Currently Browsing: PV Members Featured Articles & Commentary

Obama Stumbles on Human Rights 3/4

By Stephen Zunes, March 4, 2010 It was a relatively short response to a question in a town hall-style meeting in Florida, yet it said much about President Barack Obama’s lack of concern about human rights in his foreign policy. The question came not from a hostile Republican opponent, but from...

War Politics: Numb and Number by Norman Solomon 2/25

Playwright Lillian Hellman said: “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” The statement was in a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee. The year was 1952. We tell ourselves that the McCarthy era was vastly different than our own — but what about...

Greed Trophy up for Grabs by Jim Hightower 2/17

Published on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by Creators Syndicate By gollies, the top executives of health insurance corporations are not giving up without a fight! To paraphrase every high school football coach who ever lived, “When the going gets ugly, the ugly get going.”During the past...

Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life By Norman Solomon 2/15

Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life By Norman Solomon When the U.S. military began a major offensive in southern Afghanistan over the Presidents Day weekend, the killing of children and other civilians was predictable. Lofty rhetoric aside, such deaths come with the territory of war and occupation. ...

Don’t Call It a “Defense” Budget By Norman Solomon 2/2

This isn’t “defense.” The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day. Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it. “Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change...

Arresting Gandhi‏ by David Rovics 1/30

Arresting Gandhi “Violent Clashes” and the Arrest of Abdullah Abu Rahma He’s a Palestinian man, and he has one of those very Muslim-sounding names with “Abu” in it (it means “father of”). Any time his name is mentioned in the media, it tends to be quickly lined up with phrases like...

PV Response to NPR’s ATC Coverage of Howard Zinn

by David Zupan Shame on “All Things Considered” for stooping so low you would give far-right activist David Horowitz time to blast Howard Zinn and everything he stood for. I’m sure whoever approved this will try to somehow rationalize this disrespect in the name of “balance.”...

Alistair Hulett, Icon of Scottish folk music, international socialism & Australian punk rock dead at 57 1/28

Alistair Hulett has died. Today is my daughter Leila’s fourth birthday, and while this occasion brings my thoughts back to the day she was born, the past 24 hours have otherwise been full of fairly devastating news. If the left can admit to having icons, then two of them have just died. Yesterday...

Obama’s Human Rights Policy a Disappointment 1/26

Published on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 by Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) by Stephen Zunes The Obama administration’s record on human rights has been a major disappointment. In part because the Bush administration abused the promotion of democracy and human rights to rationalize its militaristic...

Good Moon Rising by Norman Solomon

Last week, with the Tea Bagger triumph in Massachusetts and the corporate triumph in the U.S. Supreme Court, an apt soundtrack would have been the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Bad Moon Rising”: I hear the voice of rage and ruin … Looks like we’re in for nasty weather. One eye is taken...

« Previous Entries