November 2002
Issue No. 351
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The Other America - Tucson or not Tucson
The place may not be what you first think of as typically American, but David Ransom finds plenty of food for second thoughts, and dissent, in a city with two very different sides.
Rolling Thunder
Even a dead fish can go with the flow – but not Jim Hightower, Granny D, Tom Hayden, Joel Rogers and a host of others on the Downhome Democracy Tour.
Time theft
Working for WalMart has few compensations, as Barbara Ehrenreich found out for herself.
Freedom dreams
Taught as a child to see life as possibility, Robin Kelley has travelled from black nationalism to the ‘poetry’ of imagining a new society.
Yes we can!
Labour unions have begun to embrace ‘New Internationalism’. Mark Engler finds out what it means.
Oh no you don’t
Corporations are trying hard to get their hands on the creaking public education system in New York. Matthew Reiss reports on what parents, teachers and students have been doing to stop them.
Great American Rebels
True originals Daniel Shays, Geronimo, Emma Goldman, Mae West, Paul Robeson, Rachel Carson, Cesar Chavez, Noam Chomsky and The Simpsons.
The Other America _is_ America
Confronted by a growing crisis of democratic legitimacy in their own country, argues David Ransom, dissident Americans have to turn the Washington Consensus on its head – and the world the right way up.
The Angola Three
American prisons contain political prisoners who dared to challenge the domestic status quo – and who have been locked away for good to keep them quiet. Anita Roddick met one of them inside Angola prison.
Innocence behind bars
WEB EXCLUSIVE For decades the US has been jailing more and more of its own citizens. The result, as Bernice Yeung reports, is an increasing number of innocent victims inside, as well as outside, the criminal-justice system – and growing agitation
News, views, and & voices
Letter from Lebanon
Reem Haddad trails exploited Ethiopian and Sri Lankan maids in Beirut.
Southern Exposure
A holy Buddhist site in Sri Lanka, photographed by Shyam Tekwani.
View from the South
Africans are desperate to protect hard-won democracy, as Ike Oguine explains.
Currents
Quest for support
Madagascar: catastrophe may follow conflict
Clean water from the sun
solar water disinfection
Worldbeaters
One-man wrecking crew in a Canadian one-party state: Ralph Klein.
Big Bad World
Bombs away.
Mixed Media
Film
Anita and Me by Metin Huseyin
Book
Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika
Book
No Turning Back by Estelle B Freedman
Book
The A to Z of Postmodern Life
by Ziauddin Sardar
Book
The Democracy Owners’ Manual by Jim Shultz
Music
Yusa by Yusa
Music
Nommo by Slovo
Making Waves
Ogoni campaigner Owens Wiwa – brother of executed writer Ken Saro-Wiwa – explains why he is confronting the Shell corporation in a US court.
Essay
Eco-resisters are making a difference from China to Singapore, Thailand to the Philippines. Mike Levin reports.
Country Profile
Kiribati
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from
THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
Almost everyone – including Americans – has their own ‘America’. Or, to put it another way, imagine how hard it would be not to have one at all. You would need to suppose that you had never encountered the blues or blue jeans, never contemplated Hiroshima or the Moon. Our personal ‘Americas’ frequently define where we stand on a whole range of issues, from globalization to local identity. Like many dissidents outside the United States, however, I have usually tried to draw a distinction between the American Government and the American people – a distinction I’ve drawn in the past more often in hope than from experience. Well, not any longer. For this magazine I went there and spent some time listening to ordinary Americans – as I have, in the past, to ordinary Guatemalans or South Africans. As always, it was a revealing experience.
And so, to all those brave Americans who are seeking to bring their hijacked government to democratic account, I now feel compelled to apologize for the compliant, shameful warmongering of my very own, British, Tony Blair. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of us who took to the streets of London on 28 September to oppose the latest war on Iraq, I can only add ‘not in our name, either’.
David Ransom for the New Internationalist Co-operative davidr@newint.org
Voices from the margins:
Multimedia: video, podcasts, and more.
- Poetry Slam in Zimbabwe
- The House of Hunger poetry slam held in Zimbabwe in 2006, and organised by the Pamberi Trust, showcased young artists performing inspirational work on issues from corporate power to child soldiers. The video features four of the poets.
Published by Pambazuka News.
- Iranian women speak out
- 3 March 2007, London. Women's rights activists marched through the English capital last week to celebrate International Women's Day with a protest against the misogyny of the Islamic regime in Iran and the threat of invasion by the US. Hear the voices of Iranian feminists Azar and Leila Parnian and the sounds of the demonstration as it passed through the heart of the city. Click here to learn more about the campaign.
Produced by Heidi Bachram.
- Raised Voices audio:
- Benny from West Papua on Corporate Power
- Vinayan from India on agriculture
