Archive | Commentary

Turhan Selçuk, an eminent Turkish cartoonist, died in Istanbul on 11 March 2010, at the age of 88.  Some of his other works may be viewed at the Virtual Museum. | | Print

4 May 2010 For more information, visit . | | Print

President Morales exhorted workers to rethink, because the latest wage increase of 5 percent is superior to what previous governments offered and, moreover, over the four years under his administration, the wages have risen 40 percent.  He called on workers’ unions to compare this wage increase with the current inflation rate of 0.26 percent in […]

Wunmi is a London-born, Lagos-raised artist who has always stood strong for social justice, with songs such as “Greedy Body,” “The Time is Now” (against police brutality), and her version of Fela Kuti’s call against militarism, “Zombie.”  Her song “Crossover” is her take on the money-music-machine: Wunmi will be doing a short tour of California, […]

Nominal wage growth has averaged just 1.1 percent over the last quarter. The Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate rose to 9.9 percent in April as 805,000 people entered the labor force.  Even with the economy generating 290,000 new jobs according to the establishment survey, this was not sufficient to keep the unemployment rate […]

Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday.  But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]

The Rachel Corrie Foundation andBreak the Silence Mural Project co‐presentThe Mural Speaks Come celebrate the completion of this dynamic, interactive mural at a free event at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Labor Temple building, corner of State and Capitol, downtown Olympia.  The Mural Speaks event is more than a mural commemoration; it’s a […]

Author and analyst Hooman Majd traveled to Iran last month and has published an initial report from his travels, “Postcard from Tehran,” in ForeignPolicy.com.  Hooman makes a number of important points in his article, which largely reinforce our analysis of Iranian politics since the Islamic Republic’s June 12, 2009 presidential election and of U.S/Western policy […]

  “So today we’re announcing the expansion of offshore oil and gas exploration. . . . We’ll protect areas that are vital to tourism, the environment, and our national security.” — Barack Obama, 31 March 2010 “It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills.  They are technologically very advanced.  […]

  In support of the students of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) on strike against the $100 million budget cuts, elimination of tuition wavers, privatization, etc. . . . ¡Que vivan los estudiantes! Note: The indefinite strike declared on the Río Piedras campus is on its 15th day today.  The one declared in the Mayagüez […]

Uncle Sam: If I hear that you are processing nuclear fuel, I’m gonna go upside your head, with three atomic bombs. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published by Cambios en Cuba on 6 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | | Print

With Venezuela’s economy having contracted last year (as did the vast majority of economies in the Western Hemisphere), the economy suffering from electricity shortages, and the value of domestic currency having recently fallen sharply in the parallel market, stories of Venezuela’s economic ruin are again making headlines. The Washington Post, in a news article that […]

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 7 May 2010.   Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

  New Slogan Federal Government: So that drugs won’t get to your children . . . WE ARE KILLING THEM FOR YOU. José Hernández is a Mexican cartoonist.  This cartoon — drawn on 23 March 2010 in response to Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, especially the deaths of Juárezyouth and Monterrey Tec students as its […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

  Wages: the president calls for rationality while workers foresee an indefinite strike. President Evo Morales stuck to the 5% wage increase, ruling out a possibility of revision.  Meanwhile, the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB) and manufacturing workers will discuss today the possibility of launching an indefinite general strike and street blockade to demand a higher […]

  BP is a London-based oil company with the worst safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America.  In just the last few years, BP has pled guilty to two crimes and paid over $730 million in fines and settlements to the US government, state governments, and civil lawsuit judgments for environmental […]

Barack Obama was the top recipient of BP contributions in the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  The Mineral Management Service’s “categorical exclusion” of BP’s Deepwater Horizon lease from environmental impact analysis, under the watch of Ken Salazar’s Interior Department, was first reported by the Washington Post yesterday.  The White House […]

In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner.  The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car.  The War Before traces […]

The political conflicts and street battles in Greece today foretell what is coming to many countries including the US.  The struggles are basically over what the government spends on and who pays the taxes.  In today’s class-divided societies, classes differ over what governments should do and who should pay the taxes.  Governments in such societies […]