Archive | Commentary

A shameful witch hunt against teachers is underway, a full-blown hysteria being fanned by the media working hand in hand with politicians.  In one of the crudest efforts to manipulate public opinion, as Juan Gonzalez reported, Mayor Bloomberg solicited local media to obtain the teachers’ ratings under Freedom of Information laws and publicize them. As […]

Email-ID 1671459 Date 2011-12-07 00:49:18 From bhalla@stratfor.com To secure@stratfor.com A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today — I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic studies group — guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas […]

  See, also, <chtodelat.wordpress.com>; <seansrussiablog.org>; and <www.sublimeoblivion.com>. | Print  

I recently wrote an article about my personal experiences in dealing with the medical system while undergoing surgery (“Free Market Medicine: A Personal Account”).  In response, a number of readers sent me accounts of their own experiences trying to get well in America. Health care in this country is hailed by conservative boosters as “the […]

“No genuine democratic nationalist movement in the world has ever asked for any imperialist intervention.” — Aijaz Ahmad Aijaz Ahmad is a Marxist critic in India.  Prabir Purkayastha is a member of the Delhi Science Forum.  Video by NewsClick (15 February 2012).  See, also, Prabir Purkayastha, “Why Syria Matters: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad” (27 November […]

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. | Print

“Perception is 100 percent of politics,” the old adage goes.  Say something three, five, seven times, and you start to believe it in the same way you “know” aspirin is good for the heart. Sometimes, though, perception is a dangerous thing.  In the dirty game of politics, it is the perception — not the facts […]

Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. […]

The first video was uploaded, by a Gaddafi sympathizer, onto YouTube on 23 February 2012.  The video description on YouTube says that the caged men are men of Tawergha and that their tormenters are Misrata “revolutionaries.”  The description of the second video, also uploaded onto YouTube on 23 February 2012, this time by a “Libyan […]

  Bucking the trend, Mahshahr petrochemical workers have shown that it is possible to win a major labor battle even in these times of lockouts, plant closures, and mass layoffs.  Other unionists and labor activists are taking note. On January 9, several thousand contracting workers at Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex and other nearby facilities in […]

Recent pro-Syria protests in Tunis, Tunisia, against foreign interventions in Syria . . . 19 February 2012 21 February 2012 24 February 2012 See, also, the Communist Workers’ Party, et al.’s joint statement against foreign interventions in Syria: . | Print

Honduras’s National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) gathered in Tegucigalpa February 11-12 to launch a political party.  The name, “Liberation and Re-foundation Party (Libre),” is timely: Honduras is mired in catastrophe. Its murder rate is the world’s highest.  Political violence, crime, militarization, poverty, malnutrition, drug trafficking, and police corruption are overflowing.  Landowner thugs kill family […]

  Famous Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie recently directed a movie called In the Land of Blood and Honey in which Serbs are depicted as raping Muslim women prisoners during the Bosnian War.  As the movie doesn’t show the conduct of Bosnian soldiers, among the Serbian public it has been characterized as one-sided and anti-Serbian.  We […]

Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. “A Libyan diplomat who served as ambassador to France for Muammar Gaddafi died from torture within a day of being detained by a militia from Zintan, Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday. . . .  On January 26, humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres said […]

“But see how quickly the slave of yesterday is straightening his back, how the spark of liberty is gleaming even in his half-dimmed eyes” (Lenin 1905 [1963]: 541). Lenin and freedom — it is perhaps a jarring juxtaposition for many.  Was not Lenin the harbinger of what is occasionally called the most dictatorial and authoritarian […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

Berlin and its surroundings have had plenty to keep it occupied: an airline strike, a short strike of the bus, streetcar, and subway lines, the euro crisis, and price increases.  Or, on the happier side, warmer weather and the film Berlinale, with visits by many stars and an interesting, international mix of films often by […]

“We want freedom now, but we’re not going to get it saying ‘We Shall Overcome.’  We’ve got to fight until we overcome.” — Malcolm X “A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt.  A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On the […]

Translation of the TeleSur & RT tweets by Yoshie Furuhashi. | Print

  President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech on January 25 contained distressing news for opponents of global warming who recognize the need to begin substantially reducing reliance upon carbon-based fossil fuels. “Over the last three years,” Obama said, “we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration.  And tonight, I’m directing […]