Archive | April, 2012

  Samir Amin: You see, the US establishment — and behind the US establishment its allies, the Europeans and others, Turkey as a member of NATO — derived their lesson from their having been surprised in Tunisia and Egypt: prevent similar movements elsewhere in the Arab countries, preempt them by taking the initiative of, initiating, […]

The most demolishing article I have seen nowadays about Latin America was written by Renán Vega Cantor, full professor at the National Pedagogical University of Bogotá, which was published three days ago by the website ‘Rebelión’ under the title “Ecos de la Cumbre de las Américas” (Echoes of the Summit of the Americas). It is […]

It began on July 14, 1934.  That day the San Francisco Labor Council pushed by radicalized rank-and-file workers declared a General Strike, and this led to four days of intense class struggle, the likes of which has rarely if ever been seen in this country.  The aim of the General Strike was to support the […]

On the eve of Independence Day, police imposed lockdown on the office of Zochrot (Hebrew for “remembering”), an Israeli activist organization dedicated to raising public awareness of the Nakba, the catastrophe of displacement and dispossession inflicted on Palestinians. Just as Zochrot activists tried to leave their office last night, around 10:30 PM, for a symbolic […]

After an engaging half-hour interview with India’s pre-eminent Marxist economist during a conference at New York University, I told a friend about my one-on-one time with Prabhat Patnaik. “There are Marxists in India?” came the bemused response.  “I thought India was the heart of the new capitalism.” Indeed, we hear about India mostly as a […]

  Sajjad Jafari is an Iranian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Fars News, reproduced here for non-profit entertainment purposes. Cf. “The number of [scientific] publications from Iran has grown from just 736 in 1996 to 13,238 in 2008 — making it the fastest growing country in terms of numbers of scientific publications in the […]

NEW YORK, NY — Millennial Christians and godless communists alike were stunned when nineteenth-century economist and revolutionary Karl Marx suddenly returned from the dead about two hours ago to land, in bodily form, at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets. His appearance interrupted Occupy Wall Street protesters as they negotiated the preparations for an […]

Tens of thousands of people from across Bahrain are estimated to have taken part in an anti-government demonstration on Budaiya Highway, located to the west of the capital, Manama.  The march, organized by the Bahraini opposition bloc, was peaceful, with crowds chanting loudly many slogans like “Down, Down, Government,” “No to Dictatorship, Yes to Democracy,” […]

To the Editor of the New York Times, Your editorial “Speculators and the Gas Pump” urging tighter regulation of the oil market is a fool’s errand in these days of legislative gridlock.  But contrary to your assertion, there is an “easy fix” available to President Obama, although not the Republican prescription of “more drilling or […]

I write from a dark place where oblivion follows me like my flickering shadow in the Ensenada sun along the boardwalks en el malecón con los vendedores I think of you no more (ya no pienso en ti) un clavo saca otro clavo la gente is primera somos benditos por ser revolucionarios y ya está […]

  Hay un número importante de personas en los países adinerados que cree que los grandes problemas de la reducción de los recurso con que cuenta el planeta y la contaminación ambiental global, son causados principalmente por la enorme cantidad de habitantes que tiene el mundo: actualmente más de 7 mil millones, y que esta […]

  This feature-length documentary is a comprehensive audio-visual investigation into the events surrounding the 2002 coup d’état in Venezuela. Direction and Script: Ángel Palacios.  General Production: Panafilms.  Executive Production: ANMCLA.  Production: G. Luis Serrano.  Computer Graphics: Douglas Aponte.  Audio and Video Post-Production: Andrés Petit, Carlos Yegres, Miguel Arias, Edgar Torres.  Cameras: José L. Saldivia, Gabriela […]

I took a good look at Obama in the famous “Summit Meeting”. Sometimes he was overcome by tiredness, he unwillingly shut his eyes but, at times, he slept with open eyes. The Cartagena Summit was not a meeting of a trade union of misinformed presidents, but a meeting among official representatives of 33 countries of […]

Most Presidents preside over one or more capitalist downturns (recessions, depressions, crises, etc.).  Every President since at least FDR generated a “program” to respond to the downturn — as demanded by citizens and businesses.  FDR and every later President promised that his program would “not only extricate the US from the present economic troubles but […]

In Libya after Muammar Gaddafi, the situation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa is worsening. Most of them had come to this rich African country looking for jobs. Now, thousands of them are arrested and taken to detention centers, where they are targeted for abuse by their captors, most of whom are illegal armed groups.

I was surprised today when I listened to the speech delivered by Jose Miguel Insulza in Cartagena. I thought that the person who was speaking on behalf of the OAS would at least claim some respect for the sovereignty of the peoples of this hemisphere which were for years colonized and cruelly exploited by colonial […]

A trend is taking hold across Canada of working class resistance to the capitalist crisis and attacks by governments and corporations on workers’ rights and the social wage.  Library workers in the city of Toronto and transit and university workers in Halifax recently went on strike, as did daycare workers in Quebec.  Workers at Air […]

Obama, the first black president of the United States –who is, without any doubt, an intelligent, well educated and eloquent person-, made quite a few people believe that he was an emulator of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King. Five centuries ago, a Papal Bull, applying concepts that prevailed at those times, allocated approximately 40 […]

Intersectionality as a key concept in women’s studies has up until the present proven rather durable.  Feminist journals are peppered with it and feminists use it pretty much without having to explain what they mean, the term’s affinity with feminism taken for granted and its import unquestioned.  Attend any women’s studies meeting, and sooner or […]

  Press Conference, Moscow, 10 April 2012 Sergey Lavrov is Russia’s Foreign Minister and Walid al-Moallem is Syria’s Foreign Minister.  Pavel Andreev is Executive Director of RIA Novosti and of the Valdai Club Foundation.  James Longman is a BBC producer.  Nathalie Novikova and Peter Oliver are RT correspondents.  Reema is a Syrian tweep.  Wael Yousef […]