Subjects Archives: Marxism

  At its peak, the 26 of July Movement had some 300 fighters, ill fed and poorly armed, bitten by mosquitoes and accompanied by the rain.  Against them, Gen. Fulgencio Batista mobilized an army, a navy, an air force, a coast guard, and the Rural Guard, aside from a network of spies and irregular bands […]

“. . . and they won’t stop till we all become slaves grateful to be able at least to eat, twice a day.” Juan Kalvellido is a Spanish cartoonist.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

The political posturing around the debt ceiling “crisis” was mostly a distraction from the hard issues.  The hardest of those — underlying US economic decline — keeps resurfacing to display costs, pains, and injustices that threaten to dissolve society.  Its causes — two long-term trends over the last 30 years — help also to explain […]

  The Republicans have successfully changed the main emphasis of the economic debate from job creation to deficit control.  Why the urgency for balanced budgets?  After all, this anemic “recovery” has set itself apart from all previous post-war turnarounds precisely by its manifest failure to generate jobs.  Economic growth needs to considerably exceed 3% per […]

Throughout its history, capitalism never succeeded in preventing recurring economic cycles or crises.  However, they were usually contained within the system.  Economic crises usually did not become social crises; the system itself was usually not called into question.  Transition to a different system was then an idea kept away from public discussion, a project kept […]

Between June 14 and June 23, 2011, a delegation of 11 scholars, activists, and artists visited occupied Palestine.  As indigenous and women of color feminists involved in multiple social justice struggles, we sought to affirm our association with the growing international movement for a free Palestine.  We wanted to see for ourselves the conditions under […]

Bassam Alkadi is President of the Syrian Women Observatory, Syria’s main women’s rights organization.  A relentless fighter for human rights in Syria, he has been fired from his job, arrested, jailed, and forbidden from traveling, but he continues to be driven by logic and not revenge.  He rejects dialogue for the sake of dialogue.  Instead, […]

  “I liked training and defending my country, and now I’m training women from all ages to use weapons.” — Fatima Masoud 30 June 2011 30 June 2011 Cf. Waniss Otman and Erling Karlberg, “The Growing Role of Women in Libyan Society” (The Libyan Economy: Economic Diversification and International Repositioning, Springer, 2007). | Print  

  Havana, Cuba, 30 June 2011 Now, in this new moment of difficulties, especially since Fidel Castro himself, the very man of the Moncada Barracks, of Granma, and of Sierra Maestra, the eternal giant, came to tell me the hard news of cancer, I began to ask my Lord Jesus, the God of my parents, […]

The German left-wing party Die Linke issued a shocking statement on 7 June 2011, stating that “We will not participate in initiatives on the Middle East conflict which call for a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel, or for boycotts against Israeli products, or even in this year’s Gaza Flotilla trip.” This position is particularly […]

  Excerpt: Forty percent of South Africa’s 48 million people are poor, and more than half of poor people are female.  Official unemployment figures hover at around 25%, but since this statistics does not count those who have given up looking for work, real unemployment may be double this.  South Africa is, by world standards, […]

Women in Mexico are marching not only against sexual violence, but also against the excuses for it and the impunity that surrounds it.  The “March of the Whores,” as they called it, represents a fresh step in the development of Mexican feminism, taking its cue from an earlier protest held in Canada. Women, men, and […]

  “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s my fault.  Israel’s PR failure is on my account.  But after you forbid us from protesting, after you pass the law, everything will be different here.  The entire world would know that Israel is a magnificent democracy.  Tourism and trade will flourish.  Anywhere Israelis go, everybody will know that […]

  Excerpt: Across US counties, life expectancy in 2007 ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women.  When compared against a time series of life expectancy in the 10 nations with the lowest mortality, US counties range from being 15 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years […]

  Executive Summary: According to witnesses who work at Classic Fashion, scores of young Sri Lankan women sewing clothing for Wal-Mart and Hanes have suffered routine sexual abuse and repeated rapes, and in some cases even torture.  One young rape victim at the Classic factory in Jordan told us her assailant, a manager, bit her, […]

  David A. Kideckel.  Getting By in Postsocialist Romania: Labor, the Body, and Working-Class Culture.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.  xii + 266 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-34957-6; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-21940-4. During the last twenty years, Romanian mass media and most Romanian intellectuals have typically portrayed the miners of the Jiu Valley in Romania […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “Saudi Women: ‘I Will Drive Myself Starting June 17′” (Jadaliyya, 12 May 2011); “Saudi Women Respond to Exclusion from Voting: Baladi Campaign” (Jadaliyya, 16 May 2011); “The Saudi Women Revolution Statement” (Mona Kareem, 18 May 2011); “Manal al-Sharif: Saudi Woman Drives the Streets of al-Khobar (Video)” (Jadaliyya, 25 […]

  Most of the time, as soon as I mention that I am a feminist activist, I am immediately hit with a question: “Why?  What’s wrong with the situation of women in Lebanon?  What could a woman want?  She has all her rights and more, she is treated with respect, with dignity.  She controls her […]

Friday, 17 June 2011, 5:30 PM, in front of the Saudi Embassy in Beirut Women Driving in KSA If you’re not in Lebanon, organize similar events in your country. For more information, go to .  Cf. “Saudi Women: ‘I Will Drive Myself Starting June 17′” (Jadaliyya, 12 May 2011). | Print

Swiss women and a major Swiss union held a national day of action today for wage equality for women and for a minimum wage of $4,000 a month for all workers.  The Swiss franc and the U.S. dollar are about on par, the franc worth a little more than a U.S. dollar.  The new minimum […]