Tag Archives | Statements

  • Remembering Robert Weil: Intellectual and Political Activist

      Robert Weil, author of the powerful critique of Deng Xiaoping’s “reforms” entitled Red Cat, White Cat: China and the Contradictions of Market Socialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1996, republished in India by Cornerstone Publications, Kharagpur), quietly passed away in California on 12 March 2014.  Almost a year after, on 15 February 2015 a […]

  • Mandela Was Not a Hallmark Card

    Long-time South African educator and President of the New Unity Movement, R. O. Dudley had a quote that he used when speaking of various iconic South African struggle leaders: He “had arms, not wings.”  It is a phrase that we should remember when speaking of the late Nelson Mandela, but unfortunately, press coverage in the United States as well as throughout the world has turned Madiba into a Hallmark greeting card figure.  And while Mandela’s role as a freedom fighter and the major force for reconciliation in the new democratic South Africa should be honored and celebrated, we must remember that we are talking about a complex revolutionary, and also a complex politician.

  • Brazil: The Giant Awoke and . . .

    More and more people pouring into the streets: “Free pass!”; “A R$3.20 fare is a robbery!”; “No to 3.20!”

    But there is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. This movement is totally beautiful. But what matters is: What will change when everything gets back to normal?

  • What’s in the Boxer-Sanders Climate Change Bill?

    Days before last month’s climate change demonstration on the doorstep of the White House, two Senate Democrats introduced legislation that they say would put the U.S. on the path to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

  • “Environmentally Responsible?”: “Rogue NGOs” Tackle Pacific Rim in El Salvador

    On October 20th, hundreds of people marched in Cabañas, El Salvador to voice their opposition to the proposed gold-mining project of Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company. The anti-mining movement in El Salvador has been growing over the past decade and in 2007, under pressure from this movement, the Salvadoran government began to put restrictions on the burgeoning, foreign-dominated mining industry.

  • British Peace Delegation Departs for Libya

      Roshan Muhammed Salih: Angered by the NATO bombing of Libya, this delegation made up of British academics, lawyers, and journalists set off from London’s Heathrow Airport on a peace mission to Tripoli.  Their intention is to emphasize that the Western intervention isn’t altruistic and has made the situation there worse. Dave Roberts: It’s really […]

  • Bahraini Women Protest at American Embassy

    “We don’t want to negotiate. We want to end the monarchy. We want to end the monarchy. Down with the monarchy!” “Down with the monarchy!” “The people want democracy!” “The people want democracy!”

  • Hezbollah Statement on the “Crimes Committed by the Gaddafi Regime” in Libya

    Hezbollah lashed out Monday at the “crimes committed by the Gaddafi regime” in Libya.

  • Solidarity with Choi Daniel, aka Black Comet, a Zainichi Fighter against Racism in Japan

      We, the Black Comet Defense Committee, appeal to all fighters against discrimination in the world: We would like to let you know what happened on a street near the Shibuya station, Tokyo, on December 4, 2010. Choi Daniel (崔檀悦), also known as Black Comet, a young Zainichi Korean sociologist born in Japan, protested, alone, […]

  • Egyptian Elections and US Foreign Policy

      Reed Lindsay: It’s election day in Egypt, the second round of parliamentary balloting.  But in this working-class suburb of Cairo, few people seem to care. “There are no free and fair elections.  All the opposition parties withdrew.  A lot of us are unemployed.  So why should we vote?” “All we are seeing is corruption, […]

  • Don’t Let Enemies of Freedom Suppress the Truth about Israel’s Attack on a Humanitarian Aid Ship!

    Don’t Let Enemies of Freedom Suppress the Truth about
    Israel’s Attack on a Humanitarian Aid Ship!
    All Out to the House of the Lord Church, 415 Atlantic Ave.
    Thursday June 17, 7 pm
    MAVI MARMARA SURVIVORS HAVE A RIGHT TO BE HEARD!

    Two weeks ago Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish ship loaded with humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.  They murdered 9 unarmed passengers.  The oldest, Ibrahim Bilgen, was 61.  The youngest, Furkan Dogan, a U.S. citizen born in Troy, N.Y., was just 19.

  • The Greenest Building in New York (and Maybe the World)

    If it were set in, say, Manhattan, Kansas, it would be a spectacular sight: a twisting, shimmering 51-story tower of glass. As it is, though, it doesn’t stand out in Midtown Manhattan, New York — a stylized office tower, topped by a harpoonish spire. In short, another glass office building that screams “architecture” while exuding a vague and somewhat threatening sense of private power.

  • US Community Learns about Rural Healthcare from Iran

      Rosiland Jordan: In a Mississippi Delta neighborhood known as Baptist Town, the people have needed a miracle here for a long time now.  Good-paying manufacturing jobs that were once here vanished long before the current economic crisis, and with them so did a lifeline. Sylvester Hoover, Greenwood Merchant and Music Historian: Those people who […]

  • The Vultures Circle Haiti at Every Opportunity, Natural or Man-made

      Haitians’ incredible plight has always been difficult to fully appreciate.  Then the earthquake struck: hundreds of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands more hurt, a million homeless, and two million in need of food.  It defies imagination. And according to a journalist just returned from Haiti, even the heart-rending footage we’ve seen here on television […]

  • Veterans Brock McIntosh and Rick Reyes on Afghanistan

      “I thought as soon as we hit the ground, we would immediately start changing things and making it better for the people, but, during the entire time I was there, we rarely did any kind of humanitarian aid missions.  They have a lot of social issues that they are dealing with, like poverty and […]

  • Open Letter to All Those Concerned about the Labor Movement

      Note to New York Times Readers In his November 18th article “Some Organizers Protest Their Union’s Tactics,” the New York Times‘ Steven Greenhouse cites a couple of sentences from this letter and links to it.  While it is good to see the New York Times examine important debates within the U.S. labor movement, for […]

  • Freedom of Expression and Palestine Advocacy

      Enormous resources have been marshaled by conservative and Zionist organizations in an attempt to silence criticism of the Canadian government’s unwavering support for Israel.  The first few months of 2009 have seen a concerted campaign to shut down Palestine advocacy in Canada.  Such examples include: cutting funding to the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) due […]

  • Rethink Afghanistan

      Part 1: Afghanistan + More Troops = Catastrophe Part 2: Pakistan: “The Most Dangerous Country” Part 3: Cost of War Anand Gopal, Afghanistan Correspondent, Christian Science Monitor: The United States has only forces to go and control certain urban areas. . . .  They don’t have the troop size, nor could they conceivably ever […]

  • Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract

      The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract The Rs. 10,000 crore missile production deal with an Israeli company, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has now been exposed as a deal involving massive kickbacks besides being an unnecessary contract.  The Left parties […]

  • Bring In the Dead: Martyr Burials and Election Politics in Iran

      اعتراض دانشجویان پلی‌تکنیک به پروژه دفن شهید Beating their chests and wearing black, a procession of young men and women filed toward the gates of Tehran’s Amir Kabir Polytechnic University on February 23.  The mourners — drawn primarily from the ranks of the Basij militia and unaffiliated hardline Islamist vigilantes — were carrying the […]