Archive | Commentary

Dr Tajing Siripanit, a commissioner from the Thai National Human Rights Commission, stated on NBT television at 13.30 on 4th April 2010 that the military-backed government “would be justified in using force” against the peaceful pro-democracy Red Shirt protestors “because they were disrupting shopping” in the centre of Bangkok.  In fact, the Red Shirts are […]

  Paul R. Hanson, Contesting the French Revolution.  Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.  xii + 229 pp.  Bibliography and index.  $89.95 U.S. (cl).  ISBN 978-1-4051-6083-4; $34.95 U.S. (pb).  ISBN 978-1-4051-6084-1. When Blackwell published a volume on the French Revolution in its Essential Readings in History series in 2001, Ronald Schechter began his introduction to […]

This cartoon was published by Vos el Soberano on 6 April 2010. | | Print

Rand Paul, son of Texas libertarian Ron Paul and Republican candidate for Senate in Kentucky, was interviewed for New York Times Magazine on Sunday.  When the interviewer cheekily asked whether or not Paul the Father let Paul the Son do whatever he wanted as a child, Rand gave an interesting response: “The kind of funny […]

  On 29 March, the Guardian‘s Leo Hickman had an article published covering a recent interview he’d had with noted British Earth scientist James Lovelock.  Entitled “James Lovelock:  Humans Are Too Stupid to Prevent Climate Change,” the article quotes the 90-year old Lovelock as making the following assertion: “I don’t think we’re yet evolved to […]

Once again the Thai NGOs have sided with the military-installed royalist government against the demands of hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy Red Shirts.  The Red Shirts, who represent millions of ordinary working people in urban and rural areas, have been staging huge protests in Bangkok in recent days.  Their demands are for the dissolution of […]

Leading global scientists have been exonerated of blame in the “climategate” controversy, although this won’t stop right-wing and corporate-funded pundits from attacking the science of global warming.  The British government recently released its first investigation on the activities of East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit, finding no evidence that its scientists manipulated data or distorted […]

A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognized as “Israelis,” a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country’s self-declared status as a Jewish state. Israel refused to recognize an Israeli nationality at the country’s establishment in 1948, making an unusual distinction […]

Today — Tuesday, April 6, 2010 — the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state.  The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear […]

  Today’s ruling for Comcast by the DC Circuit Court could be the biggest blow to our nation’s primary communications platform, or it could be the kick in the pants our lawmakers need to finally protect it.  Either way, the future of the Internet, the fight for Net Neutrality, and the expansion of broadband is […]

  5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time […]

Author’s note: This is a response to Claudia Rosett’s “Turkey Tilts toward Iran,” published on 26 March 2010 by Forbes.com. Forbes columnist Claudia Rosett — who just so happens to be “a journalist-in-residence” with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank — feigns her regret for having to report a “disturbing talk” […]

The Fifth Five-Year Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1389-93, 2010-14), still under review by the parliament, has a clear goal for reducing inequality in five years — a Gini index of 0.35 for income.  This is a substantial reduction from the high level of inequality that has plagued Iran in recent years.  The […]

  John Bellamy Foster.  The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009.  288pp.  $17.95 (pb).  ISBN 9781583671795. This book is a major achievement.  It combines enormous breadth of scholarship with consummate theoretical integration to produce a powerful political argument.  It should be required reading for anyone who cares about […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

During the House debate over the Kucinich resolution calling for a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Rep. Bob Filner, chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have gone to the VA for service-related injuries. The video of Filner’s statement […]

  An interview with Egyptian economist Samir Amin: his latest book reiterates his search for alternatives to surpass capitalism, which he describes as “a historical parenthesis”; meanwhile, processes of migration are building a planet of slums. “Memoirs of an Independent Marxist”: that is the subtitle of A Life Looking Forward (Zed Books, 2006), the latest […]

Abstract: From the moment Marx and Engels became involved with the League of the Just, Marxism has always had a long and often difficult relation with theology and the Bible.  Some of the leading figures of the twentieth century were no exception — Althusser, Adorno, Gramsci, Lefebvre, Eagleton are just a few.  And in our […]

“I don’t own a gun.  I don’t own any weapons and I’m not prepared to own any. . . .  My only weapon of defense is that I won’t leave this place.” — Abu Sagr, Al-Hadideya, Jordan Valley Trailer Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German freelance journalist living in Cairo, Egypt, where he is currently completing […]

April 3, 2010 Istanbul, Turkey — Following months of preparation, a coalition bringing together a number of organizations and movements working to break Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza was announced yesterday in Istanbul.  The coalition, composed of the Turkey-based IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi) organization, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), the […]