Archive | Commentary

On September 18, 2013, a press release issued by the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY stated: “Six students were arrested in a brutal, unprovoked police attack during a peaceful protest by the City University of New York’s students and faculty against CUNY’s appointment of former CIA chief ex-General David Petraeus.  Students were […]

Twenty-five years ago, I, a hapless reporter on assignment, went to the DC Jail and met the woman who was to be my life’s partner.  I interviewed her about her political bombing case; we fell in love; I visited her in various prisons for 11 years; she was released; we’re now spending the rest of […]

The divide in Colombia between poverty-stricken rural masses and land-hungry ruling elements is famous for leading to serious conflict.  Farmers, agricultural workers, truckers, and traditional miners revived that pattern on August 19 as they launched a nationwide agrarian strike.  Government repression, true to form, was not lacking. Some farmers gain reasonable livelihoods from sales of […]

Consumers are ultimately the ones responsible for dangerous conditions in garment assembly plants in the Global South, Hong Kong-based business executive Bruce Rockowitz told the New York Times recently.  The problem is that improved safety would raise the price of clothing, according to Rockowitz, who heads Li & Fung Limited, a sourcing company that hooks […]

All summer the threat of violence was in the air in Hellersdorf.  This borough on the outskirts of East Berlin, once a huge site of modern high-rise buildings aimed at solving East German housing problems, provided homes for nearly 130,000 people.  After “the Wall went down” many high-rise buildings were cropped from eleven to five […]

Nicolás Maduro is the President of Venezuela.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

The drums of war are beating again.  The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong.  “What we are talking about here […]

I. On Thursday, June 27th, fast food workers gathered outside City Hall in New York before a hearing on low wages and wage theft.  Some of the workers described to the reporters of the New York Times the difficulty of living on minimum wage, $7.25 per hour in the state of New York.  One worker, […]

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Harry Magdoff (21 August 1913 – 1 January 2006). Photos via Fred Magdoff. | Print

  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 July-August 2013 issue. — Ed. In the by now tedious cliché, India, with a population of 1.22 billion (122 crores) and with an elected parliament, is supposed to […]

Scrambling to plant a stake in the heart of Detroit’s once-vibrant democracy, pundits, pols, and journos are touting a dubious statistic in order to cast doubt on the ability of black citizens to govern themselves.  In recent weeks numerous new stories and op-eds (e.g., here, here, and here) have cited a “2011 study” purporting to […]

The following is an interview of me (MDY) conducted by Cedric Muhammad (CM), who is an aide to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, the National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.  An abbreviated version of the interview appears in The Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper (available at www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Business_amp_Money_12/article_100637.shtml). […]

The drums of war are beating again.  The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong.  “What we are talking about here […]

John Bellamy Foster: We need a society that is geared, as István Mészáros always tells us, to substantive equality.  And no compromise on the issue of equality.  Bolívar said equality is the law of laws.  So we need substantive equality and we need ecological sustainability.  And they have to go together.  How do we know […]

  The news that Detroit has declared bankruptcy, the largest North American city to do so thus far, foreshadows an extension of the social crisis currently afflicting the centers of capitalism.  As some observers have noted, Detroit is just the tip of the iceberg in what is sure to be a procession of indebted municipalities […]

He awoke with the aftertaste of his nightmare weighing heavily on his fading recollection of factory-fed vampires in striped pantaloons red runnels of blood flowing from their culled smiles squeezing the tears of the night shift workers into small vials assembled on conveyor belts to be sealed, stamped and sold back to the workers for […]

  Strike Heats Up as Over 200 Immigrant Workers Are Threatened with Mass Firing July 24, 2013 As workers walked past fields of strawberries and blueberries into a negotiation meeting this morning with Sakuma Brothers Farms, Inc. management, they were told to accept management’s terms or lose their jobs.  This threat comes amidst a heated […]

  Introduction Margaret Randall is a feminist poet, writer, photographer, and social activist.  Born in New York City in 1936 and currently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she has also spent a number of years outside the United States.  Randall participated in the 1968 student movement while living in Mexico City, from where she was […]

Upon the release of the Indian edition of Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker’s José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology (Kharagpur: Cornerstone Publications, 2013; originally New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), Vanden is in India on a lecture tour to spread the word about the ideas of José Carlos Mariátegui.  On this occasion, we are publishing […]

George Zimmerman Proclaimed Honorary White Man SANFORD, FL — The Volunteer Fire Department and the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution have united across class lines to declare George Zimmerman, recently acquitted of murdering African-American youth Trayvon Martin, an “Honorary White Dude.”  Mr. Zimmerman, whose driver’s license lists him as Hispanic, was […]