Archive | Commentary

Chilean government spokeswoman Ena Von Baer declared on Tuesday that her country “supports the establishment of a Palestinian state.”  With this declaration Chile joins Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, which in past weeks have recognized Palestine as a free and independent state. Von Baer explained that Chile’s support is offered in the context of the […]

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 […]

Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement in response to reports that the Obama Administration is preparing an Executive Order to formalize indefinite detention without charge or trial for certain unnamed Guantanamo detainees. The assertion that 48 men currently detained at Guantánamo can be held indefinitely without charge or trial confirms that […]

Navid Kermani: Europe is in fact cementing its ideological borders. . . .  Radical openness is an essential feature of the European project. . . .  You can’t draw the borders of Europe just as you would draw the borders of a country.  Europe isn’t a country — it is an idea. . . .  […]

  In December 2007, over 2,000 American Muslims were asked what they wished they could say to the world.  This is what they said. Lena Khan is an independent filmmaker.  Music by Kareem Salama.  You can vote for this film at the Web site of Women’s Voices Now, “a not-for-profit social enterprise,” which is holding […]

In recent years, radical geographer David Harvey has emerged as one of the leading theorists and popularizers of Marxian political economy in the English-speaking world.  In books such as The New Imperialism and A Brief History of Neoliberalism, as well as his popular online courses in Volume I of Marx’s Capital, Harvey has articulated a […]

Tehran, December 19, 2010. On what he called “the historic economic night,” President Ahmadinejad appeared on Iranian television to announce the imminent launch of the subsidy reform law, starting with energy prices at midnight (see below for new prices).  He produced an impressive array of facts and figures from memory, hoping to calm fears about […]

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 […]

  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 […]

  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 […]

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

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 […]