Archive | August, 2010

  Dear Brother, Sister, Friend, As you daily confront the challenges of leading or representing union members or other workers, in whatever capacity, awareness of the current situation of the labor movement is unavoidable: we are in trouble, and we need to audaciously address our weaknesses and limitations if we are to have a chance […]

The second part of Fidel’s review of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s book The Mafia That Has Taken Over Mexico…and 2012. “On March 12, 2004, we learned from INTERPOL that a citizen of Argentine origin, naturalized in Mexico, was wanted in a case of illicit operations.

The relevant investigations confirmed that he had entered the country on February 27 of that same year in a private plane together with another person and was staying in a legally-registered rented house.

He was arrested on the 30th of that same month of March.

On the 31st, the Mexican Foreign Ministry presented Cuba’s MINREX with an extradition application for Carlos Ahumada Kurtz, given an order to apprehend this individual for his proven participation in a nonspecific criminal fraud.”

No one should be surprised when The Economist or another controlled opinion source misrepresents tensions in the Persian Gulf as religious rivalry while overlooking decades of U.S. and Israeli success in stoking them for imperial gain.  The so-called mainstream press typically repeats unsubstantiated charges to pretend that Arab client states of Washington buy tens of […]

  Eyeing the United States Fourth Fleet from Costa Rica: “They say they came here to consume, I mean, combat, drugs.” Pedro Méndez Suárez is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 12 August 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print  

Studying the American recipes for the war on drugs, Felipe Calderón pours more military police into the cauldron of Ciudad Juárez. Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  | Print

David Leonhardt tells readers that the Great Recession has had some silver linings for many workers.  High on his list is continued wage growth.  This is misleading.  All the real wage growth in this downturn occurred in the months of November and December of 2008.  This was due to a plunge in the price of […]

Fidel’s reviews Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s book The Mafia That Has Taken Over Mexico…and 2012. “There would be no form or words of describing my impressions like a certain Mexican has done who, no wonder, is the person with the greatest authority to speak of the tragedy of that country, as he was the elected mayor of Mexico’s most important electoral district, that of Mexico City, capital of the Republic, and in the 2006 elections was the candidate of the “Coalition for the Good of All.”

He stood during the elections and won a majority of votes against the PAN candidate. But the empire would not allow him to assume the mandate.

Like other political leaders, I knew how Washington had drawn up the ideas of the “neoliberalism” that it sold to the countries of Latin America and the rest of the Third World as the embodiment of political democracy and economic development, but I never had such a clear idea of the way in which the empire used this doctrine to destroy and devour the wealth of such an important country, rich in natural resources and the home of an heroic people who possessed their own culture before the pre-Christian era, more than 2,000 years ago.”

  “Artists struggling with the legacy of Agent Orange were invited to exhibit their work at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.  Nguyen Dinh Trung and Le Thi Be Nga are two of 140 artists who have learned to overcome their own disabilities and are taking their lives into their own hands […]

There is an old saying:  “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Many of the same writers, thinkers, political actors, and organizations that persuaded the American people and others to support invading Iraq in 2003 are now working to build public support for the United States to initiate a war […]

  The best thing is to ignore the parameters of discussion that are being presented to you, and to shift those parameters. . . . That is the heart of the struggle for us in the United States where the story is already framed, and they are just trying to discuss things within the parameters. […]

Even before the turmoil caused by the global financial crisis has been adequately dealt with in terms of the adverse effects on employment and living conditions, governments across the world are being told that fiscal consolidation is the most important macroeconomic policy to be addressed.  The calamities resulting from sovereign debt crises are widely advertised […]

Flocks of prophets fly through the air all across the country twice a year, signaling that the coming change is already here — not flying as far south as they once did, returning north earlier than before. How many noticed these signs amidst all the hot air being spewed by the various media? And,      […]

Reporters continually discuss deflation as though something magical will happen if the rate of price growth crosses zero and turns negative.  This is silly.  The point is that a lower rate of inflation raises real interest rates at a time when we want lower real interest rates.  We can’t lower nominal rates below zero, so […]

The ex-CIA officers Phil Giraldi and Larry Johnson; W. Patrick Lang from U.S. Military Intelligence and the U.S. Army Special Forces; Ray McGovern, from Naval Intelligence and the CIA; and other former senior officers with many years of service, are right to warn Obama that the Israeli prime minister has plans for a surprise attack with the idea of forcing the United States into the war on Iran.

Construyendo La Casa Rosa “Why don’t you ask about agricultural subsidies?  These are the people you know.” “But you have to get in the real world.  The life of our mother and her traditions is over.  They are not realistic.” “Why do the corn farmers in the US receive $12,000 a year when here they […]

Much has been written on the subject of the capitalist State in the era of neo-liberalism.  Two features of the “neo-liberal State” in particular have been highlighted.1  One relates to the change in the nature of the State, from being an entity apparently standing above society and intervening in its economic functioning in the interests […]

Campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, Senator Barack Obama said: “I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” But as Andrew Bacevich notes in his new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, as President, Barack […]

The government of Hungary has taken on a lot of powerful interests in the last couple of months, and so far appears to be winning — despite provoking outrage from “everybody who’s anybody.” “The IMF should hold the line,” shouted the Financial Times in an editorial the day after Hungary sent the IMF packing in […]

We have argued for some time that the policy debate about Iran here in the United States is distorted by a number of “myths” — myths about the Islamic Republic, its foreign policy, and its domestic politics.  One of the more dangerous myths currently affecting America’s Iran debate is the proposition that, through concerted diplomatic […]

  Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, directed by Max Cacopardo, 1967.  Director First Run/ Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 1967.  Video and DVD, 60 mins., b/w. A “time capsule” was how Simone de Beauvoir described Max Cacopardo’s documentary about her and Sartre, made for Canadian television in 1967 and re-issued in 2005.  She was certainly […]