Alabama Governor Bentley today signed into law what may be the harshest state-level, anti-immigrant measure to date. Inspired by Arizona’s notorious racial profiling law, SB 1070, the new Alabama law imposes a draconian immigration enforcement scheme that will subject immigrants and people of color to scrutiny in every aspect of their lives, including when renting […]
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Statement of Solidarity with the Queer Palestinian Call for Action “IGLYO Out of Israel”
Statement by the Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Society Palestinian queer activists from Al Qaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, Aswat — Palestinian Gay Women, and PQBDS (Palestinian Queers for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) have issued a joint statement on June 1st 2011 calling on organizations, groups and […]
Electoral Performance of the Left — A Review
The following presentation contains graphic data. Viewer discretion is strongly advised. — Ed. (function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })(); Barbara Steiner is a political scientist based in Vienna and member of Transform.at. Walter Baier is an economist based […]
Dial 1-800-Unionism Is Not the Answer
When the history of public sector de-unionization in the Midwest is written, its sad chroniclers will begin their story in Indiana. That’s where Governor Mitch Daniels paved the way, six years ago, for more recent attacks on workers’ rights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. Daniels, a right-wing Republican, was elected in 2004. He got plenty […]
U.S. Boat to Gaza Is a Quarter Jewish — “Not Too Shabby!”
According to the New York Times, a quarter of the passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza are Jewish. What does it mean that the U.S. Boat to Gaza is a quarter Jewish? According to the noted American Jewish commentator Adam Sandler, a quarter Jewish is “not too shabby!” Maybe the U.S. Boat to Gaza […]
Turkey’s Not-So-Subtle Shift on Syria
An old story from Istanbul in the Ottoman era mentions a Turkish imam who killed a Christian and confessed the crime, whereupon he was advised by the judge to talk things over with the mufti who told him privately that a good Muslim never admitted felony against infidels and he should simply recant his confession. […]
The Battle of Blair Mountain
“In 1921, Blair Mountain, W. Va., was the site of a major milestone in the history of the labor movement when 15,000 union miners took a stand against the coal industry. This week, Blair Mountain may end up being a new milestone in the movement to abolish mountaintop-removal coal mining and perhaps the larger […]
Russia’s U-Turn
Russia went to the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Deauville as an inveterate critic of the “unilateralist” Western intervention in Libya, but came away from the seaside French resort as a mediator between the West and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The United States scored a big diplomatic victory in getting Moscow to work […]
Capitalism, Corruption, and the Subversion of Democracy and Secularism
Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular polity where “babas” and “swamys”, qua “babas” and “swamys”, have no role. Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity. The Left has always rejected this position. It has argued that in […]
Politics and Natural Resources in Eastern Saudi Arabia
Toby Craig Jones. Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. 312 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-04985-7. Toby Craig Jones opens his book, Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia, with a description of a scheme to transport Arctic icebergs to Saudi Arabia in […]
The Becoming of Socialism
Michael A. Lebowitz. The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development. Monthly Review Press, New York, 2010. Michael Lebowitz’s important book portrays a vision of the socialist alternative to capitalism through a synthesis of some of Marx’s most important philosophical arguments concerning human development, revolutionary practice and radical democracy. Developed from his experiences in Hugo Chavez’s […]
Venezuela: GDP Shows Strong Gains in Q1 2011
Venezuela’s central bank (BCV) has released GDP data for the first quarter of 2011. The report points to an accelerating recovery: GDP grew 4.5% over its first-quarter 2010 level. However, if we want to look specifically at the first quarter of 2011, we need seasonally adjusted data so we can compare it to the quarter […]
Ongoing Crisis and Liberal Blindness
The double dip of this crisis is upon us. The latest data agree: the housing market has been in full double-dip mode for five months as home prices keep declining. The foreclosure disaster keeps increasing the combination of homeless families and empty homes. Think capitalist efficiency. Unemployment rose back above 9% again. The average length […]
Humala’s Win in Peru Consolidates Gains for Left, More Independent and Democratic South America
Ollanta Humala’s apparent presidential electoral victory in Peru represents a consolidation of the gains made by left-leaning leaders in South America over the past decade, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today. “Democracy, national and regional independence, and economic and social progress have gone hand-in-hand with South America’s leftward political […]
Macroeconomic Policy, Growth and Income Distribution in the Brazilian Economy in the 2000s
Executive Summary: The Brazilian economy grew by 4.2 percent annually from 2004-2010, more than double its annual growth from 1999-2003 or indeed its growth rate over the prior quarter century. This growth was accompanied by a significant reduction in poverty and extreme poverty, especially after 2005, as well as reduced inequality. This paper looks […]
25,000 People March in Tel Aviv in Support of Palestinian State Based on 1967 Borders
About 25,000 people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv on Saturday evening supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. The march ended with a rally at the Tel Aviv Museum. MKs Dov Khenin (Hadash), Daniel Ben-Simon (Labor), Nino Abesadze (Kadima), and Zahava Galon (Meretz); the Mayor of […]
Muslim Brotherhood and US Representatives at Syrian Opposition Conference in Antalya, Turkey
So Syrian opposition groups met in Antalya. I closely followed that conference and read about their deliberations and received reports about it. There are Syrian leftists who argue with me constantly that I should not reduce the Syrian opposition to lousy Khaddam or lousy Ma’mun Humsi (a tool of Hariri Inc.) or lousy war […]
Why Is the United States Waging Perpetual War against the Cuban People’s Health System?
In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to […]
The “R” Word
With the exception of Marxism, republicanism might be the most abused, misused, and misunderstood of all the political traditions produced by the West. In recent decades, the concept has been selectively appropriated by ideologists from across the political spectrum in service of whatever dismal policy agenda they happen to be flogging at the moment — […]
The Meaning of Financial Liberalisation
The term financial liberalisation is used to cover a whole set of measures, such as the autonomy of the Central Bank from the government; the complete freedom of finance to move into and out of the economy, which implies the full convertibility of the currency; the abandonment of all “priority sector” lending targets; an end […]
