The Story Behind America’s Fast Food Worker Uprising
How did the biggest-ever mobilization of fast-food workers come about, and what is its endgame?
Month: November 2013
A High-Stakes Election in Honduras
Source: The Nation
Will the country will take a step toward democracy, or remain mired in corruption and repression?
Four years after a military coup deposed democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya, Hondurans have a chance with their November 24 elections to restore a measure of democracy. The stakes are high: either Honduras will plunge deeper into its vortex of violence and repression, or it will have a fighting chance to begin to re-establish the rule of law and construct a viable economy. On a broader level, the Honduran elections will test whether Latin America’s transition to democracy and social justice will be permitted to advance—in what Secretary of State John Kerry still refers to as “our backyard.”
Veterans Day, 95 Years On: The Enduring Folly of the Battle of the Somme
In a country that uses every possible occasion to celebrate its “warriors,” many have forgotten that today’s holiday originally marked a peace agreement. Veterans Day in the United States originally was called Armistice Day and commemorated the ceasefire which, at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, ended the First World War.
Asking the Wrong Questions: Did Arab Revolutions Fail?
Challenging the falsehoods and simplifications that surrounded the so-called Arab Spring from the very start doesn’t necessarily mean that one is in doubt of the very notion that genuine revolutions have indeed gripped various Arab countries for nearly three years.
Latin America Rejects the Extractive Model in the Streets
Source: Americas Program
A decision of the Chilean Supreme Court has suspended operations at Barrick Gold’s gold mine, Pascula Lama. Monsanto had to halt construction of a seed plant in Cordoba because of widespread opposition from the population. Large extractive companies begin to reap a harvest of defeats.
“Under democracy, it’s the peoples that are the disappeared,” stated Mercedes Maidana, who defines herself as a ‘nomadic colla‘[1] that still works the land despite living in a city in northern Argentina. With that phrase, she established a thread between past dictatorships and current political regimes at the conference “From extractivism to re-building alternatives”, held in Buenos Aires in late August.[2]
Noam Chomsky: De-Americanizing the World
Source: Truthout
During the latest episode of the Washington farce that has astonished a bemused world, a Chinese commentator wrote that if the United States cannot be a responsible member of the world system, perhaps the world should become “de-Americanized” — and separate itself from the rogue state that is the reigning military power but is losing credibility in other domains.
The Washington debacle’s immediate source was the sharp shift to the right among the political class. In the past, the U.S. has sometimes been described sardonically — but not inaccurately — as a one-party state: the business party, with two factions called Democrats and Republicans.