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Kusha Sefat writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Following the disputed Presidential election in Iran, our Western compatriots gave many suggestions on combating state oppression. Various tactics and strategies were devised for Iranian protesters, some on this very blog. It seems that most of those recommendations were ineffective within Iran’s particular social and […]

The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the top 1% has tripled its income since 1979, while the upper middle class has increased its wealth much more modestly, and the rest of the country has seen only a small gain. Just to be clear, the 1% are about 3 million, the 9% are about 27 million, […]

The current House of Representatives don’t hold with Amurkins knowin’ ’bout furriners, and seems determined to defund federal support for international studies in the US. The Neoconservative lobbyists have been gunning for these programs for years and want the money given to rightwing think tanks in Washington instead. And whereas in the old days, senatorial […]

The state-backed Iran Times carries a report from Iran’s Mehr news service that alleges that it learned from Interpol that Gholam Shakuri is a member of the People’s Holy Jihadis guerrilla group (the Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK). The MEK wants to see the rule of the ayatollahs in Iran overthrown. Shakuri is the second person […]

Simple explanations for perplexing news headlines. * A poll shows that the US public blames politicians in Washington, D.C., more than they do Wall Street, for the bad economy. While legislative changes and lack of regulation, pushed in Washington, had a role, the economic crisis was mainly caused by criminality and/or criminal irresponsibility on the […]

After the announcement of the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C. (a case that, on the basis of what has been released so far, sounds as phony as a three dollar bill), President Obama pledged to tighten international sanctions further on Iran. There is no doubt that US and international […]

This story is irresistible for a world historian interested in climate change. Richard Nevle, a geochemist at Stanford, argues that the European advent in the New World, which killed 90% of the 80 million native Americans, caused the Little Ice Age. The native peoples of the New World burned a lot of wood. When they […]