Archive | News

Who controls capital, and what does capital control?  The concept of “capital” in this context must be corporate enterprise.  By this metric the commanding heights of capital in the United States would be the Fortune 500 or 1,000, perhaps a thousand or so more, with an array of satellite firms numbering in the tens of […]

  US investments in the Arab nation ⇒ oil to the United States ⇒ US bombs and missiles against the Arab nation Mohamed Al-Zawawi, born in Benghazi, was a Libyan cartoonist.  He died in Tripoli on 5 June 2011 at the age of 75.  This cartoon was published, untitled, in Al-Thawra (The Revolution), date unknown, […]

According to Le Canard enchaîné, French agents are now in Lebanon and Turkey “for the mission to build the first contingents of the Free Syrian Army.” French intelligence agents have been sent to northern Lebanon and Turkey to build the first contingents of the Free Syrian Army out of the deserters who have fled Syria, […]

“The people’ democratic struggle and the struggle for the environment should be intimately tied together.” — Fred Magdoff Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and adjunct professor of crop and soil science at Cornell University.  He is a co-author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know […]

  Jorge Alaminos Fernández is a graphic artist and designer in Spain. | Print  

Fifty years ago, Freedom Riders braved beatings and arson by supremacists intent on maintaining apartheid in the Jim Crow South.  By challenging segregated transportation through nonviolent action, these African American and white activists set in motion a process that ultimately dismantled segregation.  While the struggle for racial justice continues, at least this shameful chapter of […]

  General strikes were common in Europe and in the U.S. towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decades of the twentieth century.  They provoked great debates within the labor movement and within the revolutionary parties and movements (anarchist, communist, socialist). Much discussed were the importance of the general strike in […]

  We are in the midst of a decisive battle in the face of a potentially terminal crackdown.  Over the past 72 hours the army has launched a ceaseless assault on revolutionaries in Tahrir Square and squares across Egypt.  Over 2000 of us have been injured.  More than 30 of us have been murdered.  Just […]

Cory McCray, Founder of the Young Trade Unionists, and George Hendricks, Baltimore Teachers Union (BTU) Rep and Vice President of the Young Trade Unionists (YTU) If you head down to the IBEW Local 24 Union Hall Auditorium on W. Patapsco Avenue in Baltimore on the first Tuesday of any month, you’ll encounter a meeting of […]

Although Occupy Wall Street protesters have so far resisted attempts by the Democratic Party to co-opt their movement, a New York City “General Assembly” was bamboozled by what may be a State Department and/or NED initiative aimed at granting legitimacy to Egypt’s flawed election process. According to a November 16 story in Ahram Online and […]

On November 6th, thousands of protesters staged a colorful encirclement of the White House in Washington D.C., protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline project and against expansion in extraction of tar sands oil.  Within just four days after this bold direct action, Obama ordered a thorough review of the pipeline plan and suspended decision-making on […]

  The text in the painting reads the lyrics of a traditional Iraqi folk song: “Those who have forgotten us, when will you remember us?  When will we cross your mind?  When will you help our situation?  Love, you have left us with no explanation; you shut the doors in our face and abandoned us.  […]

Rajoy Won Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. “Polls say that seven out of ten voters for the victorious People’s Party do not have much confidence in . . . PP” (Ancelmo Gois, “Direita, volver,” 21 November 2011); “Right away, the risk premium of the Spanish debt rises and the stock market tumbles, […]

  “As God is my witness, I will never vote for the lesser evil again.” Emma Gascó (from Sevilla, Spain) is a journalist and cartoonist.  She is a co-blogger (with Martín Cúneo) of Los Movimientos Contraatacan.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print  

“Ten murders traced to neo-Nazi terrorists!”  More and more ugly facts splashed through the German media, with echoes around the world.  Politicians from the “respectable” parties expressed shock and surprise.  In 2007 a German policewoman had been shot to death and her colleague badly wounded.  The murder weapon was now found in a partly burned-out […]

Thirty years before the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, President Reagan fired enough striking air traffic controllers to fill a protest march across the Brooklyn Bridge (11, 345 PATCO members, to be exact).  And in the three decades since Reagan famously said “if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they […]

Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. “Given the impossibility of obtaining UN approval for an attack on Syria or Iran, it’s clear as the Qatar sky what’s going on.  Arm and finance a group of revolutionaries and get them to start an uprising.  When the state cracks down, get the opposition to call […]

In recent years Marx has again been featuring in the world’s press because of his prescient insights into the cyclical and structural character of capitalist crises.  Now there is another reason why he should be re-read in the light of Greece and Italy: the reappearance of the ‘technical government’. As a contributor to the New […]

The leader of al-Nahda movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, made his first visit to a foreign country after the first post-revolution Tunisian elections. His choice was the State of Qatar. Analysts see many messages in this gesture but some Tunisians are troubled by the invitation he had extended to the Emir of Qatar. Although many do not want any foreign leader present during the opening session of the constituent assembly, some Tunisians are singling out the ruler of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, as a persona non grata. They see him as a bully who is using Al Jazeera and his huge wealth to push an agenda that is not necessarily in the interest of their country.

In a recent debate the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination treated cutting the deficit as the panacea that would address the European crisis and prevent the United States from having a similar fate.  This diagnosis is wrong but it is unfortunately not unique to the Republicans in this country.  In fact, it is this […]