Archive | Commentary

The spur of the Arab Peace Initiative can’t move the wooden horse of negotiations on the path of peace, tethered as the horse is to the Israeli position. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 30 June 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text […]

Executive Summary: There has been a serious push in policy circles to cut Social Security benefits for near- and/or current retirees.  The argument for such cuts has been based on the deficits in the federal budget; the finances of the Social Security program have been at most a secondary consideration. However, the finances of the […]

NPR wants to convince listeners that the European welfare state is on its last legs.  While it tells listeners this, nothing in the piece actually supports this case. For example, it implies that growth is grinding to a halt in Europe because of its generous welfare state, noting that Europe is expected to grow just […]

  Michael Lebowitz.  The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010.  Pp 192; $15.95 Only about ten or fifteen years ago, leftist theory was in a sorry state.  It seemed as if socialism had ceased to be a viable project with the fall of the Soviet Union.  Instead of an alternative […]

. . . I mix metaphors among them like a reckless cook throwing things into a pot hoping they don’t explode when they touch each other, hoping they don’t turn bitter when the heat rises . . . Mohja Kahf is a poet and professor of English.  This poem is included in her E-mails from […]

“If I were in your place, I wouldn’t end the bed rest.  You can get disconnected from the tube of dollars.” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist.   This cartoon was published in Cambios en Cuba on 12 July 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

“The current crisis means the end of neoliberalism and of US hegemony, and this crisis will lead to the end of capitalism.” The greatest error of this view lies in thinking that a model, a hegemony, or a social system will come to an end without being destroyed and replaced by another, without the global […]

The United States and its Arab and European allies are hard at work to eradicate Iran’s small nuclear program, ignoring Israel’s big fat nukes. Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 30 June 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation […]

Norman Finkelstein is one of the world’s foremost public intellectuals writing about the Israel-Palestine conflict.  He is the author of many books on the topic, most recently Beyond Chutzpah, an exhaustive account of Israel’s human rights record, and This Time We Went Too Far (reviewed in New Left Project), an analysis of the Gaza massacre […]

A starlet in a strapless dress smiles on the cover of the February 17, 1941, issue of Life.  Then, there are ten pages of ads: Oldsmobile, Knox Gelatine, Bendix automatic home laundry, Birds Eye Frosted Foods.  Further in, between one photo essay on iceboating and another on a woman racecar driver, there is an editorial, […]

United States foreign policy has been generating defeats for well over a decade now but never at such a fast and furious pace as during the last few months. . . . What is the reaction in the American ruling class to this consistent and comprehensive failure of foreign policy?  One might expect mounting criticism […]

The West is worried about Turkey.  Its spokespeople fear that the West might have “lost” Turkey since its Prime Minister, Recep Erdoğan, associated himself with President Lula, proposed to act as intermediary between the West and Iran, and, later, reacted with determination against Israel’s violent raid on a boat sailing under the Turkish flag and […]

  These are original poster designs by EDUdebtorsunion.org.  They are all formatted for print on standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ letter paper.  Please print and display anywhere you think this information would be relevant, provocative, or necessary! Some ideas of placement: Within Universities: Financial Aid Office, Bursar’s Office, Cashiers’ Windows, Student Unions Within the City: […]

The Maoist leadership claims that it had nothing to do with the Jnaneshwari Express accident that killed 150 persons.  I am willing to take their word for it.  But this also means that those who caused the sabotage, while nominally belonging to the ranks of the Maoists, were acting on their own.  Nobody commits such […]

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States last week was capped off on Sunday with the broadcast of a previously-taped interview on Fox New Sunday.  The interview covered a range of important topics, including the state of the U.S.-Israel relationship and prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.  But it is the Prime Minister’s remarks […]

Apparently, my skirt was too short for “West Beirut” according to my relative, who lives in “East Beirut.”  She was certain I would get harassed.  She did not delve deeply into the issue, but simply reiterated that the “type of people” who lived in “West Beirut” were not open-minded enough for short skirts and did […]

  This is a rejoinder that the slain CPI (Maoist) spokesperson had penned in response to B.G. Verghese’s article in Outlook. Reading B.G. Verghese’s article Daylight at the Thousand-Star Hotel in Outlook (May 3), one is stunned by the abysmal poverty of thought and colonial mindset of this renowned intellectual.  How is it that the […]

  Leïla Sebbar, The Seine Was Red. Paris, October 1961: A Novel (translated by Mildred Mortimer).  Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008.  xxiv + 116pp.  $17.95 U.S. (pb).  ISBN 10-0253-2202-38. The official French obfuscation of the police violence against Algerians in Paris in October 1961 has inspired long-term personal and collective memory retrieval that […]

Thank you for having me, Yousef [Munayyer], and thank you all for coming out on a day when it’s over 100 degrees.  I know it wasn’t easy.  I’m going to talk a little about the research that went into this book [The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa] and where my interest […]

The system under which offshore drilling rigs, and now oil tankers, operate was set up at the end of the second world war to ensure that the US was supplied with the cheapest possible oil without having to consider, or pay for, the consequences. The offshore drilling company Transocean celebrated the explosion on the Deepwater […]