In a time of crisis apocalyptic desires and fantasies become pressing and real.1 Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957) offers a secret history of the periodic emergence of a ‘revolutionary eschatology’ in the Middle Ages in response to a collapsing social order, immiseration, disease and war. Responding to crisis these dreamers dared […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
US Intelligence Report Classifies Venezuela as “Anti-US Leader”
3 February 2010 — As is custom at the beginning of each year, the different US agencies publish their famous annual reports on topics ranging from human rights, trafficking in persons, terrorism, threats, drug-trafficking, and other issues that indicate who will be this year’s target of US aggression. Yesterday, it was the intelligence community’s turn. […]
General Strike on 4 February: Millions of People Stop Work for Tekel Workers
Millions of members of six union confederations join the general strike to support Tekel workers in their struggle for job security and take action against the pressure imposed to the workers. Türk-İş President Kumlu repeated the request to protect the workers’ employee personal rights. According to a joint decision taken by six union confederations, millions […]
Israel Stole $2 Billion from Palestinian Workers: 40-year Deception Exposed
Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, “State Robbery,” to be published later this month, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian […]
Famine, War, and Genocide in India
Binayak Sen: . . . [A body mass index] below 18.5 is regarded as chronic subnutrition. 33% of our adult population, one third of the country, have a body mass index below 18.5. For me this is a shocking figure. . . . We find that, in the scheduled tribes, more than 50% of the […]
The State of The Union: UAW 2244 NUMMI Toyota-GM Workers Fed Up
UAW 2244 workers at the Fremont, California NUMMI Toyota GM plant speak out about the closure of the plant, the bankruptcy of GM, and the strategy of the UAW international and local union officials. Union meetings have been cancelled, violating the union’s bylaws, and members are angry about the failure of the union to represent […]
How Markets Fail
If you want to be reminded of the myriad of ways in which markets fail, you will welcome the new and timely book by John Cassidy titled simply How Markets Fail. Cassidy is not only an economist but a rare one who can write. Indeed, he writes so well that he is a regular […]
Haiti: After the Catastrophe, What Are the Perspectives?
Statement of Haitian Organizations and Platforms To all our partners On January 12th, 2010 an earthquake of unprecedented force struck our country with dramatic consequences for the people of many areas in the west and south east, and for the country as a whole. The tremor registered 7.3 on the Richter scale, and the […]
What I Actually Said to Le Figaro regarding the Headscarf
Le Figaro caricatured my words regarding the candidacy of Ilham Moussaïd, who is on our list in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regional elections. After a serious and complex debate, the Vaucluse chapter of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) made a choice to include on its feminist, anti-capitalist, and internationalist lists an NPA member who believes in […]
Jose Naranjero’s Long Walk to Work
I first met Jose Naranjero* in a dusty little Mexican town called Naco, which lies just across the border wall from Bisbee, Arizona. I’d been working nearby as a volunteer for No More Deaths, a Tucson-based group that tries to help immigrants passing through the dangerous Sonoran desert. I was part of a team that […]
Analysis of Multiple Polls Finds Little Evidence Iranian Public Sees Government as Illegitimate
Indications of fraud in the June 12 Iranian presidential election, together with large-scale street demonstrations, have led to claims that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not actually win the election, and that the majority of Iranians perceive their government as illegitimate and favor regime change. An analysis of multiple polls of the Iranian public from three different […]
A Busy Few Weeks on Board the Bomb Iran Bandwagon
Is Iran capitulating to pressure or was the uranium transfer deal never the issue in the first place? It’s been a busy few weeks on board the bomb-Iran bandwagon. It wasn’t quite gunboat diplomacy, but President Obama sent missile “defence” equipment to the Persian Gulf, a move Iran dismissed as a “puppet show.” The Pentagon […]
Remembering Howard Zinn
I studied with Howard Zinn at Boston University. He was my dissertation advisor, mentor, friend, tennis partner and a pillar of support for me during the eight grueling years when I fought a civil rights battle with Harvard University. Zinn’s passage is a great loss to all who knew him directly or indirectly, including the […]
Turkey: General Strike on 4 February
The government holds on to employing Tekel workers who have been made redundant as “temporary personnel” in public enterprises. Thus, the union confederations decided for a “general action” on 4 February, as they had previously announced. According to Turkish Confederation of Labour Unions (Türk-İş) President Mustafa Kumlu, the workers will make use of their power […]
Venezuela’s Chavez Calls for Calm after Violent Pro-RCTV Protests
Following a range of sometimes violent protests across the country last week over the temporary suspension of TV station RCTV, as well as one protest last Monday in Merida which left two youths dead, president Hugo Chavez has called for calm, arguing that the protests, together with a media terrorism campaign, are aimed at creating […]
Honduras: Feminists in the Resistance
Part I: Brenda Villacorta JRW: It’s in the evening of January 25, in Tegucigalpa, outside the Brazilian embassy, where a gathering of the anti-coup resistance is taking place. So, you’re a part of the Resistance against the coup, and, in particular, a part of the feminist resistance to the coup? Brenda Villacorta BV: That’s […]
Arab Politicians Face Rising Tide of Persecution in Israel
Leaders of the Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution, backed by the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, designed to stop their political activities. The warning came after Said Nafaa, a Druze member of the Israeli parliament, was stripped of his immunity last week, clearing the […]
Iranians Remember Khomeini’s Iran
+ Iranians Remember Khomeini’s Iran Ruhollah Sanati was born on what many called the night of victory in Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Named after the founder of the Islamic Republic, he runs an electrical hardware shop with his father in Tehran. Coming from a religious family, he appreciates the changes 1979 brought. . . . “The […]
The Vultures Circle Haiti at Every Opportunity, Natural or Man-made
Haitians’ incredible plight has always been difficult to fully appreciate. Then the earthquake struck: hundreds of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands more hurt, a million homeless, and two million in need of food. It defies imagination. And according to a journalist just returned from Haiti, even the heart-rending footage we’ve seen here on television […]
Vietnamese Daughters in Transition: Factory Work and Family Relations
This paper assesses the social implications of employment opportunities in manufacturing for rural young unmarried Vietnamese women. Interested in the ways in which intimate relations, identities and structures of exchange within the family are reconfigured through the migration and work experience, we interview young, single daughters who had obtained employment as garment factory workers […]
