If the G-20 is going to be nothing more than a talking shop on economic issues, they ought to at least talk about the economic problems that really matter, and the ones that they can do something about. Not that currency values don’t matter — they are actually very important. And it is interesting to […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
After the Midterm Elections: Hawks Up the Pressure for Military Action and Obama Sets Iran Up for More Sanctions
Tony Karon has another sharp piece this week, entitled “Israel Pressed for a Tougher U.S. Line on Iran.” For some time now, we have been forecasting an intensification of pressure on the Obama Administration, by Israel and pro-Israel constituencies in the United States, for U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It appears that the […]
Germany: Greens Rise as the Left Party Struggles . . . with Itself
Using ropes, some young people descended halfway from railroad bridges to force the train to stop. Others hastily grabbed stones out from under the tracks and in this way prevent their use. Far more, young and old from all over Germany, simply sat down on the tracks until police carried them away. Banners and witty, […]
Lessons from a Congressional Campaign
I ran as an independent candidate for Congress in Massachusetts against a visibly tired and increasingly unpopular but entrenched liberal Democratic incumbent, and a Tea Party Republican. My message was, “The old system is broken — let’s start building a new one!” I stated that I wanted to fight what I described as the trend […]
The Tea Party
The Tea Party: The Atavistic Wing of the Republican Party Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 5 November 2010. | Print
A Modest Proposal for Overcoming the Euro Crisis
It is now abundantly clear that each and every response by the eurozone (EZ) to the galloping sovereign debt crisis has been consistently underwhelming. This includes the joint EZ-IMF operation, back in May, to “rescue” Greece and, in short order, the quite remarkable overnight formation of a so-called “special vehicle” (officially the European Financial Stability […]
Strong Unions Are the Best Hope inside Capitalism: Interview with Michael D. Yates
The San Jose Mine incident in Chile has brought back old questions about labor and capital. About those questions, raised by the 33 miners’ struggle to survive, I interviewed Michael D. Yates, Associate Editor of Monthly Review. Yates was for many years professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, USA. He is […]
Wages and Deflation in Japan
Wages and Depressions Sooner or later any bubble bursts, leading to falling asset prices as investors flee to safe liquidity. Distress selling and debt liquidation by the market participants follow. For Irving Fisher (1933), it is of key importance that an asset price deflation leads — via falling asset prices and a distorted financial […]
An Ambivalent Reading of Marxism and Utopianism
Vincent Geoghegan. Utopianism and Marxism. Oxford et al: Peter Lang, 2008. pp. 189. ISBN: 3039101374. In his contribution to Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth, Alain Badiou forcefully argues that the century, “between 1917 and the end of the 1970s, is not at all a century of ideologies, or the imaginary or of […]
Dilma’s Victory in Brazil
Like the rally led by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central that brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of Washington DC on Saturday, Brazil’s election on Sunday was a contest of “Restore Sanity” versus “Keep Fear Alive.” Dilma Rousseff of the governing Worker’s Party coasted to victory against the opposition […]
Speaking of Islam: An Orwellian Story
A few metres from my office at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the heart of London’s Bloomsbury area is the Senate House of the University of London, a remarkable neo-classical colossus of a building which functioned as the headquarters of Britain’s ministry of information, where George Orwell worked occasionally during the second […]
The Globalising Wall
Walls have a longstanding relation both with freedom from fear and subjugation to another’s will. After 1945, walls acquired an unprecedented determination to divide. They spread like a bushfire from Berlin to Palestine, from the tablelands of Kashmir to the villages of Cyprus, from the Korean peninsula to the streets of Belfast. When the Cold […]
Thinking About the American Left and Die Linke
The North Atlantic Left Dialogue (NALD), by bringing North Americans and Europeans together, allows participants to reflect on their own situation through the lens of the thinking of other leftists who face similar political issues in different contexts. There are commonalities in the division between social movements on the one hand and political parties/labor organizations […]
French Trade Unions: Going All the Way or Just Going Along to Get Along?
One of the key elements of the current new movement against the retirement reform is the unity of trade unions, which has so far survived. This unity of trade union leadership is perceived by a large section of workers, as well as by the population in general, as an asset, a fulcrum of the […]
Reading a History of Failure in America
Scott A. Sandage. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. x + 362 pp. $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-674-02107-5. In the epilogue of Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, Scott A. Sandage quotes a pivotal line from Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, that haunts his […]
The IMF and Economic Recovery: Is Fund Policy Contributing to Downside Risks?
Introduction The IMF’s most recent World Economic Outlook (WEO) projects world economic growth will slow, from 4.8 percent in 2010 to 4.2 percent next year. Throughout the report, there are numerous concerns expressed about the “fragility” of the global economic recovery. The Acting Chair of the Executive Board states that “[t]he recovery is losing momentum […]
Chronicles of Insurrection: Tronti, Negri and the Subject of Antagonism
Once I went to May Day. I never got workers’ festivities. The day of work, are you kidding? The day of workers celebrating themselves. I never got it into my head what workers’ day or the day of work meant. I never got it into my head why work should be celebrated. But when I […]
Zapatero’s Wink to the Left
Zapatero winks to the Left . . . and gets back to the business of cuts. Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 22 October 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi […]
Iran and Honduras in the Propaganda System: Part 2, The 2009 Iranian and Honduran Elections
As we stated at the outset of Part 1,1 there is no better test of the independence and integrity of the establishment U.S. media than in their comparative treatment of Iran and Honduras in 2009 and 2010. Iran held its most recent presidential election on June 12, 2009. This followed a typically short three-week campaign […]
G20: The United States and Neo-mercantilism
Here comes the travail of crisis. The more they talk about coordination, the more it becomes necessary to concentrate on the conflicts revealed by the very talk of coordination. The G20 finance ministers’ meeting, held in South Korea on Friday, has already been mortgaged by the case opened by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner regarding […]
