Archive | Commentary

Joseph Andoni Massad.  Desiring Arabs.   Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007 . xiv + 453 pp.  $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-226-50958-7. With Desiring Arabs, Joseph Massad makes a significant contribution to the existing scholarship on sexuality.  He merits praise for boldly tackling the problematic of knowledge in a world that continues to be unevenly carved […]

— You must respect the rules of the game. — Then, tell me what the rules are. — There is only one rule. — Namely. . . — “You are not authorized to play.” “I’m in favor of dialogue!” “Shut up when the rest of us are speaking.” Juan Kalvellido, born in Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain […]

In the early 1950s, the then united Communist Party had led a famous struggle against the increase in tram fares in Calcutta by one paisa, and had succeeded in rescinding the increase.  In the sixties, leaders like Ahilya Rangnekar and Mrinal Gore had led a remarkable struggle against price rise in Bombay when housewives came […]

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  Inquiries by magistrates into “police encounter” killings in India have mostly corroborated the police version of the situation and reality leading to the deaths. But the Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate S P Tamang’s investigation of the facts and circumstances leading to the deaths of 19-year olds Ishrat Jahan and Javed Sheikh and two others (25-year […]

When I first met Michael Moore more than 20 years ago he was showing a half-finished documentary to a few dozen people in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was funny and poignant and had a powerful message. He had taken a second mortgage on his house — equipment for filmmaking was a lot […]

“You have the right to remain silent.  Anything we say or do can and will be used against you. . . .” Juan Kalvellido, born in Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain in 1968, is a working-class cartoonist who has never stopped believing in revolution. He currently lives in Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | […]

It was a winter day in the Argentine city of Bariloche when 12 South American presidents gathered there on August 28. It was so cold that Hugo Chavez wore a red scarf and Evo Morales put on a sweater. The presidents arrived at the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) meeting to discuss a US […]

  Elena Shulman.  Stalinism on the Frontier of Empire: Women and State Formation in the Soviet Far East.   Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.  xiv + 260 pp.  $99.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-89667-2. The frontier as a theme in the development of Russian history has proven a useful means of analyzing the expansion of the state. […]

  Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

  President Hugo Chavez at the Venice Film Festival Chávez asiste a la proyección del documental Al Sur de la Frontera en Venecia Chávez: Sólo la unión nos hará libres y humanos, verdaderamente humanos Trailer of South of the Border (Directed by Oliver Stone)

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its September 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We now face the immediate need of a qualitative change in our most fundamental economic relationship — delivery of food supply. The problem is not the variability of […]

  Michael Moore Presents Capitalism: A Love Story at the 66th Venice Film Festival Michael Moore: “It’s Not Possible to Believe in Capitalism and Democracy at the Same Time” Trailer For more information about Michael Moore’s new film, go to <www.michaelmoore.com> and <www.capitalismalovestory.com>.

On September 2, 2009, the members of a nationwide alliance in Bangladesh — the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports — were brutalized by the state police in Dhaka, Bangladesh. More than fifty members were injured. The national committee was conducting a peaceful demonstration and march as part of an […]

25 August 2009 To the Editor The Economist Dear Sir, This is with regard to the review of my book Listening to Grasshoppers that appeared in The Economist. If this letter is long, ironically it is because the factual errors in the review are so many. In an attempt to highlight my “flawed reporting and […]

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching a trillion dollars. This week the European Union committed $175 billion, $67 billion more than even the $108 billion that Washington agreed to fork over after a tense standoff between the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration earlier this summer. The […]

On 1 September 2009, dozens for students, faculty, and staff from San Francisco State joined together to protest draconian budget cuts that are threatening their right to an education. Produced by the Labor Video Project (P.O. Box 720027, San Francisco 94172; 415-282-1908; ; ).

The unemployment rate hit 9.7 percent in August, up from 9.4 percent in July. According to the establishment survey, the economy shed 216,000 jobs in August. In addition, the job loss numbers for June and July were revised up by 49,000. This puts the average rate of job loss over the last three months at […]

The frequently imbibing comedian W. C. Fields once proudly declared: “Everything I do is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”  The adjectives used by Fields perfectly characterize the role of the private health insurance industry in the debate about health care reform.  As the debate intensifies more and more private health care profits are being recycled […]

  The Arab and Muslim world is indeed in crisis.  This crisis, however, may give us a new opportunity to reclaim our fate from foreign powers, local autocrats, and religious fanatics.  To do so, we can benefit from recuperating the best elements from our great tradition of Arab nationalism. Under the banner of “Arab nationalism,” […]