Geography Archives: France

It’s a rare thing to find a group of musicians who are willing to stick to their guns like Radio 4 has.  Independently minded, with an eclectic sound and lyrics that eloquently call for radical social change, they have spent the better part of a decade carving out a niche for themselves. Not an easy […]

Así como en teología el mismo Cristo sirve para justificar la acumulación de capitales o para suprimir al prójimo en nombre del amor, así también la historia de los oprimidos sirve para crear mitos e ideoléxicos incuestionables, a la medida del poder de turno: el patriotismo, la libertad, la salvación del mundo,nuestro derecho de aplastar […]

P. Profesor Dieterich, ¿Usted inventó el concepto “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”? R. Sí. Lo elaboré a partir de 1996.  Fue publicado junto con la teoría correspondiente en forma de libro, a partir del 2000 en México, Ecuador, Argentina, Centroamérica, Brasil, Venezuela y, fuera de América Latina, en España, Alemania, la República Popular de China, Rusia […]

  Annual Fundraising AppealFriends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]

The House of Commons voted on November 27 to support a Tory government motion that “the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.”  What does it mean?  And why now? The second question is easier to answer.  The motion was triggered by an unexpected turn of events.  Michael Ignatieff, in his quest for the […]

Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers.  Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge.  We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]

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 […]

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 […]

1. Introduction This commentary is offered as a contribution to the ongoing debate on the Bamako Appeal.  On the 18th of January, on the day preceding the start of the Polycentric World Social Forum in Bamako, Mali, a conference was held in the same capital, commemorating the holding of the Bandung Conference 50 years back.  […]

Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel’s colonization of Palestine.  Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the […]

  Paul LeBlanc Paul LeBlanc is what I have called an “organic intellectual,” a scholar and activist who has risen directly out of the working class.  Paul is the author of many books, including A Short History of the U.S. Working Class (Humanity Books, 1999) and Black Liberation and the American Dream (Humanity Books 2003), […]

One of the neocon myths that has gained currency post-9/11 asserts, referring to opponents of Israel and the United States, that “they are against who we are, not what we do.”  Hence, the argument concludes, there is nothing we can do to diminish their antagonism.  A variant of this fiction is that Iran’s Islamic elite […]

The View of the Lebanese Communist Party on the Latest Developments Friday, 21 July 2006 The Situation on the Ground The Israeli enemy has continued making intensive air strikes at the districts and villages in the south, turning southern villages into isolated islands.  Meanwhile the intensity of the bombardment on other parts of the country […]

The “beautiful game” bade him a cruel farewell, much of polite society denounced him, and the FIFA president threatened to take back his Golden Ball award.  But some things just don’t change.  An adoring crowd in Paris gave the Les Bleus a heroes’ welcome and Zizou the farewell he deserved.  The French President could have […]

How welcomes can vary in content within one week in Germany! In the past four weeks, Germany was seized by a soccer fever which sometimes seemed almost alarming.  The outdoor temperature was steadily hot and dry, but it was the hot fever of flag-waving patriotism — or was it nationalism — which affected so many. […]

I am so tired of hearing Tel Aviv complain that certain Palestinian factions do not recognize Israel’s right to exist.  Regardless of their opinion of Israel’s right, even Hamas leaders have stated that the fact is that Israel does exist.  Meanwhile, Israel is once again waging a military campaign against the Palestinians that, in essence, […]

I watched the World Cup match of Iran and Mexico — two peoples with whom Washington is at odds! — on 11 June, with my Iranian friends (mainly men).  So I adopted Iran as my team for the day. Knowing little about Iranian footballers, before the match began, I told my friends to point out […]

“Filipino writers in the Philippines [and the United States] have a great task ahead of them, but also a great future.  The field is wide open.  They should rewrite everything written about the Philippines and the Filipino people from the materialist, dialectical point of view — this being, the only [way] to understand and interpret […]

From Paris, March 2006 Students and workers in France have forged a powerful alliance against the government and its neo-liberal economic policies.  Mass organizations of high school and university students, all three federations of unions, and all left parties are coordinating actions together.  This alliance is shaking the French government in ways and to depths […]

Le succès des arrêts de travail, des grèves et la puissance des manifestations du 28 mars, leur caractère unitaire et intergénérationnel, tout comme la durée du mouvement et son ampleur dans les lycées et universités montrent une mobilisation historique, pour exiger le retrait du CPE et l’ouverture de négociations. II est urgent que les plus […]