Archive | January, 2011

  • The Political Economy of ‘Democracy Promotion’

    14 January 2011 Where are the ‘democracy promoters’ on the Tunisian uprising?, asks Marc Lynch.  It’s a fair question: Thus far, a month into the massive demonstrations rocking Tunisia, the Washington Post editorial page has published exactly zero editorials about Tunisia.  For that matter, the Weekly Standard, another magazine which frequently claims the mantle of […]

  • Energy Prices Push CPI Up 0.5 Percent in December

    The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in December — the largest single-month jump since July of 2009, when the index rose 0.7 percent.  This rise in headline inflation is entirely attributable to a 4.6 percent increase in energy prices over the month.  Though energy accounts for less than one-tenth of the index, the price […]

  • Notes on the Tunisian Revolution

    From day one it was clear this was a revolution that was not about bread only, it was also against dictatorship and corruption.  The revolution was supported by all segments of society.  Poor, middle class, and even upper middle class.  Especially the middle class showed its claws in the last days in Tunis.  Many friends […]

  • Violent Media Rhetoric Beyond Tucson: When Some Calls for Violence Are Acceptable

    The discussion of violent and paranoid rhetoric in the media is long overdue, whether or not it is ever determined that accused Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was somehow influenced or motivated by such rhetoric.  Before the shooting, there had been a remarkable surge of politically motivated violence (FAIR Blog, 1/12/11).  Despite media efforts to […]

  • Only New, Fair Voting Can Help Haiti Now

      It is bad enough that, by delaying reconstruction aid to Haiti, the United States has failed to give adequate assistance to our neighbor, which was struck by a devastating earthquake one year ago.  It is far worse that we have also actively cooperated in its deeply flawed election.  Our government helped impose an election […]

  • People’s Rights Forum 2011, Ankara, 21-23 January 2011

      People’s Houses (Turkey) is preparing to organize the second People’s Rights Forum on 21-23 January 2011 in Ankara, in a time when people’s rights struggles against neo-liberal capitalist aggression on labour, humanity and nature are growing. The first People’s Rights Forum was held in July 2007 with the common initiative and contributions of People’s […]

  • End “Supermax” Isolation in Ohio State Penitentiary

    TO: Warden David Bobby, Ohio State Penitentiary Director Gary Mohr, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Chief William A. Eleby, Bureau of Classification Ohio Department of Rehabilitation We the undersigned call for an end to isolated “supermax” imprisonment in Ohio State Penitentiary.  We are especially concerned about the cases of Siddique Abdullah Hasan (Carlos Sanders); […]

  • Tunisia: The Force of Disobedience

      Sadri Khiari, Tunisian activist exiled in France since early 2003, is one of the founding members of the Party of the Indigenous of the Republic (PIR), of which he is currently one of the key leaders.  He has published, among others, Tunisie. Le délitement de la cité : coercition, consentement, résistance, éditions Karthala, Paris, 2003; […]

  • Arafat’s Ghost

      Asʻad Ghanem.  Palestinian Politics after Arafat: A Failed National Movement.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010.  x + 208 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-35427-3; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-22160-5. November 2010 marked the sixth anniversary of the death of Palestinian National Authority (PNA) president Yasser Arafat.  For the last two years of his life, the once […]

  • Economic Forecasts

    Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 11 January 2011.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

  • Paul Krugman on the Euro Crisis

    Paul Krugman does a very good job laying out the issues behind the euro zone crisis in his NYT Magazine piece.  There are two additional points that would have been worth noting. First, there are powerful forces who are working hard to prevent the partial or full Argentinification (partial default or a departure from the […]

  • Obama’s Speech in Arizona

    Yesterday I listened to him when he spoke at the University of Tucson where homage was being paid to the 6 people murdered and the 14 wounded in the Arizona massacre, especially the Democratic congresswoman for that state, seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head. It was the deed of an unbalanced person, drunk […]

  • My Heart, My Fellow Traveler

    Laal presents “Meray Dil, Meray Musafir” dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.  The music video is a new interpretation of Faiz’s iconic poem “Dil e Man, Musafir e Man” (My Heart, My Fellow Traveler).  While Faiz wrote this poem about exile, this video explores Marx’s concept of alienation within the […]

  • Tunisia: A Moment of Destiny for the Tunisian People and Beyond?

    On December 17, 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian man of 26 years old, heads towards the municipality of Sidi Bouzid, a Tunisian provincial city.  He walks calmly towards the entrance of the building with the intention of protesting.  Bouazizi, who was unemployed despite holding a university degree as an IT engineer, was gaining his […]

  • Lebanese Bloggers Support Tunisian Protests against “Arab Pinochet”

    Lebanese bloggers have joined the chorus of concern over the Tunisian riots that have thus far claimed 24 lives. Sympathy and support is extended to the Tunisian youth protesting the authoritarianism, corruption, and poor economic management of President Zine el Abidine ben Ali, dubbed the “Arab Pinochet” by Lebanese blogger, the Angry Arab. The protests […]

  • Labor Lawyer Imprisoned in Xi’an for Organizing against Corrupt Privatization of State Enterprises

      Highlights: Zhao Dongmin, a labor lawyer and Maoist, was sentenced on 25 October 2010 to three years in prison for applying to set up a workers’ organisation to monitor the privatization of state enterprises and alert the authorities about cases of corruption.  The Zhao Dongming case is significant for a number of reasons: First, […]

  • Public Works and Wages in Rural India

    The “small round” surveys of the NSSO are usually not considered to be so good at capturing trends, because their smaller size makes them non-comparable with the quinquennial large surveys.  However, the 64th Round was a much larger survey than normal (with a sample of 1,25,578 households: 79,091 in rural areas and 46,487 in urban […]

  • Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California

      Excerpt: As family and work patterns have shifted over recent decades, the demand for time off from work to address family needs has grown rapidly.  Women — and increasingly men as well — often find themselves caught between the competing pressures of paid work and family responsibilities, especially when they become parents, or when […]

  • Which One Gets to Be Called a Terrorist?

    This one killed six people while trying to assassinate a blue dog congresswoman. . . This one didn’t kill anyone but was used last month to scare the public in the FBI’s Portland sting operation. I submit the media refuses to call white men terrorists because a significant minority of its audience shares their basic […]

  • Greece to Build Wall on Turkish Border

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “The year 2011 promises to be auspicious for the security industry.  On the 31st of December, the Greek government announced its intention to build, on the land border with Turkey, a barbed-wire wall to prevent entrance of migrants.  A few weeks before that, Israel began building a barrier […]