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Brazil’s Economic Policy: Does Not Compute
The Brazilian government bets that the domestic market will save the Brazilian economy: that the wage increase above productivity, apart from reducing inequality, will create demand for the Brazilian industry and will offset the overvalued exchange rate. In other words, the same recipe that produced good results under the Lula administration, it hopes, could be […]
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The Right to Work
“I have no job.” “Ah, yes, reactionaries. . . Has anyone denied you the right to have one?” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
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Democracy Ennahdha Style
Tunisian Prime Minister (and Ennahdha Secretary General) Hamadi Jebali: “Democracy is just a question of organization.” On the prime minister’s well-organized desk: “Discourse for ‘My Base’”; “Discourse for the ‘Others’*“; “Disclaimers for the Press” * I.e. Dirty bastards of miscreants. Nadia Khiari, aka Willis from Tunis, is a Tunisian painter and cartoonist. Translation by […]
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The Epidemic of Terrorism under Turkey’s Mubarak
A new epidemic has broken out in Turkey. It’s called “terrorism.” This ideologically transmitted disease (ITD) appears to be extremely infectious. Otherwise how can we explain the large and growing number of terrorists in the country? The Associated Press carried out a survey on terrorism convictions in the world. The figures are worrying. According […]
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Venezuela Condemns Terrorist Attacks in Syria
Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, in the name of the Venezuelan people and its government, energetically condemns the terrorist attacks perpetrated today in Damascus in the Syrian Arab Republic, whose terrible result is at least 30 dead and hundreds of wounded. The Bolivarian government wishes to send the […]
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The King of Bahrain’s Clothes
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print
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On the Terrorist Attacks in Damascus, Syria
The Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Cuba energetically condemns the criminal attacks by car bombs that took place in Damascus, Syria, causing dozens of dead and wounded. Cuba condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and firmly opposes the attempts to undermine the stability of Syria, foreign interference, and the threats to its […]
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Raising Flags of Jihad in Syria
A flag of the Islamic State of Iraq sighted at a Syrian opposition demonstration in Khan al Sabl, Idlib, Syria, 23 December 2011 A jihadi flag sighted at a Syrian opposition demonstration in Binnish, Idlib, Syria, 21 December 2011 A jihadi flag sighted at a Syrian opposition demonstration in Maarat al Numaan, Idlib, Syria, […]
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The Metamorphosis
“It was very hard, but I have adjusted to minijobs very well,” thought Gregor Samsa. Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. “El BCE pidió a España crear ‘minijobs’, trabajos con sueldos por debajo del salario mínimo” [“ECB […]
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Neoliberal Rampage in Canada
Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, the Conservative government of Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper has just left a lump of coal in Canadian workers’ stockings. A cover story in the Globe and Mail of December 22, 2011 announces that federal public pension programs are being targeted for cuts to reduce the federal deficit.1 The […]
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Europe’s Debt Crisis Deepens
Over the weekend, Fitch — the major rating company that, with its fellow majors, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, dominate the business of assessing the riskiness of debt instruments — took a highly publicized step. It downgraded the credit-worthiness of the sovereign debts of many European countries. What a spectacle! These rating companies were distinguished […]
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Marines in Darwin: US Energy Imperialism and the South China Sea
During Barack Obama’s visit to Australia in November 2011, the US and Australian governments announced the establishment of a permanent Marine presence in Darwin, located on South East Asia’s doorstep. By 2014, some 2, 500 Marines plus associated hardware such as military aircraft, tanks, artillery, and amphibious assault vehicles will be based near the […]
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Is United States Government a Paper Tiger?
In a 1956 interview with Anna Louise Strong, Mao described American imperialism as a paper tiger. Of course, the military strength of the United States is unparalleled, especially because this country accounts for about half of worldwide military spending. Even so, the last three significant wars have shown that the country has been unable to […]
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The Committee to Protect Journalists Is Mistaken About Turkey
According to the tally of the American Committee to Protect Journalists, there are only eight journalists in jail in Turkey. We, as members of the Freedom for Journalists Platform, comprised of 94 national and local media associations, would like to point out that this is a grave error, unless of course it is deliberate […]
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Reports on Oil Workers’ Struggle in Kazakhstan
Introduction by Timofei Dnieperin The following reports are from Socialist Resistance of Kazakhstan. Their website is <www.socialismkz.info/>. The background to all this is that the oil sector in western Kazakhstan has been hampered for seven months now by strikes and work stoppages (see Joanna Lillis “Kazakhstan: Labor Dispute Dragging Energy Production Down,” Eurasianet, October […]
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Tunisia: The Powers of the New President
President Moncef Marzouki, Leader of the Congress for the Republic: “See, I’ve taken the oath. What power do I have now?”
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Egypt: #OccupyCabinet
It all began with the kidnapping and torture of Aboudi Ibrahim, a protester from the #OccupyCabinet sit-in: A first military attack on Tahrir Square today: An army solider strips the shirt off a female protestor, beats her, and abuses her: If you look closely, you see the attack on her and what appears to be […]
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Erdoğan’s Way
See how Recep Tayyip Erdoğan uses TMY (Terörle Mücadele Yasası, Anti-Terror Law) and ÖYM (Özel Yetkili Mahkemelerin, Special Courts) to deal with anyone who stands in his way. . . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. Ayça Çubukçu, “Turkey: The ‘Progressive’ Land of Repression” (Guardian, 11 December 2011). | Print
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Civil Society, NGOs, and the Public Sphere
The great turning point in Marx’s work is his discovery that class relations traverse the whole capitalist society. After working with categories he inherited from liberalism, such as the state and civil society, he made what he called an “anatomy of civil society” and therein encountered classes and class struggle. In the last several decades, […]
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Russia: Don’t Step on That Rake Again!
From the editorial board of Skepsis, an appeal to the Russian speople to not to be fooled into thinking their problems can be solved by elections. Don’t Step on That Rake Again! The public mood is changing. Even before the elections, on the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, in the major cities’ (and even […]