1. Introduction This commentary is offered as a contribution to the ongoing debate on the Bamako Appeal. On the 18th of January, on the day preceding the start of the Polycentric World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali, a conference was held in the same capital, commemorating the holding of the Bandung Conference 50 years back. […]
Geography Archives: Iraq
Anti-Arab Racism, Islam, and the Left
Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel’s colonization of Palestine. Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the […]
U.S. Out of the Middle East
To endorse the following statement, please send your name, location, affiliation and title (if any) to nyclaw@comcast.net, or NYCLAW, PO Box 3620166, PACC, New York, NY 10129. U.S. Out of the Middle East New York City Labor Against the War August 11, 2006 For weeks, Israel has turned Lebanon into a killing ground, slaughtering and […]
Interview with Paul LeBlanc
Paul LeBlanc Paul LeBlanc is what I have called an “organic intellectual,” a scholar and activist who has risen directly out of the working class. Paul is the author of many books, including A Short History of the U.S. Working Class (Humanity Books, 1999) and Black Liberation and the American Dream (Humanity Books 2003), […]
“The Immigrants’ Rights Movement Is in Good Hands”: An Interview with Nativo Lopez
I was at a conference titled Build the Left, Fight the Right this past June. The speakers and workshops at the conference ranged from the war in Iraq to the immigrant rights movement in the United States. One of the most interesting (and there were many) and hopeful (in terms of a brighter future for […]
News from the Back of the Front
POST-9/11 SCIENCE: AMERICANS ARE WORLD’S ONLY HUMANS (PU) Just in time for the 5th anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster, scientists have discovered that United States citizens — alone out of every other people on planet Earth — possess qualities identifying them as homo sapiens. The finding was announced today at the Center for […]
Slavery Now
King’s legacy dead as doornail America still run by Plantation Hillary proclaims, she a knowledgeable house slave who carried Massah George’s lies all the way to Baghdad and said it wasn’t even heavy. Stew Albert Photo by Robert Altman © 2006 Stew Albert, a co-founder of Yippies who died on 30 January 2006, published […]
12 August 2006, Washington, DC Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Occupation Is a Crime
Click on the image for a larger view. An MRZine reader contributed the photographs.
British Muslims: Open Letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair
Prime Minister, As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens. It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad. To combat terror the government has focused extensively […]
Vietnam Needs Your Help TODAYA Letter from Madame Binh!
Vietnam needs your help in the final stage of the process of normalization of relations between our two countries! Legislation granting Vietnam permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) will be voted on very soon in the Congress. PNTR is the normal state of trade relations between the US and the vast majority of the world’s countries. […]
Lebanon & Gaza: “Nothing Is Safe”
Israel’s continuing military offensives in Lebanon and Gaza are producing a human catastrophe and have immense political consequences. First, the human cost, as of July 30: At least 561 dead in Lebanon, the vast majority civilians — with 60 killed (including 37 children) by Israeli air attacks on the village of Qana. Over 1,000 wounded […]
I Don’t Want to Love You, But I Do
A LOVE POEM24 July 2006 Some readers of my open letter to Amos Oz have been posing questions to me regarding how to deal with a group that calls for the destruction of Israel. They tell me they are sick of Israel being described by the Left as inherently evil. I do not believe there […]
Ten Questions for Movement Building
For five weeks in the late spring of 2006, we toured the eastern half of the United States to promote two books — Letters From Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out (Nation Books, 2005) and Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (AK Press, 2006) — and to get at […]
Back in the USSA
Dear President Bush, As an American, I have always taken pride in the words “White House.” Through decades of political strife, be it hurricanes, bra-burnings, race riots, or terrorist attack, the White House has stood as a beacon of hope, assuring us that somewhere inside is a white President, upholding American values. Until today, Mr. […]
Bush Revives Pan-Arabism . . . by Accident or Design?
Is there any rational human being on the planet who doesn’t perceive Israel’s measures against Lebanon to be an irrational overreaction? Seriously, if every pair of “kidnapped” soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan warranted the “reaction” being meted out by Israel at this moment, I suspect the United States as a whole would be little more […]
US Media, Israel, and Lebanese Civilians
To anyone who understands the real history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and has read the many meticulously well-documented books on this topic by scholars and activists,1 the mainstream media coverage of Israel’s war on Lebanon and Gaza is woefully inadequate and decidedly biased. Again and again, over the last two weeks, the media in the […]
Can Political Forces in Lebanon Unite to Confront the Israeli Aggression?
The View of the Lebanese Communist Party on the Latest Developments Friday, 21 July 2006 The Situation on the Ground The Israeli enemy has continued making intensive air strikes at the districts and villages in the south, turning southern villages into isolated islands. Meanwhile the intensity of the bombardment on other parts of the country […]
Washington’s Other Crime Wave
The Roman historian Tacitus made the observation that the more corrupt the Roman Senate became, the more laws that it passed. After 13 years observing the White House and United States Congress as the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) Washington Representative, I’ll update Tacitus. The more corrupt Washington, D.C. becomes, the less and less it […]
What Next?
20 July 2006 What next? This is a fearsome open Israeli war against Lebanon. It has nothing to do with the matter of two Israeli prisoners. This is a war prepared ahead of time that had to wait for the right moment to be launched. It is a war that had to wait for the […]
Dateline Beirut
Part 1 Wednesday, 19 July, Afternoon (The local time is six hours behind Japan Time.) After many detours, I arrived at Beirut. Planning to cover Samawa, I left Japan a week ago (on the 12th), and I was making preparations in Amman, but I couldn’t arrange for an entry into and security in Iraq, […]
