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El Alto, Bolivia, at 13,300 feet above sea level, is in shambles viewed from the outside, if one cultivates someone else's Western, colonial way of looking. Another perspective, though, reveals the history of an amazing place where social mobilization has called the powers that be into question and done it without centralized or unified organizations. Here are facts and insights for understanding the Aymaras' capital city that reinvented the word insurrection.

Blocking the Net

Ron Chepesiuk September 27, 2005 Ron Chepesiuk

Vietnam's communist government knows that it is impossible to monitor the country's 5,000 cyber cafes, so it's forcing the cafe owners to be its eyes and ears. Last July, a government directive informed cafe owners that they will have to take a six-month course so that they can better monitor their cyber customers. The Vietnamese government is justifying its move for reasons of "national security and defense" - that is, to protect itself against online journalists who, it says, "provide sensationalist news and articles while others even publish reactionary and libelous reports and a depraved culture."

Diverse Anti-war Protests Largest in DC Since Vietnam

Benjamin Dangl and Brendan Coyne, NewStandard September 26, 2005 Benjamin Dangl and Brendan Coyne, NewStandard

Kicking off three days of actions aimed ultimately at pressuring the US government to pull troops out of Iraq, scores of protesters converged on Washington, DC on Saturday, September 24 for an all-day protest that included an array of speakers, a march past the White House and a concert that lasted well into the early morning hours. Estimates of the demonstration's size ranged from 100,000 to 300,000 protesters. Participants from across the country spent long hours riding overnight on buses and in caravans to take part in the largest anti-war event the nation's capitol has seen since the Vietnam War era. Groups began assembling on the Ellipse in front of the White House early yesterday. In preparation for the event, police blanketed the Ellipse, Federal Triangle and the grounds of the Washington Monument with a confusing maze of orange-plastic and wooden fences, closing many roads to both automobile and pedestrian traffic.

A People’s History of Iraq: 1963 to 2005

Bob Feldman September 22, 2005 Bob Feldman

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 138,000 U.S. occupation troops. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq. But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

Venezuelan President Chavez’s Speech to the United Nations

President Hugo Chavez September 21, 2005 President Hugo Chavez

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon. The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life. Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals - which were very modest indeed - will not be met. We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment. We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

America the Greatest?

Steven G. Herbert September 20, 2005 Steven G. Herbert

In a speech at the Republican National Convention in 2004, President Bush referred to the United States as "the greatest country in the world". Certainly this is a sentiment that many Americans share, but what kind of objective basis is there behind the statement? It's time to take a closer look. Do we make the pronouncement because we are the wealthiest nation in the world? Based on Gross Domestic Product per capita, in 2003 we were not first but fourth. Luxembourg at $43,940 was considerably ahead of the US ($36,000) by a 17% margin. Norway and Switzerland were in between. Most of us believe we have the highest standard of living in the world. But according to the UN Human Development Report of 2004, their list of the world's most livable countries show the US in eighth place, four places behind Canada, and trailing Norway and Sweden in first and second place.