Category: Thinking Politically

Medea Benjamin examines the U.S. indictment of Raúl Castro over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down and places it within the long history of hostile U.S.-Cuba relations. The article recalls repeated warnings from Cuban authorities about airspace violations, newly declassified U.S. documents acknowledging the risks, and Washington’s broader regime-change policies toward Cuba. It…

Marjorie Cohn examines the long history of U.S. efforts to bring about regime change in Cuba, from the Bay of Pigs invasion to the tightening of sanctions under the Trump administration. The article details the humanitarian impact of the blockade, including shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and electricity, alongside growing fears of military escalation. It…

This article critiques Pakistan’s liberal intelligentsia for what it describes as selective dissent and accommodation with entrenched power. It highlights a recent anti-imperialist conference organized by the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party and Progressive International as a departure from this trend, linking domestic authoritarianism with global structures of empire, debt, and Zionism. The piece argues for a convergence…

The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate Louisiana’s congressional map creating two Black-majority districts continues to remind us of how much the U.S. has backpedaled away from the so-called racial “reckoning” of the summer of 2020. The Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais undermines another key plank of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed more…

The attack on Mali was a coordinated international destabilization campaign, but as is usually the case, any coverage from the Western press hides the full story.

Argentina’s economic “recovery” under President Javier Milei has drawn praise for falling inflation and fiscal surplus figures. But behind the headlines lies a harsher reality. More than 22,000 businesses have closed, tens of thousands of public sector jobs have been eliminated, and real wages continue to lag behind inflation. Informal work is expanding while child…

Ralph Nader’s “Extra! Extra! All the News the Media Won’t Print” examines what he describes as major stories neglected or underreported by mainstream media outlets. The article discusses government waste linked to the Musk-Trump DOGE initiative, the silence around a proposed New York stock transaction tax rebate reform, disputed estimates of deaths in Gaza, the…

Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza, blockade of humanitarian aid, and treatment of Palestinian civilians have intensified global calls for accountability. Drawing parallels with the international campaign against apartheid South Africa, this article argues that governments, institutions, and civil society must consider coordinated political, economic, and cultural boycotts of Israel. It highlights growing criticism from world…

Rethinking Cuba’s political system as a model of participatory democracy. Cuba serves the function of a classificatory device in liberal discourse. It is not analyzed so much as assigned a category. A one-party state is deemed, in advance of investigation, incompatible with democracy. The conclusion is treated as self-evident, though the historical and material assumptions…