North America
Mexico’s Movement for Real Democracy

Mexico’s Movement for Real Democracy

Weeks after Mexico’s presidential elections, thousands of people have turned out to protest the declared winner, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the imminent return to power of the party that ruled Mexico for more than seven decades. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which is slated to take office December 1, now faces increasing accusations of fraud, a legal demand to declare the elections invalid, and a youth movement that refuses to go away.

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Sequestration: The Way to Cut Defense Waste

Just like with base closings, taking cuts out of the hands of Congress is the only, repeat “only” way to cut waste from our trillion dollar defense/militarism spending. Reading and hearing how The Complex screams, here are a few points about the distortions and half-truths being put out by it and by Big Government Conservatives–Republican congressional leaders, Neoconservatives, Heritage Foundation, National Review, Fox TV,  Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Their big government program is unending wars, imperialist foreign policy, and ever expanding Homeland Security.

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Observing in Ecatepec

The word sounds like cracking something up inside your mouth, but it’s a poor suburb of Mexico City, and my Mexican friends tell me going there is like going to hell. That’s where I decided to observe the Mexican elections.

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Don’t Expand NAFTA

Don’t Expand NAFTA

The United States recently announced that Canada and Mexico will join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a secretive U.S.-led multinational trade and investment agreement currently being negotiated with eight other countries in the Pacific Rim region. On the other side of the Pacific, Japanese legislators are defecting in droves to try to stop the country’s entry into the negotiations. But the situation is much different in Canada and Mexico, which were admitted to the table with much fanfare during the G20 summit in June. 

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Cutting Pentagon Fat

Cutting Pentagon Fat

One minor piece of good news came out of the defense spending bill that the House passed last week. While approving a bill giving more to the Pentagon than the Pentagon asked for, the House did remove a few small items from the military budget. One was dear to the heart, and campaign war chest, of Hal Rogers (R-KY), the chair of the spending committee.  

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