Archive | Commentary

The media spin on the latest batch of WikiLeaks revelations gives the impression that, next to Israel, it’s the Arab states that are most energetically pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran.  In terms of the real threat to Iran, that’s definitely putting the cart before the horse. In the first place, the Arab governments mentioned […]

We were struck by a piece published by Reza Marashi — former State Department desk officer for Iran who now works as the National Iranian American Council’s research director.  For us, the most striking passage is the following: It should now be clear that U.S. policy has never been a true engagement policy.  By definition, […]

  Social movements redefine what it means to be an artist. Dara Greenwald is a media artist.  Her collaborative work often takes the form of video, writing, and cultural organizing.  Some of her works may be viewed at <daragreenwald.com>.  Josh MacPhee is an artist, curator, and activist.  He is a member of the art collective […]

  It was cold in the tiny, windowless interview room at the Wood Street Police Station.  I looked across the wooden table at the large-boned woman with a short Afro who was shaking and sobbing. . . .  “Fred never really woke up,” she said.  “He was lying there when they pulled me out of […]

In the past year or two it seems as if I have been signing or getting signed more postcards, letters, and petitions to Congress than at any time in my personal history. Most likely this was the result of the 2008 election, which put the Democrats completely in power, holding the Presidency, House, and Senate. […]

An interesting study on Americans’ attitudes regarding inequality and wealth distribution has been making the rounds recently.  It highlights once again the ideology problem that plagues any attempt to reconstruct left/social democratic/socialist/whatever politics in the U.S. The researchers asked survey respondents to choose between three unlabeled pie charts representing the social structures of three different […]

The ruling National Party of Egypt says: “Watch Out for Your Mind.” The dialog box asks: “Do you really want to delete the content of the soul?” (The cursor points to “yes.”) Abdallah Ahmed is an artist based in Cairo, Egypt.  He blogs at .  This cartoon was published in his blog on 26 November […]

The Census Bureau reported last week that the median price for a new home fell from $226,300 in September to $194,900 in October, a one-month decline of 13.9 percent.  While new home sales prices are always erratic and the October data were pushed downward in part by a relative increase in sales in the low-cost […]

By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009.  The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” asserting that “there is no doubt” that the events of […]

November 29, 2010 We will be writing about the WikiLeaks documents and Iran throughout this week.  As we sort through the cables that are available so far, the first major point is that, as even the New York Times‘ quasi-neoconservative David Sanger and his colleagues noted in their first story on the documents, the Obama […]

  Reference ID Date Classification Origin 09RPODUBAI177 2009-04-22 11:11 SECRET//NOFORN Iran RPO Dubai Game of Attrition.  Ahmadinejad’s defeats on the budget and his plan to distribute cash payments to lower-income Iranians show that power centers, such as the Majles, are actively working to pressure the President prior to the June election, according to [Source removed].  […]

  Reference ID Date Classification Origin 05TELAVIV1593 2005-03-17 14:02 SECRET Embassy Tel Aviv This record is a partial extract of the original cable.  The full text of the original cable is not available. S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 TEL AVIV 001593 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/14/2015 TAGS: PARM PREL MNUC […]

WikiLeaks document dumps are largely what media want to make of them.  There’s one conventional response, which goes something like this: “There’s nothing new here, but WikiLeaks is dangerous!”  But there’s another option: “There’s nothing here, except for the part that confirms a storyline we’ve been pushing.”  In those cases, WikiLeaks is deemed very, very […]

New Delhi, India, Nov. 27 — My reaction to today’s court order directing the Delhi Police to file an FIR against me for waging war against the state: Perhaps they should posthumously file a charge against Jawaharlal Nehru too.  Here’s what he said about Kashmir: Indian Pledges 1. In his telegram to the Prime Minister […]

  Reference ID Date Classification Origin 09TEGUCIGALPA645 2009- 07-24 00:12 CONFIDENTIAL Embassy Tegucigalpa VZCZCXYZ0000 OO RUEHWEB DE RUEHTG #0645/01 2050023 ZNY CCCCC ZZH O 240023Z JUL 09 FM AMEMBASSY TEGUCIGALPA TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0237 INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE RUEHCV/AMEMBASSY CARACAS IMMEDIATE 0735 RHEHAAA/THE WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC IMMEDIATE RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON […]

No voting for the Muslim Brotherhood under the Mubarak dynasty. . . . Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Al Jazeera on 25 November 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi.  Cf. “Egypt: Systematic Crackdown […]

The economic crisis that Obama rode to victory in 2008 also rode him down in the 2010 elections.  Obama and his economic advisors badly “mismanaged the crisis.”  While the Obama team seems to have learned little from its failure, we need to draw its lessons if we are to reduce the costly social consequences of […]

A hallmark of the Obama administration’s Iran policy has been a dual track approach to its contentious nuclear program: diplomacy, and pressure on the regime.  An improvement, to be sure, over President Obama’s predecessor’s policy — essentially all pressure and no diplomacy — but pressure, the Iranians have stated time and time again, will not […]

Pedro Méndez Suárez is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Rebelión on 28 November 2010. | Print

“When I was 20, they told me I must have experience.  Now that I have experience, they tell me they’re looking for a 20-year-old.” Juan Kalvellido, born in Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain in 1968, is a working-class cartoonist who has never stopped believing in revolution.  He currently lives in Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]