The recent visit of two Afro-Colombians to the Boggs Center started me thinking dialectically about the paradigm shift in the concept and practice of Solidarity made necessary and possible by corporate globalization. In 1997 these Afro-Colombians, members of a small farming community in Uraba, Colombia, were among those displaced when a joint paramilitary and U.S.-backed […]
Subjects Archives: Marxism
After One Dimensional Feminism(s)
Nina Power’s One Dimensional Woman is a slim but muscular volume, whose pithy prose goes straight to the heart of the challenges currently facing contemporary feminism. Constructed as a series of short, cut-to-the-chase essays on a diverse range of ‘raw-nerve’ topics, from Sarah Palin and the War on Iraq to the veil and pornography, […]
What Are Common Misconceptions of Muslim Women?
Shahla Haeri: There are many misconceptions, but unfortunately the media are so very powerful. The image that they have created has become so powerful that it becomes very difficult for people to get any other image, any other perceptions, of women in their mind. There is this tendency to categorize, to generalize and lump […]
Socialism Is Dead! Long Live the Commons and Social Accounting!
In his essay, “Degrow or Die?” in the December/January 2011 Red Pepper magazine, John Bellamy Foster criticized degrowth advocates’ proposals for shorter working hours as not “dealing with the unemployment problem directly” and as not being viable on a broad scale unless they were part of a transition to “a post-capitalist (indeed socialist) society.” In […]
Jasmine
“When you are in love with two persons at the same time. . . .” “I could have married the both of you if I were a man.” “Well, of course I wouldn’t have accepted your proposal while another woman named Ahmad was also involved. . . .” Written, edited, and directed by Saeed […]
HAMMER! Making Movies Out of Sex and Life
“And this book is dedicated to you, to young women artists and old women artists, who are aspiring and creating something huge. Yours is the future I write for.” — Barbara Hammer Barbara Hammer, an acclaimed filmmaker, has made more than eighty films over the past forty years. For more information about HAMMER! Making […]
Globalizing Homophobia
After September 11th, 2001, one of the liberal justifications for the military intervention against Afghanistan was the oppression of women, but also of gays, by the Taliban. People in Europe and the USA received with shock the news that same-sex couples were publicly executed in the Kabul Stadium by bringing down a wall upon them […]
Can We Be Feminist and Religious?
“We aim to show that religion does not have to be a dividing force between feminists.” A shorter version of the video may be viewed at <vimeo.com/16522936>. | Print
The College Conundrum: Why the Benefits of a College Education May Not Be So Clear, Especially to Men
Excerpt (Endnotes Omitted): At least since the early 1990s, the share of young people earning a four-year college degree has not increased as quickly as many economists would like. A higher share of young people today have college degrees than at any point in our nation’s history, yet many economists remain concerned that the […]
Ideology Über Alles
An interesting study on Americans’ attitudes regarding inequality and wealth distribution has been making the rounds recently. It highlights once again the ideology problem that plagues any attempt to reconstruct left/social democratic/socialist/whatever politics in the U.S. The researchers asked survey respondents to choose between three unlabeled pie charts representing the social structures of three different […]
Decoding Class Politics in Iran
Reference ID Date Classification Origin 09RPODUBAI177 2009-04-22 11:11 SECRET//NOFORN Iran RPO Dubai Game of Attrition. Ahmadinejad’s defeats on the budget and his plan to distribute cash payments to lower-income Iranians show that power centers, such as the Majles, are actively working to pressure the President prior to the June election, according to [Source removed]. […]
The Socialist Alternative to IMF/EU Diktats
The capitalist media say that there is no alternative to the thrust of the economic policies being advanced by the government, the EU and the IMF. This is completely untrue. There is an alternative — a socialist alternative. Shut Down Anglo Irish Bank The bailout of Anglo Irish Bank is set to cost the […]
David Brooks’ Apocalypse
“Elections come and go, but the United States is still careening toward bankruptcy. By 2020, the U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. Sometime between now and then the catastrophe will come. It will come with amazing swiftness. The bond markets are with you until […]
An Ambivalent Reading of Marxism and Utopianism
Vincent Geoghegan. Utopianism and Marxism. Oxford et al: Peter Lang, 2008. pp. 189. ISBN: 3039101374. In his contribution to Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth, Alain Badiou forcefully argues that the century, “between 1917 and the end of the 1970s, is not at all a century of ideologies, or the imaginary or of […]
Thinking About the American Left and Die Linke
The North Atlantic Left Dialogue (NALD), by bringing North Americans and Europeans together, allows participants to reflect on their own situation through the lens of the thinking of other leftists who face similar political issues in different contexts. There are commonalities in the division between social movements on the one hand and political parties/labor organizations […]
The Econobubble Revisited
In a recent article, I discussed the 2010 Economics Nobel Prize in rather unflattering terms. However, nothing beats the decision to award the 1997 Economics Nobel to Robert Merton and Myron Scholes for developing “a pioneering formula for the valuation of stock options.” “Their methodology,” trumpeted the Nobel committee, “has paved the way for economic […]
Economics, Ideology, and Imperialism
Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, eminent Marxist economist, taught in CESP-JNU (Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University) over the last four decades. He has been one of the most outstanding economists in India and a great teacher. He has retired from JNU recently. On the occasion of his farewell, the students of CESP […]
A New Vision of Socialist Transition and Development
Michael Lebowitz. The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010. It is probably fair to say that revolutionary socialism does not come naturally to everyone. Some of the young and curious pick up a grimy, twenty-page manifesto in a second-hand bookstore and never look back, but for myself it was […]
Stuart Levey’s “Philosophy” of Iran Sanctions
On October 6, Charlie Rose broadcast an interview with Stuart Levey, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Financial and Terrorism Intelligence (can be viewed here: www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11231). Levey is widely considered the principal architect of U.S. sanctions policy, particularly with respect to Iran, under both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. It is worth recalling […]
A Note on the Current Political Situation: Some Issues and a Conclusion
The opening section of this note dealing with the most important issue in the current political situation—’the Maoist’ or the Naxal issue—sets the context for the argument that follows, which deals with issues involved in understanding and acting in this situation. I reproduce some key passages, marginally modified and compressed in one case, from my […]
