Archive | January, 2008

  • Indianismo and Marxism: The Missed Encounter of Two Revolutionary Principles

    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).

  • After Wildcat Strike against Concessions, Freightliner Workers Fight for Their Jobs

    Cleveland, a small town with less than 1,000 residents in western North Carolina, is an unlikely home for an active autoworkers’ union. Freightliner LLC (now owned by Daimler) opened a truck-manufacturing plant in the town in 1989.  The United Auto Workers won an important toehold victory in the growing, mostly non-union manufacturing sector in the […]

  • Neo-liberalism in Globalized Trouble

    Wild stock market gyrations and a global financial meltdown open 2008.  Around the world, old and new critics of neo-liberalism smirk and repeat “I told you so.”  Neo-liberal dogma — that private enterprise is good and efficient whereas state economic interventions are bad and wasteful — suffers deepening disrepute.  The private, deregulated capitalism of recent […]

  • Putting the U.S. Economic Crisis in Perspective

    It is time to take stock.  The centrality of the American economy to the capitalist world — which now literally does encompass the whole world — has spread the financial crisis that began in the U.S. housing market around the globe.  And the economic recession which that financial crisis has triggered in the U.S. now […]

  • The antithesis of ethics

    On the day when hundreds of intellectuals coming from every continent are meeting in Havana to take part in an International Conference for World Equilibrium on the date of José Martí’s birth, on that same day, by some strange quirk, the President of the United States spoke. In his last State of the Union address to Congress, making use of the teleprompter, Bush tells us more with his body language than with the words arranged by his advisors.

  • Africom Threatens the Sovereignty, Independence, and Stability of the African Continent: A Position Paper of the National Conference of Black Lawyers

    The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) concludes that the mission of Africa Command (Africom) infringes on the sovereignty of African states due to the particularity of Africa’s history and Africa’s current economic and political relationship to the United States.

  • Cliff-hangers in Hessian Elections

    The German elections on Sunday, like so many Hollywood films, were full of suspense until the last minute.  Was there also a happy ending?  To use the handy German word combination for Ja and Nein — Jein. The elections were for the legislatures in two of Germany’s sixteen provinces, Hesse and Lower Saxony.  In the […]

  • Our Encounter with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

    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 […]

  • Puerto Rican Independence Movement under Attack in New York and San Juan

    “It appears to us to be a reinitiation of the harassment of independentists.”1 — U.S. Congressman José Serrano, speaking to FBI director Robert Mueller An unexpected knock on the door . . . men in trench coats handing you a grand jury subpoena . . . .  If you’re involved in the movement for the […]

  • California’s Health Care Crisis

    Nearly seven million Californians lack health insurance, or about every fifth person in the state.  Big papers such as the San Jose Mercury News and the Sacramento Bee are urging the state Senate Health Committee to pass the Núñez-Perata health-care reform bill, ABX1-1.  Gov. Schwarzenegger backs the speaker and senate leader’s bill, which the State […]

  • The NNIRR and Immigration Reform: Time for a Clear Alternative

    HOUSTON, TX.  The National Conference for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (January 18-20) organized by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) took place during a critical period in U.S. immigration history.  Over five hundred NNIRR members, activists, and organizers (including numerous immigrants and their organizations) came to the conference to share their experiences, […]

  • Lula (Part 3)

    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.

  • The Erosion of the University as a Public Sphere

      In the interest of promoting individual and economic freedom, neo-liberal states have simultaneously deregulated and reduced the role of government in various sectors, giving power to the free market to allocate goods and services.  The university has historically been exempted from this process based on the widely accepted notion that higher education is a […]

  • The South Carolina You Won’t See on CNN

      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 […]

  • The Cost of War

    Sign the DEFUND/REFUND Petition Defund the war in Iraq Refund human needs at home and in Iraq The estimated cost of the first four years of the Iraq War is $1 trillion. For what we have spent for just ONE DAY of the Iraq War, we could have funded: * 95,364 Head Start Places for […]

  • The Policy of Force Has Failed, Prison Walls Broken, End the Blockade — Completely! Ceasefire Now — for the Sake of Sderot and of Gaza!

    Saturday 26.1.08: A countrywide relief convoy and Israeli demonstration in solidarity on the Gaza border with a parallel Palestinian demonstration in the Strip. It is impossible to keep one and a half million people in a huge prison, and if you try an explosion is bound to happen, as happened today at the Gaza Strip’s […]

  • Gaza Calling

      Music by Checkpoint 303 <http://checkpoint303.free.fr/> Haitham Sabbah, an uprooted Palestinian, was born in Kuwait on 2 April 1969.  He lives in Bahrain now, married with three children.  This is a video that Sabbah created to help end the siege of Gaza.  Read Sabbah’s blog at <http://sabbah.biz/>. | | Print

  • Silence Will Be the Best Response: Regarding a Dutch Movie-Provocation

    Mr. Geert Wilders will launch very soon a short movie, about which nobody knows anything, where it is said that he is going to unveil the true negative essence of Islam, the unhealthy character of the Prophet, or maybe the Qur’an’s insanities.  Whatever is the content, one understands it is a pure provocation!  Silence would […]

  • The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process

    About 3:00 am on Wednesday morning Jan. 23, well-coordinated explosions demolished the iron wall built by Israel to seal the southern border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (the Philadelphi axis).  Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed across the border and entered the Egyptian side of the town of Rafah, which had been bisected by […]

  • Lula (Part 2)

    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.