Archive | Commentary

In the morning on Sunday, January 18, after a heavy rain fell on La Paz, Bolivia, the sun came out, drying the umbrellas of thousands of marchers winding through the city streets.  The mobilization was in support of a new constitution, which is to be voted on this January 25. Eddie Mamani, a resident of […]

and unseen on American TV. . . . Demos Call for Closure of US Embassy — Police and Protesters Clash, Awkar (North of Beirut), Lebanon, 19.01.09 Demos in Solidarity with Gaza in Cities of Australia — Sydney Demo, the Largest, Draws 20,000, 19.01.09 Tens of Thousands Protests in Solidarity with People of Gaza, Karachi, Pakistan, […]

Over 700 citizens and residents of Israel, mostly Arab-Palestinian, have been detained since Israel began its military attacks on the Gaza Strip on 27 December 2008.  Detentions were made in the wake of public demonstrations, held primarily in northern Israel, Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, and also in the southern city of Bee-Sheva, against Israel’s war crimes in the […]

  WIN: According to a quotation by Jim Reid that you and Fred Magdoff included in your article entitled “Financial Implosion and Stagnation” (Monthly Review, December 2008), the U.S. financial sector has made around 1.2 Trillion ($1,200) of “excess” profits in the last decade relative to nominal GDP.  How has the structure of the capital […]

Most US economists are professors in colleges and universities.  Their academic positions enable research and teaching that is supposed to be independent of corporate interests.  They could, at least hypothetically, provide the critical insights into economic problems needed for their solution.  Economists might help to propose, evaluate, and debate the wide range of possible solutions […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its January 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. Another spectacular hole in the torn fabric of the “success story” of the neoliberal “reform” has opened in recent days.  Though but a week has passed from the […]

Palestinian National Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs Deputy Office, Gaza January 12, 2009 In the Name of God; the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful President Hugo Chavez, Your Excellency, President Hugo Chavez, We, the people of Palestine, commend your courage to speak and act upon your conscience regardless of your detractors’ criticism or cowardice. Mr. […]

Freedom of expression is once again on the agenda in Denmark.  The country received world attention when the rightist newspaper Jyllands-Posten published provocative cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad a few years ago.  The cartoons caused widespread protests in the Muslim world, whereas discussions in Denmark and other Western countries revolved around freedom of the press. […]

  I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist.  On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine. I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there […]

The president of the European Roma and Travellers Forum, Rudko Kawczynski, has expressed outrage at the decision by the U.N. to formally exclude the Roma from its commemoration ceremony on International day in Memory of the Holocaust, January 27, in the General Assembly Hall in New York City.  He noted that “the Holocaust was the […]

István Mészáros won the 1971 Deutscher Prize for his book Marx’s Theory of Alienation and has written on Marxism ever since.  He talks to Judith Orr and Patrick Ward about the current economic crisis. The ruling class are always surprised by new economic crises and talk about them as aberrations.  Why do you believe they […]

16 January 2009 Meeting in Pittsburgh, January 15 and 16, UE‘s General Executive Board adopted a statement condemning the current war in the Gaza Strip.  The union’s national leadership body reiterated the position adopted by delegates to UE’s 70th Convention in 2007, which called for “replacing the lopsided pro-Israel policy of the U.S. with a […]

Calm down folks and listen to my story, OK? You need to understand that I live with an absolutely impossible woman.  All I ever wanted was to live in peace and harmony with her.  I was willing to share and share alike. So I let her build us a beautiful house, under my direction.  I […]

Hi everyone, Hope all is well.  On February 5 at Crash Mansion in NYC, La Lutta NMC is having a benefit to support our youth media literacy and Artist-In-Residence program.  Our most recent youth Artist-in-Residence participants, Lynchy Lezeau and Briana Orr, traveled to South Africa in 2008 where they produced a documentary series on HIV/AIDS […]

  The morgues of Gaza’s hospitals are overflowing.  The bodies in their blood-soaked white shrouds cover the entire floor space of the Shifa hospital morgue.  Some are intact, most horribly deformed, limbs twisted into unnatural positions, chest cavities exposed, heads blown off, skulls crushed in.  Family members wait outside to identify and claim a brother, […]

Thursday, January 15, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO — A group of nine activists — Palestinian, anti-Zionist Jewish, and immigrant rights activists — blocked the entrance of the Israeli Consulate beginning at 8:30am today, in nonviolent protest of Israeli apartheid and its current attacks on Gaza.  The activists chained themselves together using handcuffs and locks, locked the […]

Introduction by Lincoln Shlensky Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, in an audio/video interview (also transcribed) with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, breaks down the responsibility for the current war in Gaza and clarifies the definition of “terror” as a term that should be applied both to Hamas and Israel.  Based on Israeli Ministry of Defense statistics […]

I am working under the voices of fire, Israeli warplanes. . . .  I still breathe, take some pictures everyday. — artist Shareef Sarhan, January 12, 2009 As Israel’s vicious attack claims more lives, Gaza’s infrastructure now lies in shambles, including the handful of nonprofit venues that made cultural life possible.  Even before the invasion, […]

On December 5, 2008, over 200 recently-fired workers at the Republic Window and Doors factory in Chicago occupied their plant, demanding that they be paid their vacation and severance checks.  The occupation ended victoriously six days later when the Bank of America and other lenders to Republic agreed to pay the workers the approximately $2 […]

Wednesday, January 14, 2009, Los Angeles Click to enlarge. Photos by Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times Early this morning, Jewish activists, in a historic first in Los Angeles, chained themselves to the entrance of the Israeli Consulate and blocked the driveway to the parking structure, blocking all traffic in and out of the building.  “We sent […]