Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. “The year 2011 promises to be auspicious for the security industry. On the 31st of December, the Greek government announced its intention to build, on the land border with Turkey, a barbed-wire wall to prevent entrance of migrants. A few weeks before that, Israel began building a barrier […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
The C-word in Germany
Once again it was the annual big weekend for German leftists of every conceivable persuasion. It was also a weekend with tons of slush, the result of weeks of cold and snow now ending in thaw weather, but, in the eyes of most participants, also provided by most of the media. As every year, Sunday […]
A New Year for Capitalism
“Happy New Swindle!” 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 January 2011. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
A New Year for Greece
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print
The War Party Pushes Obama for Even More Iran Sanctions
The first issue of The Weekly Standard for 2011 includes an article by Reuel Marc Gerecht and Mark Dubowitz, entitled “The Logic of Our Iran Sanctions: Accelerate Them Now.” Gerecht and Dubowitz are both affiliated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and are prominent voices in neoconservative circles focused on Iran. We highlight their […]
Vital Space
Dear Friends, On this New Year’s Day we are launching Vital Space — an NGO and website that intends to cast an artistic eye on the great issues of our troubled age. Instead of another empty New Year’s resolution, we decided to take the initiative of creating a platform from which we can all (you, […]
The Battle against Cholera
I am taking a second, between various important analyses that are currently taking up my time, to refer to two issues that should be known to our people. The United Nations, at the instigation of the United States, the creator of poverty and chaos in the Haitian Republic, decided to send into Haiti its forces […]
To Private Manning
To Private Manning, sent to jail for exposing war criminals. . . . Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 27 October 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] […]
Expanding US Raids in Pakistan: Interviews with Mike Ferner, Kathy Kelly, Michael Marceau, and Ann Wright
On 20 December 2010, the New York Times reported (Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Military Seeks to Expand Raids in Pakistan”): “Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas. . . . Now, American military officers appear confident […]
The Strange Story of the Single Market
For the past few months global attention, especially in the international financial media, has been focussed on the eurozone. The reasons are obvious. The group of countries that make up the European Union together constitute the largest economy in the world. Instability within it — which now seems inevitable, no matter how the current problems […]
Decoding Economic Ideology
Introduction Molière’s 1670 his play, The Bourgeois Gentleman, presented before the court of Louis XIV, mocked a foolish, social-climbing merchant. In his effort to remake himself, the merchant takes lessons to help him pass as an aristocrat. In a basic lesson on language, he is both surprised and delighted to learn he had been speaking […]
Fintan O’Toole’s Own Cultural Revolution
Fintan O’Toole. Enough Is Enough: How to Build a New Republic. Faber. £12.99. Suppose you were swept to power on the back of a massive popular vote — say something like 80%, the kind of number that usually has the USA and its client states jumping up and down and calling you a leftist narco-terrorist. […]
The Twilight of Capitalism?
In recent years, radical geographer David Harvey has emerged as one of the leading theorists and popularizers of Marxian political economy in the English-speaking world. In books such as The New Imperialism and A Brief History of Neoliberalism, as well as his popular online courses in Volume I of Marx’s Capital, Harvey has articulated a […]
Notes on Contemporary Imperialism
Phases of Imperialism Lenin dated the imperialist phase of capitalism, which he associated with monopoly capitalism, from the beginning of the twentieth century, when the process of centralization of capital had led to the emergence of monopoly in industry and among banks. The coming together (coalescence) of the capitals in these two spheres led to […]
Pensions: Up in Smoke
Using pensions to light up the market. . . . Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 17 December 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. “Further […]
Where’s the Legitimacy Crisis?
In her excellent 2003 book Forces of Labor, Beverly Silver discerns within the history of capitalism an ongoing tension between the system’s simultaneous need for both profitability and legitimacy. That is, it needs to ensure that capital can squeeze as much value as possible out of the workers while making sure that it doesn’t exploit […]
West Sea Crisis in Korea
Contested Waters: Background to a Crisis 1. On November 23, 2010, military troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) and the United States conducted war-simulation exercises, dubbed “Hoguk” [“Defend the State”], a massive joint endeavor involving 70,000 soldiers, 600 tanks, 500 warplanes, 90 helicopters, and 50 warships. It was slated to […]
Reading from m-Talá
i ask myself if in this phrase all the yews of the free city of Paris lean and fall, all my reflections on language — the word that shuts the edifice of Language is the same that opens to the wind’s dominion — it was possible in those days to cross not just one […]
US Tax Deal Brings Austerity Closer
Once again, the two old wings of the political establishment do business as usual in Washington. In the tax deal between Obama and the Republicans — passed with the help of a majority of Democrats — they all cut taxes, especially on the rich, and extended unemployment benefits. In short, the government keeps spending mountains […]
Order Reigns on the Internet
Scarcely a day after the WikiLeaks disclosures of U.S. State Department cables the U.S. political establishment went ballistic. Some called for the assassination of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson, Julian Assange, whereas others wanted to amend the 1917 Espionage Act to target the website. Targeted “denial of service” attacks shut down the web site, and then the political […]
