Radical media, politics and culture.

"Venezuela's 'Revolution'"

Washington Post

[This editorial, implicitly urging U.S. intervention, appeared in today's edition. The quotes in the title and below are in the original text.]

Last Sunday hundreds of heavily armed Venezuelan troops invaded one of the country's largest and most productive cattle ranches, launching what President Hugo Chavez describes as his "war against the estates." The next day Mr. Chavez signed a decree under which authorities are expected to seize scores of other farms in the coming weeks. This assault on private property is merely the latest step in what has been a rapidly escalating "revolution" by Venezuela's president that is undermining the foundations of democracy and free enterprise in that oil-producing country. The response of Venezuela's democratic neighbors, and the United States, ranges from passivity to tacit encouragement.

A Glossary of the Right-Wing Sectors in U.S. Foreign Policy

Tom Barry, Interhemispheric Resource Center


[Militant] Anticommunists: Until the collapse of the Soviet bloc, militant anticommunism served to unify right-wing sectors around a foreign policy that stressed military budget increases, rationalized U.S. support for dictatorial regimes, and supported armed intervention. Unlike cold war liberals, who also identified themselves as anticommunists, the militant anticommunists of the right believed that the battle against communism needed to be fought at home as well as abroad, and they advocated aggressive rollback strategies rather than merely containment and deterrence. Militant anticommunism no longer functions as the backbone of the right’s approach to international affairs, although anticommunist convictions still shape the foreign policy agendas of many right-wing ideologues regarding U.S. relations with China, Cuba, and North Korea. This political agenda of crushing all forms of communist governance has created fissures within the right, dividing the proponents of free trade from those who resist establishing normal business relations with countries ruled by Communist parties.

Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists 2004 Report

Like always, some collectives have disbanded over the past year (Cipriano Mera in Ottawa, Bad Apple and Roundhouse in Baltimore, Sophia Perovskaia who merged with Class Against Class in Boston, and Firefly in Malden who disbanded), while long term work has enabled smaller collectives to consolidate by recruiting new militants (Punching Out in Toronto, Green Mountain Anarchist Collective in Vermont, La
Nuit in Quebec City)

nolympics writes:

"Cut Nur and Kausar Before the Tsunami"
David Martinez

I remember the first time I laid eyes on her. She stood in the doorway of her stately house as we trudged up the muddy street hauling backpacks and cameras, dripping with sweat. It was December of 2002 and the air in Banda Aceh felt like mulled soup. As we collapsed on the couch, Cut Nur and her daughters brought us water and tea and welcomed us to stay in their home.

She was tall, with a wide smile and purple dress. Her home was always bustling with activity, and the narrow courtyard was often filled with people and vehicles. Many of them worked at the hotel she owned, the Raja Wali, a sprawling building fronted with a leering plaster statue of an eagle located a few blocks away.

She welcomed anyone who sympathized with the cause of the Acehnese. After all, Cut Nur had been involved in the independence struggle for years.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"An Eminence With No Shades of Gray"

Michael Powell, Washington Post

[Originally appeared in May, 2002. This post forwarded from Dan Clore, ainfos"

.]

Cambridge, Mass. — The talk is of terrorism and the terrible delusions of the
powerful, and of the real bottom line of Sept. 11. Which the famous professor explains this way:

"The atrocities of Sept. 11 are quite new in world affairs,
not in scale and character, but in target. The United States
exterminated its indigenous population, conquered half of
Mexico, and carried out depredations all over. Now, for the
first time since the British burned the White House in [the
War of] 1812, the guns have been directed the other way."

Our professor is being a touch provocative here, no? He glances sideways at you, through silver-rimmed glasses,
and smiles. If you listen closely, he seems sure he can
penetrate the fog.


"This is not complicated," he says in that softly insistent
voice. "You can be a pure hypocrite or you can look at
events honestly."

Rory McGuire writes:

"NAFTA Is Not The Answer"

Rory McGuire


The outsourcing of jobs is one of the most dangerous policies in United States economic history. Recently, jobs in the high-tech, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors have increasingly been shifted overseas; unfortunately, the United States cannot compete with these lower wages elsewhere in the world.


The ramifications of job outsourcing are clear — as wages in the United States must be lowered to compete, more people find themselves impoverished, there is less hope of climbing the economic and social ladder, and the nation suffers as a whole. The tax base of the nation is reduced, and wide-ranging effects spread to local schools, hospitals, emergency response, and other crucial departments in the form of inadequate funding. Many of these problems can be linked to the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, on January 1, 1994.

Ana Amorim writes:

"What Has Changed After Lula?"
Plinio Arruda Sampaio, Brasil de Fato


To evaluate is to compare facts and values. In this evaluation of the first two years of Lula’s government, we chose as a term of comparison, the project for national construction. Using a synthetic and precise formula from Caio Prado Jr.: to what extent these two years of government have contributed to accelerate the transition between the “Brazil-Colony from yesterday into the Brazil-Nation of tomorrow”?
Three aspects of this transition will be examined: reduction of inequality; increase in autonomy; and political organization of the people. As for the reduction of social inequality, it should be mentioned that: for the two year period, the growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) was mediocre, and did not even manage to affect the GNP per capita. There was an improvement in 2004, but without a bigger impact — in terms of jobs (there was a small increase in comparison to the size of the work force), in terms of salaries ( in fact the average salary decreased in the two year period).

"30 Books, Not One Review:

Chomsky and Academic History"

John H. Summers, Counterpunch

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." — Karl Marx, "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right"

Noam Chomsky has written more than 30 books over the last three decades. Yet neither the Journal of American History, nor the American Historical Review, nor Reviews in American History has reviewed them. If the journals had overlooked one or two of Chomsky's books, then the omissions might not rise to the status of a problem, and could be attributed to a combination of reasons each of them incidental to Chomsky himself. If the journals had in fact devoted attention to him, but the preponderance of the attention had been hostile, then they might stand accused of harboring a bias. This is the most respectable way to disagree about such matters. But the journals have not done enough to deserve the accusation. They have not reviewed a single one of his books. Chomsky is one of most widely read political intellectuals in the world. Academic history pretends he does not exist.

Why is this so?

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Tank Girls: the Frontline Feminists"

Christine Aziz, Independent

These women have come from around the world to bring down Iran's ayatollahs. So why were they bombed by the West? Christine Aziz visits their
desert HQ

As the coalition bombs hit the flat salt plains on the north-eastern border of Iraq, members of a little known, female-led Iranian army huddled in a bunker. While the earth shook, showering dust on their neatly pressed khaki headscarves, 25-year old Laleh Tarighi and her fellow combatants tried to protect themselves.


Eighteen months later, recalling the terror of being attacked by British and US bombers during the invasion of Iraq last year, Tarighi, a former pupil of Parkside and Hill Road School in Cambridge, says: "We were puzzled more than afraid. We knew our officers had sent messages to the Pentagon insisting that we were neutral and shouldn't be attacked. We were only in Iraq to overthrow the Islamic fundamentalist regime across the border in Iran."

Michael Bell writes:

"What is Money?"

Michae Bell

Someone once said, or there was a song entitled, “Money is the root of all Evil”. So I ask, “ What is Money?”


* Is it a means of exchange, a facilitator?

* Is it a metal object, a piece of paper, a book entry, a hand shake?

* Is it tangible, solid, structural or is it an illusion?

* is it a commodity, like sheep, like iron ore, like bread?

* Does it grow, is it alive, is it conscious? If not, who creates, directs,
controls it? Is it out of control?

* Does it need control? Will it kill us? Who benefits, who looses?

* Is it a health hazard? Is it responsible for depression? Did it create
or extend gambling? Does it cause excessive or lack of medication?

* Does it support the rich or the poor?

* Does impede creative thinking, support for the impoverished?

* Does it cause poverty, dumping, deprivation, global warming?

* Is it responsible for wars, resource depletion, environmental
degradation, design obsolescence, high technical solutions, structural
decay?

* Does it accelerate the depletion of the earth’s resources, oil, minerals,
soil, rain forests, oceans?

* Does it create or impede progress?

* Is it a catalyst for development?

* Who needs it, banks, multinational corporations, stock markets,
supermarkets, governments, nomads, the people?

* Is it necessary for the proliferation of free trade agreements?

* What does it achieve, growth, booms and busts, inflation,recessions?

* Does money in the form of unearned income create inequities?

* Are compound interest rates the problem or is it money itself?

* Should the use of money be changed?

* Should interest be abolished or should it be replaced by a fee on
transactions?

* Should money be abolished or just taken out of the hands of banks,
and financial institutions, including stock exchanges?

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