Archive | News

  • The Egyptian Working Class Enters the Arena with Full Force

    My sources have just confirmed this now.  The Cairo Public Transportation workers, who started a strike today in six garages — Nasr Station, Fateh Station, Ter’a Station, Amiriya Station, Mezzalat Station, Sawwah Station — have issued a statement with a list of demands, calling for overthrowing Mubarak.  No public buses will roam Cairo tomorrow, except […]

  • While You Are Watching Other People’s Revolutions. . .

      You are watching other people’s revolutions, in Tunisia, Egypt, etc., on TV, thinking, “Wow, that’s wild”; meanwhile, your pocket is being picked and your brain is being taken from you, too. . . . Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 29 January 2011 […]

  • Major Work Stoppages (or Dearth Thereof) in 2010

      Excerpt: In 2010, there were 11 major strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 or more workers and lasting at least one shift, the second lowest annual total since the major work stoppages series began in 1947, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.  The series low for major work stoppages beginning in a calendar […]

  • Egypt: Obama’s Counter-Revolution

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

  • At Your Age

    “At your age, I was already working.” “And, at your age, grandma, I’ll be still working.” Juan Kalvellido is a Spanish cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published in Kaos en la Red on 1 February 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. Kalvellido, […]

  • Interview with Nawal El Saadawi: “I Feel As If I’m Twenty”

    How do you feel right now? I feel great.  I feel as if I’m born.  This is the dream of my life, as if this is my day, you know, because I was dreaming of this, as I was oppressed all my life, all my life, as a writer, as a doctor, as a woman, […]

  • Egyptian Dictatorship, Made in USA

      The Egyptian dictatorship, made in the USA, is still powered by an Israeli battery, but the battery is running low. . . . This cartoon was first published by Al Jazeera; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, “Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt” (New […]

  • #Jan25 Egypt

    The only question is: who’s next? Omar Offendum (MC #1), ; The Narcicyst (MC #2), ; Freeway (MC #3), ; Amir Sulaiman (MC #4) ; Ayah (R&B Vocalist), ; Sami Matar (Producer), ; Artwork by Ridwan Adhami .  Download link: .  Cf. Interview with Omar Offendum (Al Jazeera, 8 February 2011): . | Print

  • The Sound of the Revolution

      Ramy Essam is a singer and composer from Mansoura, Egypt.  For more information about Essam, visit <www.facebook.com/RamyEssamOfficial>.  This song, composed of slogans of the Egyptian Revolution, was performed at Tahrir Square in Egypt on the “Day of Departure” (4 February 2011). | Print  

  • Fight Back against the Attack on Public Sector Workers: Stop Ohio Senate Bill #5

    On Wednesday, February 9 at 1:30 PM, the Insurance, Commerce, and Labor Committee of the Ohio Senate will be holding the first meeting on abolishing the public sector collective bargaining law in the State of Ohio.  This meeting will be held at the State House in the Finance Hearing Room.  This will impact all public […]

  • No Alternative Other Than Socialism

    Message from WSF 2011 “Neoliberal” globalization, thoroughly bankrupt, is now indeed on the defensive.  It has no legitimacy.  And people in revolt illustrate that.  In Latin America and Nepal, today in Egypt and Tunisia, and tomorrow elsewhere in the South, gigantic popular upsurges are felling regimes that were once at its service. Autocratic regimes are […]

  • Counter-Revolution Field Manual

    In a speech attacking ‘multiculturalism’ Prime Minister David Cameron argued for a “muscular liberalism” that would actively confront “extremist” ideologies — principally radical Islamism — that fail to conform to “Western values”.  The problem is not with Islam per se, he argued, but with those “distortion[s]” of Islam that reject “democracy, the rule of law, […]

  • Documenting Mubarak’s Attacks on the Press

      Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print  

  • Democracy in Egypt

      Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print  

  • The Dystopia Files

      The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle marked a turning point both for political protest and for the ways in which the state attempts to control it.  Protesters developed new models of organizing (e.g. affinity groups and spokescouncils) and new tactics of direct action.  Governments, in turn, heightened security measures by denying protest permits, surveilling […]

  • Tunisia’s Future: Opposition Says It Feels Threatened

      Moncef Marzouki: We got rid of the dictator, but the dictatorship is still there.  I mean the secret police is still there, the party of the dictatorship is still there. Nazanine Moshiri: . . . Rachid Ghannouchi was also exiled under Ben Ali.  With many members of his Islamic al-Nahda movement imprisoned or tortured, […]

  • In Search of Method in the Age of Transition

    István Mészáros.  Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume I: The Social Determination of Method.  Monthly Review Press, 2010.  463 pp. It is always infuriating to read in any mainstream publication the typical smug commentary on some erstwhile left-academic who had come to reject the ‘determinism’ of Marx’s theory of history.  It is one of […]

  • Egypt: Which Way Is the Way Forward? Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy

      Saturday, February 5th, 8 pm (Egyptian time) What are some of the hurdles the protest movement is facing?  Are there divisions emerging while trying to find common ground? Yesterday the square was completely packed with more than one million protestors and Alexandria witnessed similar protests as well as the other provinces.  But there are […]

  • Mubarak’s Scales

      Mubarak weighs Egypt and himself and concludes: I am weightier than Egypt. This photograph was taken on 1 February 2011.  Visit the blog Egyptian Chronicles at <egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com>. | Print  

  • The Great Recession and Its Aftermath: Causes vs. Symptoms

    There is much confusion about the current economic situation, among left media and organizations as well as in the mainstream media.  This is certainly understandable given its complexity.  But what many are referring to as causes are symptoms of a deeper underlying problem — in other words, sparks that produced the Great Recession by igniting […]