Subjects Archives: Movements

May Square was, once again, the containment wall under the umbrella of the human rights organizations, which beyond their lamentable divisions, are the only reference that all great majorities respect. Precisely because when the society was muted by terror, from there emerged the first voices of pain, anger and decision so that impunity would not keep advancing. And these organisms exists because previously thousands of patriots fought in any possible way for a society without exploited people. Now Macrism is trying to vanish -for a second time- the legacy of this militancy that since 1955 and on, struggled against the dictatorships and fought for the Revolution.

Venezuela has been rocked in recent weeks by almost daily protests and counter-protests, as right-wing opponents of socialist President Nicolas Maduro seek to bring down his government.

On a recent visit to Britain, Noam Chomsky explained that an “extremely hostile media” is damaging Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal, and as a result is responsible for Corbyn’s unpopularity.

Prof Patrick Bond from the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits) tells Business Day TV why the World Economic Forum, which held its annual Africa meeting last week, serves the interests of the ruling elite at the expense of communities.

The U.S. media’s treatment of the crisis in Venezuela is almost as craven as the corporate media in Venezuela itself. Articles like the following from TeleSur, and an article we recently posted from The Dawn, provide a much-needed corrective. As Marta Harnecker explained the April 2017 issue of MR (“A New Revolutionary Subject“): “The attacks […]

When first encountering the “Impeach Bush” movement in 2007 I responded, almost flippantly, “why not impeach the system that gave us Bush?” Otherwise, I said, “we risk having someone in the White House who’ll make us long for Bush.” If prescient, my response was admittedly formulaic and evidentially deficient.

Monthly Review Press author Gerald Horne, Robert Pollin and Paul Jay discuss the debate within the Trump White House on whether to leave the Paris climate accords or just undermine them; and how this relates to the fight within the Democratic Party.

From El Salvador, where the meeting of Chancellors of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is being held, the Minister of Education and leader of the Presidential Commission of the Constituent National Assembly affirmed that one of his goals is to restore the principle of cooperation of the powers, because that’s the only way to preserve peace in the country given the opposition’s lack of will to dialogue.

Read Michael D Yates’s informative interview with labor journalist Steve Early and Mike Parker, leader of the Richmond Progressive Alliance. The conversation focuses on both the benefits and limitations of engaging in radical politics at the local level.

In the decades following, the number of prisoners decreased to a historic minimum. But with cutbacks in the welfare state, the prison population exploded from about 200,000 in 1975 to 2,300,000 in 2013 (Scherrer and Shah, 2017: 37) and prison labor for commercial purposes became legal again. Today, about 15% of the inmates in federal and state prisons perform work for companies such as Boeing, Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret. Migrants detained for violating immigration laws are one of the fastest growing segments of prison labor. Under the Trump administration, their numbers are most likely to increase.

To follow German politics these days you have to like arithmetic. At first only up to six, for that many parties are now vying to get good grades, lots of votes, and more power in the September elections to the Bundestag, which will lead to a government ruling until 2021.

The first thing to understand about colleges and universities is that they are workplaces. And like all workplaces in capitalist societies, they are organized as hierarchies, with power radiating downward.… Those at the top have as their central objective control over the enterprise, so that their power can be maintained, that revenues from tuition, grants, money from various levels of government, and the like keep flowing in, that the prestige of the college or university grows. And, of great importance, that those below them do not and cannot make trouble by challenging their authority.

Those who advocate “freeing the market” claim that doing so will encourage competition and thereby increase majority well-being. These advocates have certainly had their way shaping economic policies. And the results? According to several leading economists, the results include the growing monopolization of product markets and the steady decline in labour’s share of national income. Neither outcome desirable.

Since March 13, 2017, over 50 local indigenous peasants known as Sedulur Kendeng, from Central Java, Indonesia, have been sitting with their feet in cement boxes in protest before the Presidential Palace. This is their second such protest in eleven months.

The accelerating rate of land and resource dispossession in post-authoritarian Indonesia has led to a number of confrontations between state and corporate authorities on one side and peasant communities on the other. Many of these conflicts, though garnering much attention from sympathetic activists, remain localised. However, there are moments when peasants and their activist allies decide to scale up their direct action.

Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate should not confirm Judge Gorsuch. This post gives one cardinal reason for rejecting the nomination.

A number of commentators have noted two different trends. First, across the nation Republican lawmakers are pushing for bills criminalizing protests. Second, a number of state legislatures have passed or considered, often at the impetus of Democratic lawmakers, bills aimed at silencing the movement for Palestinian human rights by targeting boycotts of Israel.

The article discusses surveillance in today’s capitalist society with a reference to a recent revelation that the German intelligence agency spied upon scores of foreign journalists.

For months now we’ve gone to dozens of marches and rallies…. This isn’t enough, but what more to do? Then I happened on a Facebook post by Amin Husain: “I wish I could share what’s wrong and what’s missing in how we’re handling the Trump era without many of my dear friends thinking that I am just being a downer on the ‘resistance’.” I had to hear more.

Something new is taking shape in the world: in more than 30 countries, people are calling for an international women’s strike on the 8th of March.