Dissecting the Politics and Culture of Capitalism http://mrzine.org Sun, 11 May 2008 16:50:59 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/freightliner5.html Sister Swinford and Brothers Bradley, Crisco, Torrence, and Whitside, We would like to add our voice and the legacy of our many years within the UAW ranks and leadership to the call for a full and unconditional restoration of your rights as employees of the Freightliner/Daimler Corporation and members our union. Sun, 11 May 2008 16:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bhattarai100508.html Firstly, our party recognizes that even when we participate in the government, this government is not a fully revolutionary government, it is a transitional government. So we'll have to compromise with the other classes. But we would like to take the lead. We would like to transform the state from within. For that we have to create pressure from outside. For that our party's position is that the whole leadership of the party won't join the government. One section of the leadership will join the government, and the other section of the party leadership will remain outside and continue organizing and mobilizing the masses. So the party will take that route. Many of us will be [in the government]. The main form of struggle will be from within the government, to make the new constitution. But another section will remain outside the government. That's why all of our central leaders didn't participate in the elections. We want to organize and mobilize the masses so that they can put pressure on the government. So this is one aspect. And we want to develop certain institutions. Though we haven't found the concrete form for them yet, we have made some policy decisions. When we put forth the concept of development of democracy in the 21st century, our slogan was that the government and the party should be constantly supervised by the masses, and the masses should intervene at times if need be. This is our policy. But we have not been able to find the concrete form. What will be the way of intervening in case the government deviates? What will be the form of putting pressure, apart from public demonstrations? How will they intervene in the state system? That mechanism we are trying to work out. Sat, 10 May 2008 15:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yazdi090508.html As an Iranian, I feel compelled to ask you some questions. First, why are you threatening "the Iranians"? Second, if Israel attacks Iran and you are elected as president of the USA, what would then be your policy and position? Fri, 09 May 2008 18:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/acoury090508.html The pro-government circles are traumatized by the rapid defeat. Confirming their debacle on the ground, Jumblatt and Hariri (who have always boasted of "holding the heart of Beirut," leaving the "Shiite suburb" -- of the poor, workers, especially day laborers and low-income workers, artisans, and Palestinian refugee camps -- to Hezbollah) asked Nabih Berri (leader of Amal, another Shi'i party, and president of the National Assembly) to ensure their safety and that of their followers in Beirut. Fri, 09 May 2008 11:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bolivia080508.html President Evo Morales invited the opposition governors of the "Media Luna" (the half-moon-shaped region composed of the Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, and Tarija departments) to resume dialogue on Monday afternoon with an agenda for open discussion and offered guarantees for autonomy within limits of law. The opposition forces responded to the president's appeal by passing, at record speed, a law to hold a recall referendum on the mandates of the president, the vice president, and governors. Thu, 08 May 2008 19:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/gindin080508.html The greatest danger with looking to win through deals at the top rather than fighting back and building the base is that workers can end up with the worst of both worlds: concessions AND job loss, concessions AND two-tiers. Suppose the Big Three use their foot in the door in the US to extend the UAW two-tier system to far more members in 2011 (or before). GM is already expecting 1/3 of its workforce to be under the two-tier system by the end of the agreement; Toyota, no longer worried that its preference for two-tiers might lead to unionization, has announced that all new hires will get 50% of the wage rate. This would, once again, place great pressures on Canadian workers to make parallel concessions in Canada. But suppose, in contrast, that the CAW mobilized its members for a fight in September against the two-tier system and that this sparked or reinforced resistance to two-tiers in the US. Thu, 08 May 2008 13:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cohn070508.html What does [the prohibition of] torture have in common with [that of] genocide, slavery, and wars of aggression? They are all jus cogens. Jus cogens is Latin for "higher law" or "compelling law." This means that no country can ever pass a law that allows torture. There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a jus cogens prohibition. Wed, 07 May 2008 21:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kohan070508.html The current dilemma of Evo and the MAS is whether it is possible to restrain the Right by making concessions or preferable to confront it and advance the process. The answer is complex because the Bolivian government is not homogeneous. Wed, 07 May 2008 12:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bolivia060508.html This is no autonomist victory nor is it a "democratic fiesta" -- it's a violent, failed opinion poll whose rate of abstention is three times the usual rate, says the President. Tue, 06 May 2008 23:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hattingh060508.html The advent of neo-liberalism and free trade, with its tailor-made policies for large corporations, has helped a small number multinational companies gain a virtual monopoly over global food production, distribution, and sales. The fact that 6 corporations control 85% of the world trade in grain; 3 companies account for 83% of the trade in cocoa, and 3 corporations control 80% of the global trade in bananas illustrates this. Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sandronsky050508.html A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Educational Policy Analysis Archives by scholars at the Rice University Center for Education raises crucial questions about state-federal policy relating to standardized tests and students who score sub-proficiently on them. Rice's multiple-year analysis of more than 270,000 Texas students criticized the use of a single standard to measure a student's achievement. "The degradation of the curriculum into test drills, which have little relevance beyond the state test, distances students who otherwise wish to persist to graduation, exacerbating the likelihood they will leave school," the study reported. Mon, 05 May 2008 21:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/boyle050508.html The root of this crisis is the stagnation of the economy that has been going on for a long time -- financialization was supposed to be the answer to that. It has turned out to be a crisis in itself. They have no answer to this in the US but to lower interest rates again, have the Federal Reserve take over hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans and bail out the financial institutions as much as they can. Then they have to find a way to blow another bubble. Mon, 05 May 2008 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/seiu050508.html We are writing to express our deep concern about SEIU's threatened trusteeship over its third largest local, United Healthcare Workers (UHW). We believe that there must always be room within organized labor for legitimate and principled dissent, if our movement is to survive and grow. Mon, 05 May 2008 09:51:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/makunike040508.html Resolving the current impasse is undoubtedly the most urgent order of business in Zimbabwe. But the country's tortured and violent history, the cynical external interests seeking to exert their influence for their own ends, the huge ideological gulf between the two main political parties and the closeness of the results announced so far suggest that whichever way the immediate crisis is resolved, there are long-term difficulties ahead in getting Zimbabwe back on the track of political stability, psychic healing, and economic growth. Sun, 04 May 2008 12:13:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nader030508.html Directly under Bush and the Congress is the authority to reduce the biggest single factor boosting food prices -- reversing the tax-subsidized policy of growing ever more corn to turn into fuel at the expense of huge acreages that used to produce wheat, soy, rice, and other edibles. Sat, 03 May 2008 18:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/dangl030508.html Meanwhile, GD continues to reap enormous profits on the Bush administration's wars. On May 2, the national company was awarded a $51-million-dollar Abrams Tank contract. Sat, 03 May 2008 18:25:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman020508.html Every weekend, in numerous cities throughout Germany, neo-nazis march ominously through the streets with their flags and shout anti-foreigner slogans. They almost always face larger numbers of anti-fascists who sometimes block their paths. Violent confrontations are usually prevented by the police, who often seem to favor the neo-nazis. Hamburg was no exception, but while a lukewarm May Day union rally changed its site to avoid run-ins along the legally permitted parade route of about 1,000 neo-nazis, a crowd of over 10,000 determined anti-fascists from many parties, church groups, and militant union youth groups, took a stand against the nazi menace. Fri, 02 May 2008 19:40:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/luce020508.html I am also surprised that Regan believes that because Labor Notes was going to have Rose Ann DeMoro speak at their conference, it was ok for fired-up protesters to try to force their way into an extremely crowded room where the vast majority of people had nothing to do with the CNA-SEIU. But when SEIU president Andy Stern shared a stage with Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott in 2007, I don't recall any unions looking to crash that event, despite the fact that many union members, including some SEIU members and staff, were appalled at Stern's action. Stern was on the stage with Wal-Mart because he decided that SEIU was going to partner with the notorious union buster on healthcare, a position he announced at the last minute to his colleagues in Change To Win. One of those unions, UFCW, had been campaigning against Wal-Mart for years. Is DeMoro a greater threat to the labor movement than Lee Scott? Fri, 02 May 2008 12:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/regan020508.html We came to protest the fact that the organizers of the conference had made a conscious decision to recognize and honor the head of the California Nurses Association, Rose Ann DeMoro, despite the fact that less than one month earlier she and the CNA had succeeded in denying over 8,000 hospital workers in Ohio the opportunity to vote to join our union. These workers had fought hard for three long years to gain the right to vote for a union to represent all workers in Catholic Health Partners hospitals in Ohio. In plain language, DeMoro led the CNA and its front group, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, to execute a text-book, corporate-style union-busting campaign. Fri, 02 May 2008 12:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/beinin010508.html Barak apparently believes that a victorious campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is also his best ticket to becoming a credible candidate for prime minister in the next election. His legendary arrogance does not permit him to consider the costs of failure. This grim prospect, whether or not it is not realized, is consistent with the Bush administration's policy, which is to pursue a confrontation with what it perceives as a Middle Eastern axis of evil comprised of Iran, Syria, Hizbollah, and Hamas while trying to construct a countervailing axis of righteousness consisting of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Mahmoud Abbas. Such a policy could only succeed if Israel offered Abbas a two-state territorial deal so sweet that it would win broad Palestinian legitimacy. In that case, even many of those who no longer support his Fatah organization would likely accept it. The Bush administration has not pressed Olmert to do this. Moreover, despite many recent indications that Syria is prepared for a deal with Israel on the Golan Heights and that Hamas is willing to negotiate with Israel, Washington also opposes exploring these diplomatic options. Thu, 01 May 2008 22:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/elbaum010508.html The latest polls show only 30% of the public believes "victory" in Iraq is crucial to defeating terrorism. So Bush, McCain, and friends have shifted their rationale for war yet again. They've turned to hyping the alleged "danger from Iran" as the main justification for staying in Iraq -- and perhaps even launching another preemptive war. This updated propaganda line was the centerpiece of General David Petraeus' early-April testimony before Congress. Bush and McCain had hoped their savior-general would decisively shift public debate in their favor. But the crash of their mythologized "surge" -- as indicated by the failure of their attack on Basra (see below) just before Petraeus' appearance -- buried this fantasy. Even so, the "Iran danger" bait-and-switch does target a vulnerable point in public opinion. It exerts a strong pull on elite critics of the Iraq war (particularly those most beholden to the Israel Lobby) to keep their mouths shut out of loyalty to the "larger goal" of U.S. domination of the Middle East. All this has made the close inter-relationship between ending the occupation of Iraq and forcing Washington to engage Iran diplomatically clearer than ever. Thu, 01 May 2008 21:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ilwu010508.html More than 25,000 longshore workers at 29 west coast ports are exercising their First Amendment rights today by taking a day off work and calling for an end to the war in Iraq. Thu, 01 May 2008 16:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/iraq010508.html On this day of international labour solidarity we call on our fellow trade unionists and all those worldwide who have stood against war and occupation to increase support for our struggle for freedom from occupation -- both the military and economic. Thu, 01 May 2008 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff300408.html Moralists of otherwise diverse motivations agree on attacking consumerist materialism as against spiritual values. Educators blame it for distracting young people's interest from learning. Psychologists attribute mass loneliness and depression to unrealizable expectations of what commodities can deliver to consumers. Physicians decry the diseases, stress, and exhaustion linked to excessive work driven by desire for excessive consumption. Yet, for a long time, exhortations by all such folks have mostly failed to slow, let alone reverse, US consumerism. The question is why? Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sen300408.html On May 13th/14th, 2008, Dr. Binayak Sen, an activist with a lifelong commitment to the issues of community health and human rights, will complete his first year of unjust imprisonment at the Raipur Central jail in Chhattisgarh. Organizations across the globe will be holding events on the evening of May 13th, 2008 to mark the one year anniversary of his imprisonment. We appeal to your organization to hold rallies, candlelight vigils, or lectures against his unconstitutional detention. Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nyclu290408.html The NYPD arrested and jailed nearly 400,000 people for possessing small amounts of marijuana between 1997 and 2007, a tenfold increase in marijuana arrests over the previous decade and a figure marked by startling racial and gender disparities, according to a report released Tuesday at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/rihn290408.html The socialist, my great-grandfather, built / with his bare hands the house / I have lived in my entire life. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/stellar290408.html Good People. Smart People. Strong People. Calm in an emergency. Incredibly competent. Emergency RNs will help a person die in one room; then walk next door to comfort a kid with a cold. They have my utmost admiration and highest regard. Emergency Room nurses get threatened, hit, bit, kicked, and beat up by psychotics and drunks. Do that to a police officer and you'll get ten years in prison. Do it to a Psychiatric Nurse, or an Emergency Room Nurse, and you get good drugs. Go figure. Which is why I think we need to consider Emergency Rooms as a Sacred Space. The good people who work there need to be as protected as Yosemite, the Spotted Owl, and the Snail Darter. Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/fuentes280408.html By pushing for autonomy, the elite hope to weaken and bring down the popular Morales government. However, their campaign is also part of laying the groundwork for a plan B -- the break up of Bolivia through the creation of an independent state in the east, taking with them the majority of Bolivia's natural resources. Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:40:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/manji280408.html China's involvement in Africa has three main dimensions: foreign direct investment, aid, and trade. In each of these dimensions China's engagement is dwarfed by those of US and European countries, and often smaller than those of other Asian economies. Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/shahabi270408.html "What would she do if Israel attacked Iran (which is more likely)?" This is the question Clinton should have been asked and the question she should now be asked by the world community. Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:22:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grain260408.html Nothing that the policy makers say should obscure the fact that today's food crisis is the outcome of both an incessant push towards a "Green Revolution" agricultural model since the 1950s and the trade liberalisation and structural adjustment policies imposed on poor countries by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since the 1970s. These policy prescriptions were reinforced with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation in the mid-1990s and, more recently, through a barrage of bilateral free trade and investment agreements. Together with a series of other measures, they have led to the ruthless dismantling of tariffs and other tools that developing countries had created to protect local agricultural production. These countries have been forced to open their markets and lands to global agribusiness, speculators and subsidised food exports from rich countries. In that process, fertile lands have been diverted away from serving local food markets to the production of global commodities or off-season and high-value crops for Western supermarkets. Today, roughly 70% of all so-called developing countries are net importers of food.5 And of the estimated 845 million hungry people in the world, 80% are small farmers.6 Add to this the re-engineering of credit and financial markets to create a massive debt industry, with no control on investors, and the depth of the problem becomes clear. Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/pourzal250408.html The push to promote market rule transcends the religious-secular divide. It draws some of its strength from Iranians who back property rights expansion as a means of protecting civil freedoms from government intrusion. Human rights activists have argued for decades that the authorities would be more accountable if they did not control the public's massive oil assets. Former political prisoner Akbar Ganji, has even demanded that Iran's mineral wealth be de-nationalized in favor of an accountable private sector "elite." Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sandronsky250408.html After a sustained campaign in which police arrested two dozen non-violent protesters in downtown Davis, California, Sodexho food-service workers at UC Davis have won recognition as university employees. The recent decision means that 200 career workers and 450 student workers will gain higher wages and better benefits as labor union members on the UC payroll. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:13:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/lebowitz250408.html In short, there are two ways of looking at the demand for the reduced workday: one way talks simply about a shorter work week and thus longer weekend vacations; in contrast, a second way stresses the reduction of the traditional workday in order to provide the time on a daily basis for education for self-managing, for our work within the household and our work within our communities. In other words, it is the demand to redefine and transform our workday. The first of these is simply a reform within capitalism. For socialists, May Day should be the day to struggle for the whole worker's day, to struggle for the socialist workday. Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/niac240408.html An increasing number of statesmen are now calling for diplomacy as a remedy to the Bush administration's failed strategy of threats and isolation. Unfortunately, Senator Clinton's remarks signal a continuation of the past seven years of American foreign policy. Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bolivia230408.html The subversive and unconstitutional actions of the oligarchic groups to try to divide the Bolivian nation reflect the racist and elitist minds of these sectors and constitute a very dangerous precedent not only for the country's integrity, but for other countries in our region. Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:48:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/stefanoni230408.html Should our troops be in Haiti shoulder to shoulder with the occupation armies of the United States and France firing on mass demonstrations with the excuse that they are just criminal gangs (which some obviously are)? Shouldn’t there be some other form of support by progressive governments to our fellow peoples of the continent? Haven’t we rightly praised Cuba for sending doctors to save lives and not soldiers to end them? Finally, is it the role of the Left to "humanize" the international missions designed by the great powers? Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:21:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sandronsky230408.html New Schools Venture Fund has been funding America's public schools since 1998. Why? NSVF "seeks to transform public education by leveraging the power of entrepreneurs to effect change," its Web site said, by determining "the most powerful levers for impact on public education." Apparently, raising the tax rate on corporations and the rich to increase public school funding is not a good lever. Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cm230408.html Until recently, the relationship between the revolutionary collectives of 23 de Enero and the Chávez government had been a friendly one. Certainly, there were moments of tension, as when the Alexis Vive Collective and Simón Bolívar Coordinator turned up outside opposition television station Globovisión last year, protesting the station's content and spray painting radical slogans on the walls. But in general, the revolutionary collectives have enjoyed a much more open and supportive atmosphere, cultivating a tight relationship with the Bolivarian government. This relationship was at its clearest in April 2002, when Chávez was overthrown and briefly replaced by an anti-democratic junta before being returned to power by popular mobilizations less than 48 hours later. Not only were revolutionary collectives in 23 de Enero key to Chávez's return to power, but they had even provided a safe haven for Chavista government ministers and elected officials during a wave of opposition retribution. In recent months, however, this relationship has been strained considerably. Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/luce220408.html First, whatever the word is out there about the banquet -- whether there was violence, whether SEIU really intended to disrupt, etc. -- my workshop experience made it completely clear that the SEIU staffers were not there for dialogue. The SEIU press release says that the Labor Notes conference is a place to discuss the issues, but there was no possibility of that in my workshop. Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ccsc220408.html The evidence about global warming is more alarming than ever. It is likely that critical "tipping points" once believed to lie in the future have already been passed (see Climate Change and Trace Gases, by James Hansen et al, 2007, available at www.carbonequity.info). . . . Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/gasper220408.html Obama should be defended against any racist attacks, which will no doubt intensify if he wins the Democratic Party nomination. But without a strong activist movement on the ground, his election will do little to solve the problems that he himself has described. Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/zarafshan210408.html Aggression to eliminate the obstacles that stand in the way of spreading the neoliberal order and to remake the world according to it is employed in the name of democracy and human rights. However, freedom and democracy, essentially, can only result from the historical development of a social and economic order and the development of people that accompanies it. Freedom and democracy are not commodities that can be detached from a given social order and imported, let alone brought by force, from abroad. Those who are looking for a freedom "imported" by force have not understood anything about its essential meaning. Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/foster200408.html John Bellamy Foster, Marxist ecologist and editor of Monthly Review, addressed the Climate Change I Social Change Conference on "Capitalism and Climate Change," Sydney, April 11, 2008. Foster's talk was part of a panel discussing "Climate Change and Its Social Roots." The conference was organized by Green Left Weekly. Below is Foster's talk in five parts. Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wallerstein190408.html Nicolas Sarkozy has gone out of his way to sound pro-American. He made a special visit in 2007 to Kennebunkport to have a cozy meeting with George W. Bush. Since neither spoke the other's language, they must have had translators. So perhaps I might be allowed to try to translate what has been going on. Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cm180408.html On Thursday, April 3rd, a group of approximately 500 armed combatants representing the most vociferously revolutionary sectors of the Venezuelan Revolution engaged in a display of force in the historically-revolutionary parroquia of 23 de Enero (January 23rd) in western Caracas, making painfully evident the deep and volatile divisions that threaten the tenuous unity of the governing coalition. Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hallward170408.html In 2005 the journalist Michael Deibert published a book applauding the overthrow, the previous year, of Haiti's elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. More recently he wrote a long and critical review of my own book about this 2004 coup, Damming the Flood, and posted it on his blog. Since we have both already written substantial books on more or less the same topic I will keep my response to this review as short as possible and leave it to readers to make up their own minds. Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/fellner170408.html The day after Charlton Heston's death, I received a barrage of emails from old friends about the demise of my once-sworn enemy. Back in the 1980s, when I was information director of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Heston considered me to be the Red Menace. Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sacp170408.html The South African Communist Party has been closely following events in Zimbabwe, including the circumstances surrounding the recently held national elections. We wish to join our allies, the ANC and COSATU, in expressing our concern in how these political developments are unfolding. We are extremely worried and strongly condemn the ZEC's clandestine management and failure to announce all the results, more than two weeks after voting. There is every merit to the insistence that all election results be expeditiously announced. The SACP fully supports such a call. Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/flanders160408.html The left press is buzzing about the SEIU disruption of the 2008 Labor Notes Conference in Detroit. Perhaps lost, as a result, is the significance of this event. This bi-annual labor activist conference has been taking place for almost 30 years now, and it provides a space for labor activists to meet and discuss all the issues on labor's plate in main sessions and, more importantly, workshops. This year was one of the largest in Labor Notes history, with more than a thousand participating. Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/amr160408.html There has been no readymade formula for the tasks that have been successfully accomplished, even less so for the tasks that lie ahead. The immediate problem of food supply and the longer-term question of economic development are daunting. But for those of us who believe that politics must be in command, the events in Nepal are of the greatest significance. In 2003 the CPN(Maoist) adopted a resolution entitled "Development of Socialism in 21st Century." It looked toward multiparty competition organised under a constitutional framework of a firmly proletarian and people's democratic nature. Randhir Singh has written that achieving socialist democracy "must be viewed not as a destination but as a never-ending historical process involving constant struggle and ever greater democracy" (Crisis of Socialism, Amit Atwal, 2006, p.818). The CA election marks the next stage in the emergence in Nepal of a revolutionary socialist democracy, an event of world historic importance. Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hd150408.html Fernando Lugo, a bearded, left-leaning bishop, is expected to win Paraguay's historic presidential election on April 20th, upsetting a 60-year rule by the right-wing Colorado Party. While escaping the heat of the Paraguayan sun by sitting in the shade of an orange tree, farmer union leader Tomas Zayas explains, "If Lugo is elected, it will open a door for more changes in the future, but that's all. We'll take what we can get." Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/shrestha140408.html They have to maintain the coalition government. The coalition will also contain Nepali Congress. NC will try to drag them toward liberalism and "free market" economy and adapt them to status quo. The future will show how far they will be able to resist this pressure. If they can maintain the popular support of the people by launching land reform, industrial reform, change in the system of governance and meet the expectations of the people so that they see change in their lives and a lower level of corruption, they will have done well. They can face these negative factors. Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/yami140408.html "I think we can have a land reform pretty soon. We have a commission already, so we can now push forward." Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/iran140408.html Dear MR readers, I noticed that MRZine excerpted our recent report on our poll of Iranians, and this has excited some comment: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/iran120408.html I'm one of those responsible for the study, and thought I should make myself available for whatever questions you would like to throw out. If this is posted where people can find it, I'll try to answer your questions over the next couple of days. Clay Ramsay, Research Director, Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff140408.html Past reforms, emerging from past economic crises, have repeatedly failed to prevent subsequent crises. For example, in recent years over 90 per cent of all US mortgage borrowers were required to sign and deliver a special Internal Revenue Service document (IRS Form 4506T) to their lenders. The form allowed lenders to access borrowers' tax filings to verify their incomes -- and thus their ability to afford the mortgages. According to Gretchen Morgenson (NY Times, April 6), most lenders never checked with the IRS because they deliberately ignored borrowers' limitations. Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/lebowitz130408.html On May Day 2005, I marched with workers in Caracas. And the slogan workers were chanting at that time was "Without Comanagement, There Is No Revolution." Indeed, the main slogans for that May Day march, organized by the UNT, were "Comanagement Is Revolution" and "Venezuelan Workers Are Building Bolivarian Socialism." We don't hear much of that anymore. We don't have masses of workers saying, "Without Worker-management, There Is No Socialism." Or, "You Cannot Build Socialism without Worker-management." Nevertheless, I think that we have to recognize the essential truth of this proposition. Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/iran120408.html Iranians largely express satisfaction with their government. Two out of three say that Iran is generally going in the right direction, though a plurality is dissatisfied with the Iranian economy. Half say they trust the government to do what is right most of the time, while another quarter say they trust it at least some of the time. Two-thirds express satisfaction with Iran's relations with the world as a whole. Large majorities approve of how President Ahmadinejad is handling his job at home and his dealings with other countries, though this support is considerably lower among more educated and higher-income Iranians. Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/andresen110408.html As of 10:47 PM Nepal time on Friday April 11th, partial results have been posted in 75 of the 240 "First Past The Post" constituencies, and the CPN(Maoist) is ahead in 41, and the Nepal Congress in second place with 12. Though these results are fairly complete only for the central valley of Nepal with the three adjoining cities of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, the CPN(Maoist) is running ahead in all parts of the country that have reported so far. Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/prado100408.html In reality, the term "moderate Islam" is strange, since Islam is in essence a moderate religion. That being the case, why did all the Muslims categorized by the English government as "moderates" reject the label? According to the aforementioned sociologist, their main argument is that the use of this label is misleading, since it makes "moderate" positions seem like minority ones in a sea of fanaticism. At the same time, it creates an artificial division within a community characterized always by its diversity. The Muslim respondents refused to participate in a game of definitions initiated from positions of power with neo-colonial political aims. Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/guskin100408.html ICE is increasing its worksite enforcement. But ICE raids never result in a positive resolution for exploited workers -- in fact, workers who are jailed and deported after being picked up in raids face a real challenge collecting their last paychecks, let alone suing their abusive employers for underpayment of wages. And employers use the fear of immigration enforcement to keep workers afraid of organizing. So why do we accept the framing of this debate around immigration raids? Why aren't we talking about increasing government resources for enforcement of wage and hour laws, and health and safety laws? Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/andresen100408.html Today's news is dominated by the death of seven Maoists from police fire in Lamahi in Dang, western Nepal. It's difficult to discern what actually happened through the predominantly anti-Maoist media, but what is certain is that there were no casualties for the police -- the result that speaks for itself. The killings came just two days before the historic elections of a Constitutional Assembly, the first democratically elected Constitutional Assembly in Nepal's history. The Maoist leadership have responded to the deaths by urging their members to show restraint and go ahead with the elections. The pre-election death toll has been by far the highest among Maoists. Meanwhile in another place a UML candidate was killed in a confrontation between UML and Nepali Congress cadres. Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/andresen090408.html Well, this election will have more observers than ever before in Nepali history. There will be 64,000 national election observers. The Carter Center is represented by 60 international observers, and the EU has mustered the largest delegation with 125. All in all there are probably almost one thousand international observers. The cynic will ask: Which side are the individual observers and the different observer organizations on? The election commission has said that the final result of the election will probably not be announced until three weeks after the election. As we know from the criticism of the elections in Zimbabwe where over a week was considered suspicious, what are we to think about three weeks? We can only hope that there will be enough civil vigilance to hinder too much monkey business. The Maoists believe that they will get a majority vote during the elections, but they are afraid that the elections won't be free and fair. The other parties, of course, claim that the Maoists are not to be trusted. Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:16:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/jensen090408.html As Abe Osheroff's body slowly began to betray him in his 80s and 90s, one of his favorite lines was, "I have one foot in the grave but the other keeps dancing." That dance ended on Sunday, April 6, when the 92-year-old Osheroff died of a heart attack at his Seattle home. Osheroff is remembered most for his rich life of political activism. From the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War to streets all across the United States, he was a master strategist, energetic organizer, and courageous fighter. But when I think about a world without Abe, it's Osheroff-the-philosopher I will miss the most. Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/labotz080408.html The Nation under the heading "Toward a New New Deal," recently asked a dozen prominent Americans, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, SEIU President Andy Stern, and historian Howard Zinn, to comment on the New Deal on its anniversary. By and large, those commentators suggested that we might turn to the New Deal for inspiration, as a model for taking political power, and as a program to resolve the country's economic difficulties. Zinn suggested that today's presidential contenders might ask the American people to undertake a new New Deal and wondered if "Perhaps the momentum of such a project could carry the nation past the limits of FDR's reforms, especially if there were a popular upsurge that demanded it." But does the New Deal of the 1930s represent the way forward for America in the 2000s? Did it even represent the best way forward for America in the 1930s? Do we want to go that route again? And, if we did, would it even be possible? The answers to these questions, I think, point in another direction. What we need today is not a New New Deal but a different sort of coalition under different leadership and with altogether different objectives: a Different Deal. Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/palestine080408.html As people of faith and conscience, we believe that forging a just peace includes liberating religion itself and requires counter-imperial expressions of faith. We seek to extricate ourselves from its imperialisation and manipulation. Each of us, from our own traditions and convictions, seeks to embrace a counter-imperial faith which is rooted in the call to fullness of life for all. We repudiate all attempts to put religion at the service of empire and domination, and we pledge to the specifically theological task of delegitimising the false religious claims of the project of domination. Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/salevurakis080408.html In typical crony-capitalist fashion, the shameless threat of force effectively discouraged overt and otherwise peaceful protest here today . . . but with a twist. Perhaps taking a page from America's playbook, Egypt uses men who are in essence "government contractors" largely or entirely lacking in accountability. The photographs below show the "legitimate" police forces in Egypt along with several of these "informal employees" of the Egyptian government present only to intimidate or attack those who would step over the ideological line set forth by America's strongest ally in the Arab world. One might also notice the trucks, complete with water cannons and housing even more soldiers, lining the streets near the American University. Appropriately, amid today's sandstorm, these vehicles appear to be insulating Hardees, Pizza Hut, and McDonalds from any potential violence against the pursuit of corporate profit. Meanwhile, the need for subsidized bread increases along with the mass of human suffering. Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mahalla070408.html 6 April 2008 -- The government's police attacked the Mahalla workers' strike. Since the night of 5 April, so many worker leaders have been arrested. Police besieged the city. The strike couldn't start in the morning. In the afternoon, workers, their families, and the unemployed started demonstrations. Police have attacked brutally with real bullets and gas bombs and killed 7 people, one of whom was a 9-year-old boy. 200 have been arrested in Cairo and 400 in Mahallah. Two of them are professors. Hundreds of wounded demonstrator are in three hospitals. Half a million demonstrators are in streets and clashes with police are continuing. However, workers are trying to start the strike. Below are calls for solidarity issued before the strike. -- Cigdem Cidamli Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/seymour060408.html The Mahdi Army has buried the myth of the "surge" in the rubble of Basra and come out politically stronger. Sadr has now called for a national demonstration against the occupation on 9 April 2008, five years after the fall of Saddam, and four years after Muqtada's first serious clash with the occupiers. "Sunnis, Shi'ites, Kurds and Arabs, must express their rejection and raise their voice against the tyrant occupier," he said, urging participants to carry Iraqi flags to "show the unity of Iraq." Sun, 06 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hh050408.html Labor and political cartoonist Mike Konopacki -- close friend and collaborator of UE's cartoonist Gary Huck -- has produced a brilliant book-length graphic adaptation of a major portion of Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. Created in collaboration with Zinn and historian Paul Buhle, Konopacki's A People's History of American Empire tells, in pictures and text, the story of U.S. government and corporate policies of controlling other people's countries -- from the seizure of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba in the Spanish-American War, to George Bush's invasion of Iraq. But it also shows that U.S. foreign policy is and always has been inseparable from domestic policies that have stolen land from and massacred Native Americans, crushed workers' movements, and employed racism and immigrant bashing to divide and conquer working people. Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/werblow040408.html "Do you support national (single-payer) health care insurance?" Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/letwin040408.html After my mother died in 2001, I inherited a box stuffed with my grandfather's papers: diaries, letters, campaign literature and hundreds of columns written for a Bronx newspaper called the Jewish Review, from the 30s to the early 50s. He spent several decades as a political activist -- pro-labor, pro-civil liberties, anti-racist and anti-fascist. He got involved in the Scottsboro campaign and chaired the Bronx branch of the Committee to Aid Republican Spain. He joined in the street confrontations against the anti-Semitic Christian Front and fiercely criticized the passivity of the Jewish establishment. Though he worked with Communists, and loathed red-bating, he was never a member of the party and had no patience with what he considered to be party-line regimentation. In 1946 he ran for Congress on the American Labor Party ticket and secured 20% of the vote. Fascism and anti-Semitism turned him into a militant Jew (he was actually half Irish), but he only became interested in Zionism from about 1940 -- when he interviewed Jabotinsky (and criticized him for making a war-time alliance with the British). In 1948, he filled the pages of the Jewish Review with his glee at Israeli independence ("the Bar Mitzvah of our people") and his outrage at the British and the Arabs. He had always seen himself as an anti-imperialist, he hated the British Empire and saw the Arabs as savage pawns of the British. All his worst traits come to the fore. His tone is militaristic and chauvinist and at times bloodthirsty. The man who had been a stand-up champion of refugee rights since he'd opposed the Quotas Act of 1924 was now, in 1948, almost gloating over the Palestinian exodus. One of the questions my book sets out to answer is how that transition came about. Partly, it's an object lesson in the perversities of the politics of identity. Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/freesaminow030408.html The Department of Justice under the Bush administration continues to manipulate the legal system to keep Dr. Sami Al-Arian imprisoned indefinitely. Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:22:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/alarian030408.html The Arab Conscience (Al Dameer Al Arabi, directed by Ahmad Al Arian), a sequel to The Arab Dream (Al Hilm Al Arabi, 1998), premiered on Zoom TV on 27 February 2008. After the opening credits, the songs by Wadee'a Al Safi and Mohammad Al Azabi, and an excerpt from The Arab Dream, The Arab Conscience proper begins 6:07 minutes into the video. It features 106 Arab singers, including Latifa, Hani Shaker, Nancy Ajram, Khaled, Sherine, Saber Al Rebai, Redha Al Abdullah, Amal Maher, Khaled Selim, Ahlam, Diana Karazon, Abdullah Al Rowaished, Wa'ad, Ehab Tawfeeq, Mostafa Mahfooth, Amal Hejazi, Wa'el Jassar, Omniyah, Ammar Hassan, Asalah, Jailani, Nancy Za'abalawi, Majid Al Muhandis, Amnah, Lotfi Boshnaq, Yara, Omar Al-Abdullat, Nawal, Noor Mhna, Fatin Helal Baik, and Mo'amin. The video cuts back and forth between harrowing images (from archival footage taken between 1998 and 2008) of deaths and destructions inflicted upon Arabs by US and Israel wars and occupations -- as well as scenes of intra-Arab conflicts and incidents of terrorism -- with shots of singers whose songs urge the audience to overcome the divide and conquer game played by the empire. English subtitles by Bashar Al-Ba'noon. Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cournoyer020408.html In my opinion the MpRS leadership made a fundamental error in not recognizing the left turn of the government and the opening provided by the launching of the CPCs. Instead of blocking with the center MRS and the right-wing parties, it should have allied with the FSLN. It should have helped to build the CPCs and should have thrown its support to the growing grassroots movements in solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela. Such an approach would have won it a hearing among the Sandinista masses for many valid criticisms and proposals regarding government policy. And it would have helped to enhance the voices of left-wing Sandinistas within the FSLN, especially on such vital issues as women's right to choice (abortion rights) and defense of the laic character of the state. Wed, 02 Apr 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/jacobs020408.html The murders of King and Hutton within two days of each other convinced many people living in the United States that forces within the US government were intent on destroying the popular struggle against racism and war by any means necessary. The historical evidence since that bloody weekend forty years ago suggests that those forces were more successful than not. Despite the current campaign by Barack Obama for president, the vast majority of US residents of color are not faring that much better than they were in 1968. Legal apartheid no longer exists and attitudes towards race have progressed, but the economic facts of much of non-white America are appallingly similar to what they were forty years ago. Furthermore, the statistics regarding the imprisonment of black and Latino men in the United States provide concrete evidence that the mechanics of racial oppression still operate in this country. The criminal justice system continues to be the means by which the predominantly white and essentially racist power structure maintains its control over those who are poor and whose skin is darker in hue. Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:34:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hattingh010408.html In order to cover the costs of its military spending and its current account deficit, the US government has been forced to borrow at an unprecedented rate. The US government has now racked up a debt of over $9 trillion, of which $6.5 trillion is foreign debt. In fact, countries such as China, India, and Brazil have been financing this debt through buying US Treasury Bonds.10 With the declining dollar and the lowering of the interest rates in the US, it seems unlikely that these countries will continue to do this forever. When this happens, the US economy will implode. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/day010408.html Wake up and smell the patchouli, dear. You have succeeded in turning your grief into productive rage and contempt -- not at Congress and our President, who are out of reach and with whom you have almost nothing in common -- but at your fellow activists, where it will do the most good! Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/derakhshan010408.html The views of Iranian economic experts quoted in the media reflect their own factional loyalty and free-market preference more than anything else. Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/albo310308.html The civil unrest has had difficulty moving from spontaneous resistances to organized anti-capitalist protest. Some support for these protests may be found in the "old left" in the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and the CCP who remain committed to the original values of the revolution. However, these are now marginal currents in formal party-state institutions. Some "Maoists" also maintain a base amongst peasants and workers. But the protests and strikes occur in relative isolation, linked only by minimal means of communication. The protests also remain, at this point, largely separated from a significant "new left" forming in intellectual, student and other circles in the urban centres and universities. The formation of connections across these locations is where an alternate development trajectory for China most likely resides. As the Hu and Wen project for a "harmonious society" falters in addressing the imbalances of China's market-driven development model in the next years (and the many unaddressed internal national issues in Tibet and other territories), the protests and connections are apt to grow. For Chinese workers and peasants, this is the political space in the making for the renewal of Chinese socialism. Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sandronsky300308.html Meet Jesus Iowa. He's a teen from Oaxaca whose family moves to a small Iowa town. Athlete and worker, Jesus leaves his home in the U.S. heartland after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. That move partly heats up his community's fears and hopes in Iowa Terror (Seventh Street Press, 2007), Mike Palecek's latest novel. Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bk290308.html In 1952 Senate testimony, GE's top attorney said: "We took Mr. Carey [first president of the IUE-CIO formed as the conservative rival to the UE] off the hook by filing our own petitions for an NLRB election. This, under the NLRB rules, made it unnecessary for the IUE-CIO to show any membership at all." In Ohio in 2008, it did not take as long for the industry to indicate their support for the CHP-SEIU employer petitions. According to the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, "The Ohio Hospital Association called the non-interference agreement between CHP and the SEIU refreshing." Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ali290308.html On the fifth anniversary of this cruel and immoral occupation, data from Iraq are dramatic: more than a million civilians dead, and at least as many injured; three million refugees taking shelter in neighboring countries; total destruction of social infrastructures of the country, and its de facto Balkanization. In the face of all that, the response of North American and European citizens is silence. Why? There is no solidarity with the Iraqis. They are Arabs, largely Muslims, and the wave of Islamophobia that has swept the West has brought with it the dehumanization of those who were murdered. The same thing happened when eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century European colonialism conquered the Maghreb. Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/basra280308.html The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself. Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:07:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cgt280308.html When the government, in an orderly and sensible fashion, employs the mechanism of export taxes to progressively regulate a still regressive tax system, guaranteeing the supply of the domestic market abandoned by the egoistic greed of the oligarchy, in order to use those surpluses for fair social distribution and harmonious development of neglected areas, the financial and pro-imperialist oligarchic entente, devoid of a political leadership that guarantees accumulation of power, launches this wild protest, supported by the same media that favored the coup-plotters' strike in February 1976. We are talking about biased media coverage clearly intended to destabilize the government. Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:17:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hadjialiloo280308.html A March 13 event on Capitol Hill intended to expose Iran's human rights violations was overcome with political rivalry and infighting. The event, a one-hour briefing on Iran's human rights record, was eventually broken up by Capitol Hill police officers. The briefing piggybacked on a recent rise in concern over Iran's human rights abuses, and attempted to unite several Iranian ethnic and religious minority groups. The event, hosted by the Iran Working Group and the Leadership Council for Human Rights (LCHR), was aimed at uniting some of the many factions inside Iran, but fell apart due to internal rivalries. Fri, 28 Mar 2008 01:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sherman270308.html Moody draws on this vast knowledge in his new book, US Labor in Trouble and Transition: The Failure of Reform from Above, the Promise of Rebellion from Below. The text focuses on the course of working-class struggle over the last twenty-five years in the US, not exactly an inspiring time filled with bold movements and major victories. Nevertheless, the picture is not altogether without hope or bright spots. The book should be crucial reading for those concerned with rebuilding the Left, because a powerful union movement is important to such an effort. Precisely how important is a matter of some debate, which I will touch on below. Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/dangl270308.html Fermenting Revolution is not only informative, with pragmatic suggestions on social change, but it is fun to read. This mind-expanding book will make you thirsty for justice, and a good organic, homebrewed beer. Readers interested in self sufficiency and homegrown products should pick up a copy of Fermenting Revolution and get things brewing. Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:08:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/massarrat260308.html If even unilateral and unconditional abandonment of uranium enrichment on the part of the Islamic Republic does not satisfy neo-cons and they demand that the leadership of the Islamic Republic, on pain of severe hardships, for instance open all doors to the main military centers of the country in order to build sufficient confidence and to prove that no other secrete nuclear program exists, then, what is to be done? Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:24:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/doubre260308.html Consider this world-system -- it needs an ideology, what I call a "geoculture," allowing it to justify its structural development. This book, European Universalism, is thus an effort to describe the rhetoric used by the powerful: European universalism is used to justify imperialism, Western expansionism. Obviously, variants exist in sophisticated arguments. The first, the most brutal (as in Iraq today), consists in saying that the others are barbarians, whom we must tame. A second variant, a little more subtle, studied by Edward Said under the name of "Orientalism," claims that the others are different beings, fixed in their differences, to whom we must bring true civilization -- an argument that one finds in Samuel Huntington in particular. Lastly, a third type of argument is that of scientific truth to which one appeals to impose the Western point of view. And, as it so happens, this alleged scientific truth is held by the most powerful countries in the world! Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nyclaw250308.html In Palestine, South Africa, Britain, Canada, and other countries, labor has condemned Israeli Apartheid. Workers in the United States pay a staggering human and financial price, including deepening economic crisis, for U.S.-Israeli war and occupation. But through a combination of intent, ignorance, and/or expediency, much of labor officialdom in this country -- often without the knowledge or consent of union members -- is an accomplice of Israeli Apartheid. Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:59:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cm250308.html Perhaps the most intriguing and frightening revelation in Bush Versus Chávez surrounds a 2001 NATO exercise carried out in Spain under the title "Plan Balboa." Here we should bear in mind the open support provided by then Popular Party Prime Minister José Maria Aznar for the brief coup against Chávez. And while we might be struck by the irony of naming a NATO operation after the Spanish conquistador who invaded Panama, the name is far more accurate than we might initially believe. Plan Balboa was, in fact, a mock invasion plan for taking over the oil-rich Zulia State in western Venezuela. In thinly veiled code-names (whose coded nature is undermined by the satellite imagery showing the nations involved), it entailed a "Blue" country (the U.S.) launching an invasion of the "Black" zone (Zulia) of a "Brown" country (Venezuela), from a large base in a "Cyan" country (Howard Air Force Base, in Panama) with the support of an allied "White" country (Colombia) (95-98). The fact that a trial-run invasion was carried out less than 11 months before the 2002 coup against Chávez should further convince us that this was no mere contingency planning. Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/beinin240308.html March is a cruel month in the recent history of the Middle East. This year is the fifth anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by an Israeli soldier driving an armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer on March 16, 2003 as she attempted to stop the gigantic vehicle from destroying the home of a Palestinian family in Rafah. Rachel's sacrifice did not prevent Israel from turning Gaza into an inferno. Its people are mired in poverty and hopelessness, subject to Israeli depredations, and nearly forgotten by the majority of the corporate media which is covering Vice President Cheney's wanderings throughout the Middle East as though they were relevant to something mendaciously called a Palestinian-Israeli "peace process." Peace and Palestinian statehood have become propaganda terms, emptied of any positive meaning. Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:09:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mcglynn240308.html To summarize to this point: (1) the March 20 advisory of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a unit within the US Treasury Department, represents a US declaration of war by sanctions on Iran and a sanctions threat to the international banking community, (2) the US has various unilateral financial sanctions measures at its command in the form of executive orders and Patriot Act Section 311 and (3) the BDA-North Korea sanctions were, at least in retrospect, a test run for Iran. If the US succeeds, an international quarantine on Iran's banks would disrupt Iran's financial linkages with the world by blocking its ability to process cross-border payments for goods and services exported and imported. Without those linkages Iran is unlikely to be able to engage in global trade and commerce. As 30% of Iran's GDP in 2005 was imports of goods and services and 20% was non-oil exports (World Bank and other data), a large chunk of Iran's economy would shrivel up. The repercussions will be painful and extend well beyond lost business and profits. For example, treating curable illnesses will become difficult. According to an Iranian health ministry official, Iran produces 95% of its own medicines but most pharmaceutical-related raw materials are imported. With a financial sanctions war declared, what happens next? There have been some hints. Mon, 24 Mar 2008 09:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff230308.html As credit markets extended the mortgage-backed securities disaster, via constricted credit to other borrowers, those borrowers had in turn to reduce their purchases in the consumer and capital goods markets. The linked markets proved to be a very effective mechanism enabling the mortgage-backed security crisis to provoke an economy-wide recession in the United States. Since the US is the largest market in the world for commodities produced everywhere, its recession will spread -- by means of the market -- to produce economic turmoil and suffering globally. The world's markets comprise a terror network, a system for producing economic disaster and delivering it to every corner of the planet. Sun, 23 Mar 2008 19:40:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cohn220308.html Is the Bush administration ramping up for an attack on Iran? The signs seem to point in that direction. On March 11, Navy Adm. William Fallon, commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East, retired early because of differences with Washington on Iran policy. And now, Dick Cheney's current Middle East tour may be designed to prepare our Arab allies for an imminent "preemptive" war against Iran. Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:38:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/dewinter220308.html TV Producer Harry de Winter, President of the board of the foundation Een Ander Joods Geluid [Another Jewish Voice], today placed a remarkable advertisement on the front page of the newspaper Volkskrant. De Winter puts Geert Wilders's criticism of Muslims in the same category as anti-Semitism: "Als Wilders hetzelfde over Joden (en het Oude Testament) had gezegd als wat hij nu over Moslims (en de Koran) uitkraamt, dan was hij allang afgeserveerd en veroordeeld wegens antisemitisme. [If Wilders had said the same thing about Jews (and the Old Testament) as he does about Muslims (and the Koran), he would have been ostracized a long time ago and accused of anti-Semitism]." Sat, 22 Mar 2008 18:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wallerstein220308.html For Kissinger, there are nothing but "feudal" forces at play in Pakistan -- large landholders in Sindh province (Bhutto's party), commercial classes in the Punjab (Sharif's party), and the military. The struggle among them is like that of the Italian city-states during the Renaissance -- shifting alliances and no sense of the "general good." The military are the arbiters in the end. Ergo what? Any attempt by the United States to "manipulate" the political process is likely to "backfire." The "evolution of the immediate political process is beyond our reach." Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/golinger220308.html The US Government is waging war on Venezuela -- not your typical, traditional war, but a modern, asymmetric -- 4th Generation War - against President Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Below is a presentation I created regarding the pattern and escalation of US Government aggression against Venezuela, with clear quotes and cites as evidence to back up this claim. Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/amr210308.html The struggle for democratic rights in India, its forward and backward movement, has been continuous from the days of British colonialism to the present. Independence and Emergency, for example, were not qualitative changes. The closest correlation has been with upsurges from below of the impoverished rural and urban masses. In such times the rulers of India slash at democratic rights, and focus on how best to eliminate, whether by co-option, arrest or murder, the emerging leaders of mass protest. Here there has always been unanimity among India's rulers, however they might disagree on other matters. "On 19 March 1931,when the dates for the executions of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were announced, Home Secretary Emerson asked for Gandhi's help to contain the disorder that the government apprehended. 'Gandhi promised to do what he could.'" Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:08:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cc210308.html To strengthen the exchange of ideas and contribute towards that urgent action Green Left Weekly is organising the Climate Change | Social Change conference from April 11-13, 2008, in Sydney. We are pleased to have confirmed: * John Bellamy Foster -- author of Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature; editor of Monthly Review. * Patrick Bond -- director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society. * Roberto Perez -- Cuban permaculturalist (featured in The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil). Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/labotz200308.html African Americans find themselves both deeply integrated into and at the same time profoundly excluded from the capitalist system. Today 35 percent of white families but only 16 percent of black families make over $75,000 a year. White unemployment is 5 percent, but for blacks it is 11 percent. The poverty rate for whites is 8 percent, while for blacks it is 23 percent. Given this situation, Obama's speech leads us to ask: How can African Americans be raised out of poverty without jeopardizing the economic position of the white middle class? To do so one must pry money and power away from the corporations and put it in the hands of working people. How can Obama and the Democratic party, with their corporate obligations and their capitalist commitments, possibly address the historic situation in which African Americans find themselves in such a way that both black and white workers benefit? Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:52:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/firuz200308.html Maryam Firuz, the leader of Women's Democratic Organization and the first woman to become a member of the political committee of a party in Iran, passed away in Tehran in the afternoon of Wednesday, 12 March. A descendant of aristocrats, an iconoclast, and a friend of many of the literary and cultural elite, with a life spent with Noureddin Kianouri, 22 years in exile in the Soviet Union and the former German Democratic Republic, 7 years in a prison of the Islamic Republic, and 17 years under house arrest, she had a different profile from other social and political militants. Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mt190308.html The salvage of these private financial institutions requires massive intervention on the part of the public authorities. And thus once again, profits accrue to the private sector, and losses to the public purse. Which brings us to a key question: how is it that banks can readily waive bad debts to the tune of tens of billions of dollars yet have constantly refused to cancel the debts of developing countries? Why should the one be feasible and the other impossible? Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ferner180308.html I was in a small farming village some miles north of Baghdad, accompanying members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. They were recording the stories of the common people of Iraq who had no access to news media or decision-makers in the Green Zone. One of those stories was from a village sheikh who recounted his weeks of horror as a detainee under the control of the U.S. Army. He and a dozen others were held in, or rather on, a patch of open ground, surrounded by concertina wire, exposed to the sun, huddled against a two-day rain, and with a hole dug with their hands for a toilet. After several days he finally was given at least a blanket. With his humanity and graciousness somehow still intact, he quickly added that he understood the difference between the American people and their government. But then he uttered the words that haunt me to this day: "But you say you live in a democracy. How can this be happening to us?" Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:46:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/brutus180308.html "If I could be a bird / I would fly to Guantanamo / and perch on the barbed wire fence / of Guantanamo prison. . . ." Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/labotz170308.html The world appears to be on the verge of an economic crisis and, if it turns out to be as serious as some think, one that could rival or exceed the great panics of the late nineteenth century and the decade-long Great Depression. The crisis began with unscrupulous mortgage lending on an enormous scale, leading to mass housing foreclosures, then to a collapse of the securities backed by sub-prime mortgages, and finally became a crisis of the banks that held those securities. Over the past weekend government and banking officials worked out J.P. Morgan's buyout of Bear Sterns, one of the most important U.S. banks which stood on the verge of collapse, a development that threatened to unleash an international financial crisis. This may turn out to be only another recession, painful as those are, but if it turns out to be a genuine depression, what are we on the left prepared to do? What will this crisis mean for the American working class? What should be the response of the U.S. left? What can be learned from the experiences of the past and how can those lessons be applied to the present challenge? Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kramnik170308.html The recent beefing up of the US Navy in the Mediterranean has caused concern in Russia and some Mediterranean countries. Experts believe the appearance of US warships off the coast of Syria and Lebanon presages a US military operation in the region. The recent deployment of the US Navy guided missile destroyer DDG 67 Cole off the Lebanese coast, reportedly sent "to support the ruling coalition" in Lebanon, caused an uproar among the opposition. Lebanese MP Hasan Fadlallah, representing the radical Islamic group Hezbollah, accused the United States of aggression against Lebanon. How justified are these fears? Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:40:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/fuentes160308.html The response to Colombia's attack could mark an important regional realignment -- assisting the process of regional integration. The most significant event was the summit of the Group of Rio held on March 6 and 7. Televised live across the whole continent, representatives of all Latin American governments debated the issue without the presence of the US government. After a fiery debate, the meeting came to a unanimous decision to reject the actions of the Colombian government and any further violation of the sovereignty of another country. Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:40:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/skinner140308.html Afghans expressed to us numerous grievances regarding the international intervention: 1) the international military forces are causing high numbers of civilian casualties, displacing populations, arbitrarily arresting and detaining people, and generally humiliating Afghans; 2) the international intervention has reconstituted the theocratic regime first instituted by force with American support, in 1992, and has rewarded warlords who are accused of war crimes; 3) the international community has not reconstructed the essentials of public infrastructure in any systematic way; and 4) promises of liberating women are perceived as not only ineffectual, but intentionally deceptive. Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cm130308.html While we too oppose abuses including domestic violence, "honor killings," forced marriage, and brutal punishment, we are disturbed that some U.S. feminists -- as well as Muslim or Middle Eastern women who claim to be "authorities" on Islam and are employed by right-wing think tanks -- are participating in a selective discourse of universal women's rights that ignores U.S. war crimes and abuses of human rights. Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/janowski130308.html I do not want to tell my kid when she's ten: this war has been going all of your life. I don't want to tell her that next year! I want to tell her, yes, there was a war for the first five years of your life, but then people had had enough! They knew voting for a fake anti-war candidate wasn't going to end the war, they knew watching TV and bitching about it wasn't going to end the war, and they finally voted with their feet. I want to tell my kid that on the fifth anniversary of the war, people said, ENOUGH! And hit the streets in San Francisco and in over forty other cities around the country, and reinvigorated an anti-war movement that brought the war to an end. Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cook120308.html Prime minister Ehud Olmert, for example, has expressed in several speeches the fear that, should the Palestinian population under Israeli rule -- both in the occupied territories and inside Israel proper -- reach the point where it outnumbers the Jewish population, as demographers expect in the next few years, Israel will be compared to apartheid South Africa. In his words, Israel is facing an imminent and powerful "struggle for one-man-one-vote" along the lines of the anti-apartheid movement. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/segev120308.html Israel's Declaration of Independence states that the Jewish people arose in the Land of Israel and was exiled from its homeland. Every Israeli schoolchild is taught that this happened during the period of Roman rule, in 70 CE. The nation remained loyal to its land, to which it began to return after two millennia of exile. Wrong, says the historian Shlomo Zand, in one of the most fascinating and challenging books published here in a long time. There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened -- hence there was no return. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 16:04:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hattingh120308.html The collapse of coffee, maize, and other farming, due to free trade, has driven as many as 5 million small-scale farmers and farm workers from the rural areas.7 Many of these people have sold their land, and used the proceeds of this to travel to urban areas, export processing zones, or the US. Millions of people have become unemployed.8 All of this has seen poverty in Mexico grow by 80% since 1984 -- the result being that 75% of people now live in abject poverty.9 Due to NAFTA and the collapse of agriculture in large parts of the country, Mexico is also now dependent on the US for its food supply. In fact, Mexico has lost any semblance of economic independence that it once had. Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:43:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/qishta110308.html Most deaths were in northern Gaza. When I visited there on February 29th, a mother from Beit Lahia explained what happened the day before: "My sons went to the playground to play football, and I said to myself they will be safe." She completed the story crying, "But they weren't safe anywhere. One of them was killed and the second was injured." I began to cry also as she asked, "My son, why have you left me?" Twelve-year-old Omar Dardona died immediately, and eight-year-old Ali Dardona died on March 1st. Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/guskin110308.html About a third of the newer immigrants have another barrier our grandparents didn't face: a lack of legal status. The earlier wave of immigrants from Europe came "legally" -- because no laws had been written to keep them out. (The first immigration laws, written in the 1870s and 1880s, were designed to keep out the Chinese.) Virtually all immigrants would prefer to live here "legally" -- with permission from the federal government -- but many immigrants now have no options even to seek such permission. If they don't stand in line, it's because there's no line for them to stand in. Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ra100308.html A coalition of Mexican unions and social movements has been calling for a continental workers' campaign for a living wage and social justice in the three NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) countries. Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/nader090308.html The world's largest prison -- Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless -- is receiving more sympathy and protest by Israeli citizens, of widely impressive backgrounds, than is reported in the U.S. press. In contrast, the humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other necessities from coming into this tiny enclave through international relief organizations is received with predictable silence or callousness by members of Congress, including John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/lyall090308.html In October of 2007, the all-white Prince William County Board of Supervisors, in search of an election issue, unanimously passed an anti-immigrant resolution in a county that has over 40% people of color. The resolution requires PWC police to investigate a person's immigration status when detained if they have 'probable cause' to think that person has violated immigration laws. This could happen during a routine traffic stop, if the person stopped for trespassing, jaywalking, or even spitting on the street. Undocumented individuals will then be reported and in many cases turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. For the immigrant community, this resolution has created an atmosphere of terror, discrimination, and desperation. Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:36:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/minkler090308.html Doug Minkler is a San Francisco Bay Area artist specializing in fundraising, outreach, and educational posters. Minkler has collaborated with ILWU, Rainforest Action Network, SF Mime Troupe, ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild, CISPES, United Auto Workers, Africa Information Network, ADAPT, Cop Watch, Street Sheet, and Veterans for Peace among others. Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cook080308.html Hamas' mobilization last month of Gazans to break through the wall at Rafah and pour into Egypt has demonstrated to Israel's politician-generals like Barak and Vilnai that the Islamic movement has the potential, as yet unrealized, to launch a focused mass peaceful protest against the military siege of Gaza. Meron Benvenisti, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, noted that this scenario "frightens the army more than a violent conflict with armed Palestinians." Israel fears that the sight of unarmed women and children being executed for the crime of trying to free themselves from the prison Israel has built for them may give the lie to the idea that the disengagement ended the occupation. Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/samwu070308.html The South African Municipal Workers' Union has vowed to intensify its campaign to force municipalities in the country not to have any trade dealings with Israel. SAMWU firmly believes that Israel is an apartheid state that needs to be isolated and the perpetrators of human rights violations, prosecuted. The union utterly condemns Israel's latest massacre of over 125 people in the Gaza Strip, including babies and toddlers, and Israel's bombing this week of the offices of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cosatu070308.html COSATU echoes the PGFTU statement, which "strongly condemns this crime which aims to break down the Palestinian labourers, and call for all trade unions in the world to stand by us and protect the Palestinian labourers from such criminal practices." COSATU reaffirms, with even greater force in the light of this atrocity, its 2006 National Congress resolution which pledged solidarity and support to the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, and demanded that: * Our government should impose sanctions against Israel until the aggression on Palestine and Lebanon is stopped. * We should step up the campaign for the release of Palestinian prisoners. * COSATU members must boycott Israeli goods and demonstrations must be held at the embassies of Israel and the United States in South Africa. * The government must end with immediate affect the diplomatic ties with Israel including recalling the ambassador. Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:13:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/omer060308.html Two F-16 missiles were all it took to bring down the five-storey headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU). The Union, established in 1965, is one of the forerunners of the movement calling for an international boycott of Israel, and imposition of sanctions on it until Israel meets its obligations over UN resolutions, borders, and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kamaali060308.html Unlike the two previous resolutions and despite claims by China, Russia, and other non-permanent members of the Security Council who tried to justify their unprincipled stance, this time sanctions are not merely 'a signal' but clearly punitive. They go beyond Iran's nuclear programme, and, for the first time, they can potentially bring about physical confrontation leading to a full-scale military attack on Iran. Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wilson060308.html "Immigrants just take jobs Americans don't want," pro-immigrant activists often say. This argument understandably fails to convince native-born workers, who see immigrants working behind counters or installing dry wall -- jobs many citizens would be more than happy to get, at decent pay and with decent working conditions. And well-intentioned economists like David Card of the University of California at Berkeley don't help when they ignore workers' concerns about the downward pressure on wages from undocumented immigrants. Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bassett050308.html A friend tells me there is "no documented evidence" of the KKK in St. Joseph, MI, right across the river from Benton Harbor, a city that is almost entirely populated by black people. But looking at the perfect, sterile beauty of St. Joseph and the boarded-up broken promises of Benton Harbor, it's hard not to wonder what force keeps them so separate. Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:56:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/denvir050308.html Paradoxically, this attack could spell a diplomatic victory for the FARC, although it constituted a major military defeat. According to an article by Colombian journalist Simone Bruno and Ecuadorian journalist Eduardo Tamayo, widespread denunciation of the attack could lead to increased pressure on the Colombian government to move towards a negotiated solution to the Colombian conflict. The analysts argue neighboring countries are "already exhausted . . . with the entry of a number of armed actors in their territory. They have also had to take in displaced people and refugees, which in Ecuador alone have reached a population of over 300,000." For neighboring countries, it is increasingly clear that the Colombian government must pursue a negotiated solution to the conflict. Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/castro040308.html I remember when he visited us, months before the electoral campaign when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been receptive to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations between our two governments. Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/martinez040308.html While some press in the United States question whether Chavez is using this situation as an opportunity to distract Venezuelans from their social problems, this excessive focus on him is in fact distracting people in the US from having a much needed dialogue on their own governments' role in fomenting this so-called "Andean Crisis." As a result, the tough realities and repercussions from the US government's support for a military solution in Colombia are being overlooked. Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/day030308.html No time to get out on the street to protest? Never heard of H.R. 999.03? Too busy battling clinical depression to learn all the facts on nuclear annihilation, dwindling caribou populations, and U.S.-sponsored torture? Click away despair and alienation with online, crisis-driven petitions! This workshop will help you whittle down your need for direct human contact and debate, while building a desire to fill corporate and government email boxes with attention-getting, prefab letters saying NO! to oncoming disasters. Learn how groups such as MoveOn, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Social Responsibility, by telling you how to respond to pending legislation, give you the only democratic voice you have left. Except, of course, for rigged voting machines. Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:45:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/guskin030308.html This complex and controversial subject is a hot issue in San Diego County, and the discussions were well-attended and passionate. At each dialogue we addressed important questions: Is the new wave of immigration really new? Why do so many Mexicans come here? Why don't immigrants "follow the rules?" Do immigrants have constitutional rights? Do they learn English? Do they pay taxes? Strain public services? Take our jobs? Bring disease? Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/friedman020308.html Mónica Baltodano is currently head of Popul Na, a community development organization, and a member of the Nicaraguan National Assembly, representing the MpRS. I had the pleasure of conducting an interview with her on January 4 in which we discussed the past year of President Ortega's administration, the situation in the FSLN, relations with Hugo Chávez, and other issues. The text of the interview follows. Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:25:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/isvan010308.html Some of Iman Bibars's informants are de jure heads of household. That is, the absence of a male provider in their lives conforms to one of the patterns easily recognized by the state: widows, spinsters, unmarried orphans, and to a lesser extent, divorceés. The religious charitable organizations in the study, be they Islamic or Coptic, make it their priority to help orphans. To qualify for aid from these sources, women have to prove that they are widowed, and that they have dependent children. Many women in the study are what the author refers to as de facto household heads. That is, even though there is a man in their lives, he has either abandoned them or is otherwise unable or unwilling to deliver on his end of the patriarchal bargain. The lives of these women provide the most poignant examples of "the new patriarchy" and its social, economic, and cultural consequences. They fall through the cracks of the welfare and charity systems because, the author claims, these systems are organized around the assumption that men are providers. Consequently, as long as a single woman's father or a married woman's husband is alive, she has no legitimate claims to aid. Then there are the spinsters (never-married women aged forty-eight or older) who fail to provide proof of their virginity, thus failing to qualify for the state's spinster pension. What this picture makes very clear is that the state and/or religious foundations are willing to step in to help women who have kept their end of the patriarchal bargain (as wives, mothers, or chaste and honorable single women) but are, nonetheless, manless. Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:25:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/antioch010308.html A historic progressive college, Antioch College, is being destroyed to grow a corporation called Antioch University. All faculty members are fired. Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:14:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/prison010308.html More than 1 in 100 adults is now locked up in America. With 1,596,127 in state or federal prison custody, and another 723,131 in local jails, the total adult inmate count at the beginning of 2008 stood at 2,319,258. With the number of adults just shy of 230 million, the actual incarceration rate is 1 in every 99.1 adults. Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/cook290208.html In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his "respect for the uniform of the Israeli army." The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film studies class at Sapir College in the Negev for wearing his uniform and carrying a gun. The incident raises disturbing questions about the freedom of Israeli academics, sheds light on the veneration of the military in Israeli public life, and exposes the close, verging on incestuous, ties between the army and Israeli academia. Meanwhile, for many of Israel's 1.2 million Palestinian citizens, who are nearly a fifth of the country's population, Hassan's treatment confirms their fears that decades of discrimination, especially in higher education, are far from over. Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/abowd290208.html One at a time, the teachers came out of the sub-zero January cold and into the lobby of Wayne State University's McGregor Hall in Detroit. By the time the board of governors meeting began -- where the teachers had three minutes total to detail their concerns -- they were together in force. Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/haiti290208.html A complex historical truth emerges in Nicolas Rossier’s intelligent examination revealing the oft-supressed story of the 2004 coup d’etat in Haiti, as well as the systemic violence and human rights violations that erupted under the interim government. An interview with the deposed president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Pretoria, South Africa, is juxtaposed with the views of a wide range of supporters and critics, including US Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega. It is not Aristide and the Lavalas supporters who emerge looking like thugs but international interests concerned with suppressing popular democracy and ending the reforms Aristide was capable of making -- despite embargoes and the need to service a debt for loans Haiti never received. History repeated itself in Haiti in 2004 in that the former parish priest had already been deposed as president in 1991 with CIA support. His kidnapping marked the fourth American intervention into Haiti in 90 years. This was also not the first intervention by France. In 1801, Napoleon had the leader of free Haiti, Toussant L’Ouverture, seized and deported to prison in France where he died. While faced with the strangulation of aid, Aristide had begun a campaign for reparations. This provocative investigation draws out the central place of international history in the historical poverty of Haiti. The film Features and exclusive interview with Jean- Bertrand Aristide and other great personalities such as Dr.Paul Farmer, Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega, John Shattuck, Haiti de facto leader Gerard Latortue, Maxine Waters, Jeffrey Sachs, Laennec Hurbon, Guire Poulard, Noam Chomsky, Timothey Carney, Orlando Marville, Kim Ives, Ray Laforest, Brian Concannon, Mario Dupuy, Danny Glover, James Dobbins, Claude Moise and many other Haitian voices. Fri, 29 Feb 2008 05:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/atus.html The President's proposed Fiscal Year 2009 budget eliminates funding for the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). This data source, which became fully operational in 2003, is an annual survey that provides the only available information on how Americans use their time. In the view of many social scientists, it is the most important new data initiative begun by the U.S government in at least 35 years. The size of the ATUS sample was already reduced by 35 percent beginning in 2004. That was truly unfortunate, but elimination of the survey would be a far more serious loss. Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/clr2008.html This statement/call was provided by the Center for Labor Renewal co-convenor Jerry Tucker, who will be on the CLR-organized panel "Reorganizing the Working Class" panel at Left Forum 2008. -- Ed. Statement and Call for the Elimination of Two-Tier Workplaces: On Saturday, January 26, 2008, over 80 U.S. and Canadian auto industry worker-activists met in Flint, Michigan, birthplace of militant unionism in the auto industry in the late 1930s. The agenda was how to measure and respond to the crippling impact of the 2007 auto industry collective bargaining agreements. The daylong discussions led to the issuance of the following Statement and Call for a Campaign to Oppose Two-Tier Wages. . . . Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/elbaum270208.html Of special importance, a majority already believes there is a direct connection between the Iraq war and the country's economic troubles. "To Fix Economy, Get Out of Iraq" screamed the Associated Press headline regarding its latest poll (Feb. 8). The survey showed that "pulling out of the war ranked first among proposed remedies" for the country's economic woes. Second was "spending more on domestic programs." Just under 50% of those polled said that getting out of Iraq would help fix economic problems "a great deal." Another 20% said it would help at least somewhat. These figures blow a huge hole in the media mantra that the U.S. populace, now worried about the economy, no longer thinks about Iraq. Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:14:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/left2008.html Each spring in New York City, Left Forum gathers intellectuals and activists from around the world to address the burning issues of our times. The theme for 2008 is "CRACKS IN THE EDIFICE." We will examine the context of an empire in the throes of collapse and discuss the possibilities for social movements to build a better world in its place. We are living in a time of economic and political meltdown. Even once-stable governments in the advanced capitalist nations are not immune from decay, while in other parts of the world war and genocide have become the rule. The disintegration of the social fabric has brought insurgencies, some presenting a progressive alternative to corrupt regimes but others led by religious fundamentalists. Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/denvir260208.html The U.S. Congress voted to approve the Peru Free Trade Agreement in December. Democratic Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, along with his chief competitor Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats, lined up to support the deal. While claiming that the U.S. needs to stop passing more NAFTA-style trade deals, Obama also asserted that the Peru agreement marked progress for labor rights: "The Peruvian agreement contains the very labor agreements that labor and our allies have been asking for," he said. Apparently, the demands of Peruvian farmers have not been noted. Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:42:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman250208.html The third choice, as in Hesse, would be for the SPD and the Greens to form a coalition with an agreement for The Left to support them. Of course this would mean giving The Left a veto power over any reactionary decisions they might come up with. If they avoid any more such rightward moves, they would be OK. And this arrangement is the only way for the SPD to get back into leadership. It would naturally require an alteration of long established red-baiting. Before the Hamburg election, the leading candidate of the SPD, Michael Naumann, a well-known publisher, said he would never work with The Left (he said: "Nein, nein, nein, nein, nyet" -- his attempt at either humor or irony). Will his party keep to this position, cutting off its nose to spite its face? Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:23:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff250208.html Tangible property that produces income to its owner is thus taxed twice (on the value of the property and on the income from the property), while intangible property pays tax only once (on the income from it, not on the property's value). The total value of just stocks and bonds in the US amounts to many trillions of dollars of currently untaxed intangible property. A very low tax rate could raise a great deal of money for federal, state, and local governments, more than enough to allow other taxes to fall and government spending on social programs to rise or both. How low a rate? An answer emerges from some rare, recent experiences with intangible property taxes in the US. Americans of courage and principle have sometimes taxed intangible property. Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:54:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/jf250208.html Growing internal problems, with a strengthening of the right wing of the Chavista movement -- known as the "endogenous Right," who support implementing some reforms without breaking with capitalism -- pose a serious threat to the survival of the revolution. Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/emersberger240208.html The way Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the U.S. and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments. Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:55:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/beinin230208.html James L. Gelvin situates the Zionist project firmly within the context of European colonialism and the era in which it was considered (by Europeans, of course) to be an unequivocally good thing that Europeans should populate the world, disseminate their culture, and bring civilization to Africa and Asia. It was also considered the right of European powers to draw boundary lines dividing these territories among themselves. Such contextualization is sure to prompt much wailing and moaning in certain quarters. Gelvin is equally unforgiving in contextualizing Palestinian nationalism. A distinct Palestinian national identity emerged in response to the defeat of Faysal ibn Husayn's Arab Kingdom of Syria in July 1920 by French forces at the Battle of Maysalun. This left the people of Southern Syria, that is, Palestine, no choice but to organize themselves as Palestinians and to articulate their national movement in relation to the struggles against Zionism and the British mandate which distinguished their experience, during the period between World War I and 1948, from that of their Arab neighbors in greater Syria -- the region that became Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, in addition to Palestine/Israel. This will displease Palestinians who imagine themselves as descendants of the Canaanites or who see their national movement as originating with the efforts of Zahir al-'Umar, an eighteenth-century Galilean tax farmer who sought to expand his power at the expense of the Ottoman central government, or some similarly implausible pre-twentieth-century moment. Sat, 23 Feb 2008 13:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/vogel220208.html Meeting Resistance is that rarest of discourse in the contemporary world -- the true voice of the victims of US imperialism -- edited, of course, as any coherent documentary must be, but uncensored, undiluted, and untwisted by the propaganda hacks of the empire. Active insurgents in occupied Iraq get the opportunity to speak for themselves, their families, their communities, and their nation. Citizens of the empire who are trying to understand the war that is being waged against the people of Iraq in their name need to listen. Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/amr220208.html The basic problem in the communist response is a vacuum at the ideological level. The deeply held attraction for socialism among the masses has in practice gone largely unaddressed by those able to reach most broadly -- the parliamentary left. And at the same time, continuous neoliberal assaults tear at the daily life of poor people and the Sangh Parivar gradually penetrates sections previously unaffected. Even the most organised section of the working class with a heroic history of struggle -- workers of Indian Railway -- is witnessing the rising influence of BMS, the trade union wing of RSS. In the recently held secret ballot for union recognition, BMS has captured single negotiation power in NE Zonal Railway and 13.4% (1.1 lakh) of total valid votes in the Indian Railway as a whole. If socialism is not on the agenda, then the agenda will be set by the Sangh Parivar. Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kosovo220208.html Not only is the unilateral declaration of the independence of Kosovo contrary to the obligatory UN Security Coun