Archive | Commentary

  • Mexican Community Theater: A Different View of Immigration

    In a small, crowded theater in New York’s West Village the night of August 8, a group of thirty indigenous women from central Mexico finally got a chance to perform their play before a U.S. audience. The cast, members of the community group Soame Citlalime (“Women of the Star” in Náhuatl), had spent the past […]

  • Christianity Is Socialism

      “God is not angry.  He is pleased with the revolution.” Produced by TatuyTv, a community media collective based in Mérida, Venezuela, in August 2010.  For more information about TatuyTv, visit <www.tatuytelevision.blogspot.com>. | Print  

  • Report on UNCTAD Assistance to the Palestinian People: Developments in the Economy of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

      Highlights: 2010: Palestinian economy far from recovery The Palestinian economy held back by: The enduring cost of Israeli military operation in Gaza The closure policy in the West Bank The siege of Gaza A weakened tradable goods sector and an eroded productive base are at the heart of the Palestinian development bottleneck. Rehabilitation of […]

  • A Would-Be Paul Revere in Germany: “The Muslims Are Coming!”

    The “mosque menace” is not confined to Lower Manhattan or the USA.  In many European countries similar alarms are sounded, usually in tones recalling Paul Revere: “The Muslims are coming!”  Although according to Sarkozy in France, Berlusconi in Italy, and the militarized neo-fascist Jobbik party in Hungary the danger is more from the Roma people […]

  • Capitalism and the State

    DIE LINKE (the Left Party) has initiated a debate on its draft party program, which it wishes to officially adopt in Autumn 2011.  Neues Deutschland is joining this debate with a series of articles.  In the Neues Deutschland article published on 9 August 2010, Michael Heinrich tackles the issue of the relationship between capital and […]

  • What Does Increased Palestinian Political Repression Say about the Prospects for Peace?

    In the late 1980s, Robert Putnam‘s argument about multi-level games in international bargaining kicked off a rich debate over domestic constraints.  The thesis, in essence, is that interlocutors in bargaining may choose to lend extra power to political opponents to argue that domestic constraints tie their hands and prevent them from making concessions beyond a […]

  • Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself?

    A new research report into local violent conflicts within southern Sudan, Southern Sudan at Odds with Itself: Dynamics of Conflict and Predicaments of Peace, provides insights into the processes generating and sustaining conflicts.  It debunks some important assumptions.  The research team was headed by Mareike Schomerus and Tim Allen, based at the LSE, commissioned through […]

  • This Labor Day, Let’s Salute All Union Stewards — and Their Cutting Edge in California

    The real heroes of what’s left of the labor movement are not people with full-time union jobs, union-furnished cars and credit cards, and union benefits that dues-paying members don’t get anymore.  It’s the men and women who take time out from their regular jobs, under the baleful eye of their boss, to be shop stewards. […]

  • Making Wall Street Unhappy Won’t Reduce Private Investment

    Mr. Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times noted Wall Street’s shift of funding to Republicans and told readers that: “Mr. Loeb’s views, irrespective of their validity, point to a bigger problem for the economy: If business leaders have a such a distrust of government, they won’t invest in the country.  And perception is […]

  • Challenging Islamophobia: An Assessment of the “Ground Zero Mosque” Debate

    Depending on the poll one consults, anywhere from 54 percent to 61 percent, and as many as 68 percent of Americans, oppose the building of an Islamic community center two blocks from “Ground Zero,” the site of the World Trade Center.  Polls, of course, are notoriously inaccurate measures of public opinion.  Depending on the framing […]

  • Burning Down the House: Where the Housing Market Is Going

    The howls of surprised economists were everywhere last week as the government reported on Tuesday that July had the sharpest single-month plunge in existing home sales on record.  The next day the Commerce Department reported that new home sales hit a post-war low in July. All the economists who had told us that the housing […]

  • President Obama’s Rebranded Occupation of Iraq

    Veterans for Peace president Mike Ferner responds to President Obama’s rebranded occupation of Iraq. A veteran’s perspective makes it clear that two major points must be made in response to President Obama’s announcement regarding combat troops leaving Iraq. First, there is no such thing as “non-combat troops.”  It is a contradiction in terms.  It is […]

  • Honduras: Teachers and Students Resist Repression

    Last Thursday and Friday (August 26-27), police and military violently repressed public school teachers who have taken to the streets for almost 3 weeks to demand, amongst other things, that the Pepe Lobo regime return 4 billion lempiras (or some 200 million dollars) that were taken from the National Institute of IMPREMA, an institution that […]

  • Nonsense from Deficit Hawks Threatens to Keep Tens of Millions Needlessly Unemployed

    The New York Times told readers that the Fed’s ability to take steps to boost the economy are limited because: The dramatic expansion of the national debt — which began in the Bush administration, via hefty tax cuts and two wars — has ratcheted up fears that, one day, creditors like China and Japan might […]

  • Peace

    Adel Yaraghi is an Iranian filmmaker. | Print

  • Who Will Allow Brazil to Reach Its Economic Potential?

    The biggest economic question facing Brazil, as for most developing countries, is when it will achieve its potential economic growth.  For Brazil, there is a simple, most relevant comparison: its pre-1980 — or pre-neoliberal — past. From 1960-1980, income per person — the most basic measure that economists have of economic progress — in Brazil […]

  • Iran’s Nuclear Program

    Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 5 January 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. | Print

  • Iran’s Proposal to Russia: Enrichment Is Still Key

    August 26, 2010 Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said today that the Islamic Republic has proposed to Russia that the two countries create a joint consortium to fabricate fuel for the Bushehr reactor and other nuclear power plants that Iran plans to build in the future.  Salehi reportedly […]

  • Pachamama and Progress: Conflicting Visions for Latin America’s Future

    Miners in Potosí, Bolivia set off sticks of dynamite as cold winter winds zipped through the city, passing street barricades, protests, hunger strikers, and an occupied electrical plant.  These actions took place from late July to mid-August against the perceived neglect of the Evo Morales administration toward the impoverished Potosí region. This showdown in Bolivia […]

  • Israel/Palestine and the Apartheid Analogy: Critics, Apologists and Strategic Lessons (Part 2)

    I.  Apartheid of a Special Type In the previous section I made a distinction between historical apartheid (unique to South Africa) and apartheid in its generic form — a structured system of political exclusion and social marginalization on the basis of origins (including but not restricted to race).  I concluded that Israel is different from […]