Hough: The German Left in Troubled Times29 Oct 2007ASK Ralf Pietras why the Left Party is growing in Duisburg and he offers a ready answer. The coal mines are exhausted, steel is forged by machine and old folk scavenge for bottles to reclaim the deposits.
Gould-Wartofsky: The Battle for the Block—And Another World:29 Oct 2007In East Harlem, they have organized building by building to reclaim El Barrio from those who would “develop” them out of it. In Chinatown, they’ve rolled out a rent strike to win the repairs needed for tenants suffering from landlord neglect on Delancey Street.
Tutu: Realizing God’s dream for the Holy Land29 Oct 2007WHENEVER I am asked if I am optimistic about an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I say that I am not. Optimism requires clear signs that things are changing – meaningful words and unambiguous actions that point to real progress.
McDougall: Indian ‘slave’ children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap29 Oct 2007Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant. Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.
Karmi: Intellectual Terrorism29 Oct 2007The newest and least attractive import from America, following on behind Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Friends, is the pro-Israel lobby. The latest target of this US-style campaign is the august Oxford Union.
Karmi: Intellectual Terrorism29 Oct 2007The newest and least attractive import from America, following on behind Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Friends, is the pro-Israel lobby. The latest target of this US-style campaign is the august Oxford Union.
Lendman: The Bank of the South:29 Oct 2007In July, 2004, the IMF and World Bank commemorated the 60th anniversary of their founding at Bretton Woods, NH to provide a financial framework of assistance for the postwar world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan. With breathtaking hypocrisy, an October, 2004 Development Committee Communiqué stated: “As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Institutions.
Lichtman: “The War”29 Oct 2007After some weeks of presentation there appears to me still a dearth of left criticism regarding Ken Burns television series, “The War.” Whether this is because the program is considered too unimportant to merit serious concern of because something in the content is sufficiently touching, the absence of such analysis seems to me unfortunate.
Zirin: The Sad Resurrection of Chief Illiniwek28 Oct 2007Last weekend an unfortunate figure returned to the University of Illinois, and it wasn’t Jeff George. Chief Illiniwek, the former school mascot, was back to adorn floats and assorted regalia at Homecoming to the cheers of some and the bitter horror of those who thought the feathered one had been retired for good.
Abunimah: Engaging Hamas and Hizballah28 Oct 2007Nothing could be easier in the present atmosphere than to accuse anyone who calls for recognition of and dialogue with Hamas, Hizballah and other Islamist movements of being closet supporters of reactionary “extremism” or naive fellow travelers of “terrorists.” This tactic is not surprising coming from neoconservatives and Zionists.
Miles: Uncertain Outcomes: The Israeli-Palestine Question28 Oct 2007After 9/11, 2001, when I first started examining the various landscapes – physical, political, cultural, military – of events relating to that day, I had no real idea that it would lead me into an advocacy position of Palestinian rights, but everything about the American empire at the time pointed towards Israel and Palestine as the then current focal point of the majority of the Middle East, European, and Asian political problems. I had long been familiar with American arrogance and patriotic jingoism, with its various wars of suppression supposedly in the name of protecting the free world from communism, with its corporate mentality as witnessed by the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investments as supported by the World Trade Organization and others in the group of the Washington Consensus, and with its military supremacy, its phoney antago.
Jayaraman: Titanium or Water? Trouble brews in Southern India28 Oct 2007More than 5,000 people converged this month in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to protest a deal that set the stage for the state government to appropriate almost 10,000 acres of land and hand it over to Tata Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of India’s largest conglomerate. The June 2007 agreement allows the giant company to mine ilmenite in Sathankulam, an agrarian pocket of India’s coastal countryside.
Marshall: Breast Cancer Sells28 Oct 2007October means falling leaves, ghosts and goblins, and pink, lots of Pepto-Pink as we observe National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM). From Campbell’s Soup to Breast Cancer Barbie, it seems as if just about everyone has jumped on the pinkified bandwagon.
Klein: Outsourcing Government27 Oct 2007We didn’t want to get stuck with a lemon. That’s what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said to a House committee last month.
Jacobs: US Labor in Trouble27 Oct 2007Business Unions and Big Corporations-the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of US Capital; A Review of US Labor in Trouble and Transition (Verso 2007) I began reading Kim Moody’s new book US Labor in Trouble and Transition just as news of the 2007 United Autoworkers strike against General Motors began filtering over the airwaves. As I delved further into the book, the news regarding the strike touched on several of Mr.
Jacobs: US Labor in Trouble27 Oct 2007Business Unions and Big Corporations-the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of US Capital; A Review of US Labor in Trouble and Transition (Verso 2007) I began reading Kim Moody’s new book US Labor in Trouble and Transition just as news of the 2007 United Autoworkers strike against General Motors began filtering over the airwaves. As I delved further into the book, the news regarding the strike touched on several of Mr.
Meister: Second-Class Women27 Oct 2007More women than men are graduating from college these days, generally with better grades. And more women are earning advanced degrees and more going into professional occupations.
Doyle: Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn ‘unconscionable’ detention26 Oct 2007An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are “enemy combatants”. The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as “unconscionable”.
Mishra: Implications of Plutonomy26 Oct 2007Almost two years ago, Ajay Kapur, a prominent global strategist of the Citigroup and his two associates, Niall Macleod and Narendra Singh, came out with a paper “Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances.” If the formulations contained in this paper are correct, they will have far reaching implications, upsetting long-standing understandings of economists all over the world.
Lamrani: Venezuela’s debt to Cuba26 Oct 2007The Venezuelan oligarchy vehemently criticizes President Chávez for providing fuel assistance to the government in Havana. It is true that Cuba receives 98 thousand barrels of petroleum daily at preferential prices.
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