| Old Articles | | Thursday, June 26 | | · | |
| Sunday, April 06 | | · | A wake up call |
| Wednesday, April 02 | | · | THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER |
| · | Welcome to a Vicious Cycle of Violence |
| Wednesday, March 12 | | · | The view from Wonderland |
| Monday, February 17 | | · | Escape hoods and go bags |
| Tuesday, January 28 | | · | Left Turns in South America: United Opposition to Neoliberalism in Bolivia? |
| Thursday, January 09 | | · | What shall be our legacy? |
| Friday, December 06 | | · | Amiri Baraka's Somebody Blew Up America Poetry as Treason? |
| Saturday, October 19 | | · | So You Think You Live in a Democracy? |
| Friday, October 11 | | · | Home is where the hurt is: The roots of war |
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World Focus: Beyond Politics: People for Sale in Hungry World
Wednesday, July 01 @ 16:28:25 UTC |  By Ramzy Baroud
July 01, 2009
One might be tempted to dismiss the recent findings of the US State Department on human trafficking as largely political. But do not be too hasty.
Criticism of the State Department's report on trafficked persons, issued on 16 June, should be rife. The language describing US allies' efforts to combat the problem seems undeserved, especially when one examines the nearly 320- page report and observes the minuscule efforts of these governments. Also, it was hardly surprising to find that Cuba , North Korea , Iran and Syria -- Washington 's foremost foes -- languish in the report's Tier 3 category, i.e. countries where the problem is most grave and least combated. Offenders in Tier 3 are subject to US sanctions, while governments of countries in Tier 1 are perceived as vigilant in fighting human trafficking.
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Latin America: South America: Recession Can Be Avoided
Wednesday, November 19 @ 05:28:31 UTC | by Mark Weisbrot
November 17th 2008
Pagina/12
Can South America escape the wrath of the economic and financial storms that have their epicenter in the United States? Since the financial meltdown began in mid-September, the bond markets of most of the region (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela) have been hit, as well as most of their stock markets and a number of currencies. The steep drop in commodity prices in recent months has also reduced export and government revenue to a number of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Chile) where previously high prices of agricultural crops, minerals, and hydrocarbons has contributed to a growth spurt over the last few years. The old adage that "When America gets a cold, Latin America catches pneumonia" has been widely cited.
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World Focus: West Takes Aim at Belarus' Pro-Social Policies
Wednesday, November 05 @ 07:40:19 UTC | Belarus is one of the few remaining genuine alternatives to the neo-liberal economic order. A US nurtured and bankrolled fifth column is working with Washington to topple it from within.
By Stephen Gowans
October 13, 2008
gowans.wordpress.com
The US government has nurtured a fifth column in Belarus to help overthrow the Lukashenko government to replace its socialist-oriented policies with a made-in-the-USA neo-liberal regime that favours US investors and corporations.
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World Focus: No individualist solution to foundations
Monday, April 21 @ 12:21:06 UTC | By Stephen Gowans
April 21, 2008
gowans.wordpress.com
A number of articles published here and elsewhere have been critical of progressives who have become entangled with foundations sponsored by corporations, imperialist governments and wealthy individuals. These progressives have been criticized by some for being willing to accept foundation support and by others for presenting themselves and other foundation-connected leftists as "independent" left voices. The first group of critics complains that progressives undermine their credibility by taking foundation grants and accepting foundation positions or unjustifiably enhance the credibility of the foundations they take money and jobs from. This group has no basic disagreement with the political positions of the foundation-connected progressives. The criticism of the second group, on the other hand, originates in disagreement over fundamental political positions. It defines the political position of foundation-connected progressives as pro-imperialist, not in intentions but in its effects, and argues that it is this basic political position which makes these progressives attractive to foundations. They appear to be credibly progressive - even radical - but in fact promote views that pose no real threat to corporate domination and indeed even buttress the ideological foundations of that domination. They are independent in the sense that they are not told to what to do or say, but their views considerably overlap in important ways those of their foundation sponsors.
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World Focus: What is real democracy?
Friday, December 14 @ 19:16:18 UTC | socialistworker.co.uk
December 11, 2007
John Molyneux analyses the origins of the limited democracy we have today, and looks forward to a radically different society in which we all have power
Democracy is one of the most abused words in the dictionary. Almost every reactionary or crooked politician you can think of – George Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Silvio Berlusconi – has sworn by it.
Blatantly undemocratic regimes and parties call themselves democracies – Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's party is called the National Democratic Party; the Stalinist one-party states of Eastern Europe were called People's Democracies. To cap it all, Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist BNP, said in Oxford last month, "Free speech and democracy are our absolute core values."
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World Focus: 21st or 19th Century Socialism?
Thursday, October 11 @ 19:24:00 UTC | By Stephen Gowans
October 08, 2007
gowans.blogspot.com
“Che was one of the greatest Latin Americans in history but ours is 21st Century Socialism,” remarked Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador in early October.
“We don’t believe in class war or dialectical materialism. We believe it’s possible to bring about profound radical socialist change using current structures, democratic means.”
So too did many other people reject the orthodox Marxist emphasis on class war and believe it was possible to bring about profound radical socialist change using current structures, democratic means.
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World Focus: Opportunities Lost: When Bullies Derail Dialogue, We All Lose
Tuesday, November 21 @ 11:25:56 UTC | by Robert Jensen, commondreams.org
In a world of spin, no one expects truth from corporate executives or the politicians who serve them, but many of us hold out hope that in the classroom and sanctuary we can engage one another honestly in the struggle to understand the world and our place in it. So, while I've had my share of squabbles with schools and churches over the years, I remain committed to them as important truth-seeking institutions.
As a university professor who has recently returned to church membership, I have a lot riding on those hopes, which is why it was particularly disappointing in recent weeks to be scheduled for speaking engagements and then abruptly canceled by a Catholic diocese and a private high school in Texas. In both cases, some people in the institutions were eager to have me share my knowledge and experiences, only to have the leadership give in to complaints from conservatives.
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World Focus: The High Cost of Manliness
Thursday, September 14 @ 19:36:52 UTC | by Robert Jensen, smirkingchimp.com
It's hard to be a man; hard to live up to the demands that come with the dominant conception of masculinity, of the tough guy.
So, guys, I have an idea -- maybe it's time we stop trying. Maybe this masculinity thing is a bad deal, not just for women but for us.
We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It's time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women.
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World Focus: After 400 years, capitalism is a colossal and catastrophic failure
Monday, April 17 @ 23:43:18 UTC | By Arthur Shaw, vheadline.com
It is now practically a staple or fad of bourgeois propaganda, which proudly calls itself "news," to characterize the Left, communism and socialism as outmoded, old, old-fashion, antiquated, so 19th century, and obsolete ideological baggage.
The same treatment is also administered in smaller dosages to populism, that is, a political movement that promotes the rights and interests of the common people or the masses largely without systematic ideology or with a mishmash of eclectic ideologies.
But capitalism and bourgeois ideology ... that is, garbage like liberalism and conservatism and all the rubbish between these extremes of bourgeois ideology ... are older than communism and socialism.
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World Focus: Stealing Back Adam's Rib
Monday, March 06 @ 09:28:03 UTC | By Ron Jacobs, counterpunch.org
I rarely write about so-called women's issues. I think this is because I don't really feel qualified since I am not a woman. That's the effect identity politics has had on me and much of the rest of the left( and not so left). However, this is one of those instances where what appears to be a women's issue is actually much more than that. Much much more. I'm talking about the recent law passed by the South Dakota legislature outlawing abortions. This law, which makes all abortion illegal in the state of South Dakota, is one of the most reactionary pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States.
It seems like it came from another country--perhaps a protofascist version of Superman's Bizarroworld. Or maybe Hitler's Germany. You know, the place of the three K's (that's right KKK). Those K's stood for Kinder, Kirche und Kuche (Children, church and kitchen)--the only three places women belonged in the mind of the Nazis.. The sad truth is it did not originate in either of these places. It's happening here in the United States. And the opposition is quiet. Or at least it isn't being heard.
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World Focus: Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis
Saturday, October 29 @ 08:39:05 UTC | It's high time somebody called these Christo-Fascist bullies out
by Phil Rockstroh, Counterbias.com
"If he [Hugo Chávez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop." -- Pat Robertson
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"Muslims want to rule the world. They want to take over the whole world. That's their evil purpose ... Most of them are very harsh. There's no tenderness or love." -- Mary Fowler, 54, Oklahoma Housekeeper, excerpted from Rose Aguila's "Stories in America".
Where does Mary get her information about the war?
"The Bible and the 700 Club. I also listen to preachers who know what's going on. Pat Robertson."
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Inside U.S.A.: Defining Black Identity in 21st Century America
Sunday, December 12 @ 16:00:15 UTC | by Ewuare Osayande
The following is a transcript of an address given by Ewuare Osayande at a panel discussion "What's in a Name" at Temple University on November 10, 2004.
There is an adage from the Xhosa people of South Africa that says "I am because we are …" One aspect of this multi-meaning truth is that one's identity is tied to a body larger than the self. The wisdom in the saying also clearly indicates that in order to understand the self, to identify the self, the group from which one emerges must have an identity as well. Herein lies the dilemma of those of us who have been called and have called ourselves by a variety of cultural nomenclatures and derogatory epithets – Negro, nigger, Colored, Black, African, American, Afro-American, African American, African in America.
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Latin America: Latin America Shifts to the Center-Left
Sunday, December 05 @ 12:53:47 UTC | by Laura Carlsen, www.irc-online.org
On his first trip abroad since re-election, George W. Bush was greeted by thousands of Chileans, protesting his trade and military policies and telling him to go home.
The protests at last week's APEC meeting were not just a manifestation of the historic anti-American response to an imperial president. The anti-Bush demonstrations in Santiago highlighted a new political trend in Latin America--where many countries are moving to the center-left, just as the United States takes a sharp turn to the right.
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World Focus: Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Monday, November 03 @ 23:10:20 UTC | The Ideology of the Polyarchy
By NOAM CHOMSKY, www.counterpunch.org
The following is an excerpt from the book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky, published by Metropolitan Books.
A few years ago, one of the great figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the likelihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence," meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization." It did so very recently, perhaps 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all descendants.
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World Focus:
Sunday, June 29 @ 14:00:45 UTC | Biting the Hand That Feeds – Part 1
by David Edwards and Media Lens
Dissident Voice, June 27, 2003
Bolton Enters The Twilight Zone
By coincidence, Greg Palast's praise for the non-toxic Newsnight came just as we were preparing a review of a recent interview conducted by Kirsty Wark and her "sexy brain". On June 19, Wark interviewed John Bolton, US under-secretary for arms control. (Newsnight, BBC2, June 19, 2003)
Bolton, of course, has a history. In 1997, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and other right-wingers most involved in the oil business created the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a lobby group demanding "regime change" in Iraq. In a 1998 letter to President Clinton, PNAC called for the removal of Saddam from power. In a letter to Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House, they wrote, "we should establish and maintain a strong US military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power". Bolton was a signatory to the letter. (Robert Fisk, 'This looming war isn't about chemical warheads or human rights: it's about oil', The Independent, January 18, 2003)
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