7 May 2009 — The All Nepal Women’s Association – Revolutionary (ANWA-R) protested against President Ram Baran Yadav’s unconstitutional reinstatement of the Chief of Army Staff, General Rookmangud Katawal, despite the cabinet’s decision to fire him. The protesters said that the president’s move threatens the civilian rule and democracy. For the background, watch Ben Peterson, […]
Subjects Archives: Marxism
Paraguay: Protests and Rubber Bullets Greet Return of Dictatorship Criminal
Workers and activists gathered in the central plaza of Asunción, Paraguay on May 1st to commemorate International Workers Day. Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo marked the day by raising the minimum wage by 5%, half of what many of the unions present were demanding. But another piece of news set the tone for this annual gathering: […]
Sex Workers March on May Day in India
Sex workers from Kolkata took to the streets in their dozens to demand the legalization of the world’s oldest profession on International Labor Day. Sonagachi is the biggest red light district in Kolkata and one of the largest in Asia. Around 500 sex workers took part in the march, which was organized by a […]
Re-visiting Race and Class in “The Age of Obama”
Remarks delivered at the Thomas Foley Institute, Washington State University,, Pullman, Washington, April 18, 2009 Recently appointed Attorney General Eric Holder, whose parents hail from the Barbados, aroused instant ire when he remarked last February 18 that the U.S. remains a “nation of cowards” for not talking enough about things racial. But is this […]
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built: The Cases of Margo Ramlal Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart
Earlier this month, the jury in Ward Churchill‘s civil trial against the University of Colorado found, in his favor, that the university had fired him because of critical remarks he made after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While Churchill awaits a hearing on his ongoing employment at the university, this victory is […]
A Secret Heliotropism of May 1968
“The class struggle, which is always present to a historian influenced by Marx, is a fight for the crude and material things without which no refined or spiritual things could exist. Nevertheless, it is not in the form of the spoils which fall to the victor that the latter make their presence felt. [. […]
Images of Women in the Maghreb: Persistent Clichés and Changing Realities
L’image de la femme au Maghreb (Images of Women in the Maghreb), a collection of articles edited by Barzakh in Algeria and by Actes Sud and the Mediterranean Center for the Humanities (MMSH) in France, is a work of research by four writers on the representation of women in their countries. The project was […]
The Making of a Marxist in Capitalist Crisis
Four Lectures on Marxism (Monthly Review Press, 1981). Reprinted by Cornerstone Publications, Kharagpur, West Bengal. ISBN 978-81-88401-17-8. Rs 55. pp 97 Back in the dog days of the Great Depression, “a very bourgeois American first-year graduate student” (as he would describe himself in a letter to a friend decades later) from Harvard landed in […]
Latin America Changes: Hunger Strikes in Bolivia, Summits in the Caribbean
After Bolivia beat the Argentine soccer team led by legendary Diego Maradona by 6 to 1, Maradona told reporters, “Every Bolivia goal was a stab in my heart.” Bolivia was expected to lose the April 1 match as Argentina is ranked as the 6th best soccer team in the world, and Maradona enjoys godlike status […]
21st Century Socialism on the Move — Reflections on “The Path for Human Development”
Within an otherwise bleak reality of capitalist crisis, Mike Lebowitz has provided us with an eloquent restatement of the case for socialism — The Path for Human Development: Capitalism or Socialism? This short text is now circulating widely in Venezuela, in Spanish, as a pocket-sized pamphlet, has been published in Monthly Review, and is […]
Deconstructing Labor: What Is “New” in Contemporary Capitalism and Economic Policies: a Marxian-Kaleckian Perspective
Paper presented at the Congrès Marx International V, Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre, October 2007 1. Introduction About a decade ago the radical left, both in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, had been gripped by an understanding of contemporary capitalism as based on a three-pronged tendency: ‘globalization’ as an already accomplished state, the ‘end of labor’ due […]
Summer 2009 Medical Mission to Treat Iraqi and Palestinian Refugees in Syria
The home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees for over half a century, Syria has since 2003 taken in over 1 million Iraqi refugees. The International Crisis Group estimates that 57% of Iraqis in Syria are affected by chronic medical conditions and a late 2007 survey conducted by IPSOS found depression and anxiety highly […]
On Anti-Semitism, Boycotts, and the Case of Hermann Dierkes: An Open Letter from Jewish Peace Activists
Background Raymond Deane, “A Public Stoning in Germany,” Electronic Intifada, 6 March 2009; and Yossi Bartal, “The German Left and Israel,” Alternative Information Center, 18 March 2009. We are peace activists of Jewish background. Some of us typically identify in this way; others of us do not. But we all object to those who claim […]
President Chávez and Venezuela’s Socialist Elected Officials Meet to Discuss Political Strategy
On Wednesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez convened state governors, city mayors, and legislators from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to discuss the next stage in the construction of “21st Century Socialism,” following two important electoral victories for Chávez and his supporters over the past four months. Chávez urged governors and mayors to promote […]
Latin American Cinema: Women Directors on the Web
HAVANA, 26 March (IPS) — While the work of women filmmakers in Latin America and the Caribbean has made its presence undeniable, their work still suffers from certain invisibility in a medium where men have traditionally had hegemony. The “Women in the Contemporary Audiovisual Media” Web site, created by the New Latin American Cinema […]
On the Idea of Communism
On the Idea of Communism, Birkbeck Institute, 13-15 March 2009, £100 / £45 (!) Videos by Big Casino Slavoj Žižek Alain Badiou Jacques Rancière Slavoj Žižek Program bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/files/communism-programme.pdf Alternative Program cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/03/alternative-schedule.asp Reports on the “On the Idea of Communism” Conference David Broder, “Report of Conference ‘On the Idea of Communism’” (The Commune, 15 March 2009) […]
On the Tenth Anniversary of the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia
On March 24, 1999, NATO began an aerial bombing campaign against what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For 78 days, bombs rained down on military targets and civilian infrastructure under the guise of ‘humanitarian intervention.’ Operation Allied Force precipitated the displacement of over one million people and directly resulted in the deaths […]
Jihad against the Abuse of Jihad
In light of the rampant extremism and militarism around the world, nothing is more dangerous than the manipulative alteration of truth to reach certain political ends. In the final analysis, it is this tactic that facilitates the demonization process that blurs ideologies and beliefs in the West and the Islamic world. And no concept is […]
Marxism and the Crisis of Capitalism
Capitalism is going through its greatest crisis since the 1930s or before. The banking system has been saved from meltdown (at least for the time being) only by extensive government intervention in the USA, Britain, and a number of other countries. Stock markets all over the world have plummeted. A long and deep recession […]
Gender in Venezuela: Interviews with Jenny Marl Torres and Yoari Garbrido
The Merideño Institute for Women and the Family is part of a national network of such institutions called into being by the 1998 law on violence against women and the family. They are tasked with helping protect women and children from abuse, challenging sexist gender stereotypes, and, in effect breaking the “Machista” elements of […]
