Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Interview on Radio Kajou (Florida) & CKCU fm (Ottawa)

I was interviewed for around 45 minutes on my new book by Haitian writer and activist Jean Saint-Vil on Radio Kajou (based out of south Florida) & CKCU fm (based in Ottawa, Canada) on December 9. The discussion was partially translated into haitian kreyol. You can listen to the talk here, but will only be available for the next three weeks.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Rendez-vous Haitien

Nan emisyon sa a Jafrikayiti (Jean St Vil) chita pale ak otE Jeb Sprague ki pibliye "Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti", yon liv ki bay anpil detay sou kanpay militE ki makonnen ak koudeta 29 fevriye 2004 la. Sprague te pale ak alatEt mEsenE yo, Louis Jodel Chamblain, Judy C. Roy, ak anpil plis. Li te resevwa plizyE dokiman klasifye nan men gouvEnman Meriken ki ede li konprann pi byen nan ki kondisyon mEsenE yo t ap opere sou teritwa Dominiken depi anvan Aristide te prete sEman kom Prezidan nan ane 2001.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

La reconstitution de l’armée ferait repartir Haïti 30 ans en arrière.


Par Jeb Sprague - L'Aut' JournalLe Grand Soir

Le Gouvernement haïtien prépare le retour de l’armée haïtienne, pourtant dissoute, qui a été une institution coupable de nombreux crimes perpétrés dans le pays. Au même moment, des unités spéciales de la police ont été utilisées pour chasser les victimes du tremblement de terre hors des campements de fortune.

Alors que la société civile et les organisations populaires d’Haïti mènent une campagne contre un éventuel retour de l’ère de la répression duvaliériste, les citoyens américains, dominicains, et français devraient être mis au courant de l’appui historique que leur gouvernement a donné aux forces armées militaires et paramilitaires haïtiennes, ainsi qu’aux forces de sécurité.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Book talk in Austin, Texas

Listen here to a talk that I gave on my new book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti at the 5604 Manor in Austin, Texas, on September 28, 2012. This was recorded and released by Allan Campbell of Community Audio for 91.7FM in Austin, Texas.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

book reviewed by The Bullet

See today's issue of 'The Bullet' for a review of my new book by author Michael Baker.  Barker also has a blog with a lot of writings here.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

OpEd in Jamaica Observer

I have a new article titled "Haiti's excluded majority opposes army's re-creation" published in the Jamaica ObserverRead the article here. The full version of the article appears here on the website Upside Down World.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Video interview on my new book

David Zlutnick has put up on youtube a video interview that he did with me on my new book Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti. You can see the interview here.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

una revista de Santiago en República Dominicana llamada *La República* publico un articulo de mi


Le aquí mi nuevo artículo sobre el intento de las fuerzas de derecha a reconstruir el antiguo ejercito de Haití. Discuto brevemente las condiciones históricas que están detrás de esto.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Upcoming talk at SOA Watch Vigil in Columbus, Georgia

On November 17,  haitian grassroots photojournalist Wadner Pierre and myself will be speaking about paramilitary political violence in Haiti. We will in particular highlight the historical role of some agencies within the U.S. government in facilitating and enabling military and paramilitary waves of repression in Haiti. We'll also discuss the ongoing project of rightwing forces in Haiti (and their foreign backers) to rebuild the country's brutal former army.

The event will take place in Columbus, Georgia, 5:30-7pm, in Room 104 in the Convention Center for the Annual Vigil to close down the School of the Americas (SOA) Watch (801 Front Avenue, Columbus, GA 31901). For more on SOA Watch see their website here. The workshop is co-sponsored by the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (http://ijdh.org/), the Haiti Action Committee (http://www.haitisolidarity.net/) + more to be added soon.


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Book reviewed in Al Jazeera

Author Belén Fernández has published a review of my book on the Al Jazeera English website. You can read it here. A version of her review is also published in español here.



 




Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Audio of book talk aired on WPFW's Africa Now (in Washington D.C.)

Thank you to Mwiza Munthali, of Trans Africa and WPFW's Africa Now (based out of Washington D.C.), for recording and airing my talk at Georgetown University on September 25. You can listen to it here.

OpEd in Miami Herald

I have a new article published here in the Miami Herald. It is titled "Reviving Haiti’s army would harm democracy". Click here to read.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Counterpunch review of book

The alternative media outlet Counterpunch (of Jeffrey St. Clair and the late Alexander Cockburn) has published a review of my book. You can read the review by clicking here.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Book interview on the Black Agenda Report

Glen Ford, of the Black Agenda Report aired on the Progressive Radio Network (PRN), recently aired an interview with me on my new book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. You can listen to the interview here, toward the end of the show.

Book interview on CKUW (in Winnipeg, Canada)

Here is a audio recording of an interview (from Sep 16) that I gave on my book to CKUW 95.9 in Winnipeg, Canada. I did this interview after speaking at McNally Robinson books in Winnipeg.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Talk at DePaul University (in Chicago)



Here is a video of a talk that I gave on my book in Chicago at DePaul University on  September 18th. This was hosted by the Open University of the Left


Book talk on CFUV radio (in Victoria, Canada)


An audio recording of one of the talks from my ongoing book tour is online here. My talk begins around 17 minutes and 55 seconds. It was recorded on September 15, 2012 at the University of Victoria in Victoria, Canada. The audio is on the website of Gorilla Radio which is a show on CFUV 101.9 FM, a radio channel run out of the University of Victoria.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Discussion on Haiti book on WBAI (in NYC)

On September 13 I spoke about my new book on Pacifica Radio's WBAI, on the show Haiti: The Struggle Continues. The discussion begins at around 28 minutes into the program. You can download and listen to the program here.


Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Book talk aired on NPR

My book talk in Seattle is being aired on NPR through its affiliate 94.9 FM KUOW in Seattle, WA. To find the talk visit the website here.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Interview on Africa Today (in Berkeley,CA)

Pacifica Radio KPFA 94.1FM in San Francisco/Oakland/Bay Area on September 3rd, at 7pm on 'Africa Today with Walter Turner' aired a half hour interview on  Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. To hear this go to http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/83963. The interview begins at around 29 and 1/2 minutes into the show.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Speaking Dates

Here is the tentative schedule for speaking events on  Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. I will update this page as the times/locations get finalized.



9/9/12  Berkeley, CA: 4-6pm at La Peña Cultural Center. For more info see HaitiSolidarity.net
9/11/12 Portland, OR: 7-9pm at The Lucky Lab (1700 N Killingsworth St., Portland, Oregon 97217). For more see the Portland Central America Solidarity Committee.
9/12/12 Seattle, WA: 7pm at Elliot Bay Books.
9/13/12  Bellingham, WA: 7pm at Village Books
9/14/12 Vancouver, BC: 5:30-6:40pm in room HC 7000 at Simon Fraser University. Sponsored by Latin American Studies.
9/14/12 Vancouver, BC: 7:00-8:30pm in the Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye Rooms at the Vancouver Public Library.
9/15/12 Victoria, BC: 4:00 - 6:00 pm at UVic, David Strong Bldg Rm C118. Sponsored by Victoria Peace Coalition, Mining Justice Action Committee, UVic Social Justice Studies, Central American Support Committee, and the Barnard-Boecker Centre
Foundation.

9/16/12  Winnipeg, MB: 4pm at McNally Robinson Booksellers Grant Park.
9/17/12  Madison, WI: 4pm at 206 Ingraham Hall at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Sponsored by the Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies (LACIS).
9/18/12 Chicago, IL: 7pm at DePaul University in Lincoln Park Student Center (LPSC) Room 325 (2250 North Sheffield, Chicago) Transit: Red & Brown CTA train lines, Fullerton Avenue station.
9/19/12 Toronto, ON: 2-4pm at University of Toronto in Grad Room, 66 Harbord St. (NE corner of Harbord and Spadina). Sponsored by CHAN.
9/19/12 Toronto, ON: 7-9pm at Sidney Smith Hall, room 2098, 100 St. George St. 
9/20/12 Montreal, QC: 4-6pm at Concordia University, Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve West H-1124. Sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University.
9/22/12 New York, NY: 7pm at Bluestockings Bookstore
9/24/12 Philadelphia, PA: 8pm at Moonstone Arts Center/ Robin's Books
9/25/12 Washington, DC: 5pm at the Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Intercultural Center 450 at Georgetown University. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies.
9/26/12 Tampa, FL: 6pm at room 136-138 in the Patel Center for Global Solution at the University of South Florida. Sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean.
9/27/12 Boca Raton, FL: 2 PM, Room PA101 at Florida Atlantic University. Hosted by Peace Studies.
9/27/12 Miami, FL: 8pm at Books and Books
9/28/12 Austin, TX: 7pm at 5604 Manor
10/17/12 Goleta, CA: noon to 1:30pm at Colloquium Series of UCSB Department of Sociology.
10/19/12 Riverside, CA: 2:00 to 3:30pm at University of California Riverside in the Map Room of the College Building South. This is part of the Colloquium Series of the UCR Program on Global Studies (Sponsored by the UCR Sociology Department and the Institute for Research on World-Systems/IROWS).
11/17/12 Columbus, Georgia: 5:30-7pm, Room 104 in the Convention Center for the Annual Vigil of the School of the Americas (SOA) Watch. (801 Front Avenue, Columbus, GA 31901)
3/11/13 Goleta, California, 3:30pm, at 'Introduction to Caribbean Studies' Room Chem 1171, University of California-Santa Barbara.




Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Introduction to book published in Monthly Review magazine

The introduction to my new book has been published as a stand-alone  article in the September-October issue of Monthly Review magazine. Here is a PDF. The Brooklyn and Port-au-Prince based weekly newspaper Haiti Liberte (Vol. 6, No. 8.) has published an alternative version here.


Thursday, August 16, 2012

IPS review of my book

See this webpage for a review that the Inter Press Service (IPS) has published of my new book. The book began shipping on August 15 and is 400 pages. The IPS french translation of this article is here and an IPS german translation is here. Znet Italy has an italian translation up here. A spanish version is here on América Latina en Movimiento

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Iconic Architecture & the Transnational Capitalist Class: A Talk by Dr. Leslie Sklair

      Below is a three part video of Leslie Sklair, Professor Emeritus in Sociology at LSE (London School of Economics), in which he presents his new research on iconic architecture during the era of capitalist globalization and its role as a hegemonic project of the transnational capitalist class. 


PART ONE


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

'Transnational State' entry in the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization

     I have published a new piece in The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization that looks at the analytical abstraction of an emergent transnational state and its apparatuses. The full article can be read hereHere is the abstract: 
The theory of an emergent transnational state (TNS), as coined by sociologist William I. Robinson (2001), claims that through globalization a nascent political, juridical and regulatory network is coming into existence worldwide. This notion rests upon the idea that a dominant social force, a transnational capitalist class (TCC), propels globalization through transnational corporations (TNCs) (Robinson & Harris 2000). The TCC, to promote and ensure its power, requires a concomitant political project. Such a political project would involve, for example: (i) promoting investor confidence in the global economy, (ii) setting up mechanisms and institutions for responding to economic, political, and military crises that threaten the stability necessary for global markets, and (iii) establishing a degree of macroeconomic policy uniformity across borders.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Remembering Jean Ristil Jean-Baptiste, a Champion for Haiti's Poor

     It is with sadness that many of us have learned that on February 25, Haitian photojournalist Jean Ristil Jean-Baptiste passed away at a hospital in Port-au-Prince. See twitter for messages from friends and fans of his stunning photographic work. 
    I first met Jean in August of 2006 when I was taking part in a human rights-labor delegation to Haiti. It was clear that Jean's strong presence, his sincere dedication to Haiti's poor majority, made a strong impression on those around him. As the only internationally known photojournalist living and working full time in Cite Soleil he faced many hardships in his life: after the 2004 coup he was targeted with intimidation, threats, and police brutality.
    In August of 2006 myself and another participant in the delegation interviewed Jean, the transcript of which can still be read on upsidedownworld.org. He provided us with hundreds of more photos that haitianalysis still has backed up on a hard drive (a website in the midst of being relaunched at a new URL). We kept in touch, and the next year he asked me to make a website for his Cite Soleil based children's center Kole Zepòl Sove Ti Moun.  Others from our delegation soon returned to help set up internet at Kole Zepòl.  The website we made remains online here. Jean was well known in his community, cherished by his family, and was a great friend to Haiti solidarity activists. His work appeared on various websites, in newspapers such as Haiti Liberte and Haiti Progres and in stunning documentaries. If anyone would like to add more to this homage please email me: jebsprague[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll  add it. Thanks to Dominique Esser for photo 4 and 5 below. Also see Kevin Pina's much more poignant post on Jean Ristil here as well as Ezili Dantò's post here.

More photos of Jean here: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]