Archive | March, 2011

  • An Open Letter to Railroad Workers and Their Unions

    Dear U.S. Railroad Workers: As you are no doubt aware, a major labor battle has erupted throughout the Midwest, ground zero being Madison, Wisconsin, where public workers and their allies are waging a gallant fight for survival.  While the immediate struggle revolves around the public workers’ fight for preservation of collective bargaining, the battle is […]

  • For Palestinian Unity

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Comrade Fuad: ‘Ending the Division’ Means Ending Oslo, the Cause of the Division” (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, 24 February 2011); “Palestinian Women Rally for Unity on Women’s Day” (Ma’an News Agency, 8 March 2011); . | Print

  • Iran’s Rafsanjani Replaced by Ayatollah Kani as Head of Assembly of Experts

    Iran’s Chairman of Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his post as head of the body on Tuesday, Iranian news agencies said.

  • Bahraini Women Protest at American Embassy

    “We don’t want to negotiate. We want to end the monarchy. We want to end the monarchy. Down with the monarchy!” “Down with the monarchy!” “The people want democracy!” “The people want democracy!”

  • The Women of Lulu

      Support Bahraini Women on International Women’s Day Petition in Solidarity with Pro-democracy Bahraini Women: <www.change.org/petitions/solidarity-with-bahraini-pro-democracy-women-and-condemnation-of-violence>. Cf. <www.facebook.com/pages/Bahrain-Youth-for-Freedom/168929316486071>. | Print  

  • Aslı Ü. Bâli and Ziad Abu-Rish on International Intervention in Libya: A Documentary Remix

    In evaluating calls for intervention, the first question we might ask is how the Libyan case differs from recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, where intervention of this type was not invited.  In both of those countries authoritarian leaders who were erstwhile Western allies were pushed out when their military institutions refused to turn on […]

  • Position on Senate Bill 5

      Excerpt: The bill allows an employer to refuse to talk to the union about subjects reserved to the exclusive purview of management and deletes the requirement that the continuation of a current provision of a collective bargaining agreement is a “mandatory subject” of collective bargaining.  Those provisions put the safety of all employees at […]

  • You Can’t Pee for Free: Notes on the Privatization of the Public Sphere

      In his 1994 book entitled The Location of Culture, post-colonial theorist Homi Bhaba writes that “cafes are part of the social phenomena of the ‘third place’ [which] . . . people occupy outside of the home and work.  It’s a place to relax, to be alone, to socialize, to read, to gossip, to meet […]

  • The World Food Crisis

    While the advanced capitalist countries are hit by an acute crisis of recession and unemployment, the developing world is facing, apart from the fallout of this crisis, an acute food crisis.  Hunger afflicts the developing world today with a virulence not seen in decades.  World food prices, not just in nominal but in real terms […]

  • Ohio: State of the State Rally on Tuesday

    The fight against Senate Bill 5 continues Tues., March 8.  A rally will begin at 10 a.m. at the Ohio Statehouse to coincide with Gov. John Kasich’s first State of the State address at noon. Shuttles will be leaving from OCSEA, 390 Worthington Rd., Westerville beginning at 9 a.m. The House Commerce and Labor Committee […]

  • Happy Gaddafi

    Protesters: “The people wants to change the government!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to change the government!” Protesters: “The people wants to change the governing system!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to change the governing system!” Protesters: “The people wants to remove the governing committees!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to remove the governing committees!” Protesters: “The people wants Gaddafi to […]

  • Bahrain: Neither Sunni Nor Shia But National Unity

    The House of Khalifa tries to divide and conquer . . . but the people, united, will never be defeated! A slogan of the Bahraini revolution: “Neither Sunni Nor Shia But National Unity” Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  • Longing for Revolution in Saudi Arabia

    Protests demanding democratic rights in general, as well as the release of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer (arrested in February this year for advocating constitutional monarchy), were held on Friday, 4 March 2011, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Al-Ahsa Qatif The protests, albeit far from the magnitude seen in Arab intifadas elsewhere, still appear to […]

  • The Fight Isn’t Over to Save Ohio’s Middle Class

    This week against the overwhelming will of the people Gov. Kasich and his political allies dealt a blow to middle class working families.  After Republicans played political games with the Committee hearing process on Senate Bill 5 — even going so far as to remove Republican Senator Bill Seitz from the Committee because he was […]

  • The Bahraini Opposition Speaks

    Press Conference of the Opposition Political Societies on the Reasons for the Call to Overthrow the Government A coalition of seven opposition political societies invites you to join the Bahraini masses to attend the grand march on Friday, 4 March 2011, entitled “Down with the Government.”1  The opposition coalition believes the current government must resign, […]

  • The Libyan Uprising

      The one uprising that is most likely to be hijacked and sabotaged is the Libyan Uprising.  Not only because of the opportunistic and sinister Western intervention but also because the faces of the old detested regime are now leading the so-called opposition. I mean, to listen to Qadhdhafi’s UN ambassador, ‘Abdur-Rahman Shulqum, speak against […]

  • Obama for Freedom in Libya

    “Today, Obama called for freedom of the Libyan oil fields.” — As’ad AbuKhalil Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  • The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads

    The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in the last couple of months in the struggle against right-wing legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly finds itself at a crossroads.  Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to create the new movement, remains the center of […]

  • Uncle Sam

    People accuse me of a double moral standard, but really I don’t have any moral standard! 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 3 March 2011.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]

  • State and Local Government Job Losses a Serious Drag on Weak Job Growth

    The unemployment rate edged down to 8.9 percent in February, as the Labor Department reported that the economy generated 192,000 new jobs.  This number is undoubtedly inflated some by the weather-weakened January performance, when the economy generated just 63,000 jobs.  The unemployment rate has now dropped by 0.9 percentage points in the last three months. […]