Archive | December, 2011

  • Begging Iran for Drone Back

      “Could you maybe give me back my plane?!!” Abbas Goodarzi, born in 1978, is an Iranian cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published on his Web site as well as numerous news Web sites in Iran; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  

  • A Conference for Security and Cooperation for the Middle East? Interview with Ali Fathollah-Nejad

    Ali Fathollah-Nejad from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London is a member of the initiative for a civil-society Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East (CSCME). One of its key aims is the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

  • Ireland: Whatever You Do, Don’t Get Sick, Don’t Get Old, and Don’t Be Young

    On December 6th, 2011, the Irish government announced a new and harsh austerity plan through a tight budget.  The annual budget, now stripped of a regular rise in social welfare payments, is part of a dreaded aspect of living in 21st century Ireland, a country plagued by a seemingly incurable economic depression.  Cuts were made […]

  • Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law

    Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law (TMY), aimed at the press. . . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “500 students, 65 journalists, 8 MPs detained under Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law” (Carlos Latuff, 9 December 2011). | Print

  • Tough on Euros, Weak on Nazis

    Hurray!  Merkel won the day!  It took a long night of backroom bargaining, but except for that Tory, David Cameron, all European Union members agreed to save the euro, save the economy, save the world!  It had been on the brink of disaster, Sarkozy warned on the eve of the meeting: unless we reach agreement […]

  • What Happened to the Heroes of Tahrir?

    The 19th of November was another bloody day in the Egyptian Revolution that over the course of the following days turned into a massacre.  After security forces’ attack on a group of demonstrators, tens of thousands flooded back into Tahrir Square, demanding that the Supreme Council step down.  The security forces and military responded with […]

  • Radical Potential in Every Community

      Amy Sonnie and James Tracy.  Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power.  New York: Melville House Printing, 2011.  ix-201 pp.  $16.95 (paperback). Most current academic discussion of radical movements populated by whites is devoted to understanding ultra-right movements based largely on demands for less government intervention and nostalgia for a lost time in […]

  • Politically Sacked Bahraini Workers Appeal for Solidarity

    Over 1,000 Bahraini workers sacked for political reasons held a protest in front of the Labor Ministry in Isa Town, Bahrain on 11 December 2011.  The number of workers sacked by the Bahraini regime in its attempt to quell the uprising that began on 14 February 2011 is estimated to be about 4,500. Photo via […]

  • Cuban Exile Flotilla Illustrated

      Manuel Alfredo: “Attention!  Exclusive photo of the main boat of the third-rate gusano flotilla.” Manuel Alfredo: “Exclusive photo of the captain of the third-rate gusano flotilla: Captain Gusa” Miriam Gina Ruje: “Breaking: Photo of the admiral of the third-rate gusano flotilla refusing to abandon his boat.” Manuel Alfredo Martínez Pérez is the Webmaster of […]

  • Egypt’s Nour Party Leader: Onward to Salafi Pragmatism, Keeping Good Relations with US and Peace Treaty with Israel

      Cairo — Emad Abdel Ghafour, the head of the Nour Party representing the Salafi school of Islamic fundamentalism, which is expected to make a great leap forward in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the collapse of the Mubarak regime, made the party’s foreign policy public, in an exclusive interview with Jiji Press.  “We’ll strive […]

  • Labor Has a Legitimate Lien on Capital

    When Steve Miller, the vulture capitalist who drove Delphi into the ditch of America’s dreams, declared, “Bankruptcy is a growth industry,” he was smiling, but he wasn’t joking. Bankruptcy in the US isn’t a sign of economic distress or mismanagement.  It’s a business plan — calculated, cunning, and void of redeeming social value.  American Airlines […]

  • Vintage Foursome (Explicit)

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Saudi-backed Bahraini forces have attacked hundreds of anti-government protesters in the capital, Manama, as they were marching towards the epicenter of the country’s uprising.  Witnesses say regime forces on Wednesday fired tear gas and rubber bullets to prevent demonstrators from reaching the site of Pearl Square, now called […]

  • The Agonizers

    Eric Mann.  Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer.  Beacon Press, 2011. “Agonizer” was the term an old girlfriend of mine from my vanguard organization days used to describe the branch organizer for the party.  An apt description for someone tasked to do the thankless job of running meetings, setting schedules, and seeing […]

  • Testimony of Mohamed Mounir, Tortured by Egypt’s Military

    On the night of Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011, just a week before parliamentary elections in Egypt began, 31-year old Mohamed Mounir went to Tahrir Square to join thousands of Egyptians once again demonstrating there.  The demonstrations all over the country flared up again after the Egyptian security forces brutally attacked a group of demonstrators in […]

  • Pulling on the Russian Leash

    Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. Vitaly Churkin, “Russia Against Any Sanctions on Syria” (2 December 2011); “Done Deal: Russia Supplies Cruise Missiles to Syria” (RT, 2 December 2011). var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

  • No to Al-Ganzoury’s Cabinet Appointments . . . No to ‘Yellow’ Trade Unions

    In the context of the Military Council’s continued counter-revolutionary campaign, and in particular its insistence that Al-Ganzoury must form a government, despite the demand by the revolutionaries of Tahrir Square for a national salvation government with full powers which we can hold to account, and in the light of rumours that Al-Ganzoury has been holding […]

  • Indian ‘Republic Killing Its Own Children’ — Kishenji Fought for a Better World

      India’s Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, West Bengal Chief Minister (also in charge of the province’s home affairs) Mamata Banerjee, Union Home Secretary R K Singh, and the top bosses of the security forces involved in the operation have all been bent on establishing one point: that the alleged encounter in the Burishol forest […]

  • Occupy Production

    As the Occupy movement keeps developing, it seeks solutions for the economic and political dysfunctions it exposes and opposes.  For many, the capitalist economic system itself is the basic problem.  They want change to another system, but not to the traditional socialist alternative (e.g., USSR or China).  That system too seems to require basic change. […]

  • Workers and Peasants Are the Voice of the Egyptian Revolution

    The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions and all its 139 affiliated unions, with their collective membership of 1,670,000, call on the Egyptian people (youth, workers and peasants) to block any attempts to prevent the implementation of the demands of the revolution through the recreation of the old regime by its criminal tools. Therefore the […]

  • Why Syria Matters: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad

    Aijaz Ahmad: For one thing, Syria is the last remaining representative of Arab nationalism as it used to be understood historically.  It still calls itself socialist.  Even though it has implemented a great deal of neoliberal reform, the state sector is still dominant.  It bans, literally bans, religion from politics.  It will not recognize the […]