Mark Bould and China Mieville, editors, Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2009), 293 pages, $27.95, paperback. Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction is a fascinating book of literary/cinematic criticism and political theory. It was not, however, the book that I thought it would be. Red Planets is a collection […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Great Britain’s Oil Colonialism in the Malvinas Islands of Argentina
Great Britain has known about the Malvinas’ hydrocarbon wealth for decades. The reserves may be worth half a billion dollars. Great Britain’s interest in the Malvinas’ oil dates back to at least 35 years ago. In 1975, the Crown initiated surveys. Two exploratory missions between 1998 and 2009 eventually demonstrated its potential. The inclusion […]
Indigenous Struggles in the Americas: Interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a writer, teacher, historian, and social activist, is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University. You have been deeply involved in Indigenous peoples’ activism in the United States. What is the current situation of Indigenous people in the US economically and politically? Decolonization is a difficult and long-term […]
Venezuela’s Revolution Faces Crucial Battles
Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela. The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the US-backed right-wing opposition. But these battles, part of the class struggle between the poor majority and […]
No Tutu Is Big Enough to Cover Up War Crimes
Burlington, VT, February 19, 2010 — Human rights activists from Vermont, New York and Israel interrupted a performance of the Israel Ballet at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, VT calling attention to the dance company’s complicity in Israeli war crimes. Using two banners that read “No Tutu Is Big Enough to Cover Up War […]
A Socialist View of Sexuality and Liberation?
Sherry Wolf. Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009. 333 pp. $12. The cover photo on Sherry Wolf’s book shows a protest rally with a woman holding a highlighted rainbow flag. Radical gay and lesbian activists, one assumes. Look closely, though, and you’ll see that the woman is […]
Greenspan Wins Dynamite Prize in Economics
Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers, have won the first — and hopefully last — Dynamite Prize in Economics. In awarding the Prize, Edward Fullbrook, editor of the Real World Economics Review, noted that […]
Labor Voices for Single Payer: Interview with Jerry Tucker
Union members who support single-payer health care have a message for Barack Obama: Ditch the compromised health care legislation that congressional Democrats cooked up and take another look at a Medicare-for-all system. When Obama used his State of the Union address to tell people to “let him know” if there’s a better approach that “will […]
Divided over the Afghan Issue, the Dutch Government Resigns
After fourteen hours of negotiations, the Jan Peter Balkenende government failed, on Saturday, 20 February, to agree on whether to maintain the Dutch contingent in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister announced, in the middle of the night, the resignation of his coalition, which included his party the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the (social democrat) Labor […]
Letter from Ofer Military Prison: “Missing the Five-year Anniversary of Our Struggle in Bil’in Will Be Like Missing the Birthday of One of My Children”
It has been two months now since I was handcuffed, blindfolded and taken from my home. Today news has reached Ofer Military Prison that the apartheid wall on Bil’in’s land will finally be moved and construction has begun on the new route. This will return half of the land that was stolen from our village. […]
Flying with a Foreign Language
College student Nick George was handcuffed, interrogated, and jailed for hours at the airport when he tried to bring English-Arabic flash cards on the plane to study on his flight back to school. Now he is an ACLU plaintiff. “First she asked me about how I felt about 911. . . . I thought […]
Dead Aid: A Critical Reading
Dambisa Moyo was no doubt an excellent student. Unfortunately, she is a product of the conventional economics curriculum, which is great if one is to embark on a career at the World Bank or Goldman Sachs. She attempts a radical critique of ‘aid’ but sadly she is not up to the task, her noble intentions […]
Core Prices Fall for the First Time in 27 Years
The consumer price index rose 0.2 percent in January as energy prices continue to drive a wedge between the overall and core rates. Energy prices jumped 2.8 percent (a 40 percent annualized rate) in January. The core index of inflation, however, fell 0.1 percent in the month — the first such fall in 27 years. […]
The Greek External Debt and Imperialist Rivalries: “One Thief Stealing from Another”
The current Greek economic crisis has an aspect of ancient tragedy (for the Greek people) mixed with a bad theatrical farce (staged on behalf of the European and the Greek bourgeoisie). The farce comes first. Till very recently the two establishment parties (the center-left PASOK and the center-right ND) preached that their economic policies […]
Chutzpah, Inc.: “The Brave People of Iran” (versus the Disappeared People of Palestine, Honduras, Afghanistan, Etc.)
It is almost a commonplace, at least for the real — as opposed to the cruise-missile — left, that the flow of information, opinion, and moral indignation in the United States adapts well to the demands of state policy. If the state is hostile to Iran, even openly trying to engage in “regime change,” and […]
Socialism: The Goal, the Paths, and the Compass
On the occasion of the presentation of El socialismo no cae del cielo: un nuevo comienzo at the 2010 Havana Book Fair, 18 February 2010 There’s an old saying that if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there. As I’ve said on many occasions, this saying is […]
How Wars Are Made
In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship” and continued the Administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country. What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric? It seems unlikely that the goal was to support […]
The Risks of 21st Century Stagflation
Well before the global financial crisis finally broke in September 2008, most people in developing countries were already reeling under the effects of dramatic volatility in global food and fuel markets. From late 2006, prices of most primary commodities first increased very rapidly, then collapsed even more sharply from their peaks in May-June 2008. This […]
The Price Is Right (On)
At a Paul Winter concert (I think it was) one summer in the 1980s I somehow found myself backstage at Carnegie Hall beside a very tall man. I looked up — as it turned out to be, both literally and figuratively — and was shocked to see who stood next to me. “God bless you, […]
Central Bank Independence: From Whom?
The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, recently fired the head of the central bank, Martín Redrado, when he rejected the government’s plan to use $6.6 billion of international reserves to pay off debt. The domestic and international press response was overwhelmingly negative, with complaints that this would “kill central bank independence.” Leaving aside the question […]
