It is with deep sadness and concern that we announce the shooting death of Imam Luqman A. Abdullah, of Masjid Al-Haqq (Detroit, MI). Imam Luqman was a representative of the Detroit Muslim community to the “National Ummah” and the general assembly (Shura) of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). The Federal Bureau of […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Ecuador and Bolivia Show That Even Small Developing Countries Can Pursue Independent Economic Policies, Stand Up for Their Rights, and Win
Among the conventional wisdom that we hear every day in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice, and strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital. Guess which country is […]
Government Price Supports Create Mini-Bubble
The August Case-Shiller 20-City index showed a 1.0 percent rise in house prices for the month. The index has now risen at a 12.7 percent annual rate over the last three months. Prices rose in 16 of the 20 cities in the index, with only Charlotte, Cleveland, Las Vegas, and Seattle registering price declines for […]
Trumka on Israel
“And tonight, let me tell you that, so long as I’m president, you will never have a stronger ally than the AFL-CIO. That’s why we’re proud to stand with the JLC to oppose boycotting Israel.” — Remarks by Richard L. Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, Jewish Labor Committee 2009 Annual Human Rights Dinner, October 27, […]
UN Calls for End to US Embargo on Cuba
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to call for an end to the US embargo on Cuba. The vote was cast at the 192-member General Assembly with 187 in favor, three against and two abstentions. This is the 18th year that the General Assembly voted to urge an end to the US embargo. […]
The Decolonizing Struggle in France: An Interview with Houria Bouteldja
“We are the children of an illusion that consisted in believing that the independences of our countries signified the end of colonization.” — Interview with Houria Bouteldja, spokesperson of the decolonial movement in France known as the “Mouvement des Indigènes de la République” (MIR — Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic).1 Why do you […]
A War of Terror in Pakistan: Interview with Saadia Toor
Saadia Toor is an assistant professor at Staten Island College, author of a forthcoming book on Pakistan from Pluto Press, and part of the group Action for a Progressive Pakistan. The Pakistani Army has launched a major offensive against Taliban forces in the province of Waziristan. What is behind this assault, and what impact will […]
Queerness as Europeanness: Immigration, Orientialist Visions and Racialized Encounters in Israel/Palestine
Over the last 15 years more than a million people have immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union, welcomed by the Israeli ‘Law of Return’ that grants immediate citizenship and financial support to all Jews and their family members. My last research1focused on the queers among them, looking at the ways sexuality and nationhood […]
Gathering Rage Revisited
In 1992, I was a thwarted, guilt-ridden and depressed revolutionary, living underground with my lesbian partner and two-year old daughter in St. Louis. I was part of a tiny group that had gone underground at the beginning of the 1980s, responding to the collapse of the mass movements after the end of the Vietnam […]
Sexuality and the National Struggle: Being Palestinian and Gay in Israel
Rauda Morcos has every right to hate the press. On July 2003, the Israeli newspaper Yedeot Ahronot interviewed Morcos about her poetry but also announced to the world that she was a lesbian. Following the public outing, Rauda Morcos’ car windows were smashed, the tires punctured, and she received countless threatening phone calls and […]
Interview with Shirin Neshat
“The movement which we saw this summer is a sign of a new group who were not fighting for a certain ideology but believed in freedom.” — Shirin Neshat Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-American visual artist. Women without Men (based on the novel Women without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur), Neshat’s first feature film, won her […]
When the Climate Change Center Cannot Hold
After the weekend in which 350.org and thousands of allies valiantly tried to raise global consciousness about impending catastrophe, we can ask some tough questions about what to do after people depart and the props are packed up. No matter the laudable big-tent activism, let’s face it: global climate governance is gridlocked and it seems […]
Say NO to the New Racist, Sexist and Homophobic Dominican Constitution
The government of President Leonel Fernández, with the support of the powerful Catholic Church and the far right (known as the Nazionalistas), will soon adopt a new constitution that will set the country back decades. The new constitution is part of a ruling class attack on working people in a desperate attempt to preserve the […]
Why the Health Insurance Excise Tax Is a Bad Idea
Twenty years ago, 60,000 workers from New York City to Maine rallied against healthcare cost-shifting at the telecom giant then known as NYNEX (since “rebranded” as Verizon). NYNEX was a very profitable, multinational company seeking to capitalize on a demoralizing decade of lost strikes, contract givebacks and widespread unionbusting. At a time when many […]
Out of Place: Silencing Voices on Queerness/Raciality
Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality (Raw Nerve Books) came out in July 2008. The book presents an unprecedented compilation of critical articles by scholars and activists, which address the manifold ways in which questions regarding ‘race’ and racism are silenced in queer politics and theory. Out of Place was very well received. […]
Why No Government Jobs Program?
From the official beginning of the current economic crisis in December 2007 to the present, the number of unemployed workers has risen roughly from 7 to 15 million members of the US labor force. But there is no government program directly to hire these millions of the unemployed. The Bush and Obama administrations quickly and […]
How to Defeat Jundallah and Its Ilk
Sunday’s suicide bomb attack on a conference hall in the Pishin region of Iran’s vast Sistan and Balochistan province is by all accounts a major blow against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the most important military and security institution in the country. It is now known that at least 42 people were killed […]
Racism and the Censorship of “Gay Imperialism”
Dear friends, Over the last few years a number of timely publications have illuminated the connections between gender and sexuality, the War on Terror and racialisation. One of these is Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, edited by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake and published by Raw Nerve Books in 2008. An edited […]
Why We Need to Give This Rotten System the Heave-ho
Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates. The ABCs of the Economic Crisis: What Working People Need to Know. Monthly Review Press, 2009. Books that start out with quotes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth make me nervous. Like many of my fellow workers, I have attended far more rock concerts — or pro wrestling matches — than […]
The Liberator
Amidst misery, hunger, and desolation Somebody planted a flower in the mud A certain Bolívar, they call him the Liberator The Liberator Shouts for justice, land, and freedom Again resonate in South America A new revolution has begun And this time it’s advancing with conviction Agrarian reform and just redistribution Health, culture, and good education […]
