Today, POLITICO published our newest Op-Ed, “Obama’s Slippery Slope to Strikes on Iran” (excerpts below but also worth reading in full on POLITICO.com). Our piece was prompted by the partial leak of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ January 2010 memo on Iran to the New York Times last week and subsequent statements by Gates and […]
Subjects Archives: Movements
Maoist Movement in India
Listen to the Interview: Bernard D’Mello: This insurgency actually goes way back to 1967. It is in the context of deepening underdevelopment, in particular in parts of India, more specifically parts of central and eastern India. The Maoist movement has evolved over time, it has learned from its mistakes, and it has regenerated itself […]
Reason, Faith, and Revolution
Christianity Fair and Foul The Limits of Liberalism Faith and Reason Culture and Barbarism . . . Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism or […]
What “Populist Uprising?”Part 1: Facts and Reflections on Race, Class, and the Tea Party “Movement”
The right-wing Tea Party “movement” has recently grabbed attention in the dominant media again. On Tax Day last April, it garnered headlines by rolling out its standard high-decibel complaints against “big government,” deficits, taxes, and the supposed “radical” agenda of “Obama, Pelosi, and Reid” and the rest of the Democratic Party. As usual, the Tea […]
The Erupting Insurrection
By one swift, decisive act, it has paralyzed Europe’s airline industries for almost a week, delayed 64 thousand flights (and counting), affecting millions of travellers, reminding a whole continent that geography and distance still exist, while lessening the airlines’ carbon footprint by an amount equal to the annual output of several smaller states combined, […]
Thailand: Abhisit’s Soldiers Protecting the Country from Democracy!
Only tyrants stay in power by sending tanks on to the streets. So why won’t Abhisit call an immediate election? Answer: he knows he would lose. Soldiers stand under a sign saying “We Won’t Use Violence.” The guns are obviously for eating noodles. Abhisit says these people are terrorists! Keeping the streets safe from democracy. […]
An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People
Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” incident have written an open letter of “Reconciliation and Responsibility” to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. […]
No Crisis in Public Retirement Systems: Debunking the Hype and the Attacks on Employee Benefits
For years, right-wing groups have been beating the drums to roll back decent pensions and retirement benefits for American workers. At the federal level, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, ranking member on the U.S. House Budget Committee, proposed a “Road Map” plan to privatize social security, cut payments, and slash Medicare benefits for all seniors. […]
Venezuela Needs an Economic Development Strategy
Throughout Venezuela’s record-breaking economic expansion, the government’s opponents — which includes most of the international media as well as Washington — were “crying, waiting, hoping,” as the rock and roll legend Buddy Holly once sang. The “oil bust” had to be just around the corner, they prayed and wrote. But for five and a half […]
Iran: New Challenges in the New Year
About one month after the beginning of the new Iranian calendar year (21 March 2010), and following the international recognition of Norouz by the United Nations General Assembly, Iran is facing new challenges. Some of the challenges are domestic, while others emanate from Iran’s regional and international policies as well as international pressures put […]
The Islamic Republic and the World: Two Reviews
Maryam Panah. The Islamic Republic and the World: Global Dimensions of the Iranian Revolution. Pluto Press, 2007. 232 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7453-2622-1, ISBN10: 0-7453-2622-6. Review of The Islamic Republic and the World Maryam Panah offers a refreshingly different and powerful account of the causes and consequences of the Iranian Revolution. Drawing on recent developments within […]
Comrade Jarrar: Palestinian Political Strategy Must Support Our People’s Resistance
Comrade Khalida Jarrar, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for the development of a united Palestinian strategy that strengthens Palestinian resistance and rejects the failed and dangerous path of negotiations with the occupation. In an interview on April 8, 2010 with Jerusalem News Net, Comrade Jarrar […]
Why Are American Jewish Groups So Intent on Defending Illegal Israeli Settlements and Other Human Rights Violations?
A coalition of nearly 20 Jewish groups, ranging from the right-wing David Project and the Jewish National Fund to the liberal J Street, is distributing a misleading statement condemning a Student Senate bill at UC Berkeley. The ground-breaking bill calls for divestment from companies that profit from the perpetuation of the Israeli military occupation […]
Tony Judt and the Limits of Social Democracy
Tony Judt. Ill Fares the Land. The Penguin Press, 2010. 237 pp. $25.95. In December, the New York Review of Books transcribed an October 2009 speech delivered by the eminent historian Tony Judt at New York University under the title “What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?” A major address by Judt […]
Egyptian Labor Protest to Raise Minimum Wage
“Hundreds of workers have showed up in order to demonstrate, calling for raising the national minimum wage, which remains unchanged from 1984 and stands at 35 Egyptian pounds [$7 per month], which is bloody pathetic to be honest. And workers today are calling for raising it to 1,200 Egyptian pounds, which is a very reasonable […]
Kyrgyzstan: End of the “Tulip Revolution”
The “Cedar Revolution” of Lebanon and the “Orange Revolution” of Ukraine were democratically brought to an end. A “Green Revolution” in Iran that Washington hoped for has turned out to be just a figment of its geopolitical fantasy. And now there goes another color revolution. It is clear that the political revolution in Kyrgyzstan caught […]
Thailand: Human Rights Commission Says Force Justified against Peaceful Protests
Dr Tajing Siripanit, a commissioner from the Thai National Human Rights Commission, stated on NBT television at 13.30 on 4th April 2010 that the military-backed government “would be justified in using force” against the peaceful pro-democracy Red Shirt protestors “because they were disrupting shopping” in the centre of Bangkok. In fact, the Red Shirts are […]
United States vs. Human Rights
This cartoon was published by Vos el Soberano on 6 April 2010. | | Print
Contesting the French Revolution
Paul R. Hanson, Contesting the French Revolution. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. xii + 229 pp. Bibliography and index. $89.95 U.S. (cl). ISBN 978-1-4051-6083-4; $34.95 U.S. (pb). ISBN 978-1-4051-6084-1. When Blackwell published a volume on the French Revolution in its Essential Readings in History series in 2001, Ronald Schechter began his introduction to […]
Cuba Does Not Bow to Pressures
Address by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the State Council and the Council of Ministers and Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, at the Closing Session of the 9th Congress of the Young Communist League, Havana, 4 April 2010, Year 52 of the Revolution Comrades, delegates, and guests: […]
