“O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day “Help fund the good fight. By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]
Geography Archives: Asia
Countries in the continent of Asia
Constructive Revenge
“O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day “Help fund the good fight. By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]
The UAW-Big Three Settlements: From Defeat to Rebellion
“Help fund the good fight. By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just got out my checkbook and wrote a check for $100 to the Monthly Review Foundation. That’s on top of my Monthly Review Associate membership, which I […]
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz: Legal Giant of the Left
On November 16, 2007, Victor Rabinowitz, one of the giants of the legal profession and a tireless fighter for social justice, died at the age of 96. One of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild 70 years ago, Victor defended unpopular clients when other lawyers were afraid to touch them. During the McCarthy period, […]
To Our Friends in Bengal
News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism that some of us have experienced during trips to the state. We are concerned about the rancour that has divided the public space, created what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values. It is this that distresses us. […]
El Pueblo, Unido!: Houstonians Protest the War in Iraq
Saturday, November 17. In the energy capital of the US and under a light drizzling rain, a couple of hundred Houstonians marched and rallied against the ongoing oil war against the people of Iraq. Neither the cloudy skies nor the small turnout dampened the spirit of the crowd or the tone of the message. The […]
The G20: The New Ruling Aristocracy of the World?
Introduction On the 17th and 18th of November 2007, the finance ministers and reserve bank governors of the G20 countries, along with leading International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank officials, will be gathering in the seaside village of Kleinmond, South Africa.1 During this meeting — which will be hosted by the current Chair of […]
SEIU v. Aramark: On the Mark and On the Move
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is on the mark in organizing the growing army of service workers in the US, and is on the move in sharp contrast to the industrial unions that have been stalled and subverted by anti-union legislation and massive offshoring (see “The Fight of Our Lives: The War of Attrition […]
Poppin’ Fresh Declares Martial Law
Poppin’ Fresh, chubby little standard-bearer for the mass marketing of lip-smacking glutens, interrupted regularly scheduled TV programming today at 8:46 a.m. to announce the imposition of martial law across the continental United States. “Now, don’t you folks go out of your homes, and don’t you try to stop those roundups in the streets — we’ve […]
Neoliberal Poison
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its November 2007 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. Now that the global counter-revolutionary assault of the last decades has visibly begun to ebb, the time may be near when an account can be rendered of the […]
Twenty Reasons against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran
INTRODUCTION Five years into the US-UK illegal invasion of Iraq and its consequent catastrophe for Iraqi people, peace loving people throughout the world are appalled by the current Iran-US standoff and its resemblance to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The hawks, headed by Dick Cheney in Washington, are now shamelessly calling for […]
A View from the Pakistani Left
In recent days, the already tenuous political situation in Pakistan has made a turn toward the worse. Musharraf’s government clamped down first on the judiciary and other opponents in the government in the first days after his declaration of martial law. More recently, those same forces have prevented even the liberal bourgeois opposition represented by […]
Kurds, Turkey, and the US: Playing with Fire
Once again the Turkish generals threaten to invade areas in Northern Iraq, or, if you want, Southern Kurdistan. Historically, these areas with their flat fields around the Euphrates and Tigris, surrounded by peaked mountaintops, were home to a multitude of religions and cultures, in the way mountainous areas often are. But, after decades of […]
Turkey into the Vortex of the Iraq Quagmire: Another Breach in US Policy
A new dimension of immense importance is being added to the contradictions of US policy in Iraq and the Middle East at large. Turkey, a staunch US ally for over half a century and a NATO member, is threatening to militarily intervene in Northern Iraq, i.e. Iraqi Kurdistan. A resolution was passed by the Turkish […]
Pakistan
This meeting, after thorough discussion of all aspects of the situation arising from the imposition of State of Emergency by the Chief of the Army Staff, resolves as follows: We strongly condemn the imposition of State of Emergency, promulgation of Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), suspension of fundamental rights and the dismantling of the entire […]
Peru Free Trade Agreement Faces Mixed Labor Response
On October 9, the Oregon AFL-CIO passed a resolution opposing the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement and three other pending trade deals with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. A state federation condemning a free trade deal would normally be an unremarkable event, except for the remarkable absence in the Peru case of a typically heavy-weight free […]
Mapping the Human Terrain and Developing Kill Chains:Social Science in Service to Capitalism
Author’s Note: The appearance of General Petraeus’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual, published recently for the US book trade by the University of Chicago Press, has created a stir because of charges of pilfered scholarship, damage to the reputation of UC, and the role of anthropologist Montgomery McFate in writing the book. The mission of social science […]
Financial Capital: Crises Are Part of the Game
Everything went well during the summer of 2007. The economy was in an upswing and stock-market prices rose even faster. Then the end of the housing boom in the United States triggered an international financial crisis. Up to now it has been contained by heavy central-bank intervention; but the euphoria is gone. The world of […]
“We Would Like to See Them Work Together”
From Dictatorship Watch, via Al Musawwir. | | Print
Abuse of Iran’s President in New York Fits a Pattern
Many Iranians, ranging from university presidents in Iran to immigrants here in the United States, feel insulted by the treatment president Ahmadinejad received in New York in September. This is understandable, coming in the midst of a larger media campaign to demonize Iran, including the newspaper cartoon last month that depicted Iranians as cockroaches crawling […]
