“An economic recovery has begun.” — President Obama, Second Inaugural Address President Obama’s optimism — baseless as it may be — was surely appreciated at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. For in what was described as the “most optimistic” meeting since 2007, 2,600 members of the global elite convened over the weekend […]
Geography Archives: United States
Zero Dark Thirty: The Woman’s Guide to Success Thru Torture
I. The Globe See the Globe. More than half the 7 billion people on the Globe are women. Women are different from men. Why are women different from men? Because, according to international humanitarian agencies, women have special percentages that stick out. See women’s percentages: Women make up 70% of the world’s poor. Women do […]
The Kurdish Rebellion in Syria: Toward Irreversible Liberation
The Kurds in Syria, the country’s largest ethnic minority, number an estimated three million. Despite having stayed neutral amid the civil war, they now control most of Syria’s Kurdish north they claim they have “liberated” from the Ba’athist regime and self-govern independently of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA). Although many Kurds still fear “re-occupation” […]
Dear President Obama, Why Sanction the Iranian People?
Dear President Obama, Applauding your humane reaction to the recent school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, we wonder if you would also shed a tear for the plight of the Iranian people caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, as a result of the sanctions imposed on them by the international community. Heart-wrenching […]
Capitalism, Crises, and a Socialist Alternative: In Conversation With Michael A. Lebowitz
Rebekah Wetmore and Ryan Romard (RW/RR): The crisis of world capitalism starting in 2007 was the most severe crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression and thus far the recovery, both globally and within Canada, has been weak at best. With this mind, to what extent is the current crisis cyclical and in what […]
An Unnamed Woman Tortured to Death by Rape in Delhi and the Death of Aaron Swartz; The Degrees of Responsibility — Carmen Ortiz, Manohar Lal Sharma and Colonel Lama
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its January 2013 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We know nothing about the beliefs of the canon (religious) lawyers among the Christians, but can safely assume that they would consider it a sign of movement in […]
Zero Dark Thirty: Torturing the Facts
On January 11, eleven years to the day after George W. Bush sent the first detainees to Guantanamo, the Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty is making its national debut. Zero Dark Thirty is disturbing for two reasons. First and foremost, it leaves the viewer with the erroneous impression that torture helped the CIA find bin […]
Seeking Security in Afghanistan
January 10, 2013 This week, in Washington, D.C., Presidents Obama and Karzai will discuss a proposed Bilateral Security Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. Presumably, they’ll note some of the main security problems Afghanistan faces. The people of Afghanistan have only seen cosmetic improvement in their living conditions. UNICEF reports that 36% of […]
Interview with Gianni Vattimo: “Only Weak Communism Can Save Us”
Is it true that you are communist? What else can one be, the way things are? Communism left 70 million dead. . . That wasn’t communism. What was it, then? Industrialism. Lenin proposed electrification plus soviets, that is to say, popular control . . . but popular control evaporated! And what remained? Industrialism. Stalin imposed […]
Connection to the Land Cannot Be Broken: The Struggle for Land Rights Near the Gaza Border
Gaza City, December 15th, 2012 Yesterday in al-Faraheen, Gaza, Israeli Occupation Forces shot and wounded an unarmed 22-year-old farmer, Mohammed Qdeih, from behind. Mohamed and nine others went out to their fields in the early afternoon, walking approximately 250 meters from the Israeli border. Within minutes, two heavily armed Israeli military jeeps rushed to the […]
David Ravelo and the Fight for Colombia
Colombian political prisoner David Ravelo, jailed since September 14, 2010, learned late in November 2012 that he had been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in jail. His case, based on spurious evidence, reflects epic military, police, and judicial repression carried out under a regime of big landowners and the urban elite. After 50 years […]
The Rise of a New, Revived Form of Liberal Interventionism
Opening Plenary, “Media and War: Challenging the Consensus” Conference, Goldsmiths, London, UK, 17 November 2012 Seumas Milne: We’ve seen the rise of a new, revived form of liberal interventionism, or humanitarian interventionism, in the last couple of years, and the key to it is the idea that there mustn’t be too many boots on the […]
No Safe Haven: Civilians Under Attack in the Gaza Strip
Salem Waqef (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw) Haneen Tafesh (Photo: Gisela Schmidt-Martin) Ahmed Durghmush (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw) Basma Mahmoud el Tourouq (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw) Mohammed Abu Amsha (Photo: Gisela Schmidt-Martin) Zuhdiye Samour (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw) Duaa Hejazi (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw) Gaza City, 16 November 2012 The Israeli attacks across the Gaza […]
The Sad Legacy of Moose Dung and Red Robe
Squaw Point today (photo by David Thorstad)Silent City (photo by David Thorstad) In 1904, the Ojibwe village at Thief River Falls, in northwest Minnesota, was removed to the Red Lake Indian Reservation to the east, much diminished after the tribe’s cession of 256,152 acres between the reservation and Thief River Falls (known as the eleven […]
Whose War? The War of 1812
Centennials, bicentennials, and other historical anniversaries — not to mention annual holidays — play a major role in the legitimation of power relations. And they can be sharp ideological battlegrounds like Columbus Day. This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812, an inconclusive two and a half-year war with Great Britain […]
Police on Playback — Copwatch in New York City
Stories of police brutality are often told in a way that casts victims as helpless bystanders of cops run amok. We met with Sean Pagan, a recent victim of police violence, and found that his story changes how we think about policing in New York. Sean’s story shows that communities are finding new and […]
The Gift of the True Organizer
In 2003 when I was researching work to rule — a process by which workers slow down production, drive up costs, and thereby leverage negotiations — I called Dave Yettaw. Dave, a retired auto worker and former president of Flint UAW Local 599, was an old hand and a trusted advisor. Dave told me that […]
The Threat of Barbarism: US Imperialism Unleashed
With signs of a global economic downturn mounting, US aggression across the Middle East and North Africa ratchets up. Once again, US imperialism stands poised to open the gates of Hell. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report released last week, the “risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high.” The report projects […]
Candlelit Vigil to Honor Martyrs of the Maspero Massacre
Candlelit Vigil to Honor Martyrs of the Maspero Massacre Friday, 12th October 2012, 7:00 PM Union Square, Manhattan October 9, 2012 marked the one year anniversary of what has come to be known as the Maspero massacre, one of the numerous bloody attacks deliberately orchestrated and executed by counterrevolutionary forces under the direction of […]
All Sorts of Roguery? The ‘Financial Aristocracy’ and Government à Bon Marché in India
My voice is a crime, My thoughts anarchy, Because I do not sing to their tunes, I do not carry them on my shoulders. — Cherabandaraju, who was the lead accused in a “conspiracy case” involving poets and their poetry. It’s been two decades and a year since India’s elite embraced neo-liberalism. Money — the […]
