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Letter to the members of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association, AFSCME Local 11. Dear OCSEA Member: You are making history!  Four weeks ago, Senate Bill 5 was introduced in the Ohio legislature to take away the rights of public employees to collectively bargain.  And, four weeks ago, we started a campaign like no other. […]

  Joe Conway, Madison Fire Fighters Local 311: This is a game changer for everybody here. . . .  They took people’s rights away in a matter of minutes, . . . not playing by any rules at all. The UpTake: We’re hearing people talk about a call for a general strike.  What do you […]

The Tunisian revolution has wiped out the Ben Ali system, and the Egyptian revolution is about to eliminate the Mubarak system after the fall of the president.  No doubt, the epoch of unlimited domination in the Arab world is coming to its end.  After decades of despotic, patronage-based regimes, the Arab peoples seem determined to […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

  Position Statement of the Coalition for a Republic In the name of our glorious religion and international conventions on human rights and on the principle of the right of nations to decide their destiny, and based on our long struggle and sacrifices against the oppressive and corrupt Al-Khalifa regime, we hereby declare a tripartite […]

When I was growing up, several decades ago, middle-class society in India was always a little delayed in catching on to Western fashions whether in music or dress or in other aspects.  The past decades of globalisation seemed to have changed all that.  Modern communications technology has ensured that at least the upper income deciles […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. ” A NATO spokesman confirmed that Libya had been added to the agenda of an informal NATO defense ministers’ meeting March 10-11″ (“MEPs Call for No Fly Zone Over Libya,” DefenseNews, 9 March 2011); Arnold Schölzel, “Kriegstreiberei: Libyen-Resolution im EU-Parlament” (junge Welt, 10 March 2011); Arnold Schölzel, “Linke […]

In Bahrain, hundreds of women took to the streets this Tuesday, marching for their rights in the main streets of the capital.  They also demanded the end of the monarchy.  The women in their traditional dress were the protagonists of this peaceful protest, forming a human chain in the streets of Manama.  With their signs […]

One of the problems of the Libyan opposition today is that lousy leader they have.  He is none other than the former Minister of Justice of Qadhdhafi’s regime.  He has been on Aljazeera and is everything you don’t want to have in a leader.  I mean, if Libyans watch him, they won’t be inspired.  They […]

  Partai Komunis Indonesia, or the Indonesian Communist Party, was at one point the largest communist party outside the Soviet Bloc.  In 1965, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its members were systematically murdered under the watch and approval of General Suharto’s CIA-backed military.  Historians estimate that between 500,000 and 2,000,000 communists were killed, […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Comrade Fuad: ‘Ending the Division’ Means Ending Oslo, the Cause of the Division” (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, 24 February 2011); “Palestinian Women Rally for Unity on Women’s Day” (Ma’an News Agency, 8 March 2011); . | Print

  Former Palestinian female prisoners as well as wives and daughters of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails held a sit-in in front of the office of the international committee of the Red Cross in Gaza on the occasion of international women’s day. . . . Families of prisoners seized the occasion and called on all […]

“We don’t want to negotiate. We want to end the monarchy. We want to end the monarchy. Down with the monarchy!” “Down with the monarchy!” “The people want democracy!” “The people want democracy!”

Dear U.S. Railroad Workers: As you are no doubt aware, a major labor battle has erupted throughout the Midwest, ground zero being Madison, Wisconsin, where public workers and their allies are waging a gallant fight for survival.  While the immediate struggle revolves around the public workers’ fight for preservation of collective bargaining, the battle is […]

Iran’s Chairman of Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his post as head of the body on Tuesday, Iranian news agencies said.

  Support Bahraini Women on International Women’s Day Petition in Solidarity with Pro-democracy Bahraini Women: <www.change.org/petitions/solidarity-with-bahraini-pro-democracy-women-and-condemnation-of-violence>. Cf. <www.facebook.com/pages/Bahrain-Youth-for-Freedom/168929316486071>. | Print  

In evaluating calls for intervention, the first question we might ask is how the Libyan case differs from recent events in Tunisia and Egypt, where intervention of this type was not invited.  In both of those countries authoritarian leaders who were erstwhile Western allies were pushed out when their military institutions refused to turn on […]

Protesters: “The people wants to change the government!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to change the government!” Protesters: “The people wants to change the governing system!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to change the governing system!” Protesters: “The people wants to remove the governing committees!” Gaddafi: “Gaddafi wants to remove the governing committees!” Protesters: “The people wants Gaddafi to […]

While the advanced capitalist countries are hit by an acute crisis of recession and unemployment, the developing world is facing, apart from the fallout of this crisis, an acute food crisis.  Hunger afflicts the developing world today with a virulence not seen in decades.  World food prices, not just in nominal but in real terms […]

  Excerpt: The bill allows an employer to refuse to talk to the union about subjects reserved to the exclusive purview of management and deletes the requirement that the continuation of a current provision of a collective bargaining agreement is a “mandatory subject” of collective bargaining.  Those provisions put the safety of all employees at […]