Archive | Commentary

Contrary to both mainstream dogma and received cultural-leftist/neo-Marcusian canon, access to commodities has never been anything like equal in the United States.  In fact, in this epoch of escalating income and wealth polarity, the newest statistics show that inequality among U.S. “consumers” is now at an all-time high. Bradley Johnson of Advertising Age magazine’s “American […]

As productive industry in the United States is systematically dismantled and sent to low-wage production zones all over the world, the number of products and services actually exported by our country continues to dwindle.  Our mind-boggling and staggering trade deficit for 2006 was $763 billion dollars, the fifth consecutive year of record-breaking deficits.  Be clear […]

Just less than a year ago in May 2006, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario unanimously passed in convention its path-breaking Resolution 50 in support for the global campaign against Israeli apartheid.  The resolution called on the union to educate its members on the apartheid nature of the Israeli state.  It also mandated […]

  The first round of East Timor’s presidential election, held on 9 April 2007, was inconclusive, yet it brought some issues into sharp focus. Voters punished the ruling party Fretilin for presiding over a collapse in social order; but they showed little enthusiasm for the free-market polices of rival candidate Jose Ramos Horta.  A sizeable […]

THE PRICE OF FIRE: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia by Benjamin DanglBUY THIS BOOK For Bolivia’s indigenous majority, the year 1781 is engrained in popular memory as one of open rebellion against Spanish colonialism.  Led by Tupak Katari, the indigenous Aymaras of the highlands lay siege to the city of La Paz for […]

The reign of the automobile in the United States is imperiling the entire planet.  Meanwhile, in 2005, a wholly typical year, automotive collisions took the lives of 43,443 residents of the United States.  That is 119 people killed per day, almost four times the 32 people murdered this Monday at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State […]

Dear friend, relative, or acquaintance of Bob McChesney, The news media are covering the tragic murders in Virginia this morning, and as they do an extraordinarily significant story is slipping through the cracks. On very rare occasions, I send a message to everyone in my email address book on an issue that I find of […]

  Murmurings of a political tsunami are emerging with regards to Israel’s policies towards the “non-Jewish” citizens of the “Jewish democratic state.”  Azmi Bishara, perhaps the most prominent political leader of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, was in the midst of engaging in his routine activities of propagating the rights of the Palestinian Arab […]

For the first time since its rise as a superpower the United States is facing a serious threat to its hegemony across the globe. In February this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a security conference in Munich that had 250 of the world’s top leaders and officials in attendance, including such luminaries as the […]

The macro march backward of domestic income and wealth distribution has become remarkable.  At least we thought so enough to pen the following remarks.  In 2006 the corporate profits share of the national economy retouched its 1929 high.  Wage and salary income broke its 8 decade low watermark.  Our new economy increasingly replicates the distributional […]

KARL MARX: A Life by Francis WheenBUY THIS BOOK It is fitting that a man who framed a dialectic based on violent contradiction — on thrust and counter-thrust, struggle and counter-struggle — should have lived a life fraught with contradictions.  In Francis Wheen’s biography, Karl Marx is neither hero nor nemesis, but a man of […]

  The Boards of the World Band and the International Monetary Fund that are meeting in Washington D.C. on 14-15 April are in dire straits.  The President of CADTM-Belgium, Eric Toussaint, explains. The Spring meetings of the WB and the IMF are taking place this weekend.  What is at stake? These two institutions are going […]

“Con este último pago (al Banco Mundial), esa deuda que era en 1998 de casi 3 mil millones de dólares, les puedo decir hoy que no tenemos ni un centavo de deuda ni con el Fondo Monetario Internacional, ni con el Banco Mundial”, exclamó. Declaraciones del Presidente Chávez (MP3 3m) Haga click para escuchar el […]

When I was in high school, I lived on a military base and socialized and worked with GIs opposed to the war in Vietnam.  These guys weren’t very different from me — we liked rock and soul music and we liked to get high — yet most of them had experienced war.  That was something […]

“Out of sight, out of mind” is a basic rule of political propaganda.  If a political event is not reported to the public, the public cannot react to it.  If that same event is misreported, public reaction can be manipulated. U.S. reports on the attempted coup to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002 were […]

Social critics, from Ida B. Wells to Noam Chomsky, recognize that the elite press can serve as the best tool against the elite.  Today’s business magazines have no problem “naming the system,” and they write with clarity and frankness on the inner workings of capitalism and imperialism.  My good friend and correspondent Skip recently sent […]

Trade Unions and Social Forums Since 2001, trade unions and other social movements, ranging from environmentalists to women’s organizations, from urban youth movements to indigenous peoples fighting for land rights, have come together at the World Social Forum (WSF) to debate and promote alternatives to the race-to-the-bottom, corporate model of globalization.  While participation from U.S. […]

It had snowed the night before.  It was a cold spring day, and we were headed up the NY Northway from Troy to Plattsburg for a college interview for my son.  The sun was making fitful attempts to come out from behind the snow clouds. When we passed out of the morning traffic coming down […]

On 9 April 1948, the Irgun and the Stern Gang, with the approval of the Haganah, attacked Deir Yassin, a village of about 750 Palestinians, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  Over 100 men, women, and children were massacred, and 53 orphaned children were left along the wall of the Old City.  The Deir Yassin […]

Opening comments at Conference on Participation, Change, and Human Development at the Centro Internacional Miranda in Caracas, Venezuela on 27 March 2007 The Bolivarian Constitution, in my view, is unique in its explicit recognition (in Article 299) that the goal of a human society must be that of “ensuring overall human development.”  From the declaration […]