Archive | Commentary

The end of 2010 brings renewed Washington rhetoric, media hype, and academic me-too declarations about the US economy “recovering.”  We’ve heard them before since the crisis hit in 2007.  They always proved wrong.  But recovery noises are useful for some.  Republicans claim that government should do less since recovery is underway (of course, for them, […]

  The historic election of Barak Obama brought with it high expectations for a new direction in American foreign policy towards Cuba.  Unfortunately, hope has turned into disappointment halfway through his first term: the President continues to miss opportunities to alter the dynamics of the consistently contentious US-Cuba relationship. While the recent discharge of political […]

The long awaited liberalization of energy commodities in Iran has finally begun.  President Ahmadinejad stated: “At this stage, we don’t want to free prices, rather we are going to regulate and reform them.”  How regulated will this new system be? Iranians with private cars get a monthly ration of about one full Iranian tank of […]

On 20 December 2010, the New York Times reported (Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan”): “Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas. . . .  Now, American military officers appear confident […]

  Listen to the interview with Jerica Arents and Mary Dean: Jerica Arents: What’s interesting, we heard many people who are in higher echelons of society [in Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan] say that “US forces need to stay, they are protecting us,” but ordinary people, ordinary Afghans, whom we talked to said, “We want the […]

While the US may be the world’s single superpower in military terms, it faces another superpower: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing.  In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war […]

Indian Justice Has Failed Dr Binayak Sen To: The President of India, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi We, the undersigned are shocked at the conviction of well-known public health doctor and human rights worker Dr Binayak Sen by a Raipur Sessions Court on charges of ‘sedition’ and ‘waging war against the Indian State’.  The conviction carries […]

“We believe the US and NATO forces cannot liberate Afghan women, nor defeat the Taliban, nor bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.”

  “I thought to avoid the clichés of friendship that usually involve showing Indian and Pakistani flags waving in harmony.  Instead I took my camera into a Mumbai slum where so many of the powerless and penniless live and face daily indignities and uncertainties and yet retain their spirit of resistance.  What has resulted is […]

“Everybody wanna fuck with the Taliban, from Kabul to Pakistan.” Chris d’Eon is a musician based in Montreal, Canada.  His album Palinopsia, which includes “Kill a Man with a Joystick,” is available now from Hippos in Tanks. | Print  

Caracas, 24 Dec. AVN — The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, sent a message of hope and faith to the people as part of Christmas festivities, with a handwritten card that he showed at an event held in the Miraflores Palace in Caracas: Below is the Christmas message from the […]

This is a Christmas story you probably won’t hear retold during those sleek holiday shopping advertisements or around the flush tables of Don Blankenship or other mining company executives.  Because this is the supposed season of joy, you may never have heard about Christmas eve in Calumet, Michigan in 1913.  Perhaps it’s best to let […]

  Makhlouf is a cartoonist in Egypt.  The cartoons above were published by Al-Masry Al-Youm on 20 and 22 December 2010 under a Creative Commons license. | Print  

For the past few months global attention, especially in the international financial media, has been focussed on the eurozone.  The reasons are obvious.  The group of countries that make up the European Union together constitute the largest economy in the world.  Instability within it — which now seems inevitable, no matter how the current problems […]

Introduction Molière’s 1670 his play, The Bourgeois Gentleman, presented before the court of Louis XIV, mocked a foolish, social-climbing merchant.  In his effort to remake himself, the merchant takes lessons to help him pass as an aristocrat.  In a basic lesson on language, he is both surprised and delighted to learn he had been speaking […]

  December 22, 2010 Dancing and singing to a parody of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé’s “Telephone,” more than forty members and friends of the St Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee (STL-PSC) serenaded holiday shoppers at Best Buy and AT&T stores in Brentwood, MO.  They urged patrons to join the boycott of Motorola products because of the […]

  “Palestine and Iraq in the Eyes of Kalvellido and Azagra.”  That’s the title of a series of panel cartoons by Spanish artists Juan Kalvellido and Carlos Azagra, who have criticized, in their own way, that is to say by cartoons, the wars in Iraq and Palestine in recent years. This exhibition, organized by the […]

  December 22, 2010 The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is circulating the following statement from Palestine solidarity activist Maureen Murphy.  Maureen is the managing editor of the popular online publication, Electronic Intifada, and she is also the co-chair of the Chicago Committee Against Political Repression, which has been leading work in Chicago to oppose […]

Excerpt: From the descriptions given by the soldiers, one comes to grasp the logic of Israeli operations overall.  The testimonies leave no room for doubt: while it is true that the Israeli security apparatus has had to deal with concrete threats in the past decade, including terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens, Israeli operations are not […]

  On December 20, dozens of people crowded the office of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue and the National Governors Association offices in Washington, DC, to present the governor with the demands set by prisoners in his state who had been on strike since December 9: a living wage for work, educational opportunities, decent health care, […]