RAILROADING ECONOMICS: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology by Michael PerelmanBUY THIS BOOKRead Michael Perelman’s blog: UNSETTLING ECONOMICS: A Progressive Look at Economics and the Rest of the Screwed Up World. Michael Perlman is a longtime professor of economics at California State University, Chico. A prolific author, his newest book is titled Railroading Economics: […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
A Marxist Poet: The Legacy of Gillo Pontecorvo
Pauline Kael, the American film critic, once said that Gillo Pontecorvo was the most dangerous kind of Marxist: a Marxist poet. When the Italian film director died last week at the age of 86, he had not made a full-length feature in over twenty-five years. Yet the potency of Pontecorvo’s firebrand poetry can still be […]
Faith in the “War with Islam”
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris. Norton, New York, 2004. ISBN 0-393-03515-8. 336 pp. Cloth $24.95. Sam Harris’ The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason is unusual among books recently issued by mainline publishers in that it begins by rejecting all religious faiths […]
How to Stay Out of Gitmo
In case you’ve been too stunned by other newsworthy disasters to pay proper attention, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was just signed into law. This law gives the U.S. government legal permission to do things they’ve been doing sub-legally for years, such as: designate people as “unlawful enemy combatants”; deny these people the right […]
Current Challenges to Feminism: Theory and Practice
For much of the period from the 70s through the 80s, I was quite concerned with the way in which Third World movements for national liberation were sidelining women’s issues and relegating these to the background. In this piece I centerstage the Philippines which I believe may serve as an illustrative case. Let me try […]
Gazing into the Future: Wal-Mart & the Unions
What’s the wave of the future for the United States in the 21st century? You couldn’t go far wrong by answering, “Wal-Mart.” In the case of the giant chain store, it might be fair to say “tsunami of the future.” The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, together with the Teamsters Union, has lately been […]
Tangled Up in the Milieu: An Interview with Max Elbaum, Author of Revolution in the Air
REVOLUTION IN THE AIR: Sixties Radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che by Max ElbaumBUY THIS BOOK I first met Max Elbaum in Vermont in 2002 at a conference against the war organized by the Burlington (VT) Anti War Coalition. We had communicated via email and telephone before about his book Revolution in the Air […]
All the Economics You Need to Know in One Lesson
CHEAP MOTELS AND A HOTPLATE: An Economist’s Travelogue by Michael D. Yates ORDER THIS BOOK This essay complements my forthcoming book: Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate: an Economist’s Travelogue (Monthly Review Press). We Meet an Economist Karen and I were hiking in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the Atalaya Mountain Trail, which begins […]
Israel between Two Wars: Olmert, Lieberman, and Washington’s Agenda
Olmert and Lieberman Just what we needed. The government is running hard in order to avoid the appointment of an authentic Judicial Investigative Committee, i.e., one with wide powers. Our Prime Minister is busy preparing himself for investigations into his all “too-successful” real estate deals. His popularity rating hovers at a magnificent 7%. But Ehud […]
Latin America: The Empty Continent
The Spanish and Portuguese colonization of America is still a kind of theoretical no-man’s land and a political taboo. One can easily understand why Spanish and Portuguese intellectuals avoid any discussion of the topic. Remember the magnificent Centennials of both the Spanish discovery of the Caribbean and the Portuguese discovery of Brazil. Any critical […]
Brazil: What Is at Stake in the Second Round [Brasil: Lo que está en juego en la segunda vuelta]
Nadie puede ser neutro, nadie puede ser equidistante, nadie puede ser indiferente Lo que está en juego en la segunda vuelta no es apenas si Petrobras va a ser privatizada — como afirmó el asesor de Alckmin, Mendonça de Barros a la revista Exame — y, si con ella, también el Banco de Brasil, la […]
General Transportation Strike Looming in 2008?Expiring Master Contracts Give Unions Enormous Leverage . . . If They Seize the Moment
Millions of dollars worth of goods sat unmoved on the docks of the United States’ largest port, Los Angeles/Long Beach, as port truckers, mostly Latino immigrants, struck on May 1. Despite being organized only informally in small networks, the truckers were able to use their position at a vital point in the economy to […]
Marathon for Peace — Report
“There’ve been times that I’ve thought I couldn’t last for long But now I think I’m able to carry on It’s been a long time coming But I know a change is gonna come” – Sam Cooke Dear family & friends, With Sam Cooke’s lyrics on my mind, I ran my “Marathon for Peace” Sunday […]
To End the Israeli-Arab Conflict [En finir avec le conflit israélo-arabe]
Nous appelons, alors que le Moyen-Orient est plongé dans sa crise la plus grave depuis des années, à une action urgente de la part de la communauté internationale en vue d’un règlement global au conflit israélo-arabe. Nous sommes tous perdants dans ce conflit, à l’exception des extrémistes, qui prospèrent à travers le monde en exploitant […]
Devil’s on the Loose: A Review of Forrest Hylton’s Evil Hour in Colombia
EVIL HOUR IN COLOMBIA by Forrest HyltonBUY THIS BOOK There was a period in the 1990s when I honestly thought that Colombia would become Washington’s next Vietnam. Instead, it turns out that the counterinsurgency assisted financially and militarily by Washington is more like the so-called low-intensity conflicts waged by Washington and its clients in Central […]
Oppose H.R. 6198, the “Iran Freedom Support Act”
On Friday the Senate is expected to vote on legislation passed Thursday by the House that would tighten U.S. sanctions on Iran and on our allies who trade with Iran. This legislation would undermine the negotiations with Iran that are currently taking place in Europe. Press reports have indicated that the talks in Europe could […]
Lebanon: Reflexions and Lessons [Liban: Réflexions et Leçons]
Face à l’évènement, certains veulent faire supporter à la Résistance tout le poids de cette guerre. C’est endosser l’erreur. La grande majorité des analystes politiques internationaux savent que cette guerre était prévue à courte échéance, avec ou sans prétexte ; Israël ne manque pas d’en créer au besoin. Souvenons-nous de l’invasion de 1982 : […]
The Privatization of God
Custom-made for the Consumer In the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, a genius of mathematics, wrote that men never do evil with greater pleasure than when they do it with religious conviction. This idea — from a deeply religious man — has taken a variety of different forms since. During the last century, the greatest crimes […]
It’s Not Race or Class — It’s Race and Class: An Interview with Roderick Bush
WE ARE NOT WHAT WE SEEM: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century by Roderick D. BushBUY THIS BOOK Roderick Bush is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at St. John’s University in New York. He is the author of We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in […]
Venezuela and South Africa: Redistributive Policies vs. Neo-liberal Economic Policies
Traveling to both Venezuela and South Africa this past summer, through my work as an academic sociologist, I was able to observe firsthand two radically different approaches to “third world” development: a “redistributive approach” in Venezuela, and a set of basically neo-liberal economic policies in South Africa. Although this was not a consciously designed research […]
