Archive | Commentary

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit trumpeted that he was making an important initiative today to “solve” the political crisis.  He offered to dissolve parliament in September and hold elections on 14th November 2010.  Previously he had said that he would not dissolve parliament until December.  Yet even this offer was conditional on there being “peace in […]

Los Angeles New York City Washington, D.C. Chicago Houston Dallas Oakland Milwaukee Boston Tucson Phoenix, Etc. El 1° de mayo en EE.UU., jornada contra reforma de Arizona | | Print

Sheep 1: “I’m middle class!” Sheep 2: “Me, too!” Wolf: “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for them.” This cartoon was first published by Rebelión on 19 November 2009.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

  The antiwar movement everywhere should be extremely alarmed about the Obama Administration’s declaration in April that Washington can target Iran with nuclear weapons.  Although vague “all options are on the table” warnings were also issued under George W. Bush, now the threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran is enshrined in the revised […]

To believe the boulevard rags, it would be a day of revolutionary riot, bloody battles with the police, and violent standoffs between extremists of the left and right. Of course, being May Day, there were the usual union rallies in most major cities, including Berlin, where union leaders spoke rather more militantly than on the […]

Midtown Manhattan, 25 April 2010 Dov Hikind, NY State Assemblyman (D-Brooklyn): “From day one, this president proved that he was not Barack Obama, but Barack Hussein Obama.” Audience (carrying signs reading “Racism.  Sexism.  Apartheid.  Stop Shariah Islam” among other signs): “Boo!” Demonstrator: “He’s a Nazi!” * * * Demonstrator: “This government is pressuring Israel right […]

  Speech by Salvador Valdés Mesa, General Secretary of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC) and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Compañeros of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, […]

IAPA: I am at service of any unjust cause . . . provided that I get paid, of course. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published by Cambios en Cuba on 22 December 2009.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | | Print

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 30 April 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

Today, Zenroren held the first May Day rallies after the demise of the Liberal Democratic Party regime, 32,000 workers participating in the rally in Yoyogi Park.  “The newly established two-party system is already bankrupt,” said Senator Ichida Tadayoshi, Secretary General of the Communist Party, at the Yoyogi rally.  Over the last ten years, wages in […]

Turkish workers celebrate May Day in Taksim Square today, 33 years after the bloody May Day of 1977,* when gunmen, believed to be linked to the intelligence services, fired on workers demonstrating in Taksim, killing 36 and wounding hundreds in the ensuing chaos.  Since then, workers were prohibited from holding May Day rallies in the […]

The government will fall or the people will rise.  Thousands have already arrived in Kathmandu, occupying the private schools shut down by Maoist students last week.  500,000 villagers are expected to join the workers and students in the city.  The Nepal Army is on alert, the People’s Liberation Army is, too.  The people are coming […]

  What you need to earn every month to buy a house, in euros: 10634 What you actually earn every month, in euros: 1063 How many years it will take to pay off the mortgage: 106 How many times a month you will be able to go out to dinner . . . To see […]

Crushing Afghanistan into NATO Territory Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This animation was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 7 September 2009.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

  Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 while at the same time sending more troops to the Afghanistan War.  What has become of the promise of “change”? I am one of the few who are not disillusioned, because I had no expectations.  I had written about Obama’s positions and prospects even before […]

  Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture, Palestine Center, Washington, D.C., 29 April 2010 It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture.  I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

I was immensely saddened to hear of Fred Halliday‘s untimely passage.  I knew Fred since 1978 when through a New Left Review friend, Robin Blackburn, I met him at his London home on my way to revolutionary Iran, temporarily forfeiting my US education for the sake of the greater cause.  Fred was putting the final touches on his seminal book on Iran, Iran: Dictatorship and Development, which had the distinct flaw of depicting the Shah’s regime as “strong,” rather belatedly adding a final chapter to account for the unexpected whirlwind “populist” revolution that did not lend itself easily to Fred’s conventional Marxian class analysis.

The much-ballyhooed Tea Party “movement” that has arisen to absurdly accuse the corporate and imperial Barack Obama administration with “socialism,” “favoring the poor,” and other “radical leftist” crimes claims to be a decentralized, independent, “grassroots,” and popular/populist uprising against concentrated power.  Contrary to that claim, Part 1 of our report presented recent polling data showing […]

Pity poor Angela!  The rock is Greece and its economic woes.  The hard place is North Rhine-Westphalia, where an extremely crucial election is due on May 9th — very soon but not soon enough!  And Chancellor Merkel is caught directly in the middle! Europe and the world have been waiting for Germany to commit itself […]