Archive | Commentary

  “Artists struggling with the legacy of Agent Orange were invited to exhibit their work at the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City.  Nguyen Dinh Trung and Le Thi Be Nga are two of 140 artists who have learned to overcome their own disabilities and are taking their lives into their own hands […]

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,      […]

Reporters continually discuss deflation as though something magical will happen if the rate of price growth crosses zero and turns negative.  This is silly.  The point is that a lower rate of inflation raises real interest rates at a time when we want lower real interest rates.  We can’t lower nominal rates below zero, so […]

There is an old saying:  “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Many of the same writers, thinkers, political actors, and organizations that persuaded the American people and others to support invading Iraq in 2003 are now working to build public support for the United States to initiate a war […]

Even before the turmoil caused by the global financial crisis has been adequately dealt with in terms of the adverse effects on employment and living conditions, governments across the world are being told that fiscal consolidation is the most important macroeconomic policy to be addressed.  The calamities resulting from sovereign debt crises are widely advertised […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]