Archive | Commentary

Fariborz Rais Dana, a left-wing economist and critic of the ongoing subsidy reform in Iran, was arrested, around midnight, on Saturday (28 Azar).  The reason for his arrest was not announced, the authorities reportedly saying only that Rais Dana was being taken for “questioning.”  Nasser Zarafshan, Rais Dana’s lawyer, says that “it’s not clear where […]

When discussing the current state of Iran’s economy, commentators, activists, politicians, and the U.S. government all seem to agree on the massive role played by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  Stanford University Professor Abbas Milani told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C. in June 2010 that this “military junta” controls “minimally […]

The recent visit of two Afro-Colombians to the Boggs Center started me thinking dialectically about the paradigm shift in the concept and practice of Solidarity made necessary and possible by corporate globalization. In 1997 these Afro-Colombians, members of a small farming community in Uraba, Colombia, were among those displaced when a joint paramilitary and U.S.-backed […]

Using pensions to light up the market. . . . Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 17 December 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. “Further […]

For each of the past two elections I have published my Citizen’s Manifesto.  The idea is that anyone could print it off and hand it to either of the government parties if they come to the door.  Here’s my new version for 2011.  It’s a substantial modification since the last election — a certain amount […]

Phases of Imperialism Lenin dated the imperialist phase of capitalism, which he associated with monopoly capitalism, from the beginning of the twentieth century, when the process of centralization of capital had led to the emergence of monopoly in industry and among banks.  The coming together (coalescence) of the capitals in these two spheres led to […]

Excerpt: In the quest for an international agreement on actions to address the climate change crisis, three aspects have to be the basis simultaneously: The environmental imperative, to prevent the climate from changing to the extent that would have disastrous consequences. The developmental imperative, in that developing countries have the needs and goals of eradicating […]

  Nina Power’s One Dimensional Woman is a slim but muscular volume, whose pithy prose goes straight to the heart of the challenges currently facing contemporary feminism.  Constructed as a series of short, cut-to-the-chase essays on a diverse range of ‘raw-nerve’ topics, from Sarah Palin and the War on Iraq to the veil and pornography, […]

In her excellent 2003 book Forces of Labor, Beverly Silver discerns within the history of capitalism an ongoing tension between the system’s simultaneous need for both profitability and legitimacy.  That is, it needs to ensure that capital can squeeze as much value as possible out of the workers while making sure that it doesn’t exploit […]

  Paul Jay: Nancy Folbre, in her blog on the New York Times, wrote the following: “The Great Recession has sometimes been dubbed the Mancession because it drove unemployment among men higher than unemployment among women.”  So how is this affecting families?  How is this affecting the future outlook for the population as a whole […]

So a key part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s not-so “liberal” health insurance “reform” bill was declared “unconstitutional” last week by the right-wing federal district court judge Henry E. Hudson in Virginia.  In a 42-page opinion, the justice wrote: “Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers […]

داد بزن صدات برسه ساکت نباش چون سکوت کنی نوبت تو هم می‌رسه Salome is an Iranian rap artist.  This song is about Israel’s war on Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.  See, also, Salome, “Grown Green on This Land” (MRZine, 11 February 2010). | Print

Yesterday was the 10th day of the Muslim holy month of Muharram — commemorated by Shi’a Muslims for centuries as the holy day of Ashura.  (We send our best wishes to all of our readers who are observing this special time.)  One of our readers highlighted something truly striking that happened yesterday, in connection with […]

He wanted to be a working-class hero not the fucking peasant John Lennon sang about. He left the university went straight to the rank and file, learned to smile with a snarl, and conceal his knowledge of Marx & Mao. He was pragmatic. He absorbed the grit and grease philosophically, cut the dialectical edge with […]

The polarization of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really.  Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today.  This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity.  The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, […]

Once again, the two old wings of the political establishment do business as usual in Washington.  In the tax deal between Obama and the Republicans — passed with the help of a majority of Democrats — they all cut taxes, especially on the rich, and extended unemployment benefits.  In short, the government keeps spending mountains […]

To listeners of the labor show on KPFA, Today is the fifth Wednesday that you haven’t heard the labor show at its normal time, 7:30 AM on Wednesday.  I’m writing to explain why, and to ask you to take action to support the work we’ve done and would like to continue. This show broadcast for […]

  Shahla Haeri: There are many misconceptions, but unfortunately the media are so very powerful.  The image that they have created has become so powerful that it becomes very difficult for people to get any other image, any other perceptions, of women in their mind.  There is this tendency to categorize, to generalize and lump […]

  i ask myself if in this phrase all the yews of the free city of Paris lean and fall, all my reflections on language — the word that shuts the edifice of Language is the same that opens to the wind’s dominion — it was possible in those days to cross not just one […]

This is not the first time thousands of classified documents have been “liberated,” revealing to a stunned public how their government has waged a concerted war of disinformation against them for the purposes of bending their will to the demands of a pointless war: a war on the altar of which the deceived public are […]