Grossman: Neo-Nazis In Germany, Or Deja Vu?3 Sep 2007Berlin—An argument at a summer fair in the small town of Muegeln, between Leipzig and Dresden, ended with a mob of fifty drunken young men wielding knives and other weapons and shouting “Foreigners Get Out!” chasing eight men from India – longtime residents in Muegeln – across the town square. The Indians, some badly wounded, found refuge in a snack bar belonging to one of them.
Baker: The Right to Unionize: Key to Democracy3 Sep 2007For the last quarter century, corporate America has been at war against the labor movement. After a long period in which unions were an accepted part of the economic and political landscape, most corporations adopted a much more hostile attitude toward unions.
Meister: A Trailblazing Organizers’ Organizer3 Sep 2007For more than a half-century Fred Ross was among the most influential, skilled, dedicated and successful of the community organizers who have done so much for the underdogs of American society. Yet most people probably have never heard of Ross, a tall, gray, lean man, a quiet but fiercely committed man.
Zibechi: Brazil as a problem3 Sep 2007In recent days, two prestigious left wing economists coincided in pointing the finger at the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for its responsibility in holding up the launch of Bancosur (Bank of the South). In doing so they uncovered the fact that, behind all the declarations in favour of regional integration, interests linked to multinationals that are blocking the best intentions of Venezuela and Ecuador supported by most of South America, play an important role.
Baroud: US Arabs and Muslims: The Search for Common Identity3 Sep 2007As the security check line began moving slowly at Washington Dulles airport, one passenger standing a few steps ahead of me appeared particularly uneasy. His dark skin, long beard, trimmed moustache, prayer spot centered on his forehead, and overall demeanor quickly gave away his identity, though he had obviously labored little to hide it.
Karkar: The olive trees of Palestine weep3 Sep 2007Universally regarded as the symbol of peace, the olive tree has become the object of violence. For more than forty years, Israel has uprooted over one million olive trees and hundreds of thousands of fruit trees in Palestine with terrible economic and ecological consequences for the Palestinian people.
Klein: ‘Occupy, Resist, Produce’2 Sep 2007On 19 March 2003, we were on the roof of the Zanón ceramic tile factory, filming an interview with Cepillo. He was showing us how the workers fended off eviction by armed police, defending their democratic workplace with slingshots and the little ceramic balls normally used to pound the Patagonian clay into raw material for tiles.
Cohn: Bush Plans War on Iran2 Sep 2007The Sunday Times of London is reporting that the Pentagon has plans for three days of massive air strikes against 1,200 targets in Iran. Last week, Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, told a meeting of The National Interest, a conservative foreign policy journal, that the military did not intend to carry out “pinprick strikes” against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Baker: Save the Homeowners, Not the Hedge Funds2 Sep 2007The mortgage-market meltdown has gotten big enough that even Congress is taking notice. Members of Congress, especially those running for president, are now racing to propose bills that promise relief to the millions of homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages.
Bonnar: The Crisis in Darfur and Chad2 Sep 2007The images on the television screen are now so familiar we become immune. Unimaginable numbers of people suffering and dying in a part of the world we know little about for reasons we know even less.
Sader: Lula the Enigma2 Sep 2007(01-09-2007) The long interview given by Brazilian President Lula to the Sao Paulo O Estado newspaper on August 26th shows the enigma, the contradiction he and his government represent, in all its dimensions. Whether they agree with the government, or radically criticise it, from the right, or from the left, anyone can pick out some or other reply to confirm their own view.
Zoda: The World’s Forgotten and Continuing Nightmare2 Sep 2007When I arrived in Paraguay I did not expect in the least to become drawn into the situation of the present day. Arriving from Uruguay I was to continue conducting further research into the human rights violations of the region in the decades past, most notably the late 60s and 1970s.
Hallward: If stones could float1 Sep 2007Every now and then something happens which helps to illuminate the way our newspapers distinguish between what counts as news and what doesn’t. Consider how the British press handled two very different disappearances, the nights of 3 and 4 May 2007.
Barker: Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions?1 Sep 2007To date capitalists have financially supported two types of revolution: they have funded the neoliberal revolution to “take the risk out of democracy”,[1] and they have supported/hijacked popular revolutions (or in some cases manufactured ‘revolutions’) in countries of geostrategic importance (i.e.
Raina: India’s American Dream1 Sep 2007 The United States is entering the Civilian-Nuclear Agreement with India on the understanding that India “has a foreign policy policy that is congruent to that of the US, and is working with the US on key foreign policy initiatives related to non-proliferation.” (The Hyde Act) “In fact the purpose of the US to sign civilian nuclear energy cooperation with India is to enclose India into its global partners’ camp, so as to balance the forces of Asia.
Fuentes: Venezuela’s Revolution1 Sep 2007“The internal situation will intensify over the next months, more contradictions will emerge, simply because we have no plans to hold back the march of the revolution”, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on March 24, speaking to more than 2000 promoters of the new socialist party being constructed in Venezuela. “These contradictions”, he said, would “intensify, because we are dealing with the economic issue, and there is nothing that hurts a capitalist more than his pocket, but we have to enter into this issue, we cannot avoid it”.
Mishra: Illogical ‘Conventional Wisdom’1 Sep 2007In India, especially in the media and think tanks, there is no dearth of people educated in the formal sense of the term. It is, however, a different matter that many of them have nothing to do with rational thinking based on the principles of logic.
Engler: NGOs and Imperialism1 Sep 2007Foreign Affairs 501 Take Home Exam Any individual working for an aid organization is required to pass this exam and a B+ or higher must be achieved to attain “left wing” status. /s.
Hentoff: History Will Not Absolve Us1 Sep 2007If and when there’s the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA’s secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament—as well as such deeply footnoted books as Stephen Grey’s Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin’s Press) and Charlie Savage’s just-published Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (Little, Brown).
Clark: Al Gore, James Hansen, and Civil Disobedience31 Aug 2007In his recent global warming op-ed in the New York Times (“The Big Melt,” August 16, 2007) , Nicholas Kristof reported on a conversation with Al Gore in which the former Vice-President said: “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.” His comment was a reaction to the ever- quickening pace of polar ice meltoff, with all its catastrophic implications, and the huge role played by coal-fired power plants in advancing our demise through global warming.
Ellner: The Trial (And Errors) of Hugo Chavez31 Aug 2007In April 2006, after a failed attempt to demolish the structurally unsafe bridge on the highway connecting Caracas with the Port of La Guaira, the Chávez opposition expressed outrage at government incompetence. Manuel Rosales, the opposition candidate in the December 2006 presidential elections, accused President Hugo Chávez of “allowing the Caracas-La Guaira bridge to collapse” and “having inaugurated scores of public works projects without completing them.
Lendman: Labor Day Hypocrisy31 Aug 2007Labor Day is commemorated on the first Monday in September each year since the first one was celebrated in New York in 1882. Around the world outside the US, socialist and labor movements are observed on May 1 to recognize organized labor’s social and economic achievements and the workers in them.
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