The Necessity of Revolution in the USA
This Country Must Change: Essays on the Necessity of Revolution in the USA makes two important contributions to
Month: January 2010
Blood Diamonds in Zimbabwe: Corruption is Forever
Source: The New Internationalist
The last time I was in Zimbabwe I had an encounter with a local arts and crafts vendor who has a stall in one of Harare’s bustling flea markets. On this occasion he seemed disinterested in flaunting his archetypal Zimbabwean sculptures of mothers cradling their young or the clichéd soapstone wildlife roaming his rickety tabletop. He had become involved in the burgeoning diamond industry that had sprung up in an area of the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe called Marange District, where there are significant deposits of high-value industrial diamonds. He spoke of the astounding profit margins available to foreign buyers and how well he was doing as a middleman in this new venture. Inevitably, with the diamond trade’s crimson history, these stones were not being unearthed at a co-operative mine where the benefits enriched the soil from which they came. Rather, they brought with them increased violence and corruption to a people that know hardship and injustice all too well.
Western Sahara and Aminatou Haidar: A Matter of Life and Death
Aminatou Haidar's hunger strike, staged in protest after being deported for refusing to acknowledge Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, unleashed an intensive political and diplomatic activity in Spain, the US, the United Nations, and the European and African Unions. On December 19th, a 32-day standoff that had been playing out on the Canarian Island of Lanzarote between the Moroccan government and the hunger-striking Nobel Peace Prize nominee, reached its dramatic conclusion. Aminatou Haidar
Bolivia’s Next Steps
Published in The Nation on December 16, 2009
A rainbow of campaign posters covered the stairways and tinted glass walls in the Bolivian Congress building. After arriving in the crowded office lobby of leftist Congressman Gustavo Torrico, I sat for hours next to union leaders and other rank-and-file constituents, waiting to speak with the politician.
Torrico was meeting with members of the Bolivian Workers Center, one of the largest unions in the country. When I finally sat down on the couch in his dimly lit office, the smiling Congressman explained one of the key reasons for the success of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), the party he and indigenous President Evo Morales helped construct.
Liberal Arts Education and the Growing Class Divide
Antioch College
Source: In These Times
At the end of the 2007-2008 academic year, shrinking enrollment and a budget crisis forced Antioch College to close its doors after 156 years of progressive liberal arts education. Other liberal arts colleges and programs are under similar stress. University of California-Santa Cruz is not accepting applications to its History of Consciousness for the 2010-2011 academic year. Goddard College underwent dramatic restructuring in 2002, and the New College of California ended operations in 2008. These losses are emblematic of the hardships facing liberal arts and humanities programs.