Page 190 – Toward Freedom

Riot police agents clash with students in Managua, Nicaragua, during a protest against government reforms. (Inti Ocon / AFP Photo)

Nicaragua’s Protests Transcend Old Political Divides

Ryan Mallett-Outtrim May 14, 2018 Ryan Mallett-Outtrim

For Nicaraguan university student Rosa, it was the sheer brutality of the police crackdown that left her terrified in her own country. “I never thought it would be like that,” she said, reflecting on the first time she joined a peaceful protest against proposed social security reforms. Like tens of thousands of other Nicaraguan students, she participated in a wave of demonstrations in mid-April against the Ortega administration’s plans to slash pensions and increase employee contributions to the financially troubled Nicaraguan Institute for Social Security.

David Graeber on Capitalism’s Endless Busywork

Dayton Martindale May 10, 2018 Dayton Martindale

Source: In These Times

David Graeber had a hypothesis. The anthropologist grew up working-class in New York, and while his scholarship garnered accolades, he’s never felt at home in the world of academia. From his time as a professor at Yale (ended prematurely, he believes, due to his anarchist activism) to his current gig at the London School of Economics, he kept running into professional managers who didn’t seem to do much. Over drinks, some confessed they actually didn’t do much; they spent a few hours a week working and the rest browsing cat memes. read more

People attend a protest about the lack of jobs after two miners died while working in a clandestine coal mine, in Jerada, Morocco, January 20, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Youssef Boudlal

Morocco’s Movements Take to the Streets for Water, Labor Reforms, and Human Rights

Ilhem Rachidi May 10, 2018 Ilhem Rachidi

Morocco's movements are on the march for human rights, jobs, water, and economic alternatives. They have challenged the political establishment and face increasing repression and jail time. The coming weeks and months will likely be critical as pressure builds to release political prisoners, protests continue, and temperatures rise.

Palestine's iconic olive trees are key to the local economy. The olives from the 11 million trees across these lands support 100,000 families. LEILA MOLANA-ALLEN/AL JAZEERA

Spirit of the Orchard: A Palestinian Story

Ramzy Baroud May 10, 2018 Ramzy Baroud

Spanning decades and encompassing war, mass exodus, epic migrations and the search for individual and collective identity, The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story tells the story of modern Palestine through the memories of those who have lived it. Ordinary Palestinians have rarely narrated their own history. In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed author Ramzy Baroud draws on dozens of interviews to produce vivid, intimate and beautifully written accounts of Palestinian lives - in villages, refugee camps, prisons and cities, in the lands of their ancestors and in exile.

Indigenous Communities Build Regional Alliance Against Mining in Central America

Edgardo Ayala May 8, 2018 Edgardo Ayala

“We call upon Central American governments to reflect on the viability of what they call development, when we know that the extractive industry is a model of destruction and death for our countries,” explained Julio González, of the Guatemalan environmental organisation MadreSelva.

Howard Zinn on How Karl Marx Predicted Our World Today

Howard Zinn May 8, 2018 Howard Zinn

Source: In These Times

In the September 2000 issue of In These Times, Howard Zinn wrote this review of a book about the life of Karl Marx by Francis Wheen. On the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, we present Zinn’s review in full, in which he discusses how “Marx predicted the world of today, with ever increasing concentrations of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, with capitalism roaming the globe in search of profits, with a deepening contradiction between the colossal growth of production and the failure to distribute its fruits justly.” read more