Punishing the Poor, 211 pp (tags)
"The Keynesian state, coupled with Fordist wage work...whose mission was to protect the most vulnerable populations...has been succeeded by a state that one might dub neo-Darwinist, in that it erects competition and celebrates unrestrained individual responsibility..."
Appalachia and Colombia: The People Behind the Coal --an interview with Aviva Chomsky (tags)
Aviva Chomsky is a professor of history and Latin American Studies at Salem State College in Massachusetts, and is a founder of the North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee, which has been working since 2002 with Colombian labor and popular movements, especially those affected by the foreign-owned mining sector. She just returned from a Witness for Peace delegation (May 28 – June 6) that traveled to two regions devastated by coal mining: the state of Kentucky and to northern Colombia.
HONORING SALUD ALGABRE, FILIPINA WOMAN WARRIOR / PAGPUPUGAY KAY SALUD ALGABRE (tags)
E. San Juan's new collection of poems in Filipino include a homage to the Filipina woman warrior, Salud Algabre, a peasant leader of the 1930 Sakdal Uprising against U.S. colonialism and its local agents, the Filipino oligarchy, whose descendants now rule the neocolony.
FILIPINA MILITANTS CONDEMN ARROYO-BUSH FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY (tags)
The 2nd session of the Permanent People's Tribunal (March 21-25, The Hague, Netherlands) marks a historic milestone in the Filipino people's struggle for social justice and true independence from U.S. imperialism and predatory global capital. This brief report sums up the major achievement of the Tribunal, highlighting the role of progressive Filipina women in the fight for freedom and people's liberation.
FILIPINOS IN THE U.S.A. AND AROUND THE WORLD: WHENCE AND WHITHER? (tags)
About ten million Filipinos are now scattered in the U.S. and around the world, chiefly as exploited migrant labor. Meanwhile, 85 million Filipinos--with the exception of a tiny privileged minority--are sufffering and resisting the current repressive regime in a rapidly deteriorating neocolonized social order. The Philippines has one of the most durable and vibrant revolutionary traditions in the whole world--the first Asian people to revolt against Western colonialism. 4.1 million Filipinos died opposing U.S. domination in the Filipino-American War at the turn of the last century. Today Filipinos are engaged in a popular democratic revolutionary process against U.S. imperialism and its local agents. Can overseas Filipinos contribute to the radical transformation of a world afflicted by the atrocities and terrors of global capitalism?
The anniversary of the death of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal this Dec. 30 affords us the occasion to reassess his work, particularly in the context of ongoing fierce class war in the Philippines between the oppressed, impoverished majority and the few privileged landlords and politicians bought by global capital. This is taking place at a time when the Philippines is being re-colonized by the U.S. as the world's imperialist hegemon. Would Rizal want the country partitioned to greedy transnational corporations and their national elites in the current terrorist war against peoples of color in particular? These reflections hope to provoke a re-thinking of what it means to be a Filipino with the Philippines in permanent crisis, using Rizal as a point of departure, especially in the light of its citizens becoming an embattled diaspora--more than ten million OFWs as exploited domestics and contract workers around the planet, while the country's rich natural resources, cultures and traditions are wasted by foreign profiteers of globalizing capital supported by local comprador parasites currently headed by the corrupt Arroyo regime. "O where is the hope of the motherland...."?
Self-educated at the Los Angeles Public Library in the Thirties, Carlos Bulosan, the militant Filipino writer and labor activist, died on September 11, 1956. His death anniversary last month provided the occasion for the Filipino community to celebrate his contribution to the revolutionary struggle of peoples everywhere for justice, dignity, and self-determination. Bulosan was part of the community of progressive Los Angeles-based intellectuals (Carey McWilliams, Sanora Babb, Louis Adamic, Ring Lardner Jr. and others) victimized by McCarthyism and fascist reaction. His example of resistance continues to inspire people of color everywhere.
BTL:2-Decisions Find Israel's Security Wall Violates Rights of Palestinians~ (tags)
~Interview with John Quigley, professor of law at Ohio State University conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
Racial Discrimination by and in the State of Israel (tags)
Perhaps those who suffer the heaviest discrimination are those Palestinians who were ejected from their homeland in 1948 and again in 1967, dispossessed of their homes and land, and rendered stateless.
The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic (tags)
Another brilliant article by political analyst Michael Parenti challenging the orthodox viewpoints about the causes of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
The social construction of consciousness (tags)
This paper gives a theoretical discussion of the source and methodology of the social construction of consciousness. The first section introduces the piece. The second establishes the relationship between "interests" and "consciousness." The third describes growing inequality in the US. The fourth develops the structural source of consciousness. The fifth details the interlocking nature of politics and economy in the US. The sixth section discusses how our consciousness can be constructed. The final section offers some solutions.