Archive | Commentary

The March 1 House of Representatives vote for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was an important milestone for legislation intended to help employees form and join unions, but that vote was as close as this bill would get to becoming law for the next two years.  Even if the Senate had passed EFCA, neither […]

  Since the first pictures of Abu Ghraib, the collusion of medical personnel, including psychologists, in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Bagram, and CIA detention centers is no longer open to question: Mark Benjamin, “The CIA’s Torture Teachers,” Salon.com, 12 June 2007; Valtin, “Fact Sheet: Psychologist Participation in Torture,” Invictus, 6 July […]

دموكراسي از گروه آبجيز “Abjee” is a Persian slang for sister . . . and sisters are what Safoura (vocal, guitar, and composition) and Melody Safavi (vocal and lyrics) are.  For more information about Abjeez and their music samples and videos, visit their Web site: . | | Print

1. Introduction: The War We are in the fight of our lives.  The hostile onslaught against U.S. labor that was launched after the Second World War and redoubled in the 1980s is entering a new phase that will profoundly influence the future of all working people in North America.  How we respond to this latest […]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For my first three days in Pakistan, no conversation could go more than a few minutes without a reference to the crisis at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) compound.  I had landed in Islamabad on July 8, and by then it seemed clear that government forces would eventually storm the mosque and […]

Following months of criticism and sharp internal debate, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ended its controversial partnership agreement with a group of California nursing homes on May 31.  The four-and-a-half-year-old deal was a quid pro quo arrangement that brought over 3,000 workers into SEIU after the union secured higher state government payments to nursing […]

  I recently received a circular from the Local Authority of the district in London where I live, which addressed me as a “customer.”  I should really be inured by now to neoliberalism’s relentless penetration of the “life world,” but it took me aback all the same.  I don’t buy anything from my local council; […]

As we near the end of the first decade of the 21st century — or what the neocon ideologues propping up the Bush administration triumphantly call the New American Century — the contradictions of capitalist imperialism are becoming more and more acute. The most recent fallout of Bush’s policy is in Pakistan, where a movement against the US-backed regime of General Pervez Musharraf has been brewing since March 9, 2007 when the general dismissed the Chief Justice (CJ) on charges of corruption and nepotism.

Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko indicts private health insurance and calls for its abolition.  Sicko joins an American tradition that includes Lewis Hine‘s photographs of child laborers (1908) and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), two examples among many.  But can Moore’s theme change our nation in 2007? Private health insurance, usually obtained […]

THE CRY WAS UNITY: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936by Mark SolomonBUY THIS BOOK Mark Solomon’s account of the troubled alliance between blacks and Communists in the years between the wars is much more than a meticulous study of racial and social protest.  For Solomon, a long-time civil rights activist (and leading member of the left-wing […]

Recientemente, aprovechando un nuevo aniversario del nacimiento de George Washington, el presidente George W. Bush aprovechó para comparar la Revolución americana del siglo XVIII con la guerra en Irak.  De paso recordó que el primero, como el último, había sido “George W.” La técnica de las asociaciones es propia de la publicidad.  Según ésta, una […]

  The first US Social Forum wrapped up on Sunday, July 1 in Atlanta, Georgia.  That it happened at all seems almost miraculous.  It is hard to remember any previous comparable gathering of diverse currents of US social movements.  This is not a particularly dynamic moment in their history — the anti-war movement is bland […]

دو راه حل برای یک مسئله ساخته عباس کیارستمی Abbas Kiarostami is one of the finest filmmakers of Iran. Kiarostami made this short film in 1975.

I saw Michael Moore’s SICKO last week.  By now who doesn’t know that SICKO is a savage and hilarious demolition job on the US health care insurance corporations and their self-serving myths about the national health care systems of countries like Canada and Cuba? But this is not a review of SICKO.  I’ll just say […]

The June 29 announcement of the approval of a wage-cutting agreement between Delphi Corporation, an auto parts manufacturing giant, and the United Auto Workers (UAW) means that U.S. labor has suffered yet another defeat in the ongoing war of attrition that is being waged against working people around the world. Details of the pact have […]

In regular high-school rituals, teachers berate students for their disinterest in, mockery of, and/or failure to focus on “the important issues” in elections for student government.  Students are forced to hear about cherishing their right to vote, taking the issues seriously, and participating fully.  Most never do.  Some notice that teachers likewise take little interest […]

The four young African American lesbians from Newark, New Jersey, who were convicted of gang assault and received long senetences for defending themselves against street harassment have been sent to New York State prisons.  Supporters and those concerned about what has happened to these women and their families are trying to obtain them pro bono […]

CHAIN OF DISASTERS & THE WEAKEST LINK The only thing that Bush’s “war on terror” has spread faster than disaster and misery has been opposition to its means and ends.  Six years into this self-righteously promoted crusade, Washington is more isolated internationally than ever.  Within the U.S., the Commander Guy’s approval rating has fallen below […]

Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church, long associated with human rights activism, hosted a fundraising rally for women in Darfur, on June 13.  Billed as “Voices for the Voiceless,” the program featured speeches and fund-pitches by the program’s emcee, business developer Judith Price, and main speaker, peace activist and church leader Dr. Thelma Adair, with proclamations by […]

28 June 2007 On the 20th anniversary of the chemical bombing of the Kurdish city of Sardasht in western Iran, a crime committed by the puppet Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain and with full provision, support, and acquiescence of Western governments, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII), commemorates the forgotten victims […]