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  • Uprisings: Online Resouces

    With protests continuing, here is a partial list of online resources: For Libya: #Feb17; CNN’s Ben Wedeman; @EnoughGaddafi; For Bahrain: #Feb14, @OnlineBahrain; For Yemen: #Feb3; @JNovak_Yemen; Palestinian: #Mar15 Gulf: @dr_davidson, @tobycraigjones For Saudi Arabia: on Twitter: #Mar11; Webpages and blogs: rasid.com, ysoof.com/blog/?p=242, saudiwoman.wordpress.com, alasmari.wordpress.com, saudijeans.org To translate: translate.google.com Based in the U.S., but with extensive contacts…

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  • “A New Bipartisan Consensus Against Low Income People”

    The president’s budget is a prosaic austerity plan that inflicts disproportionate pain on low income Americans. Fundamental questions about the costs of war and the fairness of tax cuts for the rich have been avoided by the decision to narrowly target non-security “discretionary” spending to bear the weight of deficit reduction. It used to be…

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  • Challenges for Change in Algeria

    Tunisia and Egypt are relatively centralized states, Algeria not so, neither politically, nor culturally, nor geographically. Historically, the interior has been difficult to control, and there is no guarantee that the rest of the country would rally to the protests taking place in the capital as in the case of Egypt. The Algerian regime is…

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  • “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t”

    CAIRO — Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killing. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including…

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  • Time to forge new, democratic system

    CAIRO — Last night, February 11, Cairo was the scene of what may well have been the largest street party in world history.  It was incredibly powerful and moving.  Of course, the night’s festivities marked both an end and a beginning. Now is the time for Egypt’s judges, other legal professionals, diplomats, other negotiators, intellectuals,…

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  • Our Man in Cairo

    With Mubarak’s departure, the focus now falls on his chosen successor, Omar Suleiman. According to a classified American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman was Israel’s pick to succeed Mubarak. But there’s little doubt that he was also the choice of the United States, or at least of one particular American agency with which he…

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  • Online Resources on Egypt and Beyond

    With protests against the Egyptian regime continuing, here is a partial list of resources: A critical Facebook page is “We are all Khaled Said” — also see the associated webpage elshaheeed.co.uk. (For background on Khaled Said, see IPA news release.) See: egyprotest-defense.blogspot.com; live updates at guardian.co.uk; Al-Jazeera English live blog and video, or via YouTube:…

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  • Hungry Gazans Feed Egyptian Troops

    RAFAH, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side. [See at Inter Press Service]

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  • Egypt’s military-industrial complex

    With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings…

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  • Uprising Pays Off -– Sort of

    Today I went to a town only 23 kilometers south of Tahrir Square. The plan was to see if the 11-day uprising in Egypt has produced any benefits so far – just by way of finding something different from the insecurity and chaos in Cairo. Kirdasa, a small town known for its flower nurseries and…

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  • Does Saturday’s U.S.-Taliban Deal Mean Peace for Afghanistan?

    “The war in Afghanistan has been a mirror for the United States for the last 40 years — the dysfunction of the U.S. political system, America’s failed war on drugs, the prioritization of war over all else, and the blowback from ignorant and arrogant decision-making is revealed through the war in Afghanistan as a fundamentally…

  • Sanders, Organizing and South Carolina

    “The Democratic machinery lined up for Biden. But his message does not address the pain of our people. I’m not sure what moderate means [if] people don’t have affordable health care. I’m not sure what moderate means to us. As a matter of fact it means very little to us.”

  • Corporate Media-Run Debates Pushing for Militarism

    “Moderators in South Carolina speaking in a hall where people paid thousands of dollars to enter perpetuation the claims of U.S. government officials, that have been disseminated without supporting evidence (that Russia is helping Bernie Sanders for example). They questioned how withdrawing troops would help security — without questioning how continuing U.S. wars would help…

  • Sanders’ Legislative Record: “Amendment King” and Left-Right Alliances

    A regular accusation from more establishment candidates of Sen. Bernie Sanders is that he is rigid and doesn’t get practical legislation done. This view is seriously contested by some who have followed his career most closely. Greg Guma writes: “In Congress he became known as the ‘amendment king,’ passing more amendments than any other member…

  • Why U.S. Would Be “Better Off Without Billionaires”

    “Living under an oligarchic system, we should develop a healthy skepticism of the actions of billionaires, whether they are running for office, bankrolling other candidates or giving billions to charity. If we want to make the bold investments we need to expand the middle class, lift up workers and protect the environment, we’ll first need…

  • Sanders and Cuban Literacy Rate

    James Counts Early said today that an additional aspect of Cuba’s success on literacy has been the “global export of the Cuban literacy model to developing countries around the world, and to underdeveloped communities in developed countries.” … Early noted “the damaging U.S. blockade which all but literally a few countries in the world condemn.”

  • Israel’s Racism and Harboring Suspected Assassins Who Fled from U.S.

    “An additional extraordinary thing is that the Trump ‘Peace’/Apartheid plan gives Jews the rights to pray on Haram al-Sharif, which is the very issue that Baruch Ben Yosef (one of the suspected assassins of Arab-American activist Alex Odeh) has been singularly focused on for the last 30 years. That’s how bonkers the plan is, it…

  • Goodale on Assange Case: “Wake up, American Press!”

    In an interview with Kevin Gosztola yesterday, James C. Goodale said: Assange is “performing for all practical purposes, and particularly for all legal purposes, all the functions of a journalist. So come on. Wake up, American press! This guy is doing enough of what you’re doing so that, when he’s penalized for what he’s doing,…

  • Should Employees Sit on Corporate Boards? What is a Corporation?

    “The stock market is an institution that enables owner-entrepreneurs to stop being owner-entrepreneurs, passing the control over management of the company to employees. Public shareholders who hold shares for a yield and who can easily sell those shares at any moment on a liquid stock market should not have ownership rights. Workers have a far…

  • Is Public Actually Behind a Ban on Fracking?

    “Unfortunately, much of the media narrative pushes the notion that presidential candidates who call for a ban on fracking will lose swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. There is absolutely no evidence that voters actually feel strongly about supporting the fossil fuel industry; in fact, in Pennsylvania, strong anti-fracking candidates are winning elections. There is…

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