Subjects Archives: Inequality

  An alleged “ringleader” of protests against a Nazi march on February 19th, 2011 in Dresden was sentenced by a local court to a prison sentence of 22 months. “Eventually the population of Dresden has had enough” — with this opinion, district judge Hans-Joachim Hlava justified his harsh sentence against a participant in an anti-Nazi […]

“Iranian Mothers for Peace,” in an open letter of January 2013 to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, and Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Heath Organization, have alerted the responsible world bodies and human rights organizations to the critical shortage of vital medication due to the US/EU-led sanctions on Iran […]

  Dipankar Chakraborty, the founding editor of the independent left Bangla journal Aneek, passed away on Sunday night.  He was 71.  A cardiac patient, he had suffered a respiratory problem in the evening and died on the way to hospital.  He is survived by his wife, son, daughter, and grandchildren. Always active in people’s movements, […]

Furious though it may be, the current debate over health care in the US is largely irrelevant to charting a path for poor countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.  That is because the US squanders perhaps 10 to 20 times what is needed for a good, affordable medical system.  The waste […]

  In Turkey 10,000 Kurdish political prisoners are now on hunger strike.  64 of them have entered their 65th day while 79 more have passed their 54th day. The file above, prepared by the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. | Print  

  Najaf, Iraq, November 11, 2012 I returned from Baghdad last night.  Over coffee this morning, I filled the father of my host family in on my trip.  I told him it was wonderful to see everyone, but I only heard sad stories. A few minutes ago a fierce wind rose, blowing the trees and […]

The ideological ambiguity of health care reform during Obama’s first term concedes few absolute truths.  The enterprise of reforming health care by way of corporate regulation ignites debate across the left spectrum about the Affordable Care Act’s place in the 2012 election and beyond.  Like it or not, the rules of the ACA are now […]

  Stories of police brutality are often told in a way that casts victims as helpless bystanders of cops run amok.  We met with Sean Pagan, a recent victim of police violence, and found that his story changes how we think about policing in New York.  Sean’s story shows that communities are finding new and […]

In the celebrated section of The Wealth of Nations in which he discusses the advantages of the division of labor, Adam Smith advances the thesis that “common to all men” is a “propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.”  Smith hedges on whether this “propensity” is a matter of original human nature […]

Popular momentum is building to ensure that any settlement coming out of upcoming Colombian government peace negotiations with insurgents promotes social justice. New prisoner resistance and recent documentation of abuses in Colombian prisons serve as reminders that, ideally, a peaceful and just Colombian society should promote prisoner rights.  Indeed, “Our people and a bit of […]

I would like to start off by saying that I am not a journalist.  However, I do know that there are some common practices in journalism involving privacy.  Some investigative journalists use hidden camera footage to raise awareness of issues of vital public interest when there is no other means of obtaining information about them.  […]

  “The remains of the human beings, each weighing 70, 80, 90 kg when alive, fit into just five 20-kg plastic bags.  I mean, even their bones had burned down.  I am a lawyer and I have seen many autopsies after murders and accidents, but I have never seen anything like this.  Even their teeth […]

Whereas once the primitive was our savage other, today the native is the bearer of an alternative future.  In the late 1980s the Kayapo Chief Raoni, with his spectacular feathered headdress, accompanied the pop star Sting on concert tours to enlighten western audiences of the ecological disaster in the Amazon that came hand-in-hand with human […]

  “This discussion has changed my mind about homosexuality.  Now I understand what my Lesbian friend went through.  When she graduated from medical school in Cuba, she cried.  She told me that she could live her life the way she wanted to when she was in Cuba.  But now she would return to Honduras as […]

Women With a Vision (WWAV), a New Orleans advocacy and service organization that provides health care and other support for poor women of color, was the victim of a break-in and arson late Thursday night.  A small organization that has won a national reputation for its work, WWAV was founded in 1991 by a collective […]

Teaching ethnic studies is hard.  You have, on one side, folks who would universalize all human experience, not out of meanness but out of sincerity: “I know how you feel,” they say, “because my uncle had a similar experience, and let me tell you. . . .”  Of course the uncle’s experience is nothing like […]

In Libya after Muammar Gaddafi, the situation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa is worsening. Most of them had come to this rich African country looking for jobs. Now, thousands of them are arrested and taken to detention centers, where they are targeted for abuse by their captors, most of whom are illegal armed groups.

I recently wrote an article about my personal experiences in dealing with the medical system while undergoing surgery (“Free Market Medicine: A Personal Account”).  In response, a number of readers sent me accounts of their own experiences trying to get well in America. Health care in this country is hailed by conservative boosters as “the […]

Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. […]

Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. “A Libyan diplomat who served as ambassador to France for Muammar Gaddafi died from torture within a day of being detained by a militia from Zintan, Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Friday. . . .  On January 26, humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres said […]