Archive | Commentary

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  Zahera Shalabi is the sister of Hana Shalabi, a 29-year-old woman from the village of Burqin in the Jenin district in Palestine.  On February 16, the Shalabis’ home was raided and Hana was arrested.  She has since been in Israeli prison under what is called Administrative Detention, held without charge or trial, like over […]

“Yugoslavia was in debt to the IMF. . . .  There was a conflict in the six republics of Yugoslavia: who is going to pay the debt?  Who is going to pay the debt was also a conflict between developed parts and undeveloped parts of Yugoslavia. . . . [In] this huge debate about who’s […]

  “We have staged a perfect war.  We’ve got everyone fighting, but very few now know exactly who is the enemy.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print  

On the evening of February 7, Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of DC public schools and the public face of the opaquely funded StudentsFirst, addressed an audience of some four thousand people at the Paramount Theater in Oakland.  The lecture was divided in three parts.  First, Rhee introduced herself and described her leadership of the DC […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

After 37 days of the strike, the Bticino-Legrand workers’ demands were partially met and they returned to work.  But Islam and his co-workers still haven’t received fixed contracts.  And the management remains the same.  And the laws remain the same — in favor of investors.  Let us realize our right to work with honor.  Let […]

“I’m digging this freestyle frm @MistahFAB at Invisible Children, #Kony & US media Hype designed to steal nat resources.” — Davey D Mistah F.A.B. is an American rapper.  Follow him at .  Cf. “Do I have a better answer?  No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s […]

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 [email protected] To [email protected] 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

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. […]

“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 […]

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 […]