Archive | Commentary

  Today in passing, a Honduran colleague told me that the latest news was that the national police were on strike because they had not been paid and that, when the de facto regime’s designate to run the Treasury, Gabriela Nuñez, said she would get them back pay, they said they would refuse to accept […]

The U.S. economy continued in a deep recession and hopes for a rapid recovery faded as new national unemployment figures of 9.5 percent were announced early this month.  If one includes discouraged workers and the underemployed (those with part-time jobs who would like full-time work) in the calculations, then the figure soars to 16.5 percent.  […]

Take Action in Solidarity with the People of Honduras Gather on Saturday, July 25 at 10:30 am at NW 87th Ave & NW 36th St in Miami On June 28, SOA-trained Honduran generals overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup.  The Honduran social movements are resisting the coup regime and […]

How would you tell the story of your movie Rachel? It is a cinematographic inquiry into the death of a young girl who was crushed by a military vehicle in a diseased country.  This young girl was American, the vehicle was an Israeli bulldozer, and the country is Palestine and Israel — a region whose […]

By the way, do you know that you can get free “Free Iran” t-shirts, “donated by American Apparel, a company that supports liberty and open minded thinking by people worldwide”? Supporting all Iranian People and their freedom T-shirts were donated by American Apparel, a company that supports liberty and open minded thinking by people worldwide. […]

  I was 10 years old and every week my mother would buy Zan-e Rooz (Today’s Woman), Iran’s highest circulation women-oriented publication, from the neighborhood newsstand.  She always said that when I read a magazine I can speak better.  My sisters and I would wait for the magazine every Saturday, and I particularly enjoyed reading […]

When the Managua embassy press conference of the constitutional president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya Rosales ended, I was able to get into the president’s vehicle along with his Minister of the Presidency, Enrique Flores Lanza, to go to an interview with international media.  In just a few days — or perhaps hours — President Zelaya […]

Three weeks after the June 28 military coup that expelled Honduran President Mel Zelaya and claimed to overthrow his government, the country remains shaken by a profound and dynamic popular upsurge demanding Zelaya’s return and the restoration of democracy. The collapse on July 18 of the much-touted “negotiation dialogue” between Zelaya’s government delegation and representatives […]

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) is well known for its mission to expose the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez as a threat to free speech “all over the continent.” These brave free speech warriors made a big deal this year about how they “dared” to hold a meeting in the Venezuelan capital, “defying” […]

17 July 2009 The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) today called for all its union members to oppose the coup in Honduras by focusing protests on the Honduran merchant fleet. The global union organisation, which represents 656 unions worldwide with four and a half million members, has made the call as its latest move to […]

Testimony of Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., to the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, 24 June 2009, Washington Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee.  I’m Steffie Woolhandler.  I am a primary care doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and associate professor of medicine at Harvard.  I also co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program.  Our […]

Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim yesterday phoned U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in New Delhi, India, to “express concern” about the slow pace and handling of the negotiations for the reinstatement of the democratic order in Honduras, the Brazilian Minister’s press office said. Amorim conveyed Brazil’s criticism to Hillary regarding the way […]

Cuban Cartoonists’ Appeal to Their Colleagues in the World We have learned, thanks to the alternative Web site Rebelión, that, in the morning of Tuesday, the 30th of June, Honduran cartoonist and frequent contributor to this portal Allan McDonald was arrested and taken by force from his house, along with his 17-month-old daughter. The brutalities […]

On one hand, protests in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, on the 57th anniversary of the 30th of Tir (20 July 1952). Haft-e Tir Square, Tehran On the other hand, Parivash Fatemi, the widow of Hossein Fatemi, who served as Mohammad Mossadegh’s Foreign Minister and was the driving force behind his oil nationalization program, says that […]

Recently gay rights groups became seriously miffed when our new President’s own Justice Department released a legal brief upholding the Defense of Marriage Act by likening same-sex marriage to pedophilia and incest.  “What about our civil rights?” we huffed. This is a President, after all, whose life was profoundly shaped and guided by the civil […]

July 19, 2009 The talks are finished for now, with no resolution.  The coup regime in Honduras, which ousted President Zelaya exactly 3 weeks ago, has rejected the 7-point proposal put forth by designated mediator Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica.  Zelaya’s delegation in Costa Rica had earlier stated they had accepted the proposal, but […]

It is now a commonplace that we are experiencing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  The downward trajectory on a global level is similar to the 1930s, though in the United States — the epicenter of the crisis — there are indications that the rate of decline may be slowing.1  […]

Play now: “I wanted to write a book that would be not just extolling the virtues of the unions but also would point out some of their difficulties and problems to give a kind of balanced view of them, I mean, not a negative view like a right-winger would give, but from a critical perspective.  […]

  From Nawal el Saadawi to Janet Afary Dear Janet, I am glad to see you’ve been reading my work since you were a graduate student.  Did you read my work in English or Persian?  (I write in Arabic.)  I very much enjoyed your book: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran.  Egypt, my country, and Iran […]

  Abstract In a seminal paper on Marxian business cycle theory Goodwin (1967) presented a model, which assumed that a higher wage share leads to lower investment and thus a general economic slowdown.  In contrast Kalecki (1971) was arguing that a higher wage share would have an expansionary effect because the consumption propensity out of […]