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  In his 1994 book entitled The Location of Culture, post-colonial theorist Homi Bhaba writes that “cafes are part of the social phenomena of the ‘third place’ [which] . . . people occupy outside of the home and work.  It’s a place to relax, to be alone, to socialize, to read, to gossip, to meet […]

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 […]

Protests demanding democratic rights in general, as well as the release of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer (arrested in February this year for advocating constitutional monarchy), were held on Friday, 4 March 2011, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Al-Ahsa Qatif The protests, albeit far from the magnitude seen in Arab intifadas elsewhere, still appear to […]

The House of Khalifa tries to divide and conquer . . . but the people, united, will never be defeated! A slogan of the Bahraini revolution: “Neither Sunni Nor Shia But National Unity” Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

Press Conference of the Opposition Political Societies on the Reasons for the Call to Overthrow the Government A coalition of seven opposition political societies invites you to join the Bahraini masses to attend the grand march on Friday, 4 March 2011, entitled “Down with the Government.”1  The opposition coalition believes the current government must resign, […]

  The one uprising that is most likely to be hijacked and sabotaged is the Libyan Uprising.  Not only because of the opportunistic and sinister Western intervention but also because the faces of the old detested regime are now leading the so-called opposition. I mean, to listen to Qadhdhafi’s UN ambassador, ‘Abdur-Rahman Shulqum, speak against […]

This week against the overwhelming will of the people Gov. Kasich and his political allies dealt a blow to middle class working families.  After Republicans played political games with the Committee hearing process on Senate Bill 5 — even going so far as to remove Republican Senator Bill Seitz from the Committee because he was […]

“Today, Obama called for freedom of the Libyan oil fields.” — As’ad AbuKhalil Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

Bolivian, Ecuadoran, and Cuban Foreign Ministers David Choquehuanca, Ricardo Patiño and Bruno Rodríguez, and Nicaraguan Vice Minister of Economic Relations and External Cooperation Valdrack Jaentschke, all say that their governments support Venezuela’s initiative to create an international commission to seek a negotiated solution to the internal conflict in Libya. The officials made their position public […]

People accuse me of a double moral standard, but really I don’t have any moral standard! Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 3 March 2011.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi […]

Cyber activists have created a group on Facebook calling for a “Day of Anger” on Friday in the eastern Saudi region, following the arrest of a Muslim cleric.

The unemployment rate edged down to 8.9 percent in February, as the Labor Department reported that the economy generated 192,000 new jobs.  This number is undoubtedly inflated some by the weather-weakened January performance, when the economy generated just 63,000 jobs.  The unemployment rate has now dropped by 0.9 percentage points in the last three months. […]

The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in the last couple of months in the struggle against right-wing legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly finds itself at a crossroads.  Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to create the new movement, remains the center of […]

  Venezuela’s proposal to “set up a Goodwill International Commission for the search for peace in Libya” mentioned in the statement below has been accepted by the government of Libya but rejected by the opposition Libyan National Council, France, and the United States. — Ed. This statement records Venezuela’s position on United Nations General Assembly […]

American progressives and peace forces have been in a state of joyous delirium in recent weeks as they experienced vicarious, televised popular victories in Tunisia and Egypt.  Watching unarmed crowds achieve tentative victories against entrenched, U.S.-backed regimes produced a kind of giddiness on this side of the ocean — an otherworldly feeling that, somehow, the […]

We the undersigned believe that there is a pressing need for an Audit Commission to examine Greek public debt.  Current EU and IMF policy to deal with public debt has entailed major social costs for Greece.  Consequently, the Greek people have a democratic right to demand full information on public and publicly-guaranteed debt. The aim […]

  “Workin’ hard scarred my proletarian flesh I used to go to sleep drunk every night depressed Slavin’ for a check, a couple hundred at best While the boss getting’ rich off my blood and sweat And all the crumbs I get go to bills and rent I ain’t workin’ all my life just to […]

The past two weeks have been a “Where’s Waldo” moment for President Obama. He’s been largely a bystander while tens of thousands of American workers, joined by students, and community allies, marched in Madison’s snow and freezing temperatures, and slept on the floors of the capitol, to defend their most fundamental right to freedom of […]

No on Senate Bill 5, 1 March 2011 Panayiotis T. Manolakos is an independent economist, writer, and activist based in Ohio.  The photographs above (available at www.flickr.com/photos/ptmanolakos/sets/72157626052775127/) are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

Over the last half century, the richest Americans shifted the burden of the federal individual income tax off themselves onto everybody else.  The three convenient and accurate Wikipedia graphs below show the details.  The first graph compares the official tax rates paid by the top and bottom income earners.  Notice especially that from the end […]