Book Review - Resource Rebels, by Al Gedicks
Speaking with Timothy Pfaff in the Financial Times Magazine sometime last year, anti-war activist and writer Maxine Hong Kingston remarked: 'It’s terrible to be in a country that is making war all over the world.' Sociology professor and environmental activist Al Gedicks, in this compact, well-researched and urgent volume, concurs, sharing similar sentiments about US – and broadly Western – neo-imperial ambitions, now vehemently militarist.
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Communist Party of Israel says, 'Take down this wall!'
The apartheid wall must be dismantled immediately! The CPI calls upon all supporters of peace in Israel and the world to pressure the Sharon government to immediately implement the recommendations of the International Court of Justice in Hague concerning the apartheid wall.
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The General Strike Can Teach Unions How to Grow
San Francisco, CA - Archie Brown was first a ship scaler, and then a longshoreman - a dockworker all his life. He was there 70 years ago, when thousands of maritime workers closed west coast ports from San Diego to Canada. He saw the tanks and guns deployed by shipowners to fence off the docks at the height of the strike. And he remembered what happened next, when police shot into crowds of strikers, killing two union activists, as they sought to break picketlines and escort struck cargo off the piers.
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Against the Grain - Was Lenin Defective?
In a recent booklet, by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (P&G), 'Global Capitalism and American Empire,' Lenin’s theory of imperialism comes in for some heavy criticism. Let’s see if it is justified.
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The Influence of the Christian Right on U.S. Middle East Policy
In recent years a politicized and right-wing Protestant fundamentalist movement has emerged as a major factor in U.S. support for the policies of the rightist Likud government in Israel. To understand this influence, it is important to recognize that the rise of the religious right as a political force in the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged as part of a calculated strategy by leading right-wingers in the Republican Party who—while not fundamentalist Christians themselves—recognized the need to enlist the support of this key segment of the American population in order to achieve political power.
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Book Review - Holy War Inc., by Peter L. Bergen
The tragedy of 11 September 2001 inexorably has led to the publishing of a small library of volumes exploring the innards of so-called 'Islamic Fundamentalism.' Among the most celebrated of this genre is the instant volume, penned by the CNN producer, Peter L. Bergen, who has been interviewed frequently on television.
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Bush and GOP Comparable to Deposed Vajpayee and BJP
Violence is integral to right wing politics, and wars and encounters are essential components of its strategy. This is as much true of the Hindutva forces as it is of the US establishment led by Bush.
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Protecting HIV/AIDS Medicine Profits
Since the early 1990s, the United States government, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and other industrialized countries have pressured developing countries to strengthen their international property rights laws. The intellectual property rights agreement states that patents must be protected for at least twenty years. The agreement forces countries to offer 'market exclusivity' to new products until patent rights are fully implemented into a country’s domestic legal system.
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AIDS in Africa: Murder by Patent
Africa is home to more than 30 million of the 42 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. Of these 30 million people, only about 1% are receiving anti-retroviral drugs. Globally, 95% of people living with HIV/AIDS have no access to life-prolonging treatments. Access to these treatments is restricted by the high cost charged by pharmaceutical companies that use the intellectual property rights regime and patent system to protect their profits.
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An ANC U-Turn, or the progressive consolidation of a majority left consensus?
Since the overwhelming April ANC election victory, government ministers have spoken with increasing confidence about the importance of an active and strategic public sector. The incoming Minister of Public Enterprises, cde Alec Erwin, for instance, has said categorically there will be no whole-sale privatisation of strategic public entities like Transnet, Eskom or Denel in the next five years.
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