Archive | Commentary

Welcome sign — “Aaniin” (Hi) and “Biindigen” (Come in) — to the White Earth community of Rice Lake, at the entrance to Lower Rice Lake, a popular site for harvesting wild rice.  Photo by David Thorstad. In a historic vote, on November 19, 2013, the White Earth Nation in northwestern Minnesota became the first member […]

Laal is a revolutionary band from Pakistan.  Lyrics by Faiz Ahmad Faiz (13 February 1911-20 November 1984).  Directed by Taimur Rahman. | Print

I’ve been a guest in Colorado Springs, Colorado, following a weeklong retreat with Colorado College students who are part of a course focused on nonviolence.  In last weekend’s Colorado Springs Gazette, there was an article in the Military Life section about an international skype phone call between U.S. soldiers in Kandahar, Afghanistan and sixth-grade girls […]

“As the cops try to absolve themselves of the crimes they committed two years ago today, remember this. . . .” — Sherief Gaber, 18 November 2013 “@mosireen video challenges the army’s attempt to erase its role in Mohamed Mahmoud massacre. . . .” — Sonali Pahwa, 18 November 2013 Mosireen is an independent media […]

Last weekend, I participated in a panel on the illegality of drones and targeted killing off the battlefield at the conference “Drones Around the Globe: Proliferation and Resistance” in Washington DC.  Nearly 400 people from many countries came together to gather information, protest, and develop strategies to end targeted killing by combat drones.  I found […]

The Venezuelan state is intervening in retail businesses around the country, principally those that trade in domestic appliances.  This apparently modest decision, taken a week ago, has set in motion an interesting process of push and pull.  Long lines outside the intervened stores and some disorder inside meet with predictable outcry about “mobs” and “communism” […]

John Bellamy Foster: My talk is called “The Epochal Crisis.”  The term “epochal crisis” was introduced by Jason Moore to deal with periods in which economic and ecological crises intersect or merge.  We are certainly in the greatest epochal crisis in the history of the world. . . .  Now, we can also talk about […]

Introduction The 2008 report of the Competition Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the construction sector found that “[u]nfortunately the construction industry has tended to suffer from cartel activity, as shown by the spate of well-publicized recent matters around the world.”  There were 19 countries included in this OECD roundtable, […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its October 2013 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. When the last of the British army departed on February 28, 1948, they marched to the Gateway of India — not yet obstructed by yellow concrete barricades — […]

An Iranian economic delegation, headed by Economic Affairs and Finance Minister Ali Tayyebnia, held intensive talks with their counterparts from other countries on the sidelines of the joint annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on October 11-13.  The talks followed the little noticed meeting between Iran’s new president Hassan […]

Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, led by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), has, despite opposition, initiated a road construction project that goes through a forest area located in Ankara’s inner city, which is also property of Middle East Technical University (METU). University students, the University presidency as well as the residents of the neighborhood located right […]

  “Come to me, come to me / Oh beautiful, you charmed me with your dark complexion / You can have me and my love easily . . . They told me that we’ll get married / I cannot live without you . . .  You’re for me like the water and the air that […]

January 28 to February 6, 2014 While the mainstream media speculates about the future of the Bolivarian Revolution after the passing of Hugo Chavez, for the Venezuelan people there is no question.  Come learn about the process currently transpiring in Venezuela as the people, reinvigorated by the legacy of Chavez, deepen and further radicalize their […]

Arnold August.  Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion.  NY: Palgrave Macmillan / Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing / London: ZED Books, 2013.  For full information: . Arnold August has written an important book on the developing participatory democracy and people’s empowerment in those ALBA countries that form the bulwark of 21st century socialism and […]

A bibliography of work utilizing the theory of metabolic rift developed by Marx.

Is there a fundamental conflict between a healthy environment and a healthy economy? There has been a lot of concern lately about damage that we humans are inflicting on our small, beautiful Planet Earth.  Waste CO2 from our way of life has been dissolving in the oceans, increasing the acidity of the water and making […]

The topic of agrarian crisis is everywhere.  What does it mean, though? We know what ‘agrarian’ means.  It refers to agriculture and its social relations. What does ‘crisis’ mean?  It means a problem (or a set of problems).  It is not an ordinary problem, however.  It is a big problem.  It is a problem that […]

. . . Are we winning? Or in line for slaughter? Is the question shameful? Or is the silence worse? Should we scavenge the spoils? Or count the corpses? Did we open the way? Or is the path destroyed? . . . Mosireen is an independent media collective in Cairo, Egypt.  For more information: ; […]

Trailer Chile’s Student Uprising tells the story of the student protests taking place in Chile today demanding a free and state-funded education system and radical change in society.  The film puts the protests in their historical context of widespread dissatisfaction with the economic model put in place under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) that still remains […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  The text below is based on the editorial in its September 2013 issue. — Ed. The parliamentary elections of 2014 are now casting their shadow ahead.  The nationwide elections on a five-year schedule have become a festival, with […]