An evening of films and discussion with speakers from:Big Noise Films – IVAW – UFPJ – The Indypendent Obama’s Iraq is an evening of short films never before seen in America. Shot on the other side of the blast shields in Iraq’s walled cities, it covers a very different side of the war than is […]
Archive | Commentary
Monthly Review Magazine
Békés: A Matter of Inheritance
Sitting in the shadow of an elegant carbet, feeling the trade wind, Roger de Jaham, age 60, lets his Creole accent lilt, talking about the blow that he recently suffered: “For the first time in my life, a man whom I greeted told me: ‘I don’t shake the hand of a béké.” The man […]
Elie Domota: “The Movement Is Not about to Quit”
HRIS: Are you satisfied with the results last night? Elie Domota: Overall, yes. This applies only to the employees of the member companies of the employers’ organizations. We will set up a procedure to extend the agreement to all employees in Guadeloupe in the coming days. Julien: The agreement shows that your demand for […]
Kaiser’s Class Justice
She’s called Emmely; her real name is Barbara E. — with the family name omiited in line with legal practice here. All over Germany people are talking about her, most frequently with anger in their voices. For Emmely, a cashier in East Berlin, was fired by her discount store employer for allegedly filching 1.30 euro […]
Where Are Iran’s Working Women?
See, also, Hajir Palaschi, “Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women,” Trans. Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine, 18 February 2008. The Iranian Revolution and its aftermath have generated many debates, one of which pertains to the effects on women’s labor force participation and employment patterns. For […]
Lawfare in Gaza: Legislative Attack
If, therefore, a conclusion can be drawn from military violence it is that . . . there is a lawmaking character inherent in it. — Walter Benjamin The scale of Israel’s twenty-two-day attack on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009 — which killed 1,300 people and damaged or destroyed about 15% of all its buildings […]
Interview of John Bellamy Foster on The Great Financial Crisis
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press. MW: Do you think that the American people have been misled into believing that the current financial […]
Redistribution and Stability: Beyond the Keynesian/Neo-liberal Impasse
As the financial crisis that erupted in 2007 unfolds in an economic cataclysm which, it is now clear, is unprecedented in the history of capitalism, world leaders without exception reveal themselves as politically and ideologically bankrupt in their efforts to bring it under control. This is most obviously demonstrated by their insistence on the […]
Iran: Poverty and Inequality since the Revolution
Thirty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed equity and social justice as the Revolution’s main objective. His successor, Ayatollah Khamene’i, continues to refer to social justice as the Revolution’s defining theme. Similarly, Presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, though they are from very different political persuasions, placed heavy emphasis on social justice in their political rhetoric. Yet the […]
How Should Venezuela Face the Coming Recession?
How Should Venezuela Face the Coming Recession? Presently much of the industrialized world is in a severe economic recession. The United States, Europe, and Japan are definitely in one and other important countries such as China are close to being in one. So far most South American countries have not entered into a recession. […]
We Are at the Beginning of a Long, Profound, Painful Process of Change
Statement by James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen, jr., Chair in Government/Business Relations, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin and Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute, before the Committee on Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings on the Conduct of Monetary Policy, February 26, 2009. Mr. Chairman and […]
The Wealth of the Baby Boom Cohorts after the Collapse of the Housing Bubble
Executive Summary This paper makes projections of wealth for 2009 for the baby boom cohorts (ages 45 to 54 and ages 55-64) using data from the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finance. It updates an earlier paper on this topic from June of 2008 using projections for housing and stock values that are more plausible given […]
The Asian Face of the Global Recession
Delegates to the World Economic Forum at Davos this year came despondent and left in despair. Both the discussions and the new evidence released at and during the Forum indicated that the global crisis was not just bad, but worse than originally anticipated. One damaging projection came from the IMF in its January 2009 Update […]
Philosophy of Dogs
Written, shot, edited, and directed by Tatu Laukkanen and Matti Pohjonen, in collaboration with NEGATIVEWARMACHINE in Helsinki, Finland. “Philosophy of Dogs,” Part III of Elephantasma? (a feature-length experimental documentary film that examines economic change in Bombay, India from three different angles), “has already managed to get censored from one seminar on Indian economic growth” […]
President Richard Durst, Can You Eat Three Meals a Day and Do Your Laundry on Our Budget?
Our Plan of Action: Communique #2 We, the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council, have had our first meeting and discussed the strategy and tactics we plan on using in combating the insanity and greed of the college administration’s food policies. We then declared the following: we will be circulating a petition among the student body. […]
Latin America Faces the Global Crisis
It is true that banks are less leveraged, but the outflow of capital is intensifying. Internationalized industry is hit by global overproduction, and lower prices of raw materials depress growth. Moreover, attempts at stimulation collide with reduced resources from the central economies. Those who expect geopolitical benefits to follow from the crisis forget that the […]
Michael Steele Is a Nitwit and Wolf Blitzer Is a Jackass
Economic ignorance is widespread in the United States. People think they know something about the subject, but few do. My mother is convinced that China is the cause of all our economic problems. When I challenge her, she doesn’t think it matters that I have spent forty years studying and teaching the dismal science. […]
Will Keynesianism Be Enough to Halt the Investment Decline?
The 4th quarter US GDP figures confirm that the economic downturn, in its domestic aspect, is taking the classic form of an investment-led decline. As seen in Figure 1 US fixed investment already started to fall from the 1st quarter of 2006 onwards — US consumer expenditure and GDP, in contrast, continued to rise […]
Is Talking about Homosexuality Still a Taboo?
Is talking about homosexuality still a taboo? In the Arab world, specifically Lebanon, the answer to this question is yes and no. Sure, you can have an actual discussion about homosexuality. People can freely discuss homosexuality being a disease, unnatural, and even disgusting. The Arab world doesn’t seem to have an issue with such discussions. […]
Statement of Binyam Mohamed
23.02.2009 I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain. Please forgive me if I make a simple statement through my lawyer. I hope to be able to do better in days […]
