Archive | Commentary

In the wake of Barack Obama’s historic victory, a false and reactionary narrative has emerged that blames Black voters for the gay marriage ban that passed by a 52 to 48 percent margin in California. While Florida and Arizona also passed same-sex marriage bans, the vote for Prop 8 in the politically progressive state of […]

Enemy Alien: The Fight to Free Palestinian Activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti Dir. Konrad Aderer | 70 mins | documentary work-in-progress Discussion with Konrad Aderer, Sharin Chiorazzo, Jane Guskin, Shane Kadidal, Joanne Macri, David Wilson Wednesday, November 12 7:00 pmThe Brecht Forum 451 West Street New York, NY (between Bank and Bethune Streets; take the A/C/E/L to […]

It is too soon to know exactly what material damage was caused by Hurricane Paloma, the third hurricane of great intensity to hit us in less than 10 weeks during the present hurricane season, but, facing this new blow dealt by nature, we Cubans can affirm that it is fortunate that we have a Revolution.  […]

Will Obama prove, at the helm of government, that his threats of war against Iran and Pakistan were only words, broadcast to seduce difficult ears during the election campaign? I hope.  And I hope he will not fall, even for a moment, for the temptation to repeat the exploits of George W. Bush.  After all, […]

While on the surface it may appear to be a simple electoral battle, something much different is at stake on November 23. On that day, Venezuelans will go to the polls to elect 22 governors, 328 mayors, 233 legislators to the state legislative councils, and 13 councilors to district committees — including indigenous representation — […]

(PU) Barack Hussein Obama, newly elected President of the People’s Republic of America, today announced his choice of William Ayers, a former leader of the 70s militant antiwar group, the Weather Underground, for U.S. Secretary of Defense.  The appointment allays concerns of many peace movement progressives who had feared that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, overseer […]

  Dikmen Valley in Ankara, Turkey was originally Dikmen Village.   The village goes back to the 1950s, but it wasn’t settled in the form of a squatter [gecekondu in Turkish] neighborhood till around 1968.  The valley has five etapes.  The first and second etapes were settled the earliest while the fourth and fifth etapes were […]

Almost eight years of the Bush/Cheney Administration have plunged the world into a deep political, economic, and moral crisis, whose overcoming will probably require decades if a sharp turn does not immediately take place.  That is why the newly elected Obama/Biden Administration must bring about serious change. After having lost the popular national vote against […]

Since the second half of the 1990s, the internal public debt of the world’s developing countries has increased significantly.  This increase is now reaching alarming proportions in a number of middle-income countries.  While some very poor countries have not yet been affected, the historical trend indicates a continuing rise in the debt level for developing […]

After reading about Israel’s most recent Man of the Year Award recipient, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.  It looks like the judging panel at the Israeli television station Channel 2 is in need of a public relations consultant.  The recipient of this year’s award was Meir Dagan, the Chief of Mossad, […]

  Part 1 Part 2 Part 2 István Mészáros: First of all, I would like to be fair to Gordon Brown.  Our friend mentioned here that he promised to abolish boom and bust.  And we must concede he managed to keep half of his promise.  He abolished boom, but not bust.  And there’s compensation.  We […]

  President Bush has oft stated that history will be the rightful judge of his legacy.  Some academics, such as John Lewis Gaddis and Fareed Zakaria, have already begun early revisions to the Bush years.  But as historians mark the final score, they must not omit a serious examination of the administration’s policies in Somalia, […]

Recently, economist Joseph Stiglitz called the current crisis “avoidable.”   He blamed it on “ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence.”  In tune with the norms of his profession, he proposed “policies” to fix the problem.  Debates over the worsening economic crisis increasingly turn on which “policies” to use to stop, reverse and “avoid” […]

In the first major prosecution under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, Mohammad Momin Khawaja, a 29-year-old Ottawa-area software developer arrested almost five years ago, was convicted October 29 on five charges of participating in a “terrorist group” and helping to build an explosive device “likely to cause serious bodily harm or death to persons or serious damage […]

I’m a sociology teacher, a member of the Pacific Green Party of Oregon, an almost-pacifist, and a libertarian socialist.  My intellectual heroes are people like Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, C. Wright Mills, and Noam Chomsky.  I believe democracy is much more in the streets than in the halls, and that Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin […]

My friend, Lucy Bohne, an English professor at a state college near Erie, Pennsylvania, wrote to her daughter today about Barack Obama’s victory.  Lucy did a fine job describing how many people feel the day after the Senator’s historic victory. “Thank you for calling last night.  It sounded like NYC had gone mad with joy! […]

Israel seems to have little time for the irony that a modern Jewish shrine to “coexistence and tolerance” is being built on the graves of the city’s Muslim forefathers. The Israeli Supreme Court’s approval last week of the building of a Jewish Museum of Tolerance over an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is the latest […]

Some of you may have been present at our meeting in this building in May this year, when I recalled what I had said to Lucien Goldman in Paris a few months before the historic French May 1968.  In contrast to the then prevailing perspective of “organized capitalism,” which was supposed to have successfully left […]

  miriam cooke.   Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official.   Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.  vii + 208 pp. Illustrations. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8223-4016-4; $21.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-4035-5. To live and do research in Syria is to confront contradictions at almost every turn.  In a repressive state, artists not only create works that are […]

The libertarian moment in U.S. bourgeois politics is quickly passing today.  It was burning bright in the spring, when Ron Paul banners were hung from every overpass.  Soon his books will be remaindered.  Libertarians have nothing to say that will get a hearing in a period of crisis.  Libertarianism can rationalize the economic success or […]