Nov. 10, 2007

Compromising position
Genocide is genocide
Remembering Ish Flory
More jobs
Che’s hair
Important facts to the story

In the 2008 elections, the reactionaries are hoping to divide our progressive class with the immigration “wedge” issue. From what I have seen around North Texas so far, it is working pretty well for them. If one looks at history, it’s easy to see how the old pogroms against Jews were cooked up.

Recently Sam Webb, national chair of the Communist Party USA, remarked in one of his reports that in the national elections the working class has to fight for that inch of space where it can have room to organize for further gains. Nowhere is this more illustrated than on the subject of health care.

Colombian politics, notable for corruption, bossism and violence, took a positive turn Oct. 28 when candidates of the Alternative Democratic Pole (PDA), Colombia’s new, left-progressive coalition party, won local electoral victories. Leaders are looking to 2010, when the party will contest the re-election of President Alvaro Uribe, a U.S. protégé.

A newly released letter from ousted Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune sheds more light on the U.S.-backed coup against the former center-left government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It reveals, among other things, that U.S. officials threatened Neptune with death or imprisonment if he did not leave the country.

Many of the films screened at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival reflected the realities of death and destruction caused by wars around the globe.

Movies are all fake, as we know. For example, I don’t think actor Omar Metwally, who plays Anwar El-Ibrihimi in “Rendition,” is an Egyptian, let alone a green-carded Egyptian scientist living in the states. Didn’t he play a Palestinian in “Munich”?

Steve Earle’s CD, “Washington Square Serenade” (New West CD), is an ode to New York City and its residents. His song “Tennessee Blues” is his farewell to music city, Nashville, Tenn., and his hello to NYC.

ST. LOUIS — A standing room only crowd of trade unionists and community leaders attended the Fourth Annual Missouri/Kansas Friends of the People’s Weekly World “Working Class Media and Democracy” forum, held here Oct. 27. David Bacon, an Oakland-based photojournalist and author of “The Children of NAFTA” and “Communities Without Borders,” keynoted the event.

WASHINGTON — Los republicanos en el Congreso sostuvieron al veto del presidente Bush al Programa de Seguro de Salud Para Niños (SCHIP por sus siglas en inglés) por segunda vez en tantas semanas, haciendo caso omiso a un nuevo reporte que dijo que en 21 estados, los fondos del programa se agotarán en 2008 al menos que el Congreso apruebe el programa con un gran aumento de fondos.