Andy Stern’s SEIU is pouring in millions of dollars to take over the UHW, ousting its leadership. The first part of the video shows the rank and file of the 150,000-member local, as well as their ousted president Sal Rosselli, speaking out against Stern’s trusteeship; in the second part, Steve Zeltzer interviews former UHW organizer […]
Geography Archives: United States
The Financial Crisis and the Real Economy: Beyond the Keynesian Fix
The end of eight years of neoconservative belligerence in the White House came with a financial crisis exacerbated by decades of neoliberal economic policies. As a result of this coincidence, the ideological winds in the United States are blowing powerfully to the left. The possibility of another great depression looming over the economy,1 left-wing and […]
Afghanistan and the Soviet Withdrawal 1989: 20 Years Later
Washington D.C., February 15, 2009 — Twenty years ago today, the commander of the Soviet Limited Contingent in Afghanistan Boris Gromov crossed the Termez Bridge out of Afghanistan, thus marking the end of the Soviet war which lasted almost ten years and cost tens of thousands of Soviet and Afghan lives. As a tribute […]
Human Rights Watch Goes to War
The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States. The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. In the case […]
A Call to End All Renditions
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year. Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without […]
Interview with Mohammed Nafa’h, Secretary General of the Communist Party of Israel
“Supporting the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination is a duty of Israeli communists.” The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and its front Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) were the only political forces in Israel that confronted the massacre perpetrated by the Tzahal (IDF), the Israeli armed forces, in Gaza last January. Regrettably, […]
Palestinian Opinions after the Gaza War
Fatah and Hamas The results of the public opinion poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) during the period 29-31 January 2009 show that the majority of respondents (46.7%) believed that Hamas came out of the war victorious compared with only 9.8% who said that Israel won the war. Over one-third, 37.4%, […]
The Crisis of Global Capitalism and the Environment: Interview with John Bellamy Foster, Editor of Monthly Review and Professor of Sociology, University of Oregon, for Eleftherotypia (Greece)
CP: After twenty-five years of sporadic growth and extreme polarization of income and life conditions around the world, actually existing neoliberalism seems to be on the verge of collapse. Where do you situate the current crisis in the history of the development of global capitalism? JBF: Neoliberalism has clearly collapsed. But as Fred Magdoff […]
Stories Jews Were Told: Israel, Zionism, and Palestine
What is the story American Jews have been told about Israel and Zionism, and how does it differ from the reality of what happened in Palestine? Like many American Jews, I was told by my teachers at Hebrew School and in the Jewish Day School I attended that the creation of Israel meant that Jews […]
Indian Muslims and Media: Interview with Kashif ul-Huda
34 year-old Kashif ul-Huda runs TwoCircles.net, the leading Indian Muslim news and features web site. In this interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks about his work and reflects on Indian Muslims and the media. Q: What made you set up TwoCircles.net? What was your source of inspiration? A: I come from a working class family […]
Prophetic Verse
please keep in mind as you prepare to pass sentence you may at some time be in need of a presidential pardon and I may, understandably, be reluctant to grant it. Dennis Brutus is a South African poet. Active against Apartheid, he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned for 18 months on Robben Island. After […]
Israel: The Left vs. the New Left
Hadash released a great set of four election commercials today, which feature conversations between a supporter of Meretz and a supporter of Hadash, “The Left vs. the New Left.” You can see the clips here. My favorite is the one on the Gaza war, which you can watch here in Hebrew. The Leftie stutters […]
Pass the Stimulus — Then Help Shorten the Work Week
As job losses hemorrhage, the American economy is in desperate need of a stimulus. It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must work rapidly to approve some version of President Obama’s plan. Then, Obama and the Congress should very quickly turn to taking a second, temporary step to create more jobs: creating incentives for companies […]
Cries of Ghosts across Centuries
Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Towers that soared into clear blue are at blocks of stone settled into earth all gone, all shattered ground into scattered dust Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Now hordes of warring barbarians literate, skilled in killing […]
Free Palestine! Isolate Apartheid Israel!South African Dock Workers Refuse to Handle Israeli Goods
COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine supported by YCL and other progressive organisations In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by […]
Employee Free Choice at Work: Checking Out of Stern’s Hotel California
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) wants its members to believe that their union is just like the alluring but ultimately nightmarish hostelry immortalized by The Eagles. It’s a place of permanent imprisonment only “programmed to receive” workers and their dues money, not let either go elsewhere when the rhetoric of “progressive unionism” wears thin […]
Chavismo: Christian, Anti-Nazi, Pro-Muslim, and Pro-Jewish
Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States, speaks of numerous members of the Jewish community who have supported the struggles of peoples against imperialism and Zionism, and he rejects any attack against the Jewish people. Watching television footage of one of the necessary and legitimate protests against the Israeli Embassy in […]
Erdoğan Does Davos: Turkish Nation Unified . . . for Now
His face the color of the Turkish flag, his right arm pinning the panel moderator to his seat, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan preferred not to listen to any more Israeli bullshit about Gaza. With finger-wagging Israeli president Peres regurgitating the usual self-serving argument of self-defense to justify the criminal acts of his state, […]
Letter to President Barack H. Obama
Dear Mr. President, Your election as the President of the United States of America has opened a new and promising chapter in the history of the USA and created a strong wave of enthusiasm and hope across the world.
More Zionist Than Israel? German Policy and Media on Gaza
The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over — ended just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over his first hours as U.S. President. The initial Palestinian death toll is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise. (Four times that number were injured, and more wounded […]
