Archive | Commentary

  How should progressives respond to the ongoing brouhaha about Salman Rushdie‘s knighthood?  We should begin by reminding ourselves, particularly if we live in the West, that the so-called “Muslim” response to the announcement of Rushdie’s knighthood does not speak for the majority of Muslims, or for what matters to most Muslims in the world.  […]

Michael Heinrich is a political scientist and mathematician in Berlin and a member of the editorial board of Prokla — journal for critical social science.  Below is an interview with the “. . . ums Ganze!” [. . . All or Nothing!] coalition. “…ums Ganze!”: The federal government has staked out a position for the […]

  On Wednesday, June 6, federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a sweep of homes in New Haven, Connecticut.  They arrested 33 immigrant workers and set off a series of mass protests calling for the release of detainees and an immediate halt to federal raids.  On Saturday, June 16, a mass mobilization […]

Dr. Hisham Bustani is a writer and activist, based in Amman, a founding member of the Resistant Arab People’s Alliance and a member in its Coordination Committee.  He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Thought Forum in Jordan. INTRODUCTION: Hisham Bustani on the Turmoil in Gaza The Jordanian Marxist writer […]

Offshoring U.S. jobs to the Far East has been a major campaign in the war of attrition against U.S. labor that began in the post-World War II era, was redoubled in the 1980s by the neo-conservative forces under the regime of President Ronald Reagan, and continues unabated to the present day. The first wave of […]

I don’t agree with the copyright laws, and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people, as long as they’re not doing it to make a profit off it, as long as they are not, you know, trying to make a profit off my labor.  I would oppose […]

Michael A. Lebowitz is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize for 2004, and Build It Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century, just published by Monthly Review Press.  The videos were […]

  I recently returned from an eleven-day trip to Venezuela, traveling with fellow students from Rutgers University.  The country has been the scene of intense political strife and polarization throughout the nearly ten years that Hugo Chávez’s government has been in power, and during our stay we witnessed various aspects of this conflict.  We arrived […]

According to a promotional flyer handed out at Borders Books stores in advance of Nazanin‘s visits, she is on a mission to “speak out for those who cannot” and stands against “senseless child executions in Iran.”  Nazanin also takes credit for the release of a woman from death row in Iran.  Fair enough.  But Nazanin’s […]

June 11, 2007 Gerald A. Reynolds Chair of the Commission United States Commission on Civil Rights Regional Office 624 Ninth Street, NW Washington DC 20425 Dear Chairman Reynolds and Members of the Commission, I write to you on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom […]

Sponsored by “Mercy for All” (www.mercyforall.org) — in partnership with other NGOs — a cycling tour around Europe and North America is conveying the Iranian people’s message of peace, friendship, and solidarity to the rest of the world. On this journey, which began on 10 May 2007, are fourteen Iranian cyclists.  They traveled across four […]

We, the undersigned, are dismayed at the continued detention of Dr Binayak Sen, General Secretary of the Chhattisgarh People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), since May 14. Dr Binayak Sen is also the National Vice-President of the PUCL, one of the oldest civil liberties organisations in India

  Visit Alistair Hulett at www.alistairhulett.com. Alistair Hulett‘s “The Internationale” is included in his Dance of the Underclass, available from AKPress. | | Print

EXCLUSIF LE FIGARO : Le premier ministre palestinien du Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, a reçu notre correspondant dans sa maison du camp de réfugiés de Chati, ciblée par des bombardements jeudi. Le Figaro : Certains accusent le Hamas d’avoir mené un coup d’État dans la bande de Gaza.  Que leur répondez-vous? Ismaïl Haniyeh : Je leur […]

Por alguna razón, la frase “la violencia engendra violencia” se popularizó en todo el mundo al mismo tiempo que su significado implícito se mantenía restringido a la violencia del oprimido.  Es decir, la violencia del amo sobre el esclavo es invisible en un estado de esclavitud, como en un estado de opresión la fuerza que […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its June 2007 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. Some of the respected friends of Analytical Monthly Review have recently argued to us on the basis of various election results that the threat of Hindutva fascism has […]

Vacationers visiting Baltic Sea beaches in the area have always loved the little small-gauge railroad affectionately called Mollie.  But during the G-8 summit of presidents and premiers, Mollie was strictly reserved for those directly connected with the conference in the swank hotel at the beach.  To all others it was definitely a No Go Zone. […]

Continuing an uphill battle with the DePaul University administration, student and community groups will gather at 55 E. Jackson (Jackson and Wabash) 13 June 2007 at 11 a.m. for a rally, in a plan to escalate pressure on the nation’s largest Catholic university.  The protest is in support of academic freedom, as well as tenure […]

  Turkey — We landed in Istanbul May 16 for work and to visit family and friends.  We traveled to Ankara, then went southeast to villages near Kayseri, then back to Istanbul for an international anthropology conference before visiting the port city of Izmir for a few days, traveling inland again to the textile center […]

Todos los grandes medios de todo el globo alzaron su voz contra el gobierno democrático de Venezuela por la no renovación de la licencia de la televisión RCTV.  Las continuas irregularidades en su funcionamiento y, el apoyo al golpe de estado no eran obstáculos para conservar su frecuencia, ya que la “libertad de expresión” de […]