Archive | August, 2009

  • I Wish I Were Wrong

    I was amazed to read the wire services issued during the weekend about the US domestic policy, evidencing a systematic decline in President Barack Obama’s influence. His surprising electoral victory had not been possible in the absence of the deep political and economic crisis affecting that country. The American soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq, the scandal about tortures and secret prisons, and the loss of jobs and housing had shaken the American society. The economic crisis was spreading throughout the planet, thus increasing poverty and hunger in the Third World countries.

  • How to Get Free Land in 5 Easy Steps: A Handy Guide for Imperialists and Other Reasonable Individuals

      1. Eliminate Native People. Choose the most appropriate strategies: disease, criminalization/incarceration, blood quantum, cultural genocide/forced assimilation, forced out-migration, cultivate poverty, just kill them. 2. Replace All Aspects of Native Society with Your Own. Examples: Government & Law, Economy, Religion, Culture. Useful code-words: Progress, Modernization, Development, Inevitable. 3. Invent Legal Instruments That Allow You to […]

  • Coup Protestor Gang-Raped by Honduran Police

    On Friday, Latin America scholars sent an urgent letter to Human Rights Watch, urging HRW to speak out on violations of human rights under the coup regime in Honduras and to conduct its own investigation.  HRW hasn’t made any statement about Honduras since July 8. One of the things Human Rights Watch should be investigating […]

  • The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights

    It was just a matter of time before members of the collapsing left enlisted in the imperial attack on the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter, and added their voices to the growing chorus of support for Western power-projection under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).  But this […]

  • My Home of the Last Seven Millennia

      “As we joke about this accident, I feel refreshed to be back in Tehran.  Things are always going wrong here, but, at the same time, there is a network of people ready to volunteer to help.” — Sabereh Kashi Sabereh Kashi started her career as a journalist and film critic in Iran.  She made […]

  • Queers Respond to Tel-Aviv Homophobic Violence, Call for BDS against Israel

    If your own suffering does not serve to unite you with the suffering of others, if your own imprisonment does not join you with others in prison, if you in your smallness remain alone, then your pain will have been for naught. On the evening of August 1st in Tel Aviv, someone entered a youth […]

  • Young Lords Party 40th Anniversary Reunion, Sunday, 23 August 2009

    Familia Forty years ago this summer the presence of the Young Lords came into the consciousness of all New Yorkers.   What had once been a gang on the streets of Chicago now was present in New York City.  The Young Lords, no longer a gang, was now a Puerto Rican Revolutionary Nationalist organization fighting for […]

  • Obama’s Deafening Silence on Honduras

    Seven weeks after the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras, the divide between the United States and Latin America continues to grow — although you might not get that impression from most mainstream media reports. The strategy of the coup regime is obviously to run out the clock on President Zelaya’s remaining […]

  • Elections in Afghanistan

      “Light!  Camera!  Action!“ Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was featured on the home page of Rebelión on 22 August 2009.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).

  • Swazi Queens’ $6m Shopping Spree

      There is growing anger in Swaziland as it emerges that the media have been forced to censor news that a group of King Mswati III‘s wives have been on another international shopping trip squandering up to E50 million (6 million US dollars) that should belong to ordinary Swazis. When the wives went on a […]

  • Human Rights Watch, Speak Up on Honduras Coup!

    On Friday nearly 100 Latin America scholars and experts sent an open letter to Human Rights Watch urging HRW to speak up about human rights violations in Honduras under the coup regime and to conduct its own investigation of these abuses.  The letters’ signers include Honduras experts Dana Frank and Adrienne Pine, Latin America experts […]

  • Who Are the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Republicans?

      Daniel Lee and I made these graphs showing the income distribution of voters self-classified by ideology (liberal, moderate, or conservative) and party identification (Democrat, Independent, or Republican).  We found some surprising patterns: Click to enlarge Each line shows the income distribution for the relevant category of respondents, normalized to the income distribution of all […]

  • A Crucial Factor in Colonial Conflicts: Opposition from Within

    In a colonial conflict, the main protagonists are, on the one hand, the colonial power and, on the other, the colonized population, and, when it exists, the liberation movement of the latter.  This was the case in the Algerian liberation war, the struggle of the Vietnamese people, in Angola and in Mozambique.  The ability of […]

  • Night

    شب / Night Majid Naficy was born in Esfahan, Iran in 1952.  His first wife Ezzat Tabaian and his brother Sa’id were executed after the revolution.  He fled Iran in 1983, eventually settling in Los Angeles with his son Azad.  This video was brought online by the Translation Project on 17 July 2007.  This poem — […]

  • Economic Recovery

    “. . . There are signs of recovery in some economies . . . . We can even exploit them more than before.” Alfredo Martirena Hernández was born in 1965 in Santa Clara, Cuba.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).

  • Rights of Detainees and Accused in the Legal System of Islamic Republic of Iran

    This memorandum is intended only as a general discussion of these issues.  It should not be regarded as legal advice. “Democracy is just a word.  You have to give it meaning.”— Ramsey Clark Background: The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted by referendum on October 24, 1979 and was amended on July […]

  • New Harvard Study Reveals That Taxing Job-based Health Benefits Would Hit Working Families Hardest

    Income and insurance data show that insured, working-poor families would be taxed 140 times more than Wall Street execs CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the debate over health care reform continues to unfold in town hall meetings and on Capitol Hill, a new study by two Harvard researchers has found that taxing job-based health benefits would […]

  • Amnesty: Honduras Photos and Protestor Testimonies Show Extent of Police Violence

    There has been very little attention in the U.S. press to repression in Honduras under the coup regime.  Hopefully, that will now change: Amnesty International issued a report yesterday documenting “serious ill-treatment by police and military of peaceful protesters” in Honduras, warning that “beatings and mass arrests are being used as a way of punishing […]

  • Back to the Natural State of Stagnation

    John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff, The Great Financial Crisis (Monthly Review Press, 2009). One of the few boom industries in times of slump, it seems — aside from private security firms, debt collection agencies and porn — is the publication of books about slumps. Everyone from Vince Cable to Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason […]

  • Dear Shahid,

    I am writing to you from your far-off country. Far even from us who live here. Where you no longer are. Everyone carries his address in his pocket so that at least his body will reach home.

    Rumors break on their way to us in the city. But word still reaches us from border towns: Men are forced to stand barefoot in snow waters all night. The women are alone inside. Soldiers smash radios and televisions. With bare hands they tear our houses to pieces.