At noon in the hay sheds Lester and me, we kept mostly quiet and old Enos didn’t say much either. Maury and Vern did almost all the talking. Vern was a cowboy, an all-around Marlboro Man, calm and rugged, except that back then he smoked Camels. And Jared, the man we called Preacher when he […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Stirring the Pot: Remembering Stew Albert — 1939-2006
WHO THE HELL IS STEW ALBERT? by Stewart Edward AlbertBUY THIS BOOK Stew Albert had one of his smart, funny ideas when he was thinking about a name for his memoir. “My Sixties,” he said was going to call it. He was in his late fifties when we kicked this one around and I thought […]
Voices from under Occupation
5 June 2006 marks the 39th anniversary of the beginning of the war that led to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In observation of this event, the Institute for Middle East Understanding talked with five prominent Palestinians who have experienced the occupation since it began. We asked them for their […]
Eulogy for Stew Albert
MAY 6, 2006, New York City Stew Albert Photo by Robert Altman © 2006 Stew Albert was our troubadour, poet, writer, our cherished moral center. On May Day 1971, in Washington DC during the May Day antiwar demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands of activists to shut down the city, Stew Albert and Judy Gumbo […]
Immigrants, Advocates Take Sides on Senate Guest-Worker Bill
Andrew Stern, president of the 1.7-million-member Service Employees International Union, once likened the leadership of a mass movement to the crew on a sailboat. What matters is the wind in the sails, he said, not the fight over who steers. The wind behind the movement for immigrant rights had reached gale force by May […]
Port Militarization Resistance, Olympia, May 2006
Click on a photo for a larger view. 23-25 May 2006 29 May 2006 On the eighth day of the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance, the U.S.S. Pomeroy has docked to take the Stryker Brigade to Iraq. The resistance escalates, the Port fence is shaken and nearly taken down before a riot squad enters the […]
Poet, Playwright, and . . . Radical?The Politics of Shakespeare’s Plays
Shakespeare. Undeniably one of the most well-known names in the world. His plays are performed all over the planet in several different languages, and his collected works are read by millions (if not, in fact, billions) of people. Thousands of theatre companies around the world are dedicated to his work and he is taught as […]
Presbyterians of the World, Unite!
In June 2004, the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), resolved to consider a phased, selective divestment from companies profiting from Israel’s occupation. Subsequently it came under intense pressure from Jewish organizations (and their allies) and will consider rescinding the resolution at the next General Assembly meeting on June 15-22 in Birmingham, Alabama. To firm up […]
A Specter Is Haunting the AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program: The Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee
The room had been arranged, the speakers ready — with a last minute, unannounced substitution of Wilfredo Berrios of El Salvador’s SUTTEL (telecom) union replacing Miguel Gonzalez Vargas from the Oil Workers Union of Venezuela who had not been able to come due to problems back home — and the only remaining question was, “Would […]
As Immigrants Strike, Truckers Shut Down Nation’s Largest Port on May Day
During the countdown to the May Day immigrant walkouts, transportation industry commentators worried about the impact that immigrant strikes would have on the nation’s ports. Many feared repeats of the 2004 and 2005 strikes by mostly immigrant Latino port truckers (or troqueros), which crippled freight traffic up and down the West Coast. Troqueros at the […]
Match Point
“He’s not always as ambitious as he could be, and he’s better on dishonesty than he is with feelings of warmth . . . He’s a good guy, and he’s definitely an auteur. Which is not to say that every film is an artistic success.”1 […]
Queen Hussein
The Palestinian gay and lesbian community has yet to leave the closet, but it’s on its way. Today it’s possible to go to parties of gays from the Occupied Territories and see young residents of the West Bank perform drag. They have not told their mother about this, but one day they intend to […]
Cadet Bush at West Point: Screw That Chin In, Beanhead!
Mister Bush, you deserve a good reaming for your performance at the United States Military Academy graduation on Saturday. Post around to my room for some character guidance. Come in, wackhead. Slam up against that wall! Suck up that capacious gut! Shoulders back! Pop up that puny chest! Fingers along the seams of your trousers! […]
Canadian Union Takes Important Step against Israeli Apartheid
At the annual convention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, held 24-27 May 2006 in Ottawa, the union passed a resolution of historic importance. Resolution 50 — adopted unanimously by the 900 delegates at the largest convention in the union’s history — expressed support for the global campaign against Israeli apartheid. The […]
Identity, Class, and Bite Me, David Horowitz
All my life, I have wanted to be a cutting-edge, Queer Studies academic. And now that I have written my first opus deconstructing a Western literary classic, I am! All I have to do is send this in to the London Review of Books, and wait to be mercilessly attacked by rightwing critics like David […]
Join Us with Simultaneous Protests against Boycott of Elected Palestinian Authority
On Saturday, June 3 at 7 PM, a coalition of Israeli peace groups and movements will hold a protest march and rally in Tel-Aviv. We will protest against the boycott of the Palestinian elected authority, against the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people, for negotiations without preconditions — to sum it up, against the […]
Iranian Cold Warriors in Sheep’s Clothing
Erik C. Nisbet & James Shanahan, “MSRG Special Report: Restrictions on Civil Liberties, Views of Islam, & Muslim Americans,” Media & Society Research Group, Cornell University, December 2004 Actual mass murderers are higher on my watch list than those who just think or shout hateful beliefs. But you would be mistaken if you thought the […]
Stop Saying This Is a Nation of Immigrants!
A nation of immigrants: This is a convenient myth developed as a response to the 1960s movements against colonialism, neocolonialism, and white supremacy. The ruling class and its brain trust offered multiculturalism, diversity, and affirmative action in response to demands for decolonization, justice, reparations, social equality, an end of imperialism, and the rewriting of history […]
Two, Three, Many Olympias
There’s a great tradition amongst the world’s citizenry that is perhaps best expressed in the words spoken by the late Berkeley radical Mario Savio. During the Free Speech actions of 1964 that were aimed at the University of California’s repressive administrative dictates against student and staff political activity, Mario said: There’s a time when the […]
Ontario’s “Sharia Law” Controversy: How Muslims Were Hung Out to Dry
“A lie can travel halfway around the world,” the American writer Mark Twain once said, “while the truth is putting on its shoes.” That statement could apply to the recent phony debate over “sharia tribunals” in Ontario. Odds are that if you consulted the average man or woman in the street on the matter, you […]
