Geography Archives: Sweden

When the Crash of 2008 hit Wall Street, European capitalism was thrown into disarray.  With the demise of the export-absorbing monster that was the US consumer market, what in 2003 Joseph Halevi and I called “The Global Minotaur” (see Monthly Review, Vol. 55), Europe not only lost a critical source of aggregate demand but also […]

Imagine a world ravaged by a plague, and suppose that the year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded to researchers whose whole career is based on the assumption that plagues are impossible.  The world would have been outraged.  That is precisely how we should feel about yesterday’s announcement of the recipients of the 2010 Nobel […]

Once again the time has come in Germany for bells to ring, fireworks to explode, politicians to declaim, and media to drench us with joyful, endless reminders of events of twenty years ago and the evils they overcame.  Last November it was the Fall of the Wall.  Now it’s German Unity which is so loudly […]

An alarming trend is sweeping Europe.  Far-right parties, using anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric, have made electoral gains in several European countries.  In the June European parliament elections, these parties were able to garner votes in a way they haven’t before.  The British National Party (BNP), which has its roots in fascist parties of the past, […]

Angela Merkel always seems to smile when she faces a camera.  Only once in a while does an unnoticed camera show her looking tired, if not worn and slightly haggard. Things are not all going her way.  More and more people are moving in Germany, mostly in the wrong direction, at least for Merkel.  In […]

The ruling center-right coalition (of the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberal Party, and the Christian Democrats) wins re-election (49.3%), a first in Swedish history, albeit three seats short of an absolute majority; and the far-right Sweden Democrats (5.7%) gain seats, also for the first time.  Both the Moderate Party (up 3.9%) and the […]

I recently returned from the quadrennial International Sociology Association’s World Congress held in Gothenburg, Sweden.  It’s kind of like the World Cup of sociology.  There I sat in on a session organized by the Iranian Sociology Association, where a few presenters, including its president Hossein Serajzadeh, discussed the state of social science in Iran.  I […]

  Justin Pemberton, dir.  The Nuclear Comeback.  DVD. New York: Icarus Films, 2007.  53 minutes. Are we on the brink of a nuclear revival?  Should we be?  The Nuclear Comeback, an absorbing documentary video, is titled declaratively but sprinkles question marks.  The Nuclear Comeback embarks on a tour of some of the high and low […]

Not very long ago, one of the main concerns of the U.S. labor movement and left-liberals was winning the passage of a full employment policy at the federal level.  In fact, this goal was attained in 1978 when Congress passed and President Carter signed the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, which ostensibly committed the federal government […]

International Solidarity Movement 31 May 2010, Free Gaza Movement Israel Murders at Least 10 Unarmed Civilians on Aid Flotilla to Gaza, Dozens Injured (Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30AM local) — Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos from at least 14 warships and military helicopters boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began shooting.  According […]

Brazil’s Ascent under Lula’s Leadership Under the leadership of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has become a regional leader in Latin America with vibrant international foreign policy.  A look at the internal political dynamics of Brazil would be useful also.  During President Lula’s presidency, Brazil has had tremendous economic growth.  But in the coming […]

Tony Judt.  Ill Fares the Land.  The Penguin Press, 2010.  237 pp.  $25.95. In December, the New York Review of Books transcribed an October 2009 speech delivered by the eminent historian Tony Judt at New York University under the title “What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?”  A major address by Judt […]

April 3, 2010 Istanbul, Turkey — Following months of preparation, a coalition bringing together a number of organizations and movements working to break Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza was announced yesterday in Istanbul.  The coalition, composed of the Turkey-based IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi) organization, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), the […]

The 18th annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival, which takes place yearly during Black History Month, is one of Los Angeles’ cultural jewels.  Arguably America’s top Black movie venue, PAFF is a leading U.S. showcase for independent, studio, student, foreign (especially African) political and progressive pictures.  Many movies have their U.S. debuts at this […]

  On the occasion of the presentation of El socialismo no cae del cielo: un nuevo comienzo at the 2010 Havana Book Fair, 18 February 2010 There’s an old saying that if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.  As I’ve said on many occasions, this saying is […]

The Berlin anti-fascists waiting near the Spree River at 4:30 AM for the buses to Dresden were sleepy, cold, and nervous.  Not without reason.  Some had faced the Nazis a year earlier.  Every year these latter-day storm troopers try to misuse the emotions of Dresdeners mourning the loss of 25,000 to 35 000 people in […]

An important and perhaps growing feature of official and strong-interest-group propaganda is the resort to personal attacks and flak to keep dissidents at bay and inconvenient thoughts out of sight and mind.  This has been notable over many years in the case of pro-Israel propaganda, where we can observe a positive correlation between upward spikes […]

The signs of recession are more noticeable to those who live here — restaurants and coffee shops have lost most of their customers, and construction has practically ground to a halt.  Emigration has soared. Latvia has set a world-historical record by losing more than 24 percent of its economy in just two years.  The International […]

“Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves.  But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” — Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987 “We call on other workers and unions […]

In the months following the outbreak of the financial crisis in late 2007, the general climate among economists and economic commentators was kind of a stupor.  Mainstream economists and conservative politicians — who had clamored for decades for the government to keep its hands off the economy, for balanced budgets, and for taxes as low […]