie immediately ahead of us. The 10th International Conference of Economists on Globalization and the Problems of Development, a conference I have always attended and in which I have always expressed different points of view, will begin on Monday the 3rd. Judging by the international developments we’ve witnessed, this conference will doubtless be of great importance, owing to the presence of prestigious economists, some Nobel Prize laureates and two eminent heads of State.I wish to address a specific issue in this, today’s reflection.

In recent weeks, external and internal pressures against Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution have intensified dramatically. It is clear that US imperialism and the US-backed Venezuelan opposition see the defeat of Chavez’s proposed constitutional reforms on December 2 as a green light to push forward their plans to destabilize the government. In addition, growing internal problems, with […]

The way Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the U.S. and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments.1 The Venezuela section of the report said nothing about ongoing attempts by the U.S. to overthrow the Chavez government.  It is a […]

At the height of the Iranian revolution in the winter of 1979, French philosopher Michel Foucault described what he was seeing in Tehran as “perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.” “Islam,” he wrote, “– which is not simply a religion, […]

Last Friday, February 15, I promised you that in my next reflection I would deal with an issue of interest to many compatriots. Thus, this now is rather a message.

  Shahla Lahiji is the first Iranian woman who succeeded in getting a publisher’s license registered in her own name.  She founded Roshangaran and Women’s Studies, a publishing house, 23 years ago.  Lahiji sees herself in a kind of living history on the question of women’s labor, for her mother was the fifth woman who […]

  Lara Deeb.  An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon.   Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Series.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, footnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb is an important book that illustrates and explores the lives of real, modern, Muslim women.  Published […]

  The events in Kenya after the much criticized and controversial elections of 27 December 2007 have exposed the planned failures of our nascent democracy and the ideological rot and inadequacy across the Kenyan body politic.  This has left many wondering what actually went wrong.  I posit that an ideologically bankrupt political process that revolves around access […]

Written hurriedly in Caracas February 2008 Background These are some brief impressions and reflections in the midst of a short visit to Venezuela.  For 10 days I traveled with a wonderful group of 23, mainly from the New York City area (with delegates from Washington, DC, Washington State, and myself from Vermont).  It was led […]

This important article by Álvaro García Linera, now Vice President of Bolivia, was first published in 2005. It traces the contradictory evolution of the two most influential revolutionary currents in the country’s 20th century history and argues that Marxism, as originally interpreted by its Bolivian adherents, failed to address the outstanding concerns of the indigenous majority. García Linera suggests, however, that the evolution of indianismo in recent decades opens perspectives for a renewal of Marxist thought and potentially the reconciliation of the two currents in a higher synthesis. Although framed within the Bolivian context, his argument clearly has implications for the national and anti-imperialist struggle in other parts of Abya Yale (the indigenous name for the Western hemisphere).

It was a bright, hot July day in Yazd, an ancient, oasis city in central Iran.  The five members of our 2007 People’s Peace Delegation were following our tour guide to see one of the city’s famous Wind Towers, which boast a hundreds-years-old form of natural air-conditioning. I had fallen a bit behind the rest […]

The demise of the Soviet Union was to us like there were no more sunrises; a devastating blow for the Cuban Revolution. Not only did this translate into a total cessation of supplies of fuel, materials and foods; we lost markets and the prices that we had attained for our products in the difficult struggle for our sovereignty, integration and principles. The empire and the traitors, full of hatred, were sharpening their daggers with those who wanted to put the revolutionaries to the sword and recover the country’s riches.

  South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston.  In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly.  The cops beat the crap out of the protesters.  Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot.  And of course, of […]

Lula warmly reminded me of the first time he visited our country in 1985 to take part in a meeting organized by Cuba to analyze the overwhelming problem of the foreign debt; participants representing a wide spectrum of political, religious, cultural and social tendencies presented and discussed their opinions, concerned about the asphyxiating drama.

He spontaneously decided to visit Cuba for the second time since he became president of Brazil, even though the state of my health did not guarantee that he would be able to meet with me.

  PART ONE From the look of things, it would appear that we are still a long way from resolving the serious post-election crisis that is gripping and almost crippling Kenya. Even after Raila Odinga and the Orange Democratic Movement considerably softened their pre-conditions for internationally mediated talks with their opposite numbers by dropping their […]