Archive | Commentary

Featuring interviews with Abbas Abdi, Ervand Abrahamian, Hamid Algar, Ali Ansari, Abbas Attar, Shaul Bakhash, Abolhassan Banisadr, Daniel Brumberg, Abdolmajid Majidi, Hedayat Matin-Daftari, Abbas Milani, Parviz Mina, Seyed Ali Akhbar Mohtashamipur, Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, Hojatolislam Seyed Hamid Rohani, Barry Rosen, Hashem Sabbaghian, Ayatollah Yousof Sanei, Ebrahim Yazdi, Ardeshir Zahedi, Marvin Zonis. Part 1 Part […]

  Hadash released a great set of four election commercials today, which feature conversations between a supporter of Meretz and a supporter of Hadash, “The Left vs. the New Left.”  You can see the clips here. My favorite is the one on the Gaza war, which you can watch here in Hebrew.  The Leftie stutters […]

The demonstrations of the indigenous tribal people [‘adivasis’] of West Bengal, India against longstanding police brutality have not dissipated with time, contrary to the expectations of the police, the ruling party of West Bengal the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], and the other mainstream parties, the Congress and the longtime Hindutva fascist allied Trinamool […]

Barack H. Obama won the White House on the promise of “change.”  One of the big donors for Obama’s campaign for change was the Service Employees International Union, which spent nearly $30 million for his presidential campaign according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  One of the first changes brought about by the SEIU under […]

Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe!  Woe!  Woe! Towers that soared into clear blue are at blocks of stone settled into earth all gone, all shattered ground into scattered dust Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe!  Woe!  Woe! Now hordes of warring barbarians literate, skilled in killing […]

As job losses hemorrhage, the American economy is in desperate need of a stimulus.  It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must work rapidly to approve some version of President Obama’s plan. Then, Obama and the Congress should very quickly turn to taking a second, temporary step to create more jobs: creating incentives for companies […]

Washington, DC (February 3) — The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation announced today that satellite television provider DIRECTV is refusing to accept a paid advertisement from the organization about the U.S. role in Israel’s war on and siege of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Both an extended internet version and the original 30-second […]

COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine supported by YCL and other progressive organisations In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009.  This follows the decision by […]

Want to hear something weird about the Left?  It’s chock-full of human nature.  For example: Some communist, in the dead of winter, stole my girlfriend’s coat. I take you back a few months.  A cold December.  My girlfriend and I are invited to a “holiday party,” as the Americans say.  Note how the festive noun […]

Lotteries, now run by most of our 50 states, are disguised forms of taxation that fall most heavily on those least able to pay.  In today’s economic crisis, state leaders face rising resistance to taxation from everyone.  Therefore, many of them plan to expand lotteries even more, hoping that no one realizes they represent a […]

  Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States, speaks of numerous members of the Jewish community who have supported the struggles of peoples against imperialism and Zionism, and he rejects any attack against the Jewish people. Watching television footage of one of the necessary and legitimate protests against the Israeli Embassy in […]

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) wants its members to believe that their union is just like the alluring but ultimately nightmarish hostelry immortalized by The Eagles.   It’s a place of permanent imprisonment only “programmed to receive” workers and their dues money, not let either go elsewhere when the rhetoric of “progressive unionism” wears thin […]

The Geir Haarde government of Iceland became the first in the world to fall in the wake of the financial meltdown.  Now, Iceland has a provisional coalition government, headed by the world’s first lesbian prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottit of the Social Democratic Alliance.  Left-Green Movement Chairman Steingrimur J. Sigfusson is reportedly now appointed Minister of […]

The World Social Forum (WSF) in Belem isn’t just another forum.  It’s the first WSF since the outbreak of the 2008 economic crisis, held at a moment when the total failure of neo-liberalism and the destructive character of global capitalism are exposed in all their harsh reality.  Besides, the Brazilian Amazon is a privileged place […]

  Despite Promises to Facilitate Humanitarian Aid, Policy of Deliberate Obstruction Continues Even after the Ceasefire: The amount of industrial diesel Israel has permitted to enter Gaza is just 64% of the total needed to operate the power station. Since the fighting ended, Israel has totally obstructed the transfer of vital spare parts needed to […]

An exhibition of Iason Athanasiadis’s photographs of Iran, “Exploring the Other: Contemporary Iran,” opened on 25 January 2009, at the Craft and Folk Art Museum (co-produced by the Society of Cinema and Arts) in Los Angeles.  “Exploring the Other” offers an alternative narrative of the country famously included in the “Axis of Evil” by George […]

On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, Al Jazeera is running a special series of programs on Iran. Rageh Omaar, “I Knew the Shah,” Part 1 (Al Jazeera, 17 January 2009) Rageh Omaar, “I Knew the Shah,” Part 2 (Al Jazeera, 17 January 2009) Rageh Omaar, “I Knew Khomeini,” Part 1 […]

  His face the color of the Turkish flag, his right arm pinning the panel moderator to his seat, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan preferred not to listen to any more Israeli bullshit about Gaza.  With finger-wagging Israeli president Peres regurgitating the usual self-serving argument of self-defense to justify the criminal acts of his state, […]

The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over — ended just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over his first hours as U.S. President.  The initial Palestinian death toll is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise.  (Four times that number were injured, and more wounded […]

New Orleans — Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic event that forced many people in New Orleans to start over.  Since then, several hurricanes, such as Ivan and Gustav, continued to damage some of the oldest and most significant historical sites in the United States.  One of the sites in jeopardy is the Wesley United Methodist […]