The movement of citizens that has occupied Puerta del Sol and other plazas in diverse cities of Spain since the 15th of May has brought back political debate to the streets and put the role of political parties into question. Should the movement now take down its encampments and look for other formulas to channel […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
When Push Comes to Shove? Exposing the Empty Threat to Kick Greece Out of the Eurozone
A sword of Damocles, we are told, is hanging over Greece. Even the Greek EU commissioner says that Greeks must accept that their country will be run, nay micromanaged, by a committee of foreign creditors, or else Greece will be kicked out of the eurozone. This threat is found upon a flagrant lie. Greece cannot […]
Message to Communists of the World
Painful events have been continuing in Syria for nearly two months, since the emergence of a protest movement raising legitimate local and general demands among people in the governorate of Daraa. This movement threw light on the presence of major problems in the political life in Syria: the continuation of the state of emergency, the […]
Sol
May our sun, the Puerta del Sol camp in Madrid, not be turned off!
NATO
We have developed planes invisible to radars . . .. . . and victims invisible to justice. 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 30 May 2011. Translation by Yoshie […]
Syria, Libya, and Russia’s Retreat from “Reset”
The last thing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev did before departing for France to attend this week’s Group of Eight summit meeting in Deauville was place a call to Damascus. Prima facie, one may think the call made sense, since, as Reuters reported, “Syria’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests” is going to be high on the agenda […]
Michal Kalecki and the Economics of Development
In the long and impressive catalogue of Michal Kalecki’s contributions to economics, the proportion of writings devoted to what is now called “development economics” is relatively small. And most of his work in this area is concise to the point of being terse, in short articles that simply state some crucial principles, typically without much […]
Telephone Conversation with President of Syria Bashar al-Assad
May 24, 2011, 19:30 In continuation of the telephone conversation between the presidents of Russia and Syria held on April 6, 2011, and on the eve of his trip to France for a G8 summit, Dmitry Medvedev stated the principled position of the Russian Federation regarding the events in Syria and around it. The […]
The Crisis Enters Year Five
The current global capitalist crisis began with the severe contraction in the housing markets in mid-2007. Welcome to Year Five. A usual inventory of where things stand begins with the good news: the major banks, the stock market, and corporate profits have largely or completely “recovered” from the lows they reached early in 2009. The […]
Feminists Demand Freedom from Sexual Assault and Harassment
Introduction by Carol Hanisch A group of international feminists is gathering support for the African immigrant woman hotel worker who was allegedly attacked sexually by (now former!) IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and who is now having her character assassinated in the media. We have posted a statement “Feminists Demand Freedom from Sexual Assault and Harassment” […]
Democracy
Every now and then . . . a fiesta of democracy In the meantime . . . a siesta of democracy 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 25 May […]
Palestinians in America: An Intelligent Socialist’s Guide to Tony Kushner, with a Key to the UN Declaration of Human Rights
(Scene: an elevator, downstage right. Stuck inside are ROY COHN and ETHEL ROSENBERG, characters in Tony Kushner’s landmark play, Angels in America. McCarthyite lawyer, ROY prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of spying for the USSR and executed in 1953. ETHEL now paces impatiently, pushing elevator buttons. Above the stage, captions from recent […]
Spain: 2011 Municipal and Regional Election Results
Ballot boxes are like black boxes. Upon opening them you’ll discover the causes of the accident. Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona. This cartoon was first published in his blog on 22 May 2011 under a Creative Commons license. Cf. <resultados2011.mir.es/99MU/DMU99999TO_L1.htm>; <resultados-elecciones.rtve.es/municipales/>; and “More revealing perhaps, however, is to examine votes relative […]
Rebellion of the Indignant: Notes from Barcelona’s Tahrir Square
There is no doubt about it. The wind that has electrified the Arab world in recent months, the spirit of the repeated protests in Greece, the student struggles in Britain and Italy, the mobilizations against Sarkozy in France . . . has come to Spain. These are not days of “business as usual.” The comfortable […]
Tariq Ali on Syria and Libya: “Whenever the West Intervenes, It’s a Disaster”
Tariq Ali and Rory Suchet
Tariq Ali: I don’t think sanctions work. They are essentially a symbolic measure. Usually when sanctions are applied against a country, they affect the poor people in that country more than the ruling elites, as we saw for years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. They had imposed a bloody sanctions regime, […]
Regaining Vision
Address to the Conference “Debt and Austerity: From Southern Countries to Europe,” Athens, Greece, 6-8 May 2011 Honorable guests, Dear participants, Comrade activists, Fellow fighters, The Greek initiative for the establishment of a Committee for the Accounting Audit of Its Public Debt welcomes you to this very important three-day event for the exchange of […]
An Independent Citizens’ Debt Audit for Ireland
Introduction We, the undersigned, are sponsoring a citizens’ debt audit for Ireland. In the interest of transparency, we wish to know how the Irish debt — especially the bank debt for which the state has assumed responsibility — was incurred and to whom it is owed. We sponsor this audit as organizations that have […]
Opposition’s Call for General Strike Falls on Deaf Ears in Syria
DAMASCUS, May 18 (RIA Novosti) The Syrian opposition’s calls to hold a general day-long strike on Wednesday have been largely ignored, Aljazeera reported. The Syrian opposition called for a general strike as the government denied reports that it has been burying anti-government protesters in mass graves. “Wednesday will be a day of punishment for the […]
Mass Protest in Spain: No Vote for Traditional Parties!
Madrid. Tens of thousands of people, especially youth, demonstrated again on Tuesday evening in the Spanish capital of Madrid, against the political and economic system of the country, which they called corrupt. The participants in the rally at the central Puerta del Sol square shouted slogans such as “Less Policing, More Education” and “They Call […]
On the Political Economics of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Political Death
What follows below is about the economic and political significance of the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK hereafter), the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. It will say nothing about the merits (or lack thereof) of the charges against DSK. All cases of alleged sexual assault brought against high-profile men place two equally important […]
