During my teaching career I’ve worked under nine different superintendents. I’ve taught for nearly 30 years, so the average reign of a Milwaukee superintendent has been a little over three years, about normal for big city school districts. While some people, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, decry these short tenures as a […]
Geography Archives: United States
Stepwise Revolutionary Advance in Nepal
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its November 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We last commented on events in Nepal in our May editorial, following the attempt of the ceremonial president to exercise royal authority by “countermanding” the decision of the […]
Global Pollution
North versus South Cf. SOURCE: Financial Times, 18 October 2009 Laz (Humberto Lázaro Miranda Ramírez) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was first published by Juventud Rebelde. | | Print
The “Just Something” Rule
I read volume 1 of Marx’s Capital while working on a production line in a food factory. I don’t mean I read it during my tea breaks, I read it while “working” on the line. I had an injury and was doing a ‘quality control’ job which entailed sitting next to a conveyor watching […]
Roots of Capitalist Stability and Instability
Prabhat Patnaik. The Value of Money. New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2008/New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Excerpt: “Introduction.” Prabhat Patnaik is an eminent and prolific economist who has worked creatively for 40 years at the intersection of Marxian and Keynesian theoretical traditions. In addition to his writings on Marxism and Keynesianism per se, he has […]
Bringing Empire Home
Alfred W. McCoy. Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. In the build-up to the Iraq and Afghan wars, liberal humanitarians and neoconservatives alike bantered on and on about the necessity of empire and its capability of removing tyrannical […]
U.S. Must Solve Its Own Economic Problems
President Obama will go to Asia and has promised to say something about the exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the U.S. dollar. It would be good if some enterprising journalist asked him why the United States is worried about the Chinese dumping their dollars, and why U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said […]
Our Corrupt Occupation of Afghanistan
Is it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome? There is something very Captain Renault about it. We’re shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be? But perhaps we should consider […]
Freedom Dance Party
Saturday, November 14th, from 7 to 11 PM @ the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center for 1199 SEIU 310 W. 43rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues, Manhattan, NYC Dance performance by the Het Heru Healing Dancers and special surprise guests. Admission: $20 Food and beverages will be sold All proceeds go to […]
Disaster Imperialism, Starring the Starving of the Earth: The End of Poverty?
The End of Poverty? is a kind of bookend to Capitalism: A Love Story: if Michael Moore’s movie examines how private enterprise operates at home, writer/director Philippe Diaz ‘s documentary explores what happens when that economic system is exported to the Third World. As scathing exposes of exploitation these nonfiction films share much — ironic […]
On House Resolution 867: The Real Issue Is the Israeli Occupation
On 3 November 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted 344-36 in favor of House Resolution 867, making it Congress’ official response to the 575-page Report submitted by Justice Richard J. Goldstone to the United Nations Human Rights Council at the conclusion of a “fact-finding” mission on the Gaza conflict. The Resolution does little […]
Goldstonewalled! US Congress Endorses Israeli War Crimes
“It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.” — Edward Said On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to “oppose unequivocally […]
A Hundred Cities against Escalation As the President Announces It
Recent press speculation suggests at least even odds that, sometime in November, President Obama will give a speech announcing that he intends to send tens of thousands of more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in 2010. Not a temporary “surge,” but a permanent escalation. While certainly it’s good news — at least temporarily — that AP […]
Crisis of the Capitalist System: Where Do We Go from Here?
The Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009 In 1982, I published a book, jointly with Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, and Andre Gunder Frank, entitled Dynamics of Global Crisis. This was not its original title. We had proposed the title, Crisis, What Crisis? The U.S. publisher did not like that title, but we […]
Say No to Health Care Legislation That Creates More Inequality
Kill so-called health care reform legislation UNLESS: 1) the public option is available to ALL; 2) the status quo ante is restored for private insurance coverage of reproductive decisions, including abortion; 3) public option coverage for individuals honors the complete reproductive rights of individuals; 4) the provision for government intervention into low income families […]
A Failed Economy
Amandla: Early in 2009 you published your book The Great Financial Crisis (coauthored with Fred Magdoff). Could you reflect now almost a year later on what made the current recession more severe than previous recessions? Why has it been compared to the Great Depression and what type of recovery are we likely to see? […]
Academic Freedom in Name and Practice at Purdue
If you were to wander about campus asking students at Purdue about the distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois in Chicago who was invited to speak at Purdue, or about the Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Class, Race, and Gender Inequality’s inaugural presentation on the challenges facing urban schools, […]
U.S. Public Diplomacy toward Iran: Structures, Actors, and Policy Communities
Abstract: This dissertation is an in-depth study of the structures, actors, and policy communities associated with U.S. public diplomacy toward Iran. Since 2006, the U.S. government has spent more than $200 million for its Iran-related public diplomacy via State Department “democracy promotion” programs, National Endowment for Democracy, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. These […]
Green Shoots, Profits, and Great Depressions (or Recessions)
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 […]
“Obama’s Foreign Policy Report Card”: Juan Cole Grades His President — and Very Positively
Juan Cole’s very positive report card for President Barack Obama’s foreign policy is a bit shocking, given his knowledge and frequent enlightening comments. (“Obama’s Foreign Policy Report Card,” Salon, October 27, 2009.1) “[Obama] receives his lowest grade for his failure to force America’s chattering classes to take notice,” Cole judges — policy issues resolve into […]
