Archive | Commentary

  Directed by Massoud Bakhshi, Tehran Has No More Pomegranates, a feature-length experimental documentary made over the span of five years, tells the story of Iran’s encounter with modernity and its social and political changes through a comic and ironic narrative about the transformation of its capital, Tehran, from a small village to a huge […]

Over 1,500 students demonstrated in Helsinki on 19 February 2009 against the proposed reform of higher education.  After the demonstration, the students proceeded to occupy the administration building of the University of Helsinki.  Students in Tampere, Turku, Joensuu, Rovaniemi, and Oulu also organized walkouts. The new Universities Act proposed by the Finnish government, if enacted, […]

  In April 2008, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) led a group of over 100 Southern California Muslims on an educational trip to Manzanar, the first Japanese internment camp established during World War II.  Along with Southland Muslims, some 1,500 people from California and beyond attended the […]

Anthony H. Cordesman, a leading military analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, published a “strategic analysis” of the Gaza massacre shortly after it ended.  He reaches the remarkable conclusion that “Israel did not violate the laws of war.”  The report is based on “briefings in Israeli [sic] during and immediately after the […]

Few people in the U.S. have paid attention to the island nation of Sri Lanka and to the decades-long struggle for self-determination by the Tamil-speaking minority community.  As the conflict has begun to intensify and make headlines in recent weeks, the Sri Lankan government has done its utmost to control the story being told by […]

  Joel Kovel holds the Alger Hiss chair in social studies at Bard College and is the author of Overcoming Zionism among other titles.  He has recently been informed by the college that his contract will not be extended beyond July 1.  In the statement below, he argues that the termination is due to his […]

Thursday, 12:15 PM In front of Kimmel Student Center60 Washington Square South, Manhattan, NYC Since 10pm Wednesday night, the third floor of the Kimmel Student Center at New York University has been occupied by more than 70 NYU and non-NYU students.  The students are making 13 demands concerning NYU investments in war profiteers and the […]

A large-scale anti-fascist action in Dresden last weekend ended with brutal violence.  February 13th has for years been a day of solemn ceremonies in this city on the Elbe, the capital of Saxony.  It marks the date in 1945 when British and American planes destroyed the heart of Dresden, a treasure chest of baroque architecture […]

  The general strike in Guadeloupe began almost a month ago, and the strike movement has spread to Martinique over the last two weeks, and yet the government and the management are still maneuvering, stalling and buying time, refusing to meet the demands. Backed by the entire population holding the largest demonstrations ever seen in […]

  ‘I didn’t know Che had any economic ideas’ has been a frequent reply I’ve received when telling people about the topic of my research and my book Che Guevara: The Economics of Revolution.   It reflects the caricature of Guevara as a romantic guerrilla fighter with idealist notions of how human beings are motivated […]

  In spite of the tireless calls of the Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon (LKP, Collective against Exploitation), the employers and the French government have let the situation deteriorate. Instead of really facilitating the negotiations, the French government’s representatives went from evasions to evasions (the prefect left the negotiation table on the 28th of January, and the […]

2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.  The Revolution ended a symbiotic relation between the US and the Shah, whereby the latter helped to sustain the economic and political interests of the US in the Persian Gulf region and the former helped to preserve the rule of the Shah.  Since the end of […]

  In an unprecedented action, the first following the recent Israeli war on Gaza, workers of the Egyptian Fertilizers Company in Suez protested on Saturday, 7 February against the export of fertilizers to Israel. The Egyptian Fertilizers Company is owned by Onsi and Nassef Sawiris under the umbrella of Orascom Construction Industries.  The Egyptian Fertilizers […]

Many observers describe Israel’s political system as dysfunctional because its latest elections have likely produced a government hostile to the peace process.  These observers forget that Israeli voters themselves may have no interest in the peace process.  Otherwise, why the largest votes went to the three candidates who most stridently brandished their anti-Arab credentials? No […]

The end of eight years of neoconservative belligerence in the White House came with a financial crisis exacerbated by decades of neoliberal economic policies.  As a result of this coincidence, the ideological winds in the United States are blowing powerfully to the left. The possibility of another great depression looming over the economy,1 left-wing and […]

Andy Stern’s SEIU is pouring in millions of dollars to take over the UHW, ousting its leadership.  The first part of the video shows the rank and file of the 150,000-member local, as well as their ousted president Sal Rosselli, speaking out against Stern’s trusteeship; in the second part, Steve Zeltzer interviews former UHW organizer […]

The amendment won the support of 54.36 percent of the population: 6,003,594 votes.  The “No” vote received 5,040,082 votes, i.e. 45.63 percent.  The abstention was about 33 percent.  The bulletin was issued with 94 percent of the votes counted. At 9:35 PM, the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, first issued the […]

Introduction Over the last two months, cholera has broken out in a number of provinces in South Africa.  Thousands of people have been infected and over fifty people have already died.1  Initially, a number of politicians, including parliamentarians from the right-wing Democratic Alliance (DA), tried to blame Zimbabweans — who were fleeing the economic meltdown, […]

  Japan’s economy shrank at an annual rate of 12.7 percent last quarter, the worst decline since 1974.  It is estimated that 125,000-400,000 more workers will be jobless by the end of March.  Japanese capitalism is visibly incapacitated, and so is its finance minister. Minister Nakagawa at a Post-G7 Press Conference Rome, 14 February 2009 […]

In those days when I, as an altar boy, used to walk in the humble church of Sabaneta, at the beginning of the stormy decade of the sixties of the last century, my spirit was first conquered by the blazing and whipping words of Jesus, Christ the Redeemer of the oppressed peoples. The Sermon on […]