Archive | Commentary

Flocks of prophets fly through the air all across the country twice a year, signaling that the coming change is already here — not flying as far south as they once did, returning north earlier than before. How many noticed these signs amidst all the hot air being spewed by the various media? And,      […]

Much has been written on the subject of the capitalist State in the era of neo-liberalism.  Two features of the “neo-liberal State” in particular have been highlighted.1  One relates to the change in the nature of the State, from being an entity apparently standing above society and intervening in its economic functioning in the interests […]

Campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, Senator Barack Obama said: “I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.” But as Andrew Bacevich notes in his new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War, as President, Barack […]

Construyendo La Casa Rosa “Why don’t you ask about agricultural subsidies?  These are the people you know.” “But you have to get in the real world.  The life of our mother and her traditions is over.  They are not realistic.” “Why do the corn farmers in the US receive $12,000 a year when here they […]

The government of Hungary has taken on a lot of powerful interests in the last couple of months, and so far appears to be winning — despite provoking outrage from “everybody who’s anybody.” “The IMF should hold the line,” shouted the Financial Times in an editorial the day after Hungary sent the IMF packing in […]

We have argued for some time that the policy debate about Iran here in the United States is distorted by a number of “myths” — myths about the Islamic Republic, its foreign policy, and its domestic politics.  One of the more dangerous myths currently affecting America’s Iran debate is the proposition that, through concerted diplomatic […]

Yes, in the strange but true category, we have a columnist with a major national newspaper worrying that population growth in the United States could slow or even reverse.  Yes, I have the same fear every time I push my way into the metro at the rush hour or get caught in a huge traffic […]

  Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, directed by Max Cacopardo, 1967.  Director First Run/ Icarus Films, Brooklyn, NY, 1967.  Video and DVD, 60 mins., b/w. A “time capsule” was how Simone de Beauvoir described Max Cacopardo’s documentary about her and Sartre, made for Canadian television in 1967 and re-issued in 2005.  She was certainly […]

“The military-industrial complex is again looking for funds for war.” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist.   This cartoon was published in Cambios en Cuba on 3 August 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

Columnists are given considerably more leeway than reporters, but serious newspapers still expect their pieces to bear some relationship to reality.  This is why the Ron Lieber’s column warning of a class war (“The Coming Class War over Public Pensions”), with government workers as the new “haves,” may leave many readers wondering about the New […]

What is José Serra trying to do?  In his campaign for president of Brazil he has accused Bolivia of complicity in drug trafficking and criticized Lula for trying to mediate in Washington’s fight with Iran and for refusing (along with the most of the rest of South America) to recognize the government of Honduras, which […]

“I left them all small — my daughter wasn’t even one month old.  In videos — that’s how I’ve seen them grow up.” Since 2007 a group of young people from Tetlanohcan, Mexico have been working with filmmakers and theatre professionals from England and the USA, creating videos about their lives and their community.  This […]

Ali Farzat is a Syrian cartoonist. | Print

Dear friends, As soon as we get five minutes to breathe, we’ll send out a report on the Second Grand Congress of Iranians Abroad, a conference for Iranian ex-pats held here in Tehran, Aug. 2-3.  As with many other countries that have experienced the international “brain drain,” the Iranian government is trying to redevelop ties […]

The Puerto Rican independence activist Lolita Lebrón died on Sunday August 1, 2010.  She was 90 years old.  Lebrón commanded a group of Puerto Rican independence advocates who attacked the Congress of the United States on March 1, 1954 to denounce the Island’s colonial situation under the US. That day, nationalists Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, […]

For the second consecutive month, the economy created virtually no jobs, net of temporary Census jobs.  The Labor Department reported that the economy lost 131,000 jobs in July, 12,000 less than the 143,000 drop in the number of temporary Census workers.  The June numbers were revised down by 100,000 to show a gain of only […]

  La Casa Rosa tells the story of the necessity and difficulty of finding a way forward for every community impacted by free trade and migration.  Drawing inspiration from the real lives and experiences of a group of women from the town of Tetlanohcan, Mexico, the play is the tale of two sisters struggling for […]

August 5, 2010 Yesterday, President Obama called a small group of journalists into the White House to talk about Iran.  According to the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, Obama’s agenda was to signal Iran that the United States might “accept a deal that allows Iran to maintain its civilian nuclear program, so long as Iran provides […]

Instead of ending the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama applies a bandage of speech. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 5 May 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  See, also, Gareth […]

Rarely has an economic idea had such a brief revival.  After several years of almost undisputed sway of monetarist ideology over economic policy makers across the world, suddenly Keynesian ideas were back in fashion, in particular the idea that active state intervention in the form of increased state expenditure is necessary to bring a market […]