Anti-Muslim material — the short film Fitna and the Danish cartoons spring to mind — usually raise hell when they first appear. They also raise some interesting questions. The propagandists have certainly enjoyed their handiwork. Vilifying the enemy flavor of the month always wins vigorous rounds of applause (and money) from the right quarters. The […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Are Industrial Unions Better than Craft? Not Always.
Which is better — craft unions or industrial unions? The debate is as old as the labor movement itself, and one that resists simple answers. Craft unions organize workers along occupational lines. Industrial unions join everyone who works for one employer, or one industry, into one union. The argument surfaces in the dispute between […]
Would Jesus Ride a Donkey or Elephant to the Conventions?
As the election draws closer, we will hear more and more about the politics of Jesus, as liberals and conservatives jockey to place the shining halo of Christianity over their own heads. Without saying it, they will imply, “Jesus would have voted for me!” Putting aside for a moment the rudeness of regularly forcing […]
Revitalizing the Memory of Sacco and Vanzetti
I wanted a roof for every family, bread for every mouth, education for every heart, light for every intellect. I am convinced that the human history has not yet begun — that we find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric. I see with the eyes of my soul how the sky is diffused […]
The Return of Russia
The question of responsibility for the conflict in the Caucasus didn’t trouble us for long. Less than a week after the Georgian attack, two French commentators, experts on all things, pronounced it “obsolete.” An influential American neo-conservative had set the tone for them. Knowing who started the conflict is “not very important,” Robert Kagan […]
Beyond Voting: Guerrilla Gardeners, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Pirate Programmers
This US election year, an unprecedented number of voters will likely head to the polls to cast their ballots in an exercise that should take just a few minutes to complete. But what about the rest of the minutes left in the year? Author and activist Chris Carlsson has some suggestions for social change beyond […]
The Only Good Muslim Is the Anti-Muslim: Liberals’ Fear of Islam
For some, Barack Obama’s stature as a man of the Left has fallen precipitously, like late autumn leaves shed by branches bowing to the will of winter. Disappointment has often been self-inflicted. Supporters have dipped their pens deeply into the inkwell of Obama’s inspiring story and written their own lines on Afghanistan, oil drilling, or […]
Anti-Maoism, McCarthyism, and the Indian State
Being the only “policeman” who “has ever risen to so much influence in India,” Indian National Security Adviser MK Narayanan seldom minces words in revealing the designs of the Indian State for “national security.” He recently pronounced the focus of the state’s strategy against leftist militancy in the country. In an interview with the Straits […]
Faculty Resist Raising Funds for Endowed Chair Named after “Good-time Charlie” Wilson
When University of Texas faculty members opened the local Austin newspaper in mid-August, many were surprised to read that that their institution was raising funds for an endowed chair to honor Charlie Wilson, described charitably by the paper as “the fun-loving, hard-living former East Texas congressman portrayed by Tom Hanks in last year’s ‘Charlie Wilson’s […]
Latin America in the 21st Century: New Visions New Challenges
Join us for a stimulating discussion about the social and political changes currently sweeping through Latin America. Learn how progressive governments backed by powerful social movements are gaining momentum and joining forces to shift power into the hands of their people and foster alternative models of development based on cooperation and regional integration. Find out […]
Three Years after Katrina: While Republicans and Democrats Gather and Celebrate, A City Still Searches for Recovery
As headlines focus on conventions and running mates, the third anniversary of Katrina offers an opportunity to examine the results of disastrous federal, state, and local policy on the people of New Orleans. Several organizations have released reports in the past week, examining the current state of the city, and grassroots activists have plans to […]
Sailing into Gaza
On Saturday, after 32 hours on the high seas, I sailed into the port of Gaza City with 45 other citizens from around the world in defiance of Israel’s blockade. We traveled from Cyprus with humanitarian provisions for Palestinians living under siege. My family in Michigan was worried sick. They are not naïve. They […]
Of Jobs Lost and Wages Depressed: The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Employment and Wage Levels in the Philippines, 1980-20001
Introduction Despite the vast literature examining the link between trade liberalization and economic growth, empirical studies still fail to provide conclusive and unequivocal evidence supporting the link. What most of these studies emphasize is that openness, accompanied by a country-specific mix of appropriate complementary policies (macroeconomic and financial policies, education, infrastructure, institutional capacity and governance), […]
Israel’s Outposts Seal Death of Palestinian State
Yehudit Genud hardly feels she is on the frontier of Israel’s settlement project, although the huddle of mobile homes on a wind-swept West Bank hilltop she calls home is controversial even by Israeli standards. Despite the size and isolation of Migron, a settlement of about 45 religious families on a ridge next to the Palestinian […]
The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons
Will shared resources always be misused and overused? Is community ownership of land, forests, and fisheries a guaranteed road to ecological disaster? Is privatization the only way to protect the environment and end Third World poverty? Most economists and development planners will answer “yes” — and for proof they will point to the most influential […]
Chinese Nationalism
Chinese Nationalism Paul Jay: To what extent is there development of big power nationalism, perhaps in the armed forces, in the Chinese Communist Party itself? Minqi Li: My own view is that, as far as China’s ruling elites are concerned, concerning China’s big capitalists, I’d say nationalism is not so much their own ideology. […]
Food and Neoliberalism in South Africa: Entrenching the Legacy of Apartheid
Statistically, South Africa produces enough food to feed its entire population, and in most years it is even a net exporter of food.1 There is, therefore, not a shortage of food in South Africa. Yet if you walk through the streets of any township or rural village in the country, you will find hungry people […]
Free Gaza Boats Arrive in Gaza
GAZA (23 August 2008) – Two small boats, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, successfully landed in Gaza early this evening, breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The boats were crewed by a determined group of international human rights workers from the Free Gaza Movement. They had spent two years organizing […]
The New Left in China
The New Left in China Minqi Li: There has been dramatic change in terms of China’s intellectual life. Back in the 1980s, among most of the intellectuals who were politically conscious or politically active, among most of the university students, it was dominated by neoliberal ideas. Paul Jay: The ideas of open markets, independent […]
In the Court of the Crimson King
It was the sinister synthesis of several salient trends: media consolidation to its ultimate end; educational deficiencies brought to undreamt-of levels; xenophobia stoked to its most loathsome heights; culminating in a re-working of Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast worldwide, inducing panic and instituting pogroms that eliminated all but a favored few Michael Ceraolo […]
