Archive | Commentary

  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 […]

Coincident with massive, at times explosive, student protests in Rome and London, the University of Puerto Rico has again become a flashpoint with a student strike beginning Tuesday that turned the main campus into a militarized zone of police, riot squads, and SWAT teams, complete with low-flying helicopters and snipers.  What began as a conflict […]

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.1 percent in November.  Over the last three months, headline inflation has run at an annualized rate of 1.8 percent, compared to 1.7 percent in the previous three.  Despite November’s more moderate 0.2 percent rise in energy prices, the last three months have seen a 14.8 percent annualized rate of […]

Surrounded by sharks in the financial market, the many-headed eurozone says: “I say we had better swim to the shore!” “No way!  We have to face them down!” “Come on!  It’s much better to cry: Help!” “Well, I think. . . .” Bernardo Vergara is a Spanish cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Territorio Vergara […]

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation revealed today the text of a secret anti-Palestinian resolution to be voted on by the House of Representatives later in the day.  The full text of the draft resolution, not yet made public officially, is reprinted below.* The resolution, introduced by Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the […]

  On Monday, 13 December 2010, a flash mob hit a fundraiser for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Oakland, California, singing (to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”): We don’t need no bombs and sanctions . . . Hey, AIPAC, leave Iran alone! . . . All in all […]

Scarcely a day after the WikiLeaks disclosures of U.S. State Department cables the U.S. political establishment went ballistic.  Some called for the assassination of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson, Julian Assange, whereas others wanted to amend the 1917 Espionage Act to target the website.  Targeted “denial of service” attacks shut down the web site, and then the political […]

  Plunder + Immigration Laws = Modern Slavery Cecilia Areito is a Colombian cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 15 December 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | Print  

  “The silent vigils started with the disappearance of Hasan Ocak, who was detained by police in Istanbul on March 21, 1995.  55 days later, his tortured body was uncovered in a graveyard for unidentified people.  Ocak’s family and friends led the first sit-down protest. . . .” Bijoyeta Das is an independent multimedia journalist […]

From the FWIW department, a video of an anti-war demonstration of 160 people in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, on 5 December 2010. One of the themes of the Shinjuku demo, as shown in this poster, was (to paraphrase rather than translate): “‘China Will Invade Japan’?  Are You Nuts?” In other words, the crazy Japanese right-wingers are […]