Table of Contents - February 2010

Commentary

IN MEMORIAM: Tim Costello, 1945-2009 by Various Contributors

Tim Costello, an architect of innovative strategies for the labor movement and the author of numerous articles and books on labor and globalization, died at home on December 4, 2009 of pancreatic c... More / Printer Friendly Version

IN MEMORIAM: Dennis Vincent Brutus, 1924-2009 by Patrick Bond

World-renowned political organizer and one of Africa's most celebrated poets, Dennis Brutus, aged 85, died early on December 26 in Cape Town. Even in his last days, Brutus was fully engaged, advoca... More / Printer Friendly Version

SPOTLIGHT: Reviewing the Coup by Dawn Paley

The last Sunday in June began normally for Evangelica Argueta, an organizer with the General Workers Confederation (CGT) in Honduras. She woke up in her home in San Pedro Sula, prepared breakfast, ... More / Printer Friendly Version

SPOTLIGHT: From Coup-lite to Truth-lite: U.S. Policy in Honduras by Andres Conteris

In the "Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Which Side the United States Government is On With Regard to the Military Coup in Honduras" (see commondreams.org), Mark Weisbrot correctly illustrates U... More / Printer Friendly Version

FOG WATCH: The United States As Nation-Buster by Edward Herman

The remarkable thing about the United States, as it has become more and more a "weapons culture" and permanent-war-making empire, is that it has clearly been busting itself as well as a s... More / Printer Friendly Version

FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Morales and Social Movements Confront New Challenges by Tanya Kerssen

Bolivian president Evo Morales and his political party, the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), won a resounding victory in the presidential elections on December 6, 2009. The nearest challengers, Ma... More / Printer Friendly Version

CONSERVATIVE WATCH: Tea Party Movement by Bill Berkowitz

It began nearly a year ago with tax day protests, as thousands rallied in cities across the country. It continued into the summer with raucous town hall meetings and gun-toting anti-Obama demonstra... More / Printer Friendly Version

EYES RIGHT: Tea Bags, Taxes, & Productive Citizens by Chip Berlet

A conundrum of right-wing populist movements like the tea bag and town hall protests is that they often mobilize in ways that undermine the economic self-interest of participants. The solution to t... More / Printer Friendly Version

Activism

ANNIVERSARY ACTIVISM: The Good Out of the Misery in Gaza by Eileen Fleming

December 27, 2009 marked the first anniversary of the beginning of "Operation Cast Lead," Israel's 22-day assault on Gaza. The attack: Killed 1,400 people; one-third were children ... More / Printer Friendly Version

LABOR NOTES: Laborers Join with Worker Centers by Tiffany Ten eyck

The Laborers Union has an ambitious goal: to organize in the largely non-union residential construction industry. To kick off the campaign the union chartered two locals on the east coast. Both are... More / Printer Friendly Version

OCCUPATIONS: Students Defy Attack on Higher Education in California by Kate Maich

Annual fees at the University of California in 1979 were $685. Thirty years later, they were $10,302 as the University of California's appointed regents, who oversee 10 campuses throughout the stat... More / Printer Friendly Version

Features

INTERVIEW: Worker Occupations & the Future Of Radical Labor by Diane Krauthamer

This interview was conducted at Professor Noam Chomsky's office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Krauthamer: As a member of the New York IWW, I'm intereste... More / Printer Friendly Version

GREEN TIDE: What Really Happened in Copenhagen? by Anne Petermann

When the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) "negotiations" ended in Copenhagen, a colleague from ATTAC France remarked that w... More / Printer Friendly Version

ECONOMIC POLICY: Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression by Jack Rasmus

In the depths of the economic crisis, in early 2009, ten leading economists attending the annual American Economics Association conference in San Francisco were interviewed on "PBS Newshour.&q... More / Printer Friendly Version

COVERT PROGRAM: Provincial Reconstruction Teams by Douglas Valentine

On the morning of December 31, I listened in disbelief as an NPR "terrorism" expert disingenuously explained how the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan the day... More / Printer Friendly Version

WINESS TO WAR: Strong Enough by Craig Reinbold

I met Lisa Zepeda at an event put on by the Chicago chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). She had just spoken about the experiences that led her from the Army Reserves to the peace movem... More / Printer Friendly Version

LABOR TODAY: Should We Defend Undocumented Workers? by David Bacon

One winter morning in 1996, Border Patrol agents charged into a Los Angeles street-corner clinic where 40 day laborers had lined up to be tested for AIDS. One worker, Omar Sierra, had&nbs... More / Printer Friendly Version

LOOKING FORWARD: Searching for Democratic Alternatives by Various Contributors

  This month's "Looking Forward" includes excerpts from articles (culled from various websites) covering the economy, ecology, education, and mental health. -- Most of the art in... More / Printer Friendly Version

Culture

BOOK REVIEW: In the Name of God and Country by Jeremy Kuzmarov

Book by Michael Fellman; 2010, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 288 pp. In the 1960s, in response to condemnations of black rioting in the ghettos, radical activist H. Rap Brown commented that vio... More / Printer Friendly Version

BOOK REVIEW: The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy by Tamara Lorincz

Book by Yves Engler; 2009, Fernwood Publishing, Nova Scoatia, 294 pp. The Canadian government supplied the uranium for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II. Ottawa supported Sou... More / Printer Friendly Version

Zaps

FREE LISTINGS: Zaps - February 2010 by Various Contributors

  Events   DIVERSITY - The American Conference on Diversity is holding it's 2010 Educators' Institute, "Reaching and Teaching Immigrant Students," in cooperation with the P... More / Printer Friendly Version