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  • Salafi movement

    America’s love affair with Salafi jihadists

    Contrary to popular media portrayals, the Middle East wasn’t always plagued by regressive fundamentalism. Salafi jihadist groups like Al Qaeda were not popular in the region. They still aren’t. They have been violently imposed on people thanks in large part to the actions of the US, which has a longstanding pattern of backing religious fundamentalists to further its geopolitical ambitions.

  • A taxi driver in his car on a rainy day in Iran

    What Do These Crusading Warmongers Say About Iran?

    Russia’s strategic alliance with Iran is at the heart of global tensions, and the speed and ferocity of statements by the new U.S. administration do little to allay concerns.… The crusading language of the new US administration is alarming and is engineered to promote “Iranophobia.” Once again the narrative that the Islamic Republic is on the verge of producing nuclear weapons with which it will target Israel and set off an unprecedented Middle Eastern arms race, strives to dominate the public sphere.

  • Comic about Trump in the LA Times

    Trump’s March of Folly

    The Trump White House is neofascist in terms of its political base, its ideology, and the policies it is advocating. The rest of the U.S. state, the Congress, the judiciary… are not at present neofascist. So we are in a period which is analogous to what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung (bringing into line), which means a fight within the state.

  • Comic about the anniversary of 25 January Revolution

    Egypt 2016: Who was worse, Mubarak, Morsi or Sisi?

    2016 was a very difficult year for the Egyptians. Most—both the average man and the political caste—even say it was / is the worst year in the country’s history.

    Attacking the “revolution” or uprising of 2011, its aims, symbols and representatives, has no longer become an excess of some “Mubarakists”, but obviously, the policy of the regime. This policy is encouraged by the fact that more and more Egyptians are longing to Mubarak’s time. They blame the 2011 revolution for their misery and not the policies of the regime.

  • Angela Merkel & the CDU

    Bears and Musical Chairs

    Those who, like me, grew up with the writings of A. A. Milne may recall not just Winnie the Pooh but two other little bears and how “one of them was Bad and the other was Good” and kept getting better.  In a way, that recalls German politics. The goodie in next September’s elections, it […]

  • Activists gather at Portland International Airport to protest against President Donald Trump's executive action travel ban in Portland (REUTERS/Steve Dipaola)

    The Muslim Ban and Judicial Power

    Do federal courts have the legitimate power to block Presidential orders concerning immigration and border control? Yes. Article 3 of the constitution gives them that power. In the current controversy, we should remind ourselves of this fragile and endangered separation of powers, on which we now rely as a bulwark against racism, bigotry and xenophobia.

  • CLDC Attorneys Lauren Regan and Cooper Brinson

    Update from Standing Rock

    I wanted to share a short update from Standing Rock regarding a multitude of travesties that have occurred there this week…. Trump was elected and sworn in. Nuff said. He signed an Executive Order pushing the climate denial greed and financial gain of his friends in the oil and gas industry, specifically pushing the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline—both climate travesties hurt communities, will not increase jobs, and endanger water and the environment.

  • After MRZine

    Today MRZine comes to an end, after over a decade’s run.  Thank you for your past support. Needless to say, Monthly Review itself will endure hasta siempre, its presence online steadily expanding, including on Facebook and Twitter. My next project is to establish Movement Translation Service (MTS), inspired by People’s Translation Service and similar efforts […]

  • MR’s Upgrade

    Monthly Review is in the midst of a transition, in which we are upgrading our online and social media platforms. While MRzine will cease to exist in its current form, we will be archiving all articles published in MRzine from its inception in 2005.

  • Syria, March 31, 2013

    Controlling the Narrative on Syria

    Since 2011, the torrent of ill-informed, inaccurate and often entirely dishonest analysis of events in Syria has been unremitting. I have written previously about the dangers of using simplistic explanations to make sense of the conflict, a problem that has surfaced repeatedly over the past five years. However, there is a greater problem at large.

  • Prime Minister Fidel Castro 1961

    Fidel, Today and Forever

    You always understood that politics was not the art of the possible—a conservative vision of politics—but rather the art of making the impossible possible, not through voluntarist actions but by understanding that politics is the art of building a social, political, and military correlation of forces that allows us to transform the existing conditions of struggle and make possible in the future what seems impossible in the present.

  • Developing “Infrastructure”

    The term “infrastructure” covers all sorts of things, from ports to roads to canals to bridges to building railway lines. Because it covers such a range of things, many of which appear to be useful, most people look upon “infrastructure” development as an indubitably desirable thing under all circumstances. Questions are scarcely asked about its worthwhileness when the government allocates larger resources for the “infrastructure” sector, or when it instructs public sector banks to give larger loans for “infrastructure” development.

  • Forward Ever, Normal Never: Taking Down Donald Trump

    This dream.  Something is in the house, something’s breaking, the things I love are going away.  I reach for Laura, she becomes translucent, evaporates.  I wake up, telling myself this dream means I’m worried about how tired and worn Laura has grown from years of activist work trying to get people out of prison.  I’ve […]

  • May chce twardego Brexitu. Trump nie chce silnego dolara

    The Election of Donald Trump

    1. The recent election of Donald Trump after Brexit, the rise of fascist votes in Europe, but also and much better, the electoral victory of SYRIZA and the rise of Podemos are all manifestations of the depth of the crisis of the system of globalized neoliberalism. This system, which I have always considered unsustainable, is imploding before our eyes at its very heart. All attempts to save the system — to avoid the worst — by minor adjustments are doomed to failure.

  • Fidel Castro — Beyond Words

    We lost Fidel.  We gained a history of examples and wisdom. The story of Fidel is beyond words — we cannot describe it with words alone.  So I would like to just give a testimony. He used all his wisdom, knowledge, leadership, and dedication to build, over 60 years, a united and organized people, who […]

  • Taking Action: Understanding History, Reaching Out

    Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, repression, and the other evils that have been spotlighted by the recent election did not arise full-blown from the Trump campaign.  They all trace deep roots in American society; they are brought now to the surface by demagogy. The point of my last several posts has been that we could see […]

  • Open-Shop America: Bracing for the Trump Era

    Donald Trump’s win is the gut-punch finale to a surreal election season.  For thousands of rank-and-file activists the outcome is even more bitter after the inspiration and energy stirred up by Bernie Sanders’ improbable campaign. Unfortunately, we don’t need a crystal ball to figure out what a Trump presidency has in store for labor, especially […]

  • How Employers Limit Worker Rights, Using the Power of Government and Market Forces

    The escalating attack on worker rights in the United States has taken several forms in recent years.  In some American states, right-wing politicians have passed laws denying public employees such as teachers, janitors, police, and firefighters the right to organize into unions and bargain collectively.  Some of these laws strip recognition and power from existing […]

  • Job Loss, the Clintons, NAFTA, and a New Progressive Labor Rights Agenda

    Today’s post discusses the way that neoliberal policies embraced by the Democratic Party resulted in job loss in key states.  Bear with me: there are facts and figures here that make the case.  Tomorrow, I will continue to discuss these issues in the context of “domestic” job displacement.  The third post will discuss a progressive […]

  • Spanish Recollections: the 80th Anniversary of the International Brigades

    In one hurrying day, eighty years ago, in Albacete, a center of Spain’s La Mancha region, a few officers somehow created quarters for five hundred men arriving the following day, then five hundred more, and more.  Soon three or four thousand, somehow organized in units despite a mad variety of languages, were issued a motley […]