Archive | Commentary

Benazir Bhutto pledges allegiance to Bush and Condi. Via Al Musawwir, who found it at Dictatorship Watch. | | Print

Two years after the devastation of New Orleans highlighted racism and inequality in the US, the disaster continues.  New Orleans’ health care and education systems are still in crisis.  Thousands of units of public housing sit empty.  Nearly half the city’s population remains displaced.  A report released this week by the Institute for Southern Studies […]

It’s been more than three months since this year’s senatorial elections were held in the Philippines, and there have been since then plenty of people saying that, far from breaking away from election fraud, the country has witnessed more cheating this year than ever before.  I had the opportunity to witness the election process when […]

“Iran’s Jews — Shalom Salaam,” a segment of the Australian SBS current affairs show Dateline hosted by George Negus, was aired on 16 May 2007.  You can also watch this program at Google Video.    The transcript of the program is available at the Web sites of SBC and the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military […]

Jonathan Miles, Medusa: The Shipwreck, the Scandal, the Masterpiece, Jonathan Cape, 2007, pp. 288. At midday on July 2, 1816, the frigate Medusa, flying the white flag of Bourbon France and bound from Rochefort to Senegal with a cargo of arms, ammunition, and other supplies for the soldiers and colonists it bore, ran aground on […]

In Defense of Academic FreedomfeaturingTariq Ali, Akeel Bilgrami, Noam Chomsky, Tony Judt, and John Mearsheimer12 October 2007, 2:00 pm – 7:00 pmRockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago CHICAGO, IL — DePaul University students, concerned over the controversial tenure denials of Dr. Norman Finkelstein and Dr. Mehrene Larudee by its administration, have launched a website (www.academicfreedomchicago.org) and […]

How DePaul Practices Vincentian Values Prof. Finkelstein – Professor Budde has informed me that you have asked for office space for your books. We do not have office space assigned to you for the coming academic year. I will look into whether we can make space available for you and either I or Professor Budde […]

Caracas, 25 ago (PL) Partidos y movimientos de izquierda de América Latina y el Caribe fueron convocados hoy por el presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, a realizar en 2008 una reunión para crear una organización internacional. Al hablar ante miles de aspirantes a miembros del Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), Chávez precisó que recientemente conversó […]

  Abrar-ul-Haq is a Pakistani singer. Visit malangbaba for an English translation of the song’s lyrics, whose faith comes from “Neither the masjid of believers / Nor the rituals of pagans.”

United Confederation of Unions of Campesino Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB), National Federation of Women Campesinos of Bolivia “Bartolina Sisa” (FNMCB “BS”), Confederation of Unions of Colonizers of Bolivia (CSCB), National Association of Water Irrigators and Communitarian Systems of Potable Water (ANARESCAPYS) Sucre, August 23, 2007 Considering: That the oligarchy, out of desperation, is using all […]

Many folks on the Left, and in our labor movement, are afflicted with frequent bouts of anguish and outrage as we observe the action or inaction of some Democrat in office — or running for office.  Those on the Left who claim to be recovered — or never afflicted — by this disease often seem […]

  We are writing to ask for your support for a mural on 24th and Capp St that is under attack by Zionists.  The mural depicts related images of struggle by indigenous communities against forces of imperialism, racism, and economic oppression.  Its major theme is breaking down walls — those in Mexico, Palestine, Iraq — […]

St. Louis — A young man from Palestine and another from Israel riveted 400 U.S. military veterans to their seats last week in this city on the Mississippi River.  What captivated the audience was their recent decision to put down the guns they’d pointed at each other for years. The two members of Combatants for […]

The deportation of immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano by federal authorities on August 20 was a blow aimed at the immigrant rights movement.  Arellano, a 32-year old single mother who had spent a year living in a Chicago church in defiance of a deportation order, had become a spokesperson for the New Sanctuary Movement and […]

The hullabaloo in the international capitalist media over defective Chinese-made toys and the massive Mattel recall in mid-August 2007 — including 7.3 million Polly Pocket™ play sets and a quarter-million Pixar cars “Sarge” (die-cast military jeeps) — should remind us where our solidarity must lie: with the exploited Chinese workers on the job.  They are […]

“WAR . . . huh . . . yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” — Edwin Starr‘s No. 1 Hit, “WAR,” 1970 Edwin Starr’s antiwar blockbuster hit Number 1 less than a year after the Vietnam Moratorium brought millions of us into the streets in October 1969. Nearly forty years later, we are […]

The authors of the most widely read book on financial panics (Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Fifth Edition, 2005) refer to them as “hardy perennials” and document how they have repeatedly devastated large portions of modern economies and societies over the last three centuries.  Charles Kindleberger (a professor of economics at […]

(PU) Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney was found dead today at the Daniel Ellsberg Reeducation Center for War Criminals and the Psychopathically Challenged.  Using twine he had pilfered from a macramé class, Mr. Cheney apparently hanged himself after a particularly grueling group therapy session in which participants were asked to go deep within themselves […]

  In recent months Iran has made large strides toward mastering nuclear technology.  Alarmed by these advances, the Bush administration and its European allies have stepped up their hostile actions and threats, specifically: Attempting to prevent the entry into service of Iran’s first nuclear power plant at Bushehr.  The Bushehr reactor will use nuclear fuel […]

“The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has said the age of materialism is over and the world is moving towards spiritual values” (“Ahmadinejad: Materialism Is Outdated,” Press TV 15 August 2007).  Is it? His dear imam wrote a letter to Gorbachev in 1989.  Among other things, Khomeini said, “However much the Western world may appear to […]