Archive | Commentary

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching a trillion dollars. This week the European Union committed $175 billion, $67 billion more than even the $108 billion that Washington agreed to fork over after a tense standoff between the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration earlier this summer. The […]

The election of Obama raised expectations for sweeping health reform sky high.  But in spite of several self-imposed deadlines, Senate and House health reform bills were not ready by the time of the August Congressional recess, when passionate local debate erupted at Congressional home district town hall meetings.  The Onion pierced the din with truth: […]

The frequently imbibing comedian W. C. Fields once proudly declared: “Everything I do is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”  The adjectives used by Fields perfectly characterize the role of the private health insurance industry in the debate about health care reform.  As the debate intensifies more and more private health care profits are being recycled […]

  The Arab and Muslim world is indeed in crisis.  This crisis, however, may give us a new opportunity to reclaim our fate from foreign powers, local autocrats, and religious fanatics.  To do so, we can benefit from recuperating the best elements from our great tradition of Arab nationalism. Under the banner of “Arab nationalism,” […]

The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee in Israel announced yesterday (Wednesday, September 2) that it will hold a general strike next month (Thursday, October 1) in protest of the racist government’s policies. In the meeting, held in Nazareth, it was decided that the strike will take place on the same day that the events of October […]

  Shaun Joseph of the International Socialist Organization and Providence City Councilman Miguel Luna report back on the resistance to the coup in Honduras. Honduras video and photos by Shaun Joseph.  Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Open Table of Christ Church in Providence, RI, on 19 August 2009.

  A Comrade’s Paper Blanket New books, old books, the leaves all piled together. A paper blanket is better than no blanket. You who sleep like princes, sheltered from the cold, Do you know how many men in prison cannot sleep all night? Autumn Night Before the gate, a guard with a rifle on his […]

NEITHER CAMPAIGN NOR ELECTIONS LEGITIMATE IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE COUP The general elections without the restitution of the constitutional order would be the legalization of the military violence against the State and, as such, unacceptable.  In light of this, the National Front of Resistance against the Coup d’Etat declares: 1. We do not recognize […]

  Beirut has been labelled the Paris, sometimes the Switzerland, of the Middle East.  According to one recent New York Times article, it is now the region’s Provincetown (the Cape Cod resort favoured by gay visitors).  This ever-changing city seems to have become a mirror where people project their own fantasies. Comparing Beirut with another […]

Bholar Basti, a water-logged slum in Dhaka city, accommodates more than 30,000 people, most of them victims of river erosion, floods, and other natural disasters.  ©Shamsuddin Ahmed/IRIN DAKAR, 1 September 2009 (IRIN) – Current UN cost estimates for climate change adaptation are too low and this could thwart climate treaty negotiations set for December in […]

“For the time being, it’s only 7 bases, but, if it were up to me, I would sell them the whole country.” Alfredo Martirena Hernández was born in 1965 in Santa Clara, Cuba.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).

As the peace movement digs in for long-haul opposition to continuing U.S. wars, we simultaneously face urgent immediate challenges.  Policy fights that may well determine Washington’s course for many years ahead regarding Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and Honduras (and Latin America in general) are at important junctures.  It will take more noise — in the streets and […]

  Martin V. Melosi, Joseph A. Pratt, eds.  Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast.  Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.  vii + 344 pp.  $27.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8229-5963-2; $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8229-4335-8. Much of the American past is connected to the growth of cities.  Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth […]

Decades of increasing poverty, inequality, and insecurity created a powerful backlash against the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito in the 30 August 2009 elections, finally putting an end to Japan’s de facto one-party state.  But the backlash only benefited the social liberal Democratic Party of Japan, which increased its seats from […]

Socialism consists not just in building a humane society; it consists not just in the maintenance of full employment (or near full employment together with sufficient unemployment benefits); it consists not just in the creation of a Welfare State, even one that takes care of its citizens “from the cradle to the grave”; it consists […]

  Suad Amiry Presents No Sex in the City, 10 October 2007 Suad Amiry Speaks at the Casa Internazionale delle Donne, Roma. January 2009 Suad Amiry, Public Lecture, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, 8 April 2008 Play now: Excerpt from Ines Gramigna and Virginia Fiume, “Portrait of a Lady: Encounter with Suad Amiry” (Alternative […]

Americans are famous for not paying much attention to the rest of the world, and it is often said that foreign wars are the way that we learn geography.  But most often it is not the people who have little direct experience outside their own country that are the problem, but rather the experts. The […]

Click to enlarge. Hillary, another fruit has already fallen in our “backyard”! Allan McDonald is a Honduran cartoonist.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).

  “Children are dying, spies and spying, Refugees are fleeing, politicians are lying, And deals are done and webs are spun, Laws keep the third world on the run.” Click here to download “Money” in MP3. Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah, born and raised in Birmingham, England, is a poet.  Rejecting the appointment as an officer […]

  Oliver Grant.  Migration and Inequality in Germany.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.  416 pp.  $190.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-927656-1. Leo Lucassen.  The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.  296 pp.  $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-07294-9. Elia Morandi.  Italiener in Hamburg: Migration, Arbeit und […]