Against Imperialism (Cover Design/Illustration: John Kim and Amadeo Velez)

Wal-Mart Workers of the World Unite!

In this issue...

• Wal-Mart Workers of the World Unite!

• Economic Unorthodoxy: An Interview with Doug Henwood

• Axis of Progress

• Talking Regime Change with Rahul Mahajan

• Book Review - The Enemy of Nature, By Joel Kovel

• NEW! Marxist Quiz NEW!

If a company can single-handedly spur on international labor unity, Wal-Mart’s it. This and similar corporations – Target, Nike, France’s Carrefour, etc. – feed off misery, inequality and competition among workers worldwide. But their anti-social behavior is also breeding global resistance.

Doug Henwood is the editor of Left Business Observer and a contributing editor for The Nation. He hosts a radio program on WBAI in New York. He has also written three books: The State of the USA, Wall Street and After the New Economy. Here he discusses globalization and current trends in the US economy.

The Alliance for Progress was the creation of President John Kennedy and his brain trust. The plan, revealed by Kennedy at a meeting of the Organization of the American States in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in 1961, sought to counter the appeal of revolutionary policies, such as those adopted in Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro.

Rahul Mahajan is a nationally known peace and justice activist. He publishes a daily political analysis on his weblog EmpireNotes.org and has written two books: Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

The choice Joel Kovel offers in the title is stark. He clearly lays out the indicting evidence against capitalism. Trying to graft environmental ethics onto capitalism is like trying to mix oil and water: it takes considerable agitation and then doesn’t hold together very long.

People around the world are looking to make a living. The migration of people from country to country is as old as the world itself. In the past, these movements were caused by natural calamities such as extended drought. But in today’s world, migration is driven by the expanding nature of capitalism and imperialism. The bottom line: immigrants are driven by the search for living-wage jobs.

Most of the gang of adventurers who hold strategic positions in the Bush II administration honed their Machiavellian skills in the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Some such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld go back to the Ford administration in the mid-1970s. In their political exile during the Clinton terms many of them found employment in an incestuous network of right-wing think tanks and quasi-academic institutions plotting their return to power while advancing an imperial agenda.