February 20, 2024
After the triumph of the Revolution, Cuba set phenomenal goals, the biggest of all being the remaking of its medical system as a free service for all: health as a human right. Don Fitz comprehensively charts the 61 years that transformed Cuba’s health service into one of the best in the world, where people are placed at the very heart of the system...
February 20, 2024
Historian Gerald Horne appeared recently on The Katie Halper Show and talked to Katie Halper and her cohost Jack Allison about Dr. Horne's latest book, The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. They discuss racism, class-consciousness, Trumpism, 2020, the Supreme Court and the creation of White Supremacy...
February 20, 2024
The COVID-19 pandemic shocked the world. It shouldn’t have. Since this century’s turn, epidemiologists have warned of new infectious diseases. Indeed, H1N1, H7N9, SARS, MERS, Ebola Makona, Zika, and a variety of lesser viruses have emerged almost annually. But what of the epidemiologists themselves? Some bravely descended into the caves where bat species hosted coronaviruses, including the strains that evolved into the COVID-19 virus. Yet, despite their own warnings, many of the researchers appear unable to understand the true nature of the disease—as if they are dead to what they’ve seen...
February 20, 2024
The Robbery of Nature draws on and develops the theories of Marx and Engels to understand why capitalism has such a destructive influence on the natural world. Central to Fosters and Clark’s argument is that, under capitalism, human beings and the natural environment are the original sources of wealth, but it is only the labour of workers that generates value....
February 20, 2024
"On Thursday February 6, 1919, at 10:00 am, Seattle’s workers struck. The Seattle general strike is the only general strike in US history. It lasted for five days during which nothing in Seattle moved. Hotel guests were politely informed that room service and restaurant facilities would resume after the strike. Telephone operators, women’s barbers, Japanese service workers, lumbermen, shingle weavers, longshoremen, and just about everybody else, came out on strike in support of Seattle’s shipyard workers...."
February 20, 2024
"This book gives an excellent account of the nature, history and achievements of the Cuban health system. It is fairly lengthy, quite detailed, heavily documented, and easy to read. It has implications and lessons that go well beyond the health of people, to the nature of healthy social systems, dramatically evident in the comparison the book gives between Cuba and the USA..."
February 20, 2024
Gerald Horne, historian and author, most recently, of The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century, talks with Brianna Griffith, host of the podcast People's Republic, via Spreaker...
February 20, 2024
Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution affirms a view of the Cuban Revolution offered to me by C.L.R. James in 1970: While there is much to criticize, it broke the stranglehold of the Monroe Doctrine, even if just a little, and gave the region a chance to shape its own destiny—including its remarkable health care system....
February 20, 2024
With Covid-19 roaring through the U.S., now is a good time to discuss Cuban health care. It’s about as different from the American variety as possible. It is not for profit. It is socialized. It does not first resort to expensive medical technology. Its doctors live among the people, like in Haiti after the earthquake, not in luxury hotels, like American doctors. It does not rely on the thinking that there is a pill for every ailment. It is successful. Cuba has suffered 88 deaths from covid, and the 3408 infected people have not gone bankrupt receiving care...
February 20, 2024
Gerald Horne: Pardon the expression, but it may be a game-changer. What I mean is, these athletes have a lot of social, and potentially political capital. LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, the top player in the league, has about 47 million Twitter followers. These players have a very strong union. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the ownership team of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, and of course, those Milwaukee Bucks who are now leading this protest, the ownership team basically endorsed the protest….
