Archive | Commentary

Colombian political prisoner David Ravelo, jailed since September 14, 2010, learned late in November 2012 that he had been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in jail.  His case, based on spurious evidence, reflects epic military, police, and judicial repression carried out under a regime of big landowners and the urban elite.  After 50 years […]

Eduardo Galeano is a writer.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

  One of the Left’s great challenges is to understand when the great watershed of change is upon people and seize the time.  Racism, sexism, inequality, and uncertain futures have weighed heavily on the conscience of many a movement.  For every great moment, hundreds of crushing defeats never to be remembered are handed down.  Once […]

We, the undersigned, who are part of an international civil society increasingly worried about the awful bloodshed of the Syrian people, are supporting a political initiative based on the results of a fact-finding mission which some of our colleagues undertook to Beirut and Damascus in September 2012.  This initiative consists in calling for a delegation […]

Furious though it may be, the current debate over health care in the US is largely irrelevant to charting a path for poor countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.  That is because the US squanders perhaps 10 to 20 times what is needed for a good, affordable medical system.  The waste […]

Sometimes history repeats itself — the first time as tragedy and the second time . . . as another tragedy.  The horrendous fire that just killed 112 workers, mostly young women, at the Bangladesh garment factory echoes the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City in 1911 that killed 146 workers, again mostly women.  Both […]

For farmers small and large?  For the tens of millions of food-consuming households, poor or just getting by?  For the governments and bureaucracies of small countries who want to import less and grow more?  For the organic cultivators on their small densely bio-diverse plots?  Or for the world’s large food production, trading, and retail corporations, […]

  Here is the full-text of what I said — as also, what I wanted to say but restrained myself because of the time constraint or because of my diffidence — at the book release of Gautam Navlakha’s Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion (Penguin Books, 2012), organised by Sanhati at the Gandhi […]

Opening Plenary, “Media and War: Challenging the Consensus” Conference, Goldsmiths, London, UK, 17 November 2012 Seumas Milne: We’ve seen the rise of a new, revived form of liberal interventionism, or humanitarian interventionism, in the last couple of years, and the key to it is the idea that there mustn’t be too many boots on the […]

“We won’t go!  Morsi will go!” Mosireen is a non-profit media collective in Cairo, Egypt.  For more information: ; and . | Print

No, it wasn’t shredded wheat.  This shredding was not of breakfast food and has been much harder to digest; it was evidence on serial murder!  The related biliousness is all the more painful due to a worrisome new survey of rightist hatred in Germany.  But first some background. For a year now the case of […]

A highrise building No external fire escapes (Locked doors?) 112 dead workers Wal-Mart, Sears, and others have offshored the working conditions of the early twentieth century Safety.   Always No Safety Michael Ceraolo is a poet based in Cleveland, Ohio, the author of Cleveland Haiku and Euclid Creek. | Print

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

Nicaragua’s adoption this year of a sweeping law for prevention and punishment of violence against women marks an important gain for women’s rights in this Central American country, says Sandra Ramos, founder and director of the “Maria Elena Cuadra” Movement for Working and Unemployed Women (MEC). Addressing a meeting at Casa Maíz in Toronto on […]

With over 100 now reported killed by Israeli airstrikes, and a further 700 injured, the attack on Gaza is already starting to resemble the 2008-9 ‘Operation Cast Lead’ massacre.  A ground invasion is feared, and Israeli politicians are again trotting out the usual Zionist crowd-pleasers about the need to “bomb Gaza back to the Middle […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  In Turkey 10,000 Kurdish political prisoners are now on hunger strike.  64 of them have entered their 65th day while 79 more have passed their 54th day. The file above, prepared by the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. | Print  

  Najaf, Iraq, November 11, 2012 I returned from Baghdad last night.  Over coffee this morning, I filled the father of my host family in on my trip.  I told him it was wonderful to see everyone, but I only heard sad stories. A few minutes ago a fierce wind rose, blowing the trees and […]

A storm is brewing in Southern Europe.  In Greece on November 6 and 7 another general strike will take place.  On November 14 Portuguese, Cypriot, Spanish, and Italian trade unions intend to go on strike in opposition to the austerity policies of the European Union.  Belgian and British trade unions, as well as the European […]

Squaw Point today (photo by David Thorstad)Silent City (photo by David Thorstad) In 1904, the Ojibwe village at Thief River Falls, in northwest Minnesota, was removed to the Red Lake Indian Reservation to the east, much diminished after the tribe’s cession of 256,152 acres between the reservation and Thief River Falls (known as the eleven […]