Stephen Harper's Conservative government has transformed Canadian diplomacy into the lobbying arm of dirty oil

By asserting their treaty rights and sovereignty, Indigenous nations are benefiting not only themselves, but also their treaty partners

Cars kill — millions of humans and animals around the world every year — but do they also destroy our sense of community and solidarity

In a first for a major sports organization, the National Hockey League is taking a stand against anti-LGBT bigotry in their sport

Speech at the opening night of PowerShift Canada

A speech on the opening night of PowerShift Canada

The history of the Summit of the Americas is as brief as it is significant

The Left must turn its attention back toward civil society: union locals, cooperatives, social movement organizations, mutual aid projects, popular assemblies

This Canadian oil would increase greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent over the use of other types of oil

The largest private sector work stoppage in the last seven years

Why is it that when capitalism seems so obviously unappealing, unsustainable and unfair, the Left cannot mount a more serious challenge to the Right or its grim austerity agenda?

Between June 2010 and June 2011, world grain prices almost doubled

The global recession has lowered incomes, raised food prices and pushed the number of hungry people to one billion

A secret operation to run guns across the border to Mexican drug cartels — overseen by U.S. government agents — threatens to become a major scandal for the Obama administration.

Following a lengthy closed meeting, the presidents stood before the cameras to reaffirm their mutual commitment to a war that has cost 35,000 Mexican lives since 2007.

On Monday, Jan. 31, I crossed the border to hear Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano speak at the University of Texas/El Paso.

ON THE HEALS of the January 8th shooting spree in Tucson, Arizona which left 6 dead and over 14 wounded, residents of Spokane, Washington celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday escaped their own terrorist attack as a M...

In this essay, David Bacon and Bill Ong Hing argue that ICE raids-be they of the Bush or the Obama kind-should cease. The basis for these operations-employer sanctions-should be repealed, and true reform that recognizes the rights of all workers s...

An introduction to an alternative economic model, participatory economics, and a brief exploration of strategy how to get there.

This is the complete text of the talk, “Participatory Socialism: There is an Alternative!” that I gave in Thessaloniki, Greece at the A-fest, Festival of Anti-Authoritarians on Thursday, Sept 9th, 2010. I give reasons why it is important to hav...

A talk that Peter Bohmer gave at the festival of anti-authoritarians in Thessaloniki, Greece on September 8th, 2010. Bohmer explains the causes of the current economic crisis with a focus on its destructive effects on Greece.

The government of Hugo Chavez was correct last week when a representative said Ottawa supports "coup plotters" and "destabilizers" in Venezuela.

News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow - on the public dime - to make sure that the 2010 games proceed as planned. This use of tax-dollars is just the icing on the cake for increasingly angry Van...

The International Olympic Committee has leased every sign and billboard in town to broadcast Olympic joy, but they can't purchase people's faces. It's clear that the 2010 Winter Games has made the mood in the bucolic coastal city decidedly overcas...

The International Olympic Committee has leased every sign and billboard in town to broadcast Olympic joy, but they can't purchase people's faces. It's clear that the 2010 Winter Games has made the mood in the bucolic coastal city decidedly overcas...

The effects of a law that makes it a crime to work

The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada. How could that be true?

Going to Canada? You may be detained at the border and interrogated. I was, last week. I was heading from Seattle to give a talk at the Vancouver Public Library. My detention provoked outrage across Canada, making national news. It has serious imp...

When it comes to independent, agitational journalism, the standard is Amy Goodman and her radio/television institution, Democracy Now! Goodman and her staff often find themselves accosted by officials, foreign and domestic. This happened again on ...

I spent a good part of the other week watching the performances of Liberals and Conservatives in the Canadian House of Commons as they debated Bill C-23, implementing legislation of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA).

Reducing the size of the Canadian Armed Forces should be a priority for those of us that want a more peaceful world. It should also be a priority for anyone concerned about the environment.

Humans can make all kinds of nifty things - the axe, the wheel, the spinning jenny, the aeroplane, the pill, the Pentium III, vanilla ice cream - and can achieve all sorts of magical things with them.

Despite a loud chorus claiming otherwise, anti-Semitism is a mere fig leaf of its former oppressive character. Six decades ago "none is too many" was the order of the day in Ottawa, which rejected Jewish refugees escaping Nazi concentration camps....

What is the significance of the way not only Keynes but even Marx has been brought back into fashion amidst the global economic crisis? This is a question well worth pondering on the day that is officially designated to celebrate the class that Ma...

The attack on private sector pensions is not new; while the process has been uneven across time and sectors, private pensions in the U.S. and Canada have been eroding for over a quarter of a century. In 1980, some 40% of U.S. private sector worker...

Even a close observer of the Canadian press would know almost nothing about the ongoing demonstrations, blockades and work stoppages calling for the return of elected President Manuel Zelaya. Since Zelaya was overthrown by the military on June 28 ...

Firsthand report by Carl Davidson from the 5th Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy, held at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, July 30-Aug 2.

At Saturday's special meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) Canada's minister for the Americas, Peter Kent, recommended that ousted President Manuel Zelaya delay his planned return to the country. Kent said the "time is not right" p...

The following set of questions and answers are intended to help those in Canada trying to stop the CCFTA (or see to it that it stays down).

On Sunday military forces trained by the Canadian Special Operational Regiment subdued a hijacker who took command of a Halifax-based CanJet plane at an airport partly run by Vancouver Airport Services. While Canadian companies and institutions pl...

Three weeks ago, the Harper government rejected a proposal to make diplomatic and financial support for resource companies operating overseas contingent upon socially responsible conduct. Under popular pressure, the Mining Association of Canada ag...

Travelling through North America one summer several years ago I spent several relaxing days in the fine city of Winnipeg. During one lazy stroll along the river and around the historic Exchange District I had the good fortune of stumbling across t...

At the end of February Stephen Harper referred to Russia as "aggressive." In a throwback to the Cold War, two weeks ago Defense Minister Peter MacKay added that Ottawa will respond to Russian flights in the Arctic by flying Canadian fighter jets n...

How could the Canadian embassy in London have believed Mr Galloway's food and medicine shipment to Gaza, made with Israel's agreement, and its delivery to the Hamas government was a "terrorist" act, even if Stephen Harper's Canadian government reg...

First hand report from the gathering of hundreds of Solidarity Economy activists at Amherst, Mass, March 19-22, 2009.

A major obstacle for anyone organizing to "right" a Canadian foreign policy "wrong" is the widely held notion that this country acts benevolently on the world stage. "Myths for Profit," a recently released documentary written and directed by Amy M...

During the first half of the 20th century, Toronto-based Brazilian Traction (or Brascan) dominated the Brazilian economy. At its high point in the 1940s, the company employed nearly 50,000 Brazilians.

Globalization was imposed on the world with a promise of peace and prosperity. Instead we are faced with war and economic crisis. Not only has prosperity proved elusive, the minimal economic securities of people and countries are fast disappearing.

Below are my annotations (notes in bold) to a memo written by Canadian Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff. Ignatieff's memo denounced a campus lecture series, Israeli Apartheid Week.

In the decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, most of the world is in the grip of an ideology whose most dramatic embodiment is currently to be found in the race between the two main candidates for the American presidency. Without wishing to l...

As Israeli Apartheid Week gets underway, there is a major campaign currently underway to deny freedom of expression on campus to those in solidarity with Palestine on the basis of alleged anti-Semitism.

On February 20, the Federal Court of Canada dropped most of the conditions it had placed on one of the prisoners of its “security certificate” regime, Adil Charkaoui. While much of his life is still lived in the rights-free zone widened under ...

An Interview...

The Harper government publicly supported Israel's brutal assault on Gaza and voted alone at the UN Human Rights Committee in defense of Israel's actions. Now Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy. Literally.

In mid December, Robert Fowler, a career Canadian diplomat who is currently the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy to Niger, and his aide Louis Guay, an official at Foreign Affairs, were abducted in Niger. They were kidnapped not long after visi...

The Canadian Left has taken a major step forward in opposition to Zionism. On Saturday Montréal held probably the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in Canadian history. Despite some ridiculous media reports, I estimate that there were between...

If national media help make a nation, then we all need to stop reading and listening to conventional Canadian media if we want to make a decent Canada.

Are highly secretive Canadian Joint Task Force 2 commandos assassinating Afghanis during night raids?

This article discusses how to develop a winning strategy by carefully choosing effective tactics. Discussion about strategy and tactics can sometimes seem like a waste of time, delaying 'action.' But what is really a waste of time is embarking on ...

We are seeing an example of what I call in the book a "shock resistance," where this tactic has been so overused around the world and also in Canada that we are becoming more resistant to the tactic - we are on to them - and Harper is not getting ...

The political crisis that has suddenly erupted in Canada adds yet another dimension to the seemingly unending shockwaves set in motion by the global financial crisis. The sheer political escapism that led all the leaders (even the NDP's Jack Layto...

This Fall Michael Albert went to Canada for some talks and did an interview with the excellent Canadian Magazine, Canadian Dimension. Here is an essentially verbatim transcript they prepared for publication in Canada.

In Canada, the Conservative minority government might just become the opposition in parliament this week, replaced by a Liberal-NDP coalition with support from the Bloc Quebecois from the outside.

Perhaps Afghanistan's President Karzai took Obama's campaign slogan seriously, as his first message to the president-elect spoke directly of a need for change. Karzai's "demand" that Obama "end civilian casualties" was prompted by the November 3 ...

On Halloween 2008, over 400 latino high school students took to the streets and engaged in non-violent direct action, shutting down an I.C.E. detention center. Why should Environmentalists be paying attention and inspired?

The 2008 Canadian election has some of the features of the past few elections. The majority of the population faces the quandary of how to defeat a reactionary party that just might have the largest plurality of support. Will they get a majority o...

Martin Tierney is one of a tiny number of mainstream journalists willing to review our book, ‘Guardians of Power’. In June 2006, he published an accurate outline of our argument in the Herald, commenting: “It stands up to scrutiny.”

David Bacon on providing legal services for immigrants.

When the bottom line is threatened, corporations typically show little concern for holding the line on political principles such as freedom of expression. In capitalism, freedom is too often just another word for maximizing profits.

Coal-field residents and allies lock down at a Dominion coal-fired power plant construction site in Virginia.

In early July, a National Post reporter on board a Canadian naval vessel explained: "The usual tense games were played this weekend as this Canadian warship responsible for refueling and replenishing a coalition task force in the Indian Ocean pass...

There’s been a lot of words expended recently on Sarah Palin’s ties (if not membership) to the Alaska Independence Party (AIP). The Party’s website lays out an array of arguments, legal and otherwise, justifying their belief that they have been w...

Call out for the Sept. 13th Pan-Canadian Day of Action for U.S. Iraq War Resisters in Canada.

The US worldwide network of bases.

The mainstream media's hypocrisy during the Olympics would have been funny if it weren't so ignorance-producing.

Travelling by bus...

In June 2008, Tom and Huck (Saul and his friend Marin) return as two senior citizens not on a raft but in a rented car, driving from New Jersey south and then west through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and into Illinois...

Tarek personally asked me to review his book, Chasing a Mirage: the tragic illusion of an Islamic State (CM). With a book being favorably reviewed in the Canadian (and US and UK) media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Huffing...

On June 7 2008, less than one year after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the beginning of bilateral free trade talks with Colombia, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade announced the conclusion of neg...

Erasto Vasquez was surprised to see a forklift appear one morning outside his trailer near the corner of East and Springfield, two small rural roads deep in the grapevines, ten miles southwest of Fresno. He and his neighbors pleaded with the drive...

It's called "Plan Mexico," or more formally the "Merida Initiative," and here's the scheme. It's to do for Mexicans what Plan Colombia has done to that nation since 1999, and, in fact, much earlier. Since then, billions have gone for the following...

On Monday May 26, Indigenous people will gather from across Ontario, including the remote North, on the lawns of Queen's Park to insist that governments and industry recognize their right to say no to mining and forestry on their lands. Travelling...

Canadian foreign aid has been widely derided as ineffective. But that's simply not true. Commentators have just been looking in the wrong places. Canadian aid has been highly effective at transforming taxes into profits for major Canadian corpora...

In 2002 Canada unveiled an official list of "terrorist" organizations, strikingly similar to that of the the US government. Today the Lebanese political movement Hizballah -- both the military and political wing -- is officially considered a "terr...

While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA

According to the South African Sunday Times, the World Bank and IMF have declared an international food emergency. However, the Sunday Times does not trace the origins of the present food crisis. For that kind of analysis, one must turn to the bo...

As an advanced capitalist state, Québec support for Western imperialism in Haiti should not be surprising.

The jailing of these leaders offers a window into a whole host of Canada’s irrationalities and cruelties – the callous dispossession of the indigenous, the search for quick profits to be torn out of the ground and turned into money whatever the co...

How ironic is it when a national entity priding itself that its foreign policy is based on humanitarian motives and diplomatic benevolence consistently denies the rights of a people internationally recognized as occupied, inflicts further human su...

Colombia Goldfields, the company’s website announces, is “rediscovering the land of the golden mountain” through two major projects in the region; the Marmato Development Project and the Caramanta Exploration Project, located approximately seven k...

Manizales, Colombia – Uncertainty prevails in the cobbled streets of Marmato – a small mining town of some 8,000 souls clinging to the side of El Burro, a mountain in the Colombian Andes. For more than 500 years, 'subsistence' gold mining formed a...

In 1967 author, historian, human rights activist and professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was working on a Ph.D. in Latin American history at UCLA when a TV report drew her attention. Armed men of the Alianza Federal de Pueblos Libres had captured a sma...

At the stroke of midnight this past January 1, 100 or so farmers and day laborers from both sides of the border converged on the Cordoba Las Americas bridge that connects El Paso and Ciudad Juarez to mark the demise of Mexican agriculture.

The role of movements in social change.

You are watching and listening to Michael Albert, social activist, author and co-founder of Z Magazine, speak on the problems of the progressive social movement and what it can do better. He was at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 2...

Michael Albert on "Winning". ASU, Brisbane. 2002

The contemptuous demotion of a fire chief ignited unified opposition in St. Louis' Black community. Previously fragmented groups have pulled together whether their focus has been on police violence, employment opportunities, school closings, emin...

Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich decries corporate hiring practices for what she sees as an over-emphasis on upbeat, extroverted personalities, while overlooking such factors as creativity and skill.

Noam Chomsky's yearly appearance at the Z Media Institute, Woods Hole, MA. The 2007 ZMI talk is entitled "We Own the World" and the DVD is available at www.zmag.org

Noam Chomsky's yearly appearance at the Z Media Institute, Woods Hole, MA. The 2007 ZMI talk is entitled "We Own the World" and the DVD is available at www.zmag.org