Yuma

Yuma

TravelApril 7, 2010

Yuma is one of those iconic towns of the west, like Tombstone. If Tombstone has its OK Corral, Yuma has its 3:10.  Situated along the once mighty Colorado River, baking in the Sonoran desert, it is…

Ludlow, Colorado/Windber, Pennsylvania

LaborMarch 26, 2010

Minerals and raw materials are the building blocks of industrial capitalism. No industrial revolutions would have been possible without iron, coal, copper, rubber, and similar substances. The extraction of such materials from the earth has…

Conversations on the Trail

TravelMarch 15, 2010

We’re often on the road, moving from place to place and staying in motels. It is not possible to form close friendships under such circumstances, and even when we settle down somewhere for a few…

What I Wrote in 2002 about the FARC…

PoliticsFebruary 27, 2010

Below is an excerpt from Naming the System. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC is the Spanish acronym) is the oldest revolutionary army in Latin America. Since 2002, it has been under some of…

Teaching the Vets

PersonalFebruary 17, 2010

 When I first began to teach, I had many veterans from the war in Vietnam in my classes. Between my first year in 1969 and the revolutionary victory in 1975, tens of thousands of soldiers…

Happy Birthday Irene Marie

PersonalFebruary 3, 2010

My mother turned eighty-five years old on January 26.  She's a small, grey-haired woman with plenty of wrinkles.  When she was young, she had long brown hair and a pretty Italian face.  She and my…

Radical Economics: A Clearer Look at Things, Part…

EconomicsJanuary 26, 2010

The State  Today there are many social scientists who believe that capitalism is gradually transcending the government, meaning that governments can no longer regulate and control capital accumulation. This view is incorrect. Capitalist economies developed…

The Neoclassical Economic Dogma: Part 2

EconomicsJanuary 12, 2010

Neoclassical Solutions to the Market Failures: the Liberal View  Liberal neoclassical economists share a faith in the goodness of markets with their libertarian counterparts, but the liberal faith is tempered by an understanding that market…

The Neoclassical Economic Dogma: Part I

EconomicsJanuary 8, 2010

 I am in Amherst, Massachusetts, teaching a two-week course to union activists enrolled in an MA program in Labor Studies.  The class is bright and eager to learn how our economic system works.  These students…