Subjects Archives: Marxism

Since yesterday, and actually earlier, middle-class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies about “let’s build new Egypt,” “let’s work harder than even before,” etc.  In case you didn’t know, actually Egyptians are among the hardest working […]

On 22 Bahman 1389 (11 February 2011), the 32nd anniversary of the victory of the revolution in Iran, hard-line women heckle Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the right-hand man of the president of Iran.  The hecklers are heard shouting: “Down with monafeq!  Monafeq, get lost!”  “Mashaei, be ashamed!  Resign from the government!”  “Down with the anti-velayat-e faqih.”  […]

Inspired by the actions of young Egyptian women whose voices are weapons! Laila Shereen Sakr is a media artist known as VJ Um Amel.  Her work critically examines cyber ecologies in a post-9/11 world. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

  The Association of Puerto Rican University Professors (APPU) on Wednesday called a 24-hour strike at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), vowing that there will be no classes on Thursday. The decision to strike was made as students held a protest on campus, after a fierce confrontation with riot police in front of the […]

My sources have just confirmed this now.  The Cairo Public Transportation workers, who started a strike today in six garages — Nasr Station, Fateh Station, Ter’a Station, Amiriya Station, Mezzalat Station, Sawwah Station — have issued a statement with a list of demands, calling for overthrowing Mubarak.  No public buses will roam Cairo tomorrow, except […]

  The Egyptian dictatorship, made in the USA, is still powered by an Israeli battery, but the battery is running low. . . . This cartoon was first published by Al Jazeera; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, “Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt” (New […]

In a speech attacking ‘multiculturalism’ Prime Minister David Cameron argued for a “muscular liberalism” that would actively confront “extremist” ideologies — principally radical Islamism — that fail to conform to “Western values”.  The problem is not with Islam per se, he argued, but with those “distortion[s]” of Islam that reject “democracy, the rule of law, […]

Message from WSF 2011 “Neoliberal” globalization, thoroughly bankrupt, is now indeed on the defensive.  It has no legitimacy.  And people in revolt illustrate that.  In Latin America and Nepal, today in Egypt and Tunisia, and tomorrow elsewhere in the South, gigantic popular upsurges are felling regimes that were once at its service. Autocratic regimes are […]

István Mészáros.  Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume I: The Social Determination of Method.  Monthly Review Press, 2010.  463 pp. It is always infuriating to read in any mainstream publication the typical smug commentary on some erstwhile left-academic who had come to reject the ‘determinism’ of Marx’s theory of history.  It is one of […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.   | Print

The West has financed dictatorships in the Middle East and Arab World for more than a century. The pro-democracy protests against Western-backed dictatorships in the Arab world have shown, once again, the immense hypocrisy of our rulers.  Which side are the Western governments on — the side of protesters or the side of dictators?  The […]

  Protests sweeping Egypt have done more than raise hopes of democratic change.  Egypt’s women are hoping this might mark the start of a new era for them as well.  Women have been on the frontlines of the demonstrations, braving tear gas and gunfire, to call for the unseating of President Hosni Mubarak.  They helped […]

  “As soon as I saw the defiant tone and substance of Mubarak’s speech, I realized that he is not speaking for himself but for the US/Israeli sponsors. . . .  I just read the speech by Obama: it confirmed my suspicion, that basically Mubarak was permitted by the US to do with the Egyptian […]

So not only did Vodafone have a disgraceful role during the April 2008 Mahalla uprising, now also the company is sending out text messages announcing pro-Mubarak’s protests. Massive demonstration to start at noon this Wednesday from Mustafa Mahmoud Square, in support of President Mubarak Can activists in the UK sue the mother company? Hossam el-Hamalawy […]

A Plenary Address at the American Studies Association Presidential Panel, San Antonio, Texas, 18 November 2010 For Ruthie Gilmore. I am an imposter here: not a real American Studies scholar.  I went to graduate school in the late 1980s to study History and Anthropology.  My interest was in the contemporary history of India.  When I […]

Many of the most interesting — and from a left perspective, most disturbing — developments in U.S. politics today are occurring at the state level.  As the excellent Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has documented, the aftermath of the recession wrought by the financial crisis has plunged virtually every U.S. state into a deep […]

Towards the close to what is arguably Karl Marx’s most well-known treatment of religion appears the following sentence: Germany’s revolutionary past is theoretical, it is the Reformation.  As the revolution then began in the brain of the monk, so now it begins in the brain of the philosopher . . . But if Protestantism was […]

  The attack on the public sector through pay freezes, furloughs, layoffs, and proposed cuts is also an attack on Black and Latino workers. Cuts to social safety nets hit Blacks and Latinos hardest. Video by United for a Fair Economy. Read United for a Fair Economy, “State of the Dream 2011: Austerity for Whom?,” […]

  Excerpt: As family and work patterns have shifted over recent decades, the demand for time off from work to address family needs has grown rapidly.  Women — and increasingly men as well — often find themselves caught between the competing pressures of paid work and family responsibilities, especially when they become parents, or when […]

Bolivian President Evo Morales repealed on Friday night the decree issued five days ago to raise gasoline prices, after a meeting with his cabinet, trade unions, and social organizations in La Paz.