Archive | December, 2008

  • Iraq: Massive Rally against SOFA

    BBC World News “The slogans are clear: no to America, no to the occupation, no to any agreement which would leave US troops here a moment longer.  One of Moqtada al-Sadr’s aids [Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Mohammadawi] read out a message from him urging Iraqi Members of Parliament not to betray their country by approving the draft […]

  • Russia Draws Closer to Venezuela

      Zaa Nkweta, The Real News: Venezuela just announced that it plans to buy Russian tanks as well as Russian armed reconnaissance vehicles.  At the same time, the Russian naval fleet is on its way to Venezuela to conduct joint military exercises. What do you make of this? Forrest Hylton: On the one hand it’s […]

  • Reading When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?

    Reading Shlomo Sand‘s book When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (Resling, 2008), I realized that there are actually several, not all related, arguments and debates within it.  In other words, it does not have one thesis that can be accepted or rejected as a whole, but an attempt to address various historical issues […]

  • The Problem Is Capitalism, Not Just the Banks

    Don’t panic!  That’s the panicked cry of governments and central bankers around the world.  Meanwhile their behaviour shows that they expect a very, very deep recession. After repetition over more than a quarter of century — by mainstream economists, ministers, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund — neo-liberal platitudes have been forgotten.  Today, we […]

  • Israel’s “City of Coexistence” Shows Its True Colors

    Israel has been suffering its worst bout of inter-communal violence since the start of the second intifada, with a week of what has been widely presented as “rioting” by Jewish and Arab residents of the northern port city of Acre. The trigger for the outbursts occurred on the night of Yom Kippur, or the Day […]

  • The Depression: A Long-Term View

    The depression has started.  Journalists are still coyly enquiring of economists whether or not we may be entering a mere recession.  Don’t believe it for a minute.  We are already at the beginning of a full-blown worldwide depression with extensive unemployment almost everywhere.  It may take the form of a classic nominal deflation, with all […]

  • India’s Combative Anti-Displacement Movement

      I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development), I traveled across central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones, and real estate developments.  I spoke […]

  • The Life and Times of Genora Dollinger

      Child of the Sit-Downs: The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger, by Carlton Jackson, WKU Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History.  Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2008.  256 pages, $39.00 (cloth). This wonderful book is a most welcome biography of Genora Dollinger, labor reformer and feminist.  Genora (her husband told Dr. Jackson that she […]

  • Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Crisis

      Klassekampen: Is the credit crisis a symptom of overaccumulation of capital?  It seems to me that investments worldwide, but especially in the United States, were funneled into the traditionally “safe” housing market following the bursting of the dotcom-bubble.  This overinvestment in turn generated a new bubble, thus causing today’s havoc.  Is this correct? JBF: […]

  • Marathon for Peace 2008

    “I was born by the river in a little tent And just like the river I’ve been running ever since It’s been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come.” — Sam Cooke Dear family & friends, Had Sam Cooke not been shot on a tragic day in 1964, he’d be […]

  • The unheard of

    On Sunday, October 12, the Eurozone countries agreed an anti-crisis plan at the initiative of French President Sarkozy…

  • Iran: Comprehensive Sustainable Development as Potential Counter-Hegemonic Strategy

    The questions regarding variations in social development, economic progress, and political empowerment have produced a voluminous literature over the past century, and because of the complexity of these issues, much important reflection will continue well into the future.  In the early 1980s, a United Nations’ Commission coined the term “sustainable development” as a public statement […]

  • The battle of the truth and Martin Blandino’s book (part 3 and final)

    As the dramatic combats developed in Cangamba we could see that the enemy intended more than an isolated action. First, we had to save the Cuban internationalists and the men of the 32nd Brigade FAPLA.

  • Wall Street vs Main Street: Finger Pointing vs System Change

    Amid the current capitalist crisis, fear spreads and scapegoating surges.  Media and politicians charge the predictable suspects.  Arrests may follow.  Few recognize the system as the problem, rather than this or that group reacting to the system’s demands and pressures.  True, the word “capitalism” now arises in public discussion.  But there it means big business, […]

  • Choreographing Permanent War

    Notwithstanding the renewed public concern about the economy in the wake of the implosion of the global financial architecture, the so-called “war on terror” remains at the forefront of the American presidential election campaign as it heads into its final stretch.  Despite continuing popular opposition to Washington’s blatant empire-building policies both within the US and around the world, both Messrs. Obama and McCain are reiterating their commitment to good, old-fashioned American-style war making.  Indeed, how to take forward the Project for a New American Century will almost certainly be the preeminent issue facing the new occupant of the White House come January.

  • The White House ghost

    Three days ago, on Friday October 10, the world was shocked by the impact of the Wall Street financial crisis. There is no way to count the millions of dollars in paper money injected by the Federal Reserve into the world’s finances to keep up banking operations and to prevent depositors from losing their money.

  • How to Think about the Crisis

    The Financial Crisis Goes beyond Finance The crisis today in mortgage lending does not come as a surprise to me.  I discussed the build up to the crisis in a book published last year, The Confiscation of American Prosperity.1 The book describes more than three decades of concerted efforts to restructure the economy to respond […]

  • The Mad Activist’s Declaration of Codependence

    The sages of History say, Know Thyself — and I do.  I used to be a peace activist, but thanks to the sages of pop-psychology, I see now that I am a codependent. Yet I refuse to be your ordinary, run-of-the-mill codependent, who’s stuck in a crappy relationship with just one needy, abusive individual.  I […]

  • The truth in battle and Martin Blandino’s book Part II

    The intensity of the actions by the small group of MiG-21 pilots was related by the author as follows:

  • How the Crisis Saved the German Railroads

    The rolling stock of the German railroads, due to be peddled off to the highest stock market bidders on October 27th, has been saved, at least temporarily, and is still nationally owned.  That seems to be the one possible bit of good news in the present economic crisis.  All the rest is bad. The railroad […]