Archive | October, 2011

Meetings such as this play a vital role in building a movement that can stop the hell-bound train of capitalism, before it takes itself and all of humanity over the precipice.  Building such a movement is the most important thing anyone can do today — so I’m honored to have been invited to take part […]

There has been a lot of hand-wringing and moralizing about the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) blocking a resolution in the UN against the government of Syria last week.  China and Russia used a rare double veto as permanent members of the Security Council, and the other three abstained. “During this […]

John Bellamy Foster: Economic crises are functional to the system in that a crisis helps capital readjust its imbalances, disproportions, as Marxian theories often say, and it sets the basis for a renewed period of expansion.  So, regular business-cycle crises . . . help the system. . . .  But, in addition to cycles . […]

Dear friends, As you probably know, the Obama administration has just publicly charged that Iranian government agents have been plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States.  Washington is now using this outrageous claim to try and rally support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, isolate it in the international arena, and […]

Saba Bahrat Square, Damascus, 12 October 2011 Baghdad Street, Damascus, 12 October 2011 Women and Youth, Damascus, 12 October 2011 Cf. “LOL AlJazeera is saying that tens of thousands were at the rally today while MILLIONS rally at the anti ones.  Da funk?” (Joud, 12 October 2011); “Notice that when demonstrations take place in support […]

  Nou dwe sèl mèt bout tè sa a: We should be the only owners of this land. From an anti-MINUSTAH protest last month.  Photo by Ansel Herz. This was Haitian protesters’ message at a demonstration last month against the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH.  October marks an upswing […]

I have been staring incredulously at my TV screen these past few hours as the story of Iran’s alleged assassination attempt of a Saudi diplomat in Washington unfolds in dramatic increments. Reporters keep repeating the theme “like out of a Hollywood script” as they eke out increasingly unlikely details about this “terror” plot. My immediate […]

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful No. 1110 11 October 2011 H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon Secretary General United Nations, New York Excellency, I am writing to you to express our outrage regarding the allegations leveled by the United States officials against the Islamic Republic of Iran on the involvement of my country […]

On October 10, the Chinese government announced that it will increase its stakes in the four largest commercial banks, which are already largely public-owned.  The move is designed to “support the healthy operations and development of key state-owned financial institutions and stabilise the share prices of state-owned commercial banks”. But why was this move considered […]

The US Census Bureau recently reported what most Americans already knew.  Poverty is deepening.  The gap between rich and poor is growing.  Slippage soon into the ranks of the poor now confronts tens of millions of Americans who long thought of themselves as securely “middle class.” The reality is worse than the Census Bureau reports. […]

Oct. 15 is a day of nationally coordinated antiwar actions in cities across the U.S., the 10th anniversary of the massively destructive and criminal U.S. war on Afghanistan. When the U.S. government began its attack on Afghanistan 10 years ago, President Bush called it a “war on terror.”  It was followed by 8 years of […]

If you go to Zuccotti Park looking for the U.S. labor movement, you might be disappointed.  Other than a presence in the October 5 march and a series of public endorsements, you will find no purple SEIU banners, no occupiers in red & black UNITE-HERE t-shirts, no AFL-CIO booth at Liberty Plaza, and no permanent […]

The Knowledge Liberation Front proposes bankruptcy and basic income as “knowledge against financial capitalism.”  But does this proposal not actually serve as knowledge for financial capitalism: i.e., Bankruptcy + Basic Income = Social Democracy under the Neoliberal Regime of Accumulation?  An example of how the Left, not the Right, innovates capitalism? — Ed. See, also, […]

On October 7th, 2011, 10 days into hunger strikes across California State and Israeli occupation prisons, Palestinian, formerly incarcerated, Jewish Anti-Zionist, and other activists demonstrated in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City. Solidarity with Prisoners, from California to Palestine For more information about the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, visit <www.ijsn.net/home/>, and about the US […]

  Trafalgar Square, London, 8 October 2011, Video by Harry Fear TV At the very moment we are here, the United States, Britain, and France are bombing a city in Libya called Sirte.  There are 100,000 people.  Day and night, residential buildings, clinics, schools have been hit with fragmentation bombs and Hellfire missiles. . . […]

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Although the Wall Street Occupation is galvanizing about 84% of the marginalized 99%, no one stops to think that it’s the New York Police Department that helps to make this possible.  If New York City cops hadn’t arrested over 700 peaceful marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge, and pepper-sprayed the unresisting eyeballs of various nonviolent protesters, […]

  Bahraini and GCC security forces continue their systematic suppression of popular protests against the regime.  Feelings of tension mount in Manama, as signs of renewed protest become more evident. Manama — At the airport in Manama, there are fewer passengers than usual.  Most of the flights are operated by airlines from the Gulf — […]

“Well, why are people of color missing? There are a couple of easy answers to that.

(1) “We Call for Foreign Intervention” (2) But if the call gets answered. . . . Ibrahim Jaza is a Syrian cartoonist.  Cf. “US State Department tool Radwan Ziadeh today called for a war on Syria.  Speaking on Aljazeera’s prime-time, evening newscast ‘daily harvest’, Washington’s favorite Syrian ‘human rights activist’ did not actually utter the […]