Archive | Commentary

Red Shirt protests in Bangkok, which started in mid-March, are about to be wound up.  The leaders have accepted a compromise with the military-backed Abhisit government.  Elections will not be held immediately, but on 14th November.  Earlier Abihist had indicated an election in February 2011 at the earliest. It is unclear whether the blanket censorship […]

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 9 September 2009.   Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, denounced any negotiations with the occupation, saying that “the solution to the critical historical conflict in the Middle East will only be the establishment of one state on the entire Palestinian national soil, from river to sea, with full […]

The Bt brinjal debate has featured technological worries relating to genetically modified crops which appear relatively minor in comparison to the critical issue of who controls Indian agriculture and therefore food security in India.  While there cannot be a mere technological fix to the problems of Indian agriculture, technology — and therefore GM — will […]

  We are writing in support of Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal who have been unjustly detained for more than nine months.  These three young people are active members of a global community opposed to US aggression in the Middle East.  They do not deserve to be punished for the policies of their […]

A longtime reader of Monthly Review, and a Marxist for all his adult life, Alexander Saxton might be one of the oldest, continuously active radicals in the United States.  Born in Manhattan in 1919, he met the novelist, John Dos Passos, and the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, when he was a young man, and […]

Second (Party List) Vote, Preliminary Results, in PercentDifference between 2010 and 2005 Second (Party List) Votes, in Percentage Points The state of North Rhine-Westphalia in the valleys of the Rhine and Ruhr is far and away the most populous German state, with 18 million people.  Once extremely prosperous, much of it is now in the […]

Officer, seeing a poor dark-skinned man, in the light of Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law: “And you want me to have a more reasonable suspicion?” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published by Cambios en Cuba on 9 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  | | […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

  Prabir Purkayastha: The BRIC and IBSA Summits seem to have been indicating that G20 is the solution to the problems of the world, and they are happy that they have come out of the grip of G7 as it were.  Do you really think that this is something that is going to happen? Jayati […]

  Mixing Different Things “Perestroika,” Graphic and Video Installation, 11th International Istanbul Biennial, 2009 The editorial and exhibition policy of Chto Delat is often accused of inconsistency, of lacking a clear “party line.”  What is important for us today is to arrive at a method that would enable us to mix quite different things — […]

“We’ve come to tell the story of hopes that didn’t come true, of promises that weren’t made good.  Here are five heroes of perestroika. . . .  An idealistic democrat.  A noble businessman.  A heroic revolutionary.  A bitter nationalist.  And a woman who has found her own voice. . . .  How the Democrat and […]

Bomber Pilot: “From here they look like ants.” Newspaper Reader: “And from here, too.” Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 8 May 2009.   Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | […]

4 May 2010 For more information, visit . | | Print

President Morales exhorted workers to rethink, because the latest wage increase of 5 percent is superior to what previous governments offered and, moreover, over the four years under his administration, the wages have risen 40 percent.  He called on workers’ unions to compare this wage increase with the current inflation rate of 0.26 percent in […]

Wunmi is a London-born, Lagos-raised artist who has always stood strong for social justice, with songs such as “Greedy Body,” “The Time is Now” (against police brutality), and her version of Fela Kuti’s call against militarism, “Zombie.”  Her song “Crossover” is her take on the money-music-machine: Wunmi will be doing a short tour of California, […]

Turhan Selçuk, an eminent Turkish cartoonist, died in Istanbul on 11 March 2010, at the age of 88.  Some of his other works may be viewed at the Virtual Museum. | | Print

Nominal wage growth has averaged just 1.1 percent over the last quarter. The Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate rose to 9.9 percent in April as 805,000 people entered the labor force.  Even with the economy generating 290,000 new jobs according to the establishment survey, this was not sufficient to keep the unemployment rate […]

Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday.  But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]

The Rachel Corrie Foundation andBreak the Silence Mural Project co‐presentThe Mural Speaks Come celebrate the completion of this dynamic, interactive mural at a free event at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Labor Temple building, corner of State and Capitol, downtown Olympia.  The Mural Speaks event is more than a mural commemoration; it’s a […]