Archive | February, 2010

  • Israel’s War Drums 2010

    When the ceasefire went into effect on the Lebanese-Israeli border in 2006, nobody believed — not for a moment — that this was the end of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.  After all, none of Israel’s objectives were met in 2006: Israel Defense Forces’ soldiers were still held captive in Lebanon; and far from being […]

  • A Wind-up Toy

    Obama has wound down. “No problem.  We’ll buy another one later: a Hispanic or a woman.” This cartoon was first published by Rebelión on 13 February 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | | Print

  • Sex-Pol among Allies in the North Atlantic

    Do you have an indelible memory of a theater experience?  One winter in the 1970s, while I was a film student at Manhattan’s Hunter College, I heard that Mother Courage, by that red cat Bertolt Brecht, was being performed downtown at Wooster Street.  So voila! next stop Greenwich Village, and I attended the Wooster Group‘s […]

  • Rethinking Jeffrey Sachs and the “Big Five”: New Proposals for the End of Poverty

    Jeffrey Sachs has become something of a force in international development circles over the past decade.  As special advisor to the UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, former director of the UN’s Millennium Development Project, and a decorated economist at Columbia University, Sachs certainly has much to brag about.  The publication of his runaway bestseller, The […]

  • The WTO as Barrier to Financial Regulation

    In most parts of the world today (except perhaps in India, where optimism about the benefits of unregulated financial markets still seems to dominate over the undisputable evidence of their many fragilities) most policy makers talk about imposing regulations on the financial sector.  Of course, the events of the past two years in the world […]

  • The Stakes in “Punishing” Greece

    Global capitalism imploded in 2007.  The central causes of capitalism’s crisis include: the end of real wage increases in the US and the substitution of rising worker debt far beyond what workers could sustain; the buildup of excess global industrial capacity; the explosion of speculation and excess risk-taking by banks, other financial and non-financial corporations, […]

  • Grown Green on This Land

    سبز شدیم در این خاک از سالومه Our roots are deep in this soil We’ve grown green on this land We are children of Cyrus We are fervent We weren’t afraid of Bush Let alone your negative propaganda To trick our honorable people You’re happy to see this family fall apart, right? That’s not gonna […]

  • Report on the Arab International Forum to Support the Resistance

    The Arab International Forum to Support the Resistance concluded in Beirut on January 17, 2010, followed by a proclamation of its final appeal in Maroun al-Ras in southern Lebanon, directed via loudspeakers toward the Palestinian people in occupied Palestine 48.  In its closing statement, the forum called for resistance to occupation and aggression, stressing the […]

  • Iran: The Islamic Revolution Defeats Western Hopes for Regime Change

    . . . and Hashemi’s hopes for a palace coup. Iran Celebrates the 31st Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution   Green Wave* Ebbs Isfahan Tehran   *   For the social and political character of the Green Wave, consult Iran’s Last Marxist Nasser Zarafshan: Setareh Derakhshesh, “Interview with Dr. Nasser Zarafshan and Farrokh Negahdar” (VOA Persian, […]

  • Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

    Filming our documentary The People Speak in Boston, one afternoon, Howard said that the camaraderie between our cast members, the sense of collective purpose and joy, was a feeling he hadn’t experienced with such intensity since his active participation in the civil rights movement. Since Howard’s passing, I have thought often of that moment, which […]

  • Latvia’s Recession: The Cost of Adjustment with an “Internal Devaluation”

    Executive Summary: The Latvian recession, which is now more than two years old, has seen a world-historical drop in GDP of more than 25 percent.  The IMF projects another 4 percent drop this year, and predicts that the total loss of output from peak to bottom will reach 30 percent.  This would make Latvia’s loss […]

  • Discipline and Debate: Visions of the Enlightenment

      Michael Sauter.  Visions of the Enlightenment: The Edict on Religion of 1788 and the Politics of the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century Prussia.  Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History.  Leiden: Brill, 2009.  xvii + 242 pp. $147.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-04-17651-5. In this recent book, Michael J. Sauter has set himself many tasks.  His first argument urges […]

  • UAW Caught on Tape

    Rank & File: “Hello. Hello.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.  This is the rank & file calling.  Are you there?  Can you hear us?” UAW Spokesperson: Rank & File: “We’ve read in the Automotive News that both GM and Delphi are building new plants for new green technology automobiles but they are non-union.  This isn’t true, is […]

  • Electricity Emergency in Venezuela

    Merida, February 9th, 2010 — Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declared a state of emergency in the electricity sector Monday night on national radio and television.  The emergency decree permits the electricity minister to take extraordinary measures, instructs the National Electricity Corporation (Corpoelec) to accelerate its schedule of infrastructure and investments, and calls for an education […]

  • China, Europe, and Natural Gas in Iran

    Yesterday, President Obama declared that the international community is “moving along fairly quickly” toward imposing new multilateral sanctions on Iran.  Today, the Obama Administration followed that up by announcing new unilateral financial sanctions against individuals and corporate entities associated with the Revolutionary Guards.  The Administration proclaims that its “engagement” policy has been successful, after all, […]

  • Iran: 22 Bahman Posters, for and against the Green Movement

    A taste of the visual contest in the Persian-language blogosphere before 22 Bahman 1388 (11 February 2010), the 31st anniversary of the victory of the revolution in Iran. . . . ‫۲۲ بهمن روز پيروزی مردم‬ 22 Bahman: People’s Victory Day ۲۲ بهمن منتظرتان هستيم 22 Bahman: We Are Waiting for You — The Iranian […]

  • Greece: General Strike against Austerity Begins

    10 February 2010 For more information, visit and . | | Print

  • The Rose and the Mignonette

      For Gabriel Péri and d’Estiennes d’Orves, as well as Guy Moquet and Gilbert Dru The one who believed in heaven The one who didn’t Both loved a beauty Imprisoned by soldiers Which climbed the ladder? Which stood guard below? The one who believed in heaven? The one who didn’t? What matters the name of […]

  • Sussex University Occupation, 8-9 February 2010

      “We recognise that an attack on education workers is an attack on us. . . . They’re occupying everywhere in waves across California, New York, Greece, Croatia, Germany and Austria and elsewhere — and not only in the universities.  We send greetings of solidarity and cheerful grins to all those occupation movements and everyone […]

  • Understanding Islamic Feminism: Interview with Ziba Mir-Hosseini

    Born in Iran and now based in London, Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an anthropologist by training, is one of the most well-known scholars of Islamic Feminism.  She is the author of numerous books on the subject, including Marriage on Trial: A Study of Family Law in Iran and Morocco (l.B.Tauris, 1993) and Islam and Gender, the Religious […]