Archive | Commentary

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

  The editors of Aneek have asked us to present, in brief, our stand regarding what we think is “the correct path” towards equality, cooperation, community, and human solidarity, that is, socialism in India.  The struggle for socialism is going to be long, hard, and violent, and I, for one, cannot imagine a socialist India […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 3 May 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  | Print

The Economist (July 15) published an editorial on Egypt and Saudi Arabia (two dictatorial countries allied with the United States in the Middle East) expressing hope that they would become democratic in the future.  What is surprising, however, is that in the same issue the magazine did a favorable review of a book by Stephen […]

Following several weeks of meetings and internal deliberations, a special “high-level commission” has presented the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) with a long-awaited report on Honduras.  Mandated by a June 8 resolution agreed to at the OAS ministerial meeting in Lima, Peru, the report presents an analysis of the current situation […]

  Scott Long: Around the world, there are existing sex laws being strengthened, there are new sex laws being passed.  In Egypt you have people being jailed for homosexuality and for being HIV positive under what’s actually a prostitution law that dates from the fifties.  In Burundi and Nigeria, you have people trying to pass […]

There is a very pervasive view that the current capitalist crisis consists exclusively of the financial crisis and, in so far as the financial crisis is now over, the crisis as a whole is over.  This, I believe, is erroneous, and this is because, like Bob Brenner, I also believe that the current financial crisis […]

Jesse Freeston: Ecuadorian journalist and filmmaker Oscar León has been following Arizona’s particularly harsh immigration law enforcement for three years.  He has witnessed a growing fear in the state’s Latino community as 26,000 undocumented immigrants have been deported following arrest by the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. . . . Sheriff Joe Arpaio […]

In the mirror of Afghanistan, the American soldier sees the ghost of the defeat in Viet Nam. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 3 May 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  | […]

Our friends at the Economic Policy Institute have already done a pretty good job burying the claim from Reinhart-Rogoff that high ratios of debt to GDP will lead to lower growth, but in DC, no bad theory stays dead for long.  With that in mind, let’s throw a little more dirt on the grave. The […]

It seems increasingly likely that we will see another round of nuclear diplomacy with Iran in September.  This round will probably include discussions with the “Vienna Group” (the United States, Russia, and France) at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) in light of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Joint Declaration announced […]

Gross Domestic Product grew at a 2.4 percent annualized rate in the second quarter of 2010.  Final demand from domestic sources contributed 4.12 percentage points to GDP — the largest quarterly contribution to growth since 2003. The largest contributor to final domestic demand came in fixed investment, which grew at a 19.1 percent annualized rate […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf.  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (to Lou Dobbs): “Well, you know, they call you KKK.  They did me.  I think it’s an honor, right?  It means we’re doing something” (Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, 12 November 2007). | Print

  Marzieh Vafamehr is an Iranian actress and filmmaker.  Crossed Out is a documentary film about Shahrnush Parsipur, the author of Women without Men, Touba and the Meaning of Night, and Men from Various Civilizations.  Music by Mohsen Namjoo.  This film was released in 2008. | Print  

War Crime Whistleblower in Obama’s Sights, War Criminals Not Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, is being prosecuted by the Obama administration for disclosing a classified video showing American troops murdering civilians in Baghdad from an Apache Attack Helicopter in 2007.  Eleven adults were killed in the […]

  Rouzbeh Rashidi, born in Tehran in 1980, is an independent Iranian filmmaker.  He has been making films since 2000 when he founded the Experimental Film Society in Tehran, devoted to avant-garde, experimental, and low-budget filmmaking.  He is currently based in Dublin.  Strand (Iran-Ireland: Experimental Film Society, 2009) was shot in Iran in 2008.  For […]

Over the last three decades the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has built up a reputation for solid impartial analysis of economic and policy issues.  While the party controlling Congress gets to select the head of the agency, both parties have generally turned to the CBO’s respected academics who did not attempt to use the agency […]

In 1972 Selma James, founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign and, more recently, Global Women’s Strike, wrote the following: “We demand the right to work less.”  Her reasoning was clear — when women work for a wage for 40 hours a week and still carry the weight of childcare and housework, what is […]

The Case-Shiller 20-City index rose by 1.1 percent in May, its second consecutive increase.  Prices rose in 19 of the 20 cities, with Las Vegas being the only city with a price decline. Minneapolis had the sharpest jump in prices, with prices rising 2.8 percent in May.  This is the second consecutive monthly increase after […]