A Look at George Ciccariello-Maher’s Building the Commune, Radical Democracy in Venezuela

By Stan Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity Committee George Ciccariello-Maher, author of We Created Chavez, has come out with a short book, Venezuela, Building the Commune . Here the grassroots struggle to build a new society, focusing on the cooperatives, the community councils, the communes, established to strengthen popular participatory democracy, is keeping the Chavista revolution … Continue reading A Look at George Ciccariello-Maher’s Building the Commune, Radical Democracy in Venezuela

Behind the Bolivia Miner Cooperatives Protest and the Killing of the Bolivian Vice-Minister

The Bolivian cooperatives’ protests and their August 25 killing of the Bolivian Vice Minister of the Interior Rodolfo Illanes requires us to question our assumptions about cooperatives. What are the Bolivian mining cooperatives? Most began during the Great Depression as miners banded together to work a mine in common. However, like many cooperatives in the … Continue reading Behind the Bolivia Miner Cooperatives Protest and the Killing of the Bolivian Vice-Minister

Bernie Sanders in 1989 and the Fight Against Corporate Rule

July 7, 2016 “We need a new, progressive political party in the U.S. because on almost every important issue the Democratic and Republican Parties, both controlled by Big Money, are indistinguishable." The "Reagan Revolution… was brought about with the active and strong support of the Democratic Party which controlled the U.S. House of Representatives … Continue reading Bernie Sanders in 1989 and the Fight Against Corporate Rule

Propaganda as “News”: Ecuador Allegedly Sells its Amazon Rainforest to China

Propaganda as "News": Ecuador Sells out Indigenous and the Environment to China Stansfield Smith, Chicago ALBA Solidarity Committee, administrator of the Facebook groups "Friends of Ecuador -North America" and "Friends of Evo's Bolivia," leader of former Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5, has been on delegations to Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia in 2015. … Continue reading Propaganda as “News”: Ecuador Allegedly Sells its Amazon Rainforest to China

Lessons We Can Learn from the Electoral Setback in Venezuela

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/06/lessons-we-can-learn-from-the-electoral-setback-in-venezuela/ The most important lesson for solidarity activists and opponents of the US Empire is the crucial role of our international solidarity in defending Third World countries under threat. The constant corporate media disinformation war on target countries such as Venezuela is as much a weapon of aggression and a tool for regime change as … Continue reading Lessons We Can Learn from the Electoral Setback in Venezuela

Soft Coups in Latin America: How Left-Liberal Alternative Media and Environmental NGOs Help the US in Bolivia and Ecuador

The US now engineers “regime change” not so much by using the military, in part because of their military quagmires in the Middle East, in part because Obama has sought to give a new face and new credibility to the Empire after the damage it suffered during Bush years. The US relies on soft coups: media … Continue reading Soft Coups in Latin America: How Left-Liberal Alternative Media and Environmental NGOs Help the US in Bolivia and Ecuador

Interview with Alberto Roque Guerra

Alberto Roque Guerra has been active in the LGBT movement in Cuba for a number of years. He was interviewed on July 12, 2015 in Havana by Stan Smith of the Chicago ALBA Solidarity Committee. May 24, 2014 he spoke in Chicago on the case of the Cuban 5 political prisoners in an event partly … Continue reading Interview with Alberto Roque Guerra

The Progressive Movement and Chuy Garcia’s Campaign for Chicago Mayor

http://mltoday.com/article/2180-the-progressive-movement-and-chuy-garcia-s-campaign-for-chicago-may/30 Many progressives, and leftists, disillusioned with, some even ideologically opposed to, the two-party system, were excited about Chuy Garcia's campaign for mayor of Chicago. In the end, Chuy lost the April 7 run-off election, receiving 44.3% to Rahm's 55.7%. Chuy's greatest backer was the Chicago Teachers Union, which led an exemplary and heroic 2012 … Continue reading The Progressive Movement and Chuy Garcia’s Campaign for Chicago Mayor

Framing North Korea

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/framing-north-korea/ When it comes to North Korea, for the US government and its media, time stands still. They remain fixated in the 1950s Joe McCarthy worldview: the Red-Yellow peril, a monster capable of unimaginable evil, threatens our civilization and freedoms. North Korea’s Kim family is presented as three reincarnations of a Communist Dr. Fu Manchu. … Continue reading Framing North Korea

Ten Years of ALBA: Building a Better World South of the Border

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/19/building-a-better-world-south-of-the-border/ https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/ten-years-alba%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99s-achievements-celebrated Stansfield Smith, Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5, and member of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition. This week we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America), an anti-imperialist and anti-neoliberal alliance of Latin American countries. ALBA, meaning dawn in Spanish, is a … Continue reading Ten Years of ALBA: Building a Better World South of the Border