Archive | Commentary

“These people who are commonly known as leaders view politics and religion as that crippled, lame and injured man, displaying whom our beggars normally beg for money.  These so-called leaders go about carrying the carcasses of politics and religion on their shoulders, and to simple-minded people who are in the habit of accepting every word […]

Many prominent civil rights figures were socialists — believing there was a link between racial justice and economic justice.  As socialists they wanted decent jobs for all, an end to poverty, decent housing for all, decent education for all, human rights for all, rule by the people (democracy) over our political and economic life. Such […]

The battle of the Hong Kong dockers, as Union of Hong Kong Dock Workers (UHKDW) Secretary Wong Yu Loy reveals, was important not only because of the rarity of strikes in Hong Kong, or because it was a pitched battle with Hong Kong’s wealthiest corporate magnate, but also because of the way corporate globalization set […]

More than 100 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo are starving themselves to death.  Twenty-three of them are being force-fed.  “They strap you to a chair, tie up your wrists, your legs, your forehead and tightly around the waist,” Fayiz Al-Kandari told his lawyer, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard.  Al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti held at Guantanamo for […]

Bombs set off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 killed three and wounded over 200 people.  The metropolitan area became a virtual war zone.  Officials at every level let loose with doomsday-style retaliatory proclamations.  For some, however, the clamor served to resurrect memories of U.S. terrorism — against Cuba for […]

August 12-21, 2013 While the mainstream media speculates about the future of the Bolivarian Revolution since the passing of Hugo Chavez, for the Venezuelan people, there is no question.  Come learn about the process currently transpiring in Venezuela as the people, reinvigorated by the legacy of Chavez, deepen and further radicalize their struggle in defense […]

Former U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland are two of twenty participants from seven countries that will participate in an international delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013.  The purpose of the delegation is to meet with communities affected by the fighting, with a view towards facilitating peace and […]

Laal is a revolutionary band from Pakistan.  Lyrics by Habib Jalib.  Directed by Taimur Rahman. | Print

Hassan Juma’a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, faces three years in jail and heavy fines for organizing workers in the Iraqi oil fields.  They oppose privatization of Iraqi oil and demand fair treatment and respect at work.  Meet Hassan in this short video and act in international solidarity as requested in […]

Since Marx, we know that what characterizes and differentiates societies is the way in which they organize the production, distribution and use of the material and symbolic resources
they possess. In other words, the mode of production¹ is what defines the material content of the social life of the distinct human territorial collectivities (nations, peoples, communities), within which there can be differentiated the historically specific form in which each of their components develop, and the manner in which various existing modes of production interrelate within the same society.

  Pablo Solon is the Executive Director of Focus on the Global South based in Bangkok.  He was formerly Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations and Bolivia’s chief negotiator on climate issues as part of the UN COP process.  He was also instrumental in organizing the People’s Climate Summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He spoke with […]

  Bangladesh stands petrified as an unprecedented horror unfolds in Savar, near the capital city of Dhaka.  In the morning of the 24th of April, a nine-story building crashed down in Savar Bazaar.  Thousands of garments workers were in the building.  The death toll, as of this writing, was more than 175, with over 1,000 […]

  On 22nd April, Roza Tuletaeva, one of the activists from the Zhanaozen oil workers’ strike, started a hunger strike.  She has taken this extreme step because she has been refused essential medical aid at the women’s prison colony in Atyrau, where she is currently serving a lengthy jail sentence.  She was arrested after the […]

In the final weeks of a six-month prison sentence for protesting remote-control murder by drones, specifically from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, I can only reflect on my time of captivity in light of the crimes that brought me here.  In these ominous times, it is America’s officials and judges and not the anarchists […]

Like most of the white liberal-to-left elite, I am mesmerized by radical 1960s and ’70s activist groups such as SDS and the Weather Underground.  My auto-entrancement likely stems from a deep nostalgia for the glory days when 100,000 protesters could march on the Pentagon and nary a one could be linked to Al Qaeda. For […]

  Aijaz Ahmad: Ever since this young man [Kim Jong-un] became the president, the head of state, of North Korea . . . the West has been testing his will, to see whether he can be stared down. . . .  Every year these very provocative war games take place, involving South Korea and the […]

H/T Dan Beeton. | Print

April 16, 2013 New York A delegation of National Lawyers Guild (NLG) election monitors visited polling sites in five Venezuelan states on April 14 and found that the Venezuelan presidential election process was fair, transparent, participatory, and well-organized. With over 78 percent voter turnout, Nicolas Maduro Moros was declared Venezuela’s new president with a 50.66 […]

Opposition protests turned deadly yesterday, with at least seven people having been reported killed and over 61 others injured as opposition groups reportedly burned the homes of PSUV leaders, community hospitals, and mercales (subsidized grocery stores), attacked Cuban doctors, attacked state and community media stations, and threatened CNE president Tibisay Lucena and other officials.  Violence […]

  President Dilma Rousseff called Nicolás Maduro, certified as president-elect of Venezuela by the National Electoral Council of that country, this Monday afternoon, to congratulate him on his victory in the presidential elections held on Sunday. Dilma Rousseff expressed her satisfaction with the climate of normality during the voting and said she stood ready to […]