As the world focuses on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis in Europe, and the primary slugfest in the United States, the two Koreas are heading toward a catastrophe in the Far East. Although relations on the Korean peninsula have been deteriorating for the better...
Over the past year, left and center-left parties have taken control of two European countries and hold the balance of power in a third. Elections in Greece, Portugal, and Spain saw right-wing parties take a beating and tens of millions of voters reject the economic...
This commentary is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com. Along the path toward the creation of a global capitalist system, some of the most significant steps were taken by the English enclosure movement. Between the 15th to 19th centuries,...
In retrospect, it sounds like a dream come true: a mobilized population, intercontinental organizing, cooperative left-wing governments — all culminating in the downfall of a major corporate-friendly trade agreement that would have covered a large chunk of the global...
Every winter the world’s political and business elite retreat to the Swiss mountain resort of Davos to think deep thoughts and sup at five-star eateries. The corporate execs, bankers, and finance ministers who frequent this annual Davos World Economic Forum have of...
A few years back, I was one of the hundreds of climate activists arrested while protesting the Keystone XL pipeline outside the White House. So when the president finally pulled the plug on the project last November, it felt like a huge victory — symbolic, maybe, but...
When the late Chalmers Johnson introduced the word “blowback” to describe the adverse consequences of Washington’s actions in the world, he wasn’t referring simply to the victims of U.S. imperial interventions striking back on American soil. More importantly, he saw...
It would certainly be easy to do a piece about 10 horrible events from 2015 — from the ongoing war in Syria and the refugee crisis to the terrorist attacks in Beirut, Paris, and San Bernardino and the rise of Donald Trump and Islamophobia. But that wouldn’t be a very...
In fairy tales, the hero makes a wish. After a few trials the wish comes true, and everyone lives happily ever after. But only in this Disney version of fairy tales is wish fulfillment so straightforward. In Goethe’s modern fairy tale, a scholar dreams of knowledge...
The headlines from the Paris climate talks tell an inspiring story. Agence France-Presse reported an outbreak of "euphoria" as the international climate accord was sealed. Reuters hailed a global "turn from fossil fuels." The Guardian headlined "a major leap for...