Subjects Archives: Movements

  • July Delegation to Venezuela: Human Rights, Food Sovereignty, and Social Change

    A food sovereignty delegation from the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York visits La Vela de Coro, Falcón, Venezuela.  Video by Diego Gerena-Quiñones. The Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of New York invites you to join us in July for a 10-day trip to Venezuela examining advances in food sovereignty and other initiatives for social […]

  • Ideas for the Struggle #3 To Be at the Service of Popular Movements, Not to Displace Them

    This is the third in a series of articles on “Ideas for the Struggle” by Marta Harnecker. 1.  We have said before that politics is the art of constructing a social and political force capable of changing the balance of forces in order to make possible tomorrow what appears impossible today.  But, to be able […]

  • A Ridiculous Response to a Defeat

    Yesterday in the afternoon, while thoroughly analyzing the speech delivered by Obama at the Muslim University of Cairo, I received some reports published by the news agencies with the weird information that two retired persons more than 70 years old had been arrested on charges of having been spying for the government of Cuba for 30 years. Almost all the important western press agencies – eight of them- disseminated the news.

  • GM’s Tragedy: The System Strikes Back

    The greatest tragedies among many in the collapse and bankruptcy of General Motors concern what is not happening.  There are those solutions to GM’s problems not being considered by Obama’s administration.  There are the solutions not being demanded by the United Auto Workers Union (UAW).  There are all the solutions not even being discussed by […]

  • Cinema as a Democratic Emblem1

    Philosophy only exists insofar as there are paradoxical relations, relations which fail to connect, or should not connect. When every connection is naturally legitimate, philosophy is impossible or in vain.

    Philosophy is the violence done by thought to impossible relations.

    Today, which is to say “after Deleuze,” there is a clear requisitioning of philosophy by cinema — or of cinema by philosophy. It is therefore certain that cinema offers us paradoxical relations, entirely improbable connections.

  • Union Busting Getting Worse, Study Shows

      A new five-year study reveals that private sector employer opposition to the efforts of American workers to form unions has intensified and become more punitive in recent years. Conducted by highly-regarded labor expert and Cornell University professor Kate Bronfenbrenner, the study concludes that employers are using much more aggressive tactics — including threats of […]

  • Caterpillar under Fire for Human Rights Abuses for Sixth Year in a Row

    Chicago, IL (June 3) — For the sixth year in a row, members of Jewish, Christian, and human rights organizations will be present at Caterpillar, Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting to demand that Caterpillar end its complicity with violations of human rights and international law in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Concerned […]

  • An Open Letter from the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies to President Barack Obama on the Occasion of His Cairo Speech to the “Blacks” of the Twenty-first Century

    June 2, 2009 Mr. President, The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) hopes that your speech to the Arab and Muslim worlds will contain practical steps to uphold your administration’s stated intention to seriously deal with the problems that have inflamed resentment and fostered a sense of humiliation among peoples, individuals, and ethnic and […]

  • Applauses and Silences

    Yesterday on May 31st, an AFP dispatch read: “Cuba has accepted to reopen negotiations with the United States about migration and direct mail service, a new signal of the thaw that is happening just before an Organization of American States (OAS) Summit where the Cuban situation will dominate conversations.

  • N’Dimagou — “Dignity”

    First of all, we would like to ask you where the story that you tell in your movie comes from.

    The idea was born from the complexity of the theme proposed: dignity. I think it’s very difficult to deal with such sweeping concepts as justice and dignity in the allotted two or three minutes, so I looked for an idea that actually asked the question ‘What is dignity’ rather than answering it.

  • El Salvador: The Beginning of a New Era

      On Monday, June 1, 2009, El Salvador will turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country’s first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin America.  Representing the FMLN (Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional), Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face […]

  • Justice in the United States

    If I said that chaos prevails in the United States it would be considered an overstatement; it would be said that that country is a democracy where there is justice, respect for human rights and a division of powers based on the principles of Montesquieu and the Philadelphia Declaration.

  • Parsa

      Here is Parsa.  He is ten months old.  He is my nephew and I love him with all my heart and soul.  Parsa was born just eight days after the second sanction resolution against Iran. Parsa has learned a few things since he was born ten months ago.  He points to everything that seems […]

  • The Many Faces of Humanitarianism

      Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism?  The question sounds naïve, silly even.  Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved.  If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]

  • The Renewal of Democracy: An Interview with Paul Ginsborg

    Paul Ginsborg is Professor of Contemporary European History, University of Florence and a frequent public commentator on politics and life in Italy.  His books include A History of Contemporary Italy, Society and Politics 1943-1988, Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society and the State, 1980-2000, and the bestselling biography Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony. He […]

  • Rights Activist Binayak Sen Released on Bail

      Civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen is finally a free man after spending two years in jail. This video was released by IBN on 26 May 2009.

  • Israel: Democratic Rights in Peril

    The Israeli government took this week a new measure in its attempt to suppress democratic rights in Israel.  The government has approved a bill banning all commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, under penalty of Imprisonment.  The bill is yet to pass in the Israeli parliament, subject, for now, to heavy criticism from many […]

  • A Boy, A Wall and A Donkey

      Hany Abu-Assad is a Dutch-Palestinian filmmaker, whose 2005 film Paradise Now won the 63rd Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film award among other awards.  “A Boy, A Wall and A Donkey” was made as part of Art for the World’s “Stories on Human Rights” on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal […]

  • Ken Loach: “Make the Interests of Ordinary People Come First”

      En route to the Cannes Festival, where he is to present his latest film (Looking for Eric), Ken Loach stopped by in Marseilles on the 16th of May.  On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the great miners’ strike in Britain, the NPA 13 and the Païdos Library invited the English director, whose […]

  • Nothing can be Improvised in Haiti

    Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.