Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its November 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We last commented on events in Nepal in our May editorial, following the attempt of the ceremonial president to exercise royal authority by “countermanding” the decision of the […]
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Defamation
Director’s Statement I first had the idea to make a film about anti-Semitism when my earlier work Checkpoint was released. In one of that film’s many reviews, I was called “the Israeli Mel Gibson,” not because of my good looks, but because the views I had expressed, critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, […]
Global Pollution
North versus South Cf. SOURCE: Financial Times, 18 October 2009 Laz (Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was first published by Juventud Rebelde. | | Print
Pan-Arabism and After: The Evolution of a Playwright
Dina A. Amin. Alfred Farag and Egyptian Theater: The Poetics of Disguise, With Four Short Plays and a Monologue. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008. xxx + 321 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8156-3163-7. This urgently needed book is an investigation of Egyptian theatre through the works of the preeminent Egyptian playwright Alfred Farag (1929-2005), during […]
CAIR Concerned about Government Seizure of U.S. Mosques
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) expressed concern about the government’s move to seize mosques in New York, Maryland, California, and Texas. Officials accuse the foundation that owns the mosques of being tied to the Iranian government. SEE: Feds Move to Seize 4 Mosques (AP) CAIR said the unprecedented move by the government may have […]
The “Just Something” Rule
I read volume 1 of Marx’s Capital while working on a production line in a food factory. I don’t mean I read it during my tea breaks, I read it while “working” on the line. I had an injury and was doing a ‘quality control’ job which entailed sitting next to a conveyor watching […]
Bringing Empire Home
Alfred W. McCoy. Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. In the build-up to the Iraq and Afghan wars, liberal humanitarians and neoconservatives alike bantered on and on about the necessity of empire and its capability of removing tyrannical […]
Roots of Capitalist Stability and Instability
Prabhat Patnaik. The Value of Money. New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008/New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Excerpt: “Introduction.” Prabhat Patnaik is an eminent and prolific economist who has worked creatively for 40 years at the intersection of Marxian and Keynesian theoretical traditions. In addition to his writings on Marxism and Keynesianism per se, he has […]
U.S. Must Solve Its Own Economic Problems
President Obama will go to Asia and has promised to say something about the exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the U.S. dollar. It would be good if some enterprising journalist asked him why the United States is worried about the Chinese dumping their dollars, and why U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said […]
Freedom Dance Party
Saturday, November 14th, from 7 to 11 PM @ the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center for 1199 SEIU 310 W. 43rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Manhattan, NYC Dance performance by the Het Heru Healing Dancers and special surprise guests. Admission: $20 Food and beverages will be sold All proceeds go to […]
Our Corrupt Occupation of Afghanistan
Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome? There is something very Captain Renault about it. We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be? But perhaps we should consider […]
International Tribunal on Trade Union Freedom Condemns Mexican Presidency
In Mexico City on October 28, the International Tribunal on Trade Union Freedom (October 26, 2009-May 1, 2010) concluded its first of two public sessions with a scathing preliminary report that condemned President Felipe Calderón for his violent union-busting measures since taking office after his questionable 2006 election. The Tribunal had been organized in […]
On House Resolution 867: The Real Issue Is the Israeli Occupation
On 3 November 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted 344-36 in favor of House Resolution 867, making it Congress’ official response to the 575-page Report submitted by Justice Richard J. Goldstone to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the conclusion of a “fact-finding” mission on the Gaza conflict. The Resolution does little […]
Disaster Imperialism, Starring the Starving of the Earth: The End of Poverty?
The End of Poverty? is a kind of bookend to Capitalism: A Love Story: if Michael Moore’s movie examines how private enterprise operates at home, writer/director Philippe Diaz ‘s documentary explores what happens when that economic system is exported to the Third World. As scathing exposes of exploitation these nonfiction films share much — ironic […]
Obama, the Pied Piper of Washington
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print
Say No to Health Care Legislation That Creates More Inequality
Kill so-called health care reform legislation UNLESS: 1) the public option is available to ALL; 2) the status quo ante is restored for private insurance coverage of reproductive decisions, including abortion; 3) public option coverage for individuals honors the complete reproductive rights of individuals; 4) the provision for government intervention into low income families […]
Goldstonewalled! US Congress Endorses Israeli War Crimes
“It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.” — Edward Said On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “oppose unequivocally […]
Nepal: The People’s Movement
In defense of civilian supremacy over the military and the democratic “New Nepal” process, the revolutionary movement of Nepal, led by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), has initiated a nationwide “People’s Movement” to topple the government and anti-people forces. This comes after a Maoist-led government resigned in May due to what was essentially […]
Crisis of the Capitalist System: Where Do We Go from Here?
The Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009 In 1982, I published a book, jointly with Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, and Andre Gunder Frank, entitled Dynamics of Global Crisis. This was not its original title. We had proposed the title, Crisis, What Crisis? The U.S. publisher did not like that title, but we […]
A Hundred Cities against Escalation As the President Announces It
Recent press speculation suggests at least even odds that, sometime in November, President Obama will give a speech announcing that he intends to send tens of thousands of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010. Not a temporary “surge,” but a permanent escalation. While certainly it’s good news — at least temporarily — that AP […]
