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Academia and Social Change
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the most prominent professional organization for American historians. Its annual meeting, held recently in Atlanta, featured abstruse panels and presentations with titles such as “Disciplined Bodies and the Production of Space, Place, and Race: Atlanta’s Latino Day Laborers at the Cusp of the Twenty-First Century” and “The Desire […]
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Voltaire and Islam [Voltaire y el islam]
En su vehemente proceso al islam y al estatus de inferioridad legal y de sumisiĂłn de la mujer que prevalece en la mayorĂa de paĂses musulmanes, Telima Nesreen, Ayaam Hirsi Ali y otras emancipadas de su credo religioso han evocado y evocan repetidas veces el nombre del autor de CĂĄndido: “Permitidnos un Voltaire . . […]
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Of the People: A Conversation with Howard Zinn
G.M.S.: Here in Tucson, Arizona, 70 miles from the border, we are feeling the effects of President Bush’s deployment of National Guard troops at the U.S. border. The first hundreds arrived last summer, and 2,500 are expected to be in our “Tucson Sector” by August. Moreover, the Border Patrol is to grow from 12,400 […]
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ChĂĄvez Calls for United Socialist Party of Venezuela: Rank-and-file Committees to Be Building Blocks for New Organization
When supporters of Venezuelan president Hugo ChĂĄvez rallied in the Teresa Carrena theatre in Caracas to celebrate their presidential election victory on December 15, 2006, “there were cheers in the back half of the theatre,” writes Michael Lebowitz, “but few in the high-priced seats.” This was not because ChĂĄvez spoke of going forward to socialism […]
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Interview with Heinz Dieterich: “In Venezuela, Conditions for Building Socialism of the 21st Century Have Been Created” [Entrevista a Heinz Dieterich “En Venezuela se han creado condiciones para construir el Socialismo del Siglo XXI”]
P. Profesor Dieterich, ÂżUsted inventĂł el concepto “Socialismo del Siglo XXI”? R. SĂ. Lo elaborĂ© a partir de 1996. Fue publicado junto con la teorĂa correspondiente en forma de libro, a partir del 2000 en MĂ©xico, Ecuador, Argentina, CentroamĂ©rica, Brasil, Venezuela y, fuera de AmĂ©rica Latina, en España, Alemania, la RepĂșblica Popular de China, Rusia […]
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Class and Racism: Choices Whites Make
Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers. Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge. We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]
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Flirting with Fascism on CNN Headline News: Host Glenn Beck Threatens Muslims with Concentration Camps
Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers. Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge. We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]
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Marxism and Religion
Annual Fundraising Appeal Friends of MRZine and Monthly Review! The continuing existence of MRZine and Monthly Review depends on the support of our readers. Unlike many other publications, we make all new Monthly Review articles, as well as MRZine articles, available online, free of charge. We do so without drawing any advertising money at all […]
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Is Canada an Imperialist State?
Has Canada become an imperialist state, as some on the Left argue? On the surface, a case can be made. Why did Canada participate in the kidnapping and expulsion of Haiti’s elected head of state, Jean-Bertrand Aristide? Why are Canadian troops fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan while supporting a regime dominated by feudal warlords? […]
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FIGARO Tells Grimm’s Fairy Tale with Marx [FIGARO erzĂ€hlt Grimms MĂ€rchen mit Marx]
FIGARO-Autor Siegfried Stadler bringt beides zusammen: die MĂ€rchen von Marx und die MĂ€rchen der BrĂŒder Grimm. Herausgekommen ist eine Radio-MĂ€rchenserie. “Es war einmal ⊔ Karl Marx war ein MĂ€rchenerzĂ€hler. Und das ist noch freundlich ausgedrĂŒckt, aus der Sicht derer, die ihn fĂŒr den BegrĂŒnder des real – existierenden Sozialismus halten, der den Menschen die Freiheit […]
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Reflections on Arab and Iranian Ultra-Nationalism
Critical students of ethnically coded nationalism would agree: propagating the glory of “our” race or culture almost always entails the suppression of equal status for the race or culture that is represented as its other. West Asia is no exception. Iranian and Arab identity politics thwarted, perverted, and dismembered communitarian thinking for long periods in […]
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A Marxist Poet: The Legacy of Gillo Pontecorvo
Pauline Kael, the American film critic, once said that Gillo Pontecorvo was the most dangerous kind of Marxist: a Marxist poet. When the Italian film director died last week at the age of 86, he had not made a full-length feature in over twenty-five years. Yet the potency of Pontecorvo’s firebrand poetry can still be […]
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Current Challenges to Feminism: Theory and Practice
For much of the period from the 70s through the 80s, I was quite concerned with the way in which Third World movements for national liberation were sidelining women’s issues and relegating these to the background. In this piece I centerstage the Philippines which I believe may serve as an illustrative case. Let me try […]
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Bad Faith and the Common Good: The Road to Civic Republicanism
“Philosophy always comes on the scene too late.” — G.W.F. Hegel1 “They say we don’t stand for anything. We do stand for anything.” — Sen. Barack Obama2 For years it’s been a political commonplace to observe that the Republicans represent the party of ideas while the Democrats are the stupid party. Even Bush-phobic Democrats like […]
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Que(e)rying Islamophobia: Race, Sexuality and Imperialism
Thursday, October 19 Que(e)rying Islamophobia: Race, Sexuality and Imperialism Reza Abbasi, “Two Lovers” (ca. 1630) Discourses of race, gender and sexuality have always served an important ideological function within imperialist projects, and the current phase of American imperialism, characterized by the War on Terror, is no exception. Â Given the contemporary geo-political context, this imperialist project […]
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It’s Not Race or Class — It’s Race and Class: An Interview with Roderick Bush
WE ARE NOT WHAT WE SEEM: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century by Roderick D. BushBUY THIS BOOK Roderick Bush is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at St. John’s University in New York. He is the author of We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in […]
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Iran: Calls for Dialogue with the United States
“We believe the production or use of nuclear weapons is immoral.” — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Hours after he spoke to the United Nations, the Iranian president made this clear, unequivocal statement to a group of us during a private meeting in New York. Â The Mennonite Central Committee organized an extraordinary, private session for […]
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What Maoism Has Contributed
The Second International’s Marxism, proletarian-and-European-centered, shared with the dominant ideology of that period a linear view of historyâa view according to which all societies had first to pass through a stage of capitalist development (a stage whose seeds were being planted by colonialism which, by that very fact, was “historically positive”) before being able to aspire to socialism. The idea that the “development” of some (the dominating centers) and the “underdevelopment” of others (the dominated peripheries) were as inseparable as the two faces of a single coin, both being immanent outcomes of capitalism’s worldwide expansion, was completely alien to it
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Class Struggle and Socialist Revolution in the Philippines: Understanding the Crisis of U.S. Hegemony, Arroyo State Terrorism, and Neoliberal Globalization
Prodded by Amnesty International (AI), the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Asian Human Rights Commission, Reporters Without Borders, and other international organizations, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently cobbled a group to look into the allegations of massive human rights violations — over 729 victims of extrajudicial killings, and 180 involuntary “disappearances,” by the latest count — during her […]
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Same-Sex Love in India: Open Letters against Section 377
To the Government of India, Members of the Judiciary, and All Citizens, To build a truly democratic and plural India, we must collectively fight against laws and policies that abuse human rights and limit fundamental freedoms. This is why we, concerned Indian citizens and people of Indian origin, support the overturning of Section 377 of […]