Farfahinne

محمد زبيب

i received the following message:
This morning I received news that jailed Iranian teacher union activist
Farzad Kamangar may be hanged within the next few hours.

According to the Education International, he has been taken from his
cell in Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution. The guards
have told him he is about to be executed and they are making fun of him,
calling him a martyr.

We need your help and we need it right now.

Send off your message to the Iranian president:

http://www.labourstart.org/farzad

Pass on the this message to everyone you know who might support this
campaign.

Update:

let the pictures talk



more pictures at Ahmed Abd el Fatah's flickr

Mona Alami


The Lebanese government will use television to gain maximum attention for its plan to abolish the death penalty, giving one station the first right to question Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar about the details of an abolition bill which will be eventually presented to parliament.

دعوكم إتحاد الشباب الديمقراطي اللبناني للمشاركة في اعتصام "لا للغلاء ... لا للاحتكار ... لا لزيادة الاسعار المصطنعة" وذلك عند الساعة الرابعة من بعد الظهر يوم الجمعة في 28 تشرين الثاني أمام السراي الحكومي

حكومة وحدة؟ على مين؟

يا فرحتنا... تألّفت حكومة "الوحدة الوطنية". ولكن وحدة الأطراف المتنازعة تآلفت على من؟ على الفقراء؟ على محدودي الدخل؟ على أصحاب الجيوب المثقوبة؟

مسيرة حكومة الانتخابات ملطخة بالبنزين بعد ان أصبح سعر الصفيحة أقل من 15 ألف ليرة، في حين تبيعها الدولة الى المواطنين بقرار أخذ من جميع أركان الحكومة بـ 22800 ليرة. شو السبب يا ترى؟ السبب أن الحكومة تريد أن تقضي على الدين العام من مال الفقراء... لماذا لا يقتطع جهابذة 14 آذار و8 آذار الضرائب من الأغنياء عبر اعتماد الضريبة التصاعدية؟ لماذا لا يضعون الرسوم والضرائب على الإستثمار العقاري؟ الجواب معلوم ومفهوم، لأن الطبقة السياسية لا تريد تكبيد نفسها نفقات، فالدين الذي راكمته الحكومات ومجالس النواب المتعاقبة طوال السنوات الماضية ذهب الى جيوب أسيادها و "شفطته" المصارف، والدين يجب ان يدفعه الشعب طالما هو صامت وطالما " الزعيم بيضحك عليه بكلمة حلوة"!

الأسعار انخفضت في جميع دول العالم، إلا في لبنان، أما السبب فهو أن الحكومة اللبنانية بجميع أركانها تحمي قلة من المحتكرين وبالتالي فهي غير قادرة على وضع التجار "عند حدّهم"، غير قادرة على اجبارهم على خفض الأسعار أسوة بجميع بلدان العالم، وحتى وزير الاقتصاد الذي أعلن تحديد هوامش الأرباح لخفض الأسعار لم يستطع مواجهة التجار، "لفلف" قراره في أحد الجوارير ولا تزال الأسعار نار!

أما الهاتف الخلوي فلا يزال الأغلى في العالم، ووزير الاتصالات لا يزال يخرج كل يوم بمؤتمر صحافي "يلف" حول الموضوع، ولا يعلن خفض التعرفة!

واتركوا السنيورة فهو "مش فاضي": أخاه يريد ادخال الزيت الى لبنان من دون تكريره، وأخاه يريد ان يراكم أرباحه حتى لو دخل الصدأ الى معدة الفقراء. و "لعيونك" يا سامي أصدر مجلس الوزراء بأركانه "الموالية" والمعارضة" قراراً بتسهيل "تشبيح" سامي، وغشه، واستهتاره بصحة الناس!

"لا أهلاً ولا سهلاً بحكومة وحدة اللصوص" ثبتوا الشعار وشاركوا في اعتصام اتحاد الشباب الديمقراطي اللبناني عند الرابعة من بعد ظهر يوم الجمعة المقبل (28 تشرين الثاني) أمام السراي الحكومي.

I found these 2 pictures posted by angryarab. they were taken during a ceremony held by the Lebanese Phalanges Party. this party was created in 1936 and was largely inspired by the nazi party, and that is obvious.

من المؤتمر الأول للقاء في آذار الماضي by farfahinne

- I -حول الأوضاع الدولية الراهنة

- II -الوضع العربي في ظل الهجوم الكولونيالي ومهام اليسار

- III -لبنان في نظامه السياسي الطائفي المترهل وواقعه الاقتصادي – الاجتماعي المأزوم

- IV -لأجل أن يتجاوز اليسار اللبناني أزمته المتمادية

here

Kamal Khalil's profile
writen by Mostafa Bassiouni

picture by Arabawy

Socialistworker

Millions of people are celebrating across the world today after Barack Obama was elected as the first black president of the United States—a momentous achievement in a country with a long history of entrenched and vicious racism.
Not since the 1930s have expectations around a US president been so high. The excitement around Obama’s campaign has shown how desperate people are for a different kind of politics after eight years of George Bush and the neoconservatives.
Obama’s campaign tapped into the demands of millions of ordinary Americans for serious political change in the US. It was marked by huge numbers of people mobilising and engaging with politics, many for the first time.
The crucial factor that sealed his victory was the global economic crisis. And now that Obama has won, people will want him to deliver the “change” that he promised.
Over a million homes in the US are currently in foreclosure, and the figure is rising. People will this trend reversed and these home repossessions to be stopped.
They will want their new president to intervene to safeguard car workers at Ford and General Motors who are facing job losses. They will want further challenges to the still high level of racism in the US.
People also expect a change in the “war on terror”—the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan that have helped stoke Bush’s record levels of unpopularity.
But we must be aware that there is a clash between these demands from ordinary people and those of Obama’s rich corporate backers.
The Democratic Party is primarily a party of the rich and wealthy. Obama attracted the lion’s share of funding from corporate America. The Democrats are not the same as the Labour Party in Britain, which is far more tightly linked to trade unions and the workers’ movement.
Some 93 percent of political funding from US trade unions goes to the Democrats—but this only makes up 14 percent of the party’s funding. In contrast, the Democrats raise up to 67 percent of their cash from big business amounts.
Obama’s campaign war chest was $650 million. He made much of the idea that these donations came from ordinary people. But only half of this sum came from these grassroots —the rest came in huge donations from big business and other “interests”.
The reasons why people in the US are so desperate for change are not hard to see. The country has more black men in prison than in higher education.
Almost a quarter of black Americans live below the poverty line. Yet according to Obama the US is the home of “democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope”.
Obama has pledged to pull US troops out of Iraq—but wants to send them into Afghanistan. He happily signed up to the $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street banks.
Many of the people around Obama were in the previous Democratic administration of Bill Clinton, which was also elected on a wave of hope.
Yet under Clinton, the gap between rich and poor increased. The number of federal prisoners almost doubled. He ended the US’s welfare system and went to war as many times as his four predecessors combined.
Many of the mainstays of Clinton’s administration are now being touted for office under Obama. These include Richard Holbrooke, one of the architects of the Balkans war of the 1990s and Zbigniew Brezinsky, an enthusiast for the “war on terror”.
There will be many battles ahead as the expectations on Obama run into the limitations of the Democratic Party. The central question for the left in the US will be whether they can relate to the enormous hope that Obama’s election has generated among ordinary people.
The left has be part of building grassroots campaigns that can force Obama to deliver, but also build up forces in opposition to the pro-capitalist policies of both major US parties.
Obama’s election has opened up a space for the left, the working class, the anti-war movement, black people and others to push their own agendas. They have to seize this opportunity.

via arabawy
Acting at the behest of the state-owned Ghazl el-Mahalla company, thugs sexually assaulted two women workers in the factory who were part of Thursday’s demonstration…

click on the poster bellow to read some interesting article in the Socialist Politics

(10x Rola)

tract qui date de 1945, écrit a Beyrouth par un mouvement de jeunesse de l'époque (jeunesse Patriote), invite les arabes a s'opposer au projet de l'Etat seoniste en Palestine qui n'avait pas vu encore le jour a cette annee la. le mouvement dans son tract avertit les "arabes, Libanais, syriens, Egyptiens, Irakiens, Seoudites et Jordaniens" de ce que les seonistes, et derriere eux, la France, la GB et les EU cachent pour la Palestine, comme projet de colonisation. "le President Truman, defenseur des quatres libertes et proclemateur des droits des peuples de decider de leur destine... ait fait sa derniere declaration ou il approuve l'entree en Palestine du plus grand nombre possible de juifs" .