Chronicling the Crisis of the Working Class http://mrzine.org Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:21:01 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/stewart140310.html Ad Melkert, UN Special Representative: "We have seen the assassination of, um, a few candidates." . . . Jon Stewart: "There is a hint that we may have lowered the bar on what constitutes electoral success when the amount of candidates assassinated is described not with a specific number but as . . . 'a few.' Well, we lost some candidates, but, you know, more than a couple, less than a handful. I let Newsweek sum up the Iraqi elections." Newsweek: "Victory at Last: The Emergence of a Democratic Iraq." Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:19:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mkodzongi140310.html An analysis of the arguments against radical land reform reveals a chronic failure by both journalists and academics to provide a balanced overview of the Zimbabwean land issue; the causal factors of landlessness steeped in the country's history are often ignored. There is a tendency to confuse the land issue with Mugabe's political expediency and in the process the baby is thrown away with the bath water. The genuine need for land, which is reflected in many rural areas across the country, is simply dismissed as Mugabe's political posturing. What is often forgotten is that not very long ago millions of Africans were deliberately disenfranchised by a system of state managed repression, segregation and violence. It is these masses that sacrificed their lives and livelihoods to liberate the country and it is these masses that have the moral right to claim back their land. This legitimate need to right the historical wrongs should never be confused with Zanu PF's attempts to manipulate history for its own selfish interests. Sun, 14 Mar 2010 08:27:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/flassbeck140310.html Neither the drastic Greek austerity program nor the proposed European Monetary Fund can help the euro zone out of its difficulties. Instead, Heiner Flassbeck calls for higher wages in the Federal Republic of Germany in order to cope with the crisis. Q. Mr. Flassbeck, will the drastic austerity program solve the problems for the Greeks? A. No. On the contrary, it will make them worse. If the state saves during a recession, the demand will evaporate, too. The economic and budgetary situations will get worse. . . . Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/umpierrez130310.html Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 17:32:00 EST http://bit.ly/bVoS5W What remains constant . . . is a commitment to an evolutionary temporal schema that recognizes change only within the dyad of turath [heritage] and modernity. Contra al-Jabiri and in line with Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's view of Enlightenment as myth, what is needed -- not only for Arab intellectuals but especially for their European counterparts -- is a view of turath and modernity that is located outside this dualism, one that is not subject to their temporal peregrinations. . . . While the premodern West attacked the world of Islam's alleged sexual licentiousness, the modern West attacks its alleged repression of sexual freedoms. . . . In addition to the introduction and the conclusion, the book is divided into six chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 provide a detailed intellectual history of how modern Arabs sought to write the history of Arab civilization and culture from the pre-Islamic period to the present and how this civilizational project was implicated in the kinds of sexual desires and practices Arabs and Muslims were said to have enjoyed. The debates over the status of the medieval poet Abu Nuwas in Arab heritage are discussed in detail, especially as I see them as emblematic of the "civilizational" anxiety felt by the modern historians. Chapters 3 and 4 chronicle the kinds of Western intervention brought about by universalizers of Western sexual identities and how Arab intellectuals as well as Arab states reacted to such interventions. Chapter 4 will discuss how the Western-incited discourse on sexual identities elicited a strong Islamist response (theological, medical, criminological, social, inter alia) which interrupted the mostly secular debates that had existed until then, and demonstrates how the Islamists and the Western assimilationists end up as allies imposing a new shared sexual epistemology. Chapters 5 and 6 engage modern Arabic fiction and its representation of the contemporary sexual desires of Arabs. Several seminal novels, some short stories, and one major play are analyzed in detail to demonstrate the effect of the different kinds of discourses on sexual desire that came to bear on the modern Arab world. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:36:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/flassbeck130310.html Countries seeking to repress wages for domestic reasons should not join currency unions if they are not able or willing to convince all the others to do the same. Even worse, Germany has agreed to enter a currency union with an inflation target of close to 2 per cent and not an inflation ceiling of 2 per cent. Given this target and the high correlation between unit labour costs and inflation, it was a clear violation of the common EMU inflation target by the German government to put enormous pressure on wage negotiations, which resulted in a unit labour cost growth of close to zero. Greek officials are wrong if they believe that there will be a Greek solution inside the EMU and out of the slump. If Germany continues with belt tightening, and there is every indication that it will, Greece would need to absolutely cut wages far beyond the public sector that is discussed now. The result will be deflation and depression for Europe as a whole but no Phoenix rising from the ashes as long as correction of the overvaluation by devaluation is impossible. But that's not only a Greek tragedy. If Europe cannot agree on a concerted action with explicit decisions about wage adjustment paths for many years, indeed for decades, to rebalance its trade, all of the so-called PIIGS countries mentioned above will have to consider opting out of the EMU. No country in the world can survive economically with all its companies facing huge absolute disadvantages against their most important trading partner. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:48:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/coates130310.html An article in yesterday's New York Times, from the Business Section, titled "Patchwork Pension Plan Adds to Greek Woes" is the latest in a series strikingly titled "Payback Time." . . . The main point of the article is to scoff at the idea that 14% of Greek workers are eligible for early retirement -- "at age 50 for women and 55 for men" -- and to applaud the idea of raising the retirement age, as Germany has done and Spain, France, and now Greece are considering. . . . Turning then to the United States, the paper finds "the situation" here to be "different but also painful." Now the most important subtext of this "Business" article emerges: it is time to face the music -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security must be cut. It also paints a target on public employee pensions in the United States. "Some combination of higher taxes, benefit reductions or an increase in the retirement age" must be forced in the United States, it tells us. . . . So here we come face to face with a call for class warfare -- from above. Trade unionists and activists for social justice and peace should take note. We have every reason to be in the streets. Payback time -- indeed. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 11:36:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/leverett130310.html The first and most fundamental flaw in that approach is President Obama's failure to pursue strategic realignment with the Islamic Republic of Iran with the kind of strategic focus and political determination with which President Nixon pursued strategic realignment with the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s. By allowing the Iran issue to drift, President Obama has given Prime Minister Netanyahu an ideal excuse for not acceding to effective American mediation on the Palestinian issue. . . . Beyond the failure to deal in a genuinely strategic way with Iran, the second fundamental flaw in the Obama Administration's approach to the Middle East is a failure to define any appreciable limits for Israeli actions. This is particularly devastating on the Palestinian track. . . . And that is precisely what is happening today. In addition to the 1,600 East Jerusalem housing units announced by the Netanyahu government in conjunction with Biden's visit, Haaretz reports that "some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval." . . . The third flaw in President Obama's approach to the Middle East is his determined position to enable Israel to act without cost or consequence, no matter how damaging its actions might be to regional peace prospects and America's own strategic interests. Sat, 13 Mar 2010 09:26:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/georgiou120310.html The ongoing struggle of Greek workers has a Europe-wide implication. The more successful their resistance to the austerity measures, the more favorable the conditions for workers of other European countries in their struggle against the austerity plans which will not be late in coming. Besides, already in some countries public-sector workers are taking action. On 8-9 March, British civil servants struck against the reduction of their redundancy pay. In Portugal, public-sector workers went on strike on Thursday, 5 March against the wage freeze, a measure taken to reduce the Portuguese deficits. In Spain, Tuesday, 2 March was a day of action against the raising of the retirement age from 65 to 67. In France, 23 March will be a day of joint action of trade unions. The Greek crisis will surely become a European crisis when other governments adopt similar measures. The resistance of Greek workers must become a European resistance, too. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:48:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/walton120310.html Michael Sonenscher provides a novel interpretation of revolutionary politics, showing how various approaches to using public debt to reduce inequality after 1789 led to political breakdown and, eventually, the rise of the sans-culottes. . . . Revolutionaries . . . began pursuing ways of using public debt to achieve political stability and socio-economic justice. However divided they may have been about the need to declare Catholicism the national cult, they largely agreed on using church property as a source of public credit. But sharp divisions over how to do so soon surfaced. These divisions were exacerbated by the flight of wealthy émigrés and troubles in Saint-Domingue, which eroded the tax base. In the course of debates on public finances (especially, biens nationaux and the new currency, the assignats), the latent tensions in Enlightenment ideas began generating factions. The founding of the Feuillant Club after the flight of the king in summer 1791, Sonenscher shows, grew out of disputes within the Jacobin Club about public credit. While the Feuillants worried about ongoing emigration and the loss of colonial commerce (hence, their efforts to cozy up to the king and forestall the abolition of slavery), the Jacobins thought that emigration got rid of economic dead weight, thereby freeing up resources that could be used to expand the economy along more equitable lines (hence, their alliance with radicals). . . . The sans-culottes themselves were generally opposed to free trade, and the issue divided the Brissotins and the Robespierrists in 1793. Since free trade touches on the central philosophical concern Sonenscher deals with -- namely, how to make property generally available -- he might say more about how it fitted in with struggles over public debt and public assistance. . . . Notwithstanding Albert Soboul's claim that the sans-culottes lacked class consciousness and Sarah Maza's more recent claim that the bourgeoisie did as well, Sonenscher identifies revolutionaries who were well aware that society was composed of classes with competing interests and competing political programs to secure them. As for sovereignty, his study shows that the issue of determining who, specifically, would decide how property should be distributed was a central concern throughout the eighteenth century. Should this power be in the hands of a patriot king, an elective aristocracy, or the people? The great strength of Sonenscher's book, as I read it, is its comprehensive analysis of how contemporaries grappled with class (in the loose sense of the term) and sovereignty in thinking about how to make property generally available while allowing for, and justifying, a certain degree of inequality. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:30:00 EST http://bit.ly/93qDu3 The United States does not support separatist movements in countries they consider their allies. The targets are either countries they consider rivals, like Russia or China, or countries that are too weak to resist, and where they can obtain totally dependent client states from the breakup -- which is what happened with Yugoslavia. . . . After Tito’s death in 1980, Yugoslavia entered an extremely clumsy phase of political transition, which was distorted by severe economic regression caused by the debt crisis. Since Tito’s method of rule had been to respond to unrest by decentralization rather than by democratization, the local Communist parties in each republic of the federal state, as well as the autonomous provinces within Serbia, enjoyed considerable autonomy. Rivalry between the party bureaucracies undermined national unity. The dynamic thus tended toward dissolution rather than democratization. This trend was encouraged by outside forces (German and Austrian organizations represented by the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Otto von Habsburg, who was very active in this phase) which supported secession of the parts of Yugoslavia which had belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I, Croatia and Slovenia. . . . Now that Serbia has Western-approved "democratic" governments, major industries have been sold to Western corporations, the media are more uniform than ever, and the economic situation of the majority of the population has worsened considerably. . . . In general, secession is beneficial to the bureaucrats. Someone who was only a minor official in a large country gets to be Cabinet Minister, or ambassador. So secession was a good thing for members of the bureaucracy in each statelet. It has also been good for a minority who live off crime and corruption. For the rest of the population, it was beneficial primarily to Slovenia, whose leaders succeeded in getting into the European Union ahead of the others. Of course it was not beneficial to the small population of Yugoslavs who were not ethnic Slovenians and found themselves living in Slovenia without any civil status. . . . Otherwise, people who once were citizens of an independent, medium-sized European country find themselves confined in small mutually hostile statelets, dependent on outside powers and poorer than before. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:27:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/eramo120310.html An employer-based healthcare system grants employers enormous control and is nothing more than "the company store" reinvented. Employers hold tremendous power not just over our lives, but our families' lives as well, through the terms of our current healthcare plans. Many workers toil in low-wage, highly dangerous jobs -- or in jobs they dislike -- merely for the benefits they believe are valuable and good. Good, however, is relative. The desire to maintain power over workers, the foundation of the inherently oppressive nature of capitalism, causes large corporations to remain silent about or, even worse, speak out against a national healthcare plan. Although corporations would save enormous sums of money through such a plan, allowing for wage increases for employees and the accumulation of more profits, they would lose power over their workers. And, let's face it, an empowered workforce is the last thing an employer wants. Unionization empowers workers, but if healthcare is the focus of all contract talks, unions are yielding much of their collective power. Only a government-run healthcare system that covers everyone can end the abuse. We need a single-payer system for everyone, like Medicare, that successfully runs with only a 3 percent administration cost. We need to remind ourselves that healthcare is as fundamental to our existence as food and should never be viewed as a commodity. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:52:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/fathollah-nejad120310.html Sanctions -- either "crippling" or "smart" -- ultimately harm ordinary citizens. "Smart sanctions" are as much of an oxymoron as "smart bombs" which supposedly by "surgical strikes" only take out evildoers. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:27:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/honduras120310.html We will hold a national consultation to call for an Inclusive and Popular National Constituent Assembly. The planned date of the consultation is 28 June 2010, one year after the coup d'état. . . . We alert human rights organizations and the international community to the grave situation in which our compañeros and compañeras of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan (MUCA) find themselves, against whom a political and mediatic campaign is being conducted in order to discredit their just struggle for the right to work. Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:02:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/halevi110310.html Greece faces a veritable economic Guernica, a massacre, in the face of which the European Left shows an unforgivable passivity. What is imposed on Athens is meant as an example, to strike terror into Spain, Portugal, and even Italy. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/irin110310.html Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020. This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Clouds of doubt gathered over the statement after it emerged that the IPCC report had based the projection on a non-peer reviewed research paper -- otherwise known as "grey literature." The claim was published in Sunday Times newspaper in the UK on 7 February, in a report headlined "Africagate: Top British Scientist Says UN Panel Is Losing Credibility." . . . David Lobell, of Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, who has worked extensively on projecting the impact of climate change on crop yields in Africa, called the IPCC statement in the synthesis report "ill-advised." "The original syntax was technically correct (i.e., worst years are 50 percent yields drops, and these could become more common), but it was easily misinterpreted as a statement about average yields," he said. . . . "One risk now is that people could interpret the IPCC statement as being wrong, saying that Africa doesn't really face a threat, or that other IPCC statements are also in doubt. In fact, we think Africa faces some of the toughest impacts on agriculture in the world, just not as extreme as the IPCC statement suggested." Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:56:00 EST http://bit.ly/9m5we8 If our society really is experiencing what Marcuse believes to be a growing homosexualisation, then that is because it is becoming perverted, because liberation is immediately re-territorialised. . . . Capitalism turns its homosexuals into failed "normal people", just as it turns its working class into an imitation of the middle class. This imitation middle class provides the best illustration of bourgeois values (the proletarian family); failed "normal people" emphasise the normality whose values they assume (fidelity, love, psychology, etc.). Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:24:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/latuff110310.html Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:38:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/weisbrot110310.html As Greenspan details in his book, the reason for his nightmare is that the world was depleting its stock of hundreds of millions of unemployed people, including those of the former Soviet Union and also in rural China. In other words, "too many" of them had become employed, and this was allowing for wages of factory workers in China to rise. So long as China had a huge mass of unemployed, wages were held in check, and -- according to Greenspan -- competition from low-wage production there held down wages in the rest of the world, including even rich countries like the United States. All good! Until the nightmare started. . . . As the press has recently reported, wages in China are again rising, due to the additive effect of the global economic recovery and the world's most effective economic stimulus program, which enabled China to plow right through the world recession with 8.7 percent growth in 2009. The reports are somewhat less negative than they were a few years ago, but Greenspan's nightmare is everywhere: a dreaded "labor shortage" is forcing Chinese wages up and this will add to inflation. It is not clear what is wrong with a "labor shortage" being resolved in the way that markets resolve other shortages: i.e. the price of labor goes up until quantity supplied matches quantity demanded. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mccormack110310.html For a country in which ultra-nationalism was for so long a problem, the weakness of nationalism in contemporary Japan is puzzling. Six and a half decades after the war ended, Japan still clings to the apron of its former conqueror. Government and opinion leaders want Japan to remain occupied, and are determined at all costs to avoid offence to the occupiers. US forces still occupy lands they then took by force, especially in Okinawa, while the Government of Japan insists they stay and pays them generously to do so. . . . "Client State" status required heavier burdens and much increased costs than during the Cold War, but it offered greatly reduced benefits. . . . "Client State" Japan pays the US generously to continue, and not to reduce, its occupation. . . . In Okinawa, however, forced to bear the brunt of US military rule, civil democracy in the form of anti-base resistance grew steadily and the Client State agenda was never able to attain legitimacy. Consequently, for 14 years, through the terms of 8 Prime Ministers and 16 Defense Ministers, the 1996 bilateral agreement to substitute a Henoko base for the Futenma one made no progress. It was blocked by the fierce, uncompromising, popularly-supported Okinawan resistance. . . . By May 2010 Hatoyama would have to either reject the US demands, risking a major diplomatic crisis, or submit to them, announcing with regret that there is no "realistic alternative" to the "V-shaped" base at Henoko, thus provoking a domestic political crisis. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:09:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/jobrani110310.html "Census forms are being mailed to all Americans this month so make sure to fill yours out. Iranian-Americans are asked to mark 'other' on question 9 and write in Iranian or Iranian-American. (I'm told that the FBI does not get these forms, but please let me know if you do end up getting deported so I don't fill mine out.)" -- Maz Jobrani Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/andress100310.html This work subtitles itself an "essay on the birth of a national myth". The "myth" in question is that of the Revolution as a uniquely problematic episode of violence. Martin's argument is that the supposedly exceptional violence of the Revolution has been used as a device in contemporary political reflections, all the way through to the "antitotalitarian" polemics of the 1980s. Martin proposes instead to offer "une lecture désacralisée de ces années 1789-1799" (p. 10). Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:58:00 EST http://bit.ly/9ZPc4v The assassinations of Salvador Allende and Amílcar Cabral in 1973 mark the end of the last truly transformative sequence in world politics, the sequence of national liberation associated with the victories of Mao Tse-tung, Mohandas Gandhi, and Fidel Castro. It may be that this end is itself now coming to an end, through the clarification of what Mao might have called a new ''principal contradiction''-- the convergence, most obviously in Iraq and Haiti, of ever more draconian policies of neoliberal adjustment with newly aggressive forms of imperial intervention, in the face of newly resilient forms of resistance and critique. Political philosophy is confronted today by only one consequential decision: either to anticipate this end of an end and develop its implications, or else to ignore or deny it and reflect on its deferral. The first option is the path of prescription and hope, of disruptive innovation and retrospective justification; the second is split between cautious reformism and postrevolutionary despair. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:57:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/dimaggio100310.html Figure 5 demonstrates that the general effects of the media have been to increase public ignorance. To repeat the common dictum: the more you watch, the less you know. Those who pay a lot of attention to cap-and-trade reporting across all types of media outlets are more likely to oppose limits on CO2 emissions and to reject the conclusion that there is solid evidence of global warming. Conversely, those who pay only a little or no attention to national reporting on cap and trade are more likely to agree with the consensus position of the scientific community, which concludes that global warming is real and that reductions in greenhouse gases are essential. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:59:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/pflp100310.html Kayed al-Ghoul, a member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, says that, in the event of aggression against Iran, the Occupying Power will likely attack the Gaza Strip and Lebanon to prevent any reactions and to disarm the resistance forces. Al-Ghoul remarked in an interview televised by Al Arabiya: "We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine oppose any US or Israeli aggression on Iran, or any other country in the region. We believe that their goal is to bring all in the region to their knees, in order to subjugate the region according to the US strategy and Israel's role in it." Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:42:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wolff100310.html The nation state has become a useful vehicle indeed to shift the costs of capitalist instability as far as politically possible onto the mass of people. What other modern institution could perform this task half so well? In Europe, this intolerable subordination of the state to capitalist imperatives is widely recognized as such and resisted, sometimes in the name of fighting for socialism. In the US, the same process is largely seen as another government oppression and opposed in the name of fighting against "socialism." The ideological frameworks differ, but the underlying realities do not. In both cases, the immediate focal point of contestation -- the center stage -- is the nation state. The capitalist system remains offstage, some steps behind the curtain. The latter escapes criticisms and oppositions at least for a while, perhaps long enough to hit and bounce back from a cyclical bottom. The notion of system change is virtually removed from discussions about the crisis. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:34:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/latuff100310.html Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/miller090310.html Allen's data reveal that the Directory's efforts to repress crime more energetically, by increasing the number of votes needed by the jury for an acquittal, came to naught. The rate of guilty verdicts remained "stuck" at about 46 and 47 per cent from Year IV. Only after Napoleon seized power did the number of acquittals fall significantly to 36 per cent (Year XIII-1811) (pp. 59-61). Not surprisingly, jurors, who usually were property owners themselves, were inclined to convict and to impose the heaviest sentences for crimes against property. Those conviction rates ranged from 47 per cent (Gard) to 66 per cent (Mayenne) (pp. 62-63). Interestingly -- and significantly for Allen's arguments -- jurors were inclined to dismiss or acquit cases for political crimes, especially those concerned with emigration, non-juring priests, and "seditious cries" (chapters five and six). In the exceptional courts, juries would often convict leaders of public disorders, but balked at fully applying the new laws, such as those regarding conscription or armed rebellion (pp. 235-238). Overall, they showed a "marked indifference" to the government's views in such cases. . . . Using multiple regression analysis, Allen shows also that three other factors were significant indicators of a guilty verdict: the greater distance of the domicile of the accused from the scene of the crime; the rural origins of the accused; and finally, the nature of the crime. Juries generally punished theft, but they inclined toward acquittal in cases of political crimes (p. 84). . . . The grand trials of the Terror, however, held in revolutionary tribunals and not in criminal courts, did not have juries. Thus, Allen asserts that those trials, which are often seen as most emblematic of the Terror, were aberrations of the codes of procedure installed by the early revolutionaries. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:25:00 EST http://bit.ly/a8iaJf Much of the liberal criticism of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq has taken a legalistic form, decrying that law as 'illegal'. This criticism has often implied that US unilateralism has been definitional to the neoconservative project and the geopolitical moment, and that a contrasting and supposedly non-existent 'multilateralism' would be neither illegal nor objectionable. The overthrow of Haiti's President Jean-Bertrande Aristide in 2004 and the subsequent installing of UN MINUSTAH peace-keepers in the country was a model multilateral action, the fact of which should have problematised this model: its almost wholesale ignoring in the scholarly international law literature is therefore investigated. The intervention is understood as a successful imperialist action, and the argument made that multilateralism as much as unilateralism can easily be part of an imperialist strategy. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/barakeh090310.html The Attorney General indicted MK Barakeh in November 2009 in relation to four separate incidents that occurred at demonstrations over the course of the last three years. These protests were staged against the Separation Wall, the War on Lebanon, and the lack of accountability of those responsible for the October 2000 killings. . . . The indictment is not based on any evidence that would convict MK Barakeh; it simply criminalizes his legitimate political activities and attempts to harm his reputation and the status of a Communist and Arab leader. A demonstration will be held near the Tel-Aviv Court, tomorrow, at 9:30 a.m. Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:22:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/letter090310.html The families' group acted in the wake of reports that the Obama administration is considering trying Mohammed before a military tribunal. . . . "I lost my pregnant daughter on 9/11 and I know I will never get her back," said Donna O'Connor, a spokesperson for 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. "We will not stand by idly and lose our country as well. The American system of justice has successfully prosecuted over 300 terrorism cases without compromising our principles. 9/11 families ask nothing less than that in the name of our loved ones." Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/ghosh090310.html The most important difference to be noted here is that after the revolution of 1949, the Chinese state embarked on comprehensive and sweeping land reforms that dramatically altered asset distribution in the country and changed the political economic landscape that determined subsequent policies. While land relations have undergone numerous changes since then, from collectivization to more dependence on independent small holder peasants, the dominance of landlordism was clearly eliminated and greater equality of access to land and other assets also affected the conditions of access to other forms of wealth and avenues for economic and social mobility. They also meant that economic policies had very different results than they would have had in a more economically unequal context. . . . Economic growth per se need not deliver either income poverty reduction or improvements in the conditions of human poverty. Instead, what matters crucially is the nature of the growth. . . . Off-budget official finance (called "fund-raising" by firms) has accounted for more than half the capital formation in China even in recent years, and that, together with direct budgetary appropriations, has determined nearly two thirds of the level of aggregate investment. . . . There is the critical role of infrastructure investment, which has averaged 19 per cent of GDP in China compared to 2 per cent in India from the early 1990s. . . . The manufacturing sector has doubled its share of the workforce and tripled its share of output, which, given the size of the Chinese economy and population, has increasingly made China "the workshop of the world". In India, by contrast, the move has been mainly from agriculture to services in terms of share of output, with no substantial increase in manufacturing, while the structure of employment has been stubbornly resistant to change. The share of the primary sector in national income has fallen from 60 per cent in the early 1950s to 25 per cent in 2001-03, but the share of the primary sector in employment continues to be more than 60 per cent, indicating a worrying persistence of low productivity employment for most of the labour force. . . . This gives India the second highest poverty ratio (at 54.8 per cent) among all the Asian countries considered by the ADB, next only to Nepal (55.8 per cent) and higher than Bangladesh (42.9 per cent), Cambodia (36.9 per cent), Philippines (29.5 per cent), Pakistan (24.9 per cent) and Indonesia (24.1 per cent). . . . Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:07:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/ks080310.html Finally, Khaled's message focused on the women of Palestine, particularly those in the West Bank and Gaza, and their role in unifying the factions, especially Hamas and Fatah, a process of reconciliation and unity in which the PFLP has been playing a central role: "In this political moment the most important issue is that of unifying our people to face the terrors of the occupation, and the main basis of unity must be fighting the occupation. Fighting the occupation demands that Palestinian factions are united. It is important to understand the role of the Palestinian masses in achieving this unity by putting pressure through democratic and civil means on the Palestinian factions focusing on Hamas and Fatah. Palestinian women are adversely affected by these divisions as many of their families are divided, which is why I am adamant that Palestinian women recognise the importance of the unity in the Palestinian struggle and their role in achieving this unity." Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:52:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/honduras080310.html In their attempt to stop the course of history, the powerful are resorting to the establishment of a fascist-style politico-military state, which violates individual rights and human rights. That is made evident by the escalation of assassinations that began with the death of Isis Obed Murillo Mencía and has continued with the murders of Vanesa Zepeda and Claudia Brizuela, human rights defender and LGTBI community member Walter Tróchez, and Artists in Resistance member Renán Fajardo. More than 150 young people have been murdered, disappeared, tortured, and persecuted on account of their ties to the Resistance. We, Feminists in Resistance in Honduras, issue a call to feminist organizations of the world, international movements of women, popular movements and democratic organizations of all continents, and, of course, all of our people: wherever you are, help stop this wave of repression against the Honduran popular movement which is fighting a peaceful struggle in order to achieve a life of peace and freedom. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:35:00 EST http://bit.ly/cIGAEs Third World feminist theory sheds light on how the process of NGO-ization has led to a de- politicization of women's struggles in Palestine and can be understood as a "continuation of the colonial encounter" (Jad, 2003, p. 5) whereby development is continuous with and contemporary neoliberalism. . . . In an interview with Smith (2007), Atef Said states that "NGOization often competes with grassroots organizing work" (p. 175). Central to this competition is the different use of tactics. While NGOs that are dependant upon funding for their existence tend to discourage potential clashes with the oppressors or people in power, grassroots movements may choose to engage in direct forms of action for social change. Said (as cited in Smith 2007) goes on to say that NGO leaders who were previously members of left wing social movements have been co-opted into the "NGO world because they can be funded (including personal benefits like travel and luxury hotel accommodations)" (p. 175). . . . As Hilhorst (2003) suggests, "NGOs and social movements may have much more in common than we have come to believe in the 1990s" (p. 28). . . . On the other hand, one can not lose sight of the current fact that "eighty percent of the infrastructure in Palestine is funded by international granting agencies. These agencies stifle critiques of capitalism and try to normalize the free market economy in the occupied territories" (Smith, 2007, p. 177). Currently, women's NGOs in Palestine operate under this framework where their focus continues to be on the political and social 'empowerment' of women through the perpetuation of the illusion of the creation civil society while under occupation. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:28:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/cook080310.html An exclusive club of the world's most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories. Israel has been told that its accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May. . . . Israel's bid for OECD membership has been opposed by the leaders of its Arab minority, one-fifth of the population. Last month the Higher Follow-Up Committee, the minority's main political body, petitioned the OECD to reject Israel. It has pointed out that half of Israel's Arab citizens are living below the poverty line, a rate three times higher than among Israeli Jews, and that on average Arab citizens earn salaries that are one-third less than Jews. Mohammed Zeidan, head of the committee, blamed the disparities in wealth on what he called Israel's "racist and discriminatory polices." Another OECD report, published in January, showed that, even on the basis of Israel's figures excluding the Palestinians, Israel would still have the widest social gaps of any member state if it were accepted. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:54:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/yami080310.html Out of a total of 197 women members in the CA, Maoists elected 74 -- by far the largest number among the parties. This number has increased as many smaller parties within the CA have joined CPN(Maoist), making it now the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN(M)]. Also interesting is that, among the 24 Maoist women elected in constituencies through FPTP, two belong to the Dalit caste. This is of historical importance because no woman Dalit had ever previously won in a direct election in Nepal. Likewise, nine women CA members belong to discriminated-against ethnic groups, another great historical feat (see Table 2). It is a matter of pride that eight women CA members belong to martyr families of the PW. And four CA couples won election through FPTP. This has also led to one couple, both of whom won through FPTP, joining government in capacity of full ministers, something rarely seen in the world. It is interesting to note that the two seats won by NC and one seat won by UML through FPTP belong to high-caste Hindu Brahmins. Today the vice-chairperson of the CA is a woman belonging to UCPN(Maoist). The whip for the Maoist Party, too, is a woman. Seven women chairpersons head different legislative and constitutional committees, three belonging to the UCPN(Maoist). Moreover, the second highest vote received in a FPTP constituency went to a Maoist woman candidate, the highest having been bagged by a male Maoist candidate. Most interesting is that young district-level Maoist women defeated veteran, central-level senior men candidates of other parties. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hanson070310.html One thing changed dramatically in 1789 (or perhaps in late 1788): pre-publication censorship disappeared, and this remained the status quo throughout the decade, even under the regime of Napoleon. But while the revolutionaries agreed in principle that there should be some limits to freedom of expression, they never reached agreement on what those limits should be. Lèse-majesté gave way to lèse-nation in the new political order, even as early as 1790, but no one could agree on just exactly what it was and very few were prosecuted for this offense in the early years of the Revolution. . . . For Walton, then, it was a culture of calumny that led to the Terror, rather than ideology as it was for François Furet. We are still in the realm of words, here, though, and Walton struggles to explain how the Jacobins could move from what he characterizes as a "quasi-libertarian" position on freedom of expression in 1790-91 to the Law of Suspects in 1793 and the repressive regime of the Terror in the Year II, under which 37 percent of those brought to justice were punished for what they said or thought, rather than for what they did. We might find part of an answer to this conundrum, it seems to me, in Condorcet's pamphlet on press freedom, in which he had argued that the chief purpose of press freedom was to censure authority. . . . [I]t was not just calumny that led to the proscription of the Girondin deputies, or the federalist revolt that followed. This period of intense division within the National Convention, in addition to being a time of national crisis, was also the period in which revolutionary politics became most democratic. Under the ancien regime, as Walton observes, no commoner could have hoped to gain vengeance, or defend his reputation, against the insult of his social better. Now it was the aristocrat who had little defense against the insults, or denunciations, of commoners, and from 1792 to 1794 those commoners (at least the men among them) enjoyed full political sovereignty. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:42:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/dmello070310.html Operation Green Hunt stems from the fact that the movement now threatens neo-robber baron capitalism in its areas of influence -- albeit exaggerated by the dominant classes as so-called 'Red Corridor' -- and the Indian state is therefore bent on asphyxiating it. . . . The problem, from the Maoist perspective of progress in the PPW, is that they have not been able to turn any of the guerrilla zones into base areas. . . . There is another aspect of the imperative to establish base areas -- the sustenance of mass support. Difficult as it surely is, it is imperative for the CPI (Maoist) and its mass organizations to undertake economic development in the midst of the revolution, for the workers, the poor and landless peasants, and the semi-proletariat cannot be expected to put up with their abysmal living conditions over decades. But this can only take place on a relatively stable basis with the establishment of base areas, which is eluding the Maoists, and the longer this adverse situation prevails the greater the chances of a withering away of the movement's support base. . . . Fundamentally, the 'people's war' (of resistance) is about the path of development -- the neo-robber baron capitalism in which the poor are the victims or 'new democratic' development in which they are the intended beneficiaries. . . . In the absence of base areas, the movement now seems to be in a difficult situation -- the Indian state has made it almost impossible for the CPI (Maoist)'s political-cum-military strategy to unfold in accordance with its inner logic. . . . As radical democrats, we need to speak out; as between neo-robber-baron capitalism and 'new democracy', one cannot pretend to be neutral. Evoking so-called 'sandwich theory' that the 'innocent adivasis are caught in the crossfire' between the Maoist guerrillas on the one side and the armed apparatus of the Indian state on the other, thereby morally equating the violence of the oppressed and the oppressors, is to endorse what the Indian state is doing -- backing the neo-robber barons to the hilt. . . . It is not irrelevant that India has the same number of $ billionaires as Germany, although the latter's GDP is four times the former's, and Germany's per capita GDP converted at market exchange rates to US $ is more than 40 times India's. And, in 2004-05, 77% of India's 362 million strong unorganized labour force (which makes up most of India's total labour force) earned less than Rs 20 per day (44 cents at Rs 45 to the $). Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:18:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/di060310.html Many of us ask: Why war and prisons, and not education? Why are the University of Washington, the community colleges, and other institutions of higher education becoming less and less accessible at a time when they are most sorely needed? Why are they trying so hard to shut us out and keep us ignorant? Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:23:00 EST http://bit.ly/cWkrLu Question: What do you feel is the most acceptable solution to the Palestine problem? Mahatma Gandhi: The abandonment wholly by the Jews of terrorism and other forms of violence. (1 June 1947) Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:24:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/jerusalem060310.html Some 5,000 Arab and Jewish peace activists rallied tonight (Saturday, March 6), among them several members of Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality - Communist Party of Israel), in the Palestinian Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem in order to protest against the settlement of Jews in the area and the eviction of Arab families from their homes. . . . For the past six months, a group of Israeli peace activists have demonstrated every Friday in the East Jerusalem neighborhood, protesting the takeover of Palestinian homes by settlers. Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/goytisolo060310.html Juan Goytisolo has just published Genet en el Raval (Genet in El Raval, Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg/Círculo de lectores, 2009), a chronicle of a literary as well as emotional friendship. The Barcelona-born writer met the poet Jean Genet (1910-1986), one of his greatest literary idols, in October 1955, thanks to Monique Lange, "because Lange invited both of us to dinner at her apartment on Rue Poissonnière. I had admired him very much ever since I read his first novels. . . Then I saw quite a lot of him, very often, and when I moved to France, we became close friends." Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:29:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/halevi060310.html The French and German reactions to the Greek and Iberian situation once again highlight not only the role of financial "markets" (which, far from having been pacified, speculate on the Maastricht-Dublin criteria imposed by Germany) but also the absolute unsustainability of such pacts and of the European Monetary System. . . . The euro, divorced from fiscal policy, does not contribute to stability; rather it only serves to safeguard oligopolistic competition within Europe through wage deflation. Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/leverett060310.html As we ourselves have written, there is considerable evidence that President Obama inherited from his predecessor a number of overt programs for "democracy promotion" in Iran, as well as covert initiatives directed against Iranian interests. Obama has done nothing to scale back or stop these programs -- a posture that has not gone unnoticed in Tehran. We understand that, last year, the Obama Administration reviewed whether Jundallah should be designated a foreign terrorist organization, but decided not to do so. Why was that? And, even though the Muhahedin-e Khalq (MEK) retains its designation as a foreign terrorist organization, the Obama Administration continues to push the Iraqi government not to consider a longstanding Iranian request that MEK cadres in Iraq -- who were granted special protective status by the George W. Bush Administration -- be deported to Iran. Why is the Obama Administration trying to protect members of a U.S. government-designated terrorist group? Could it be that at least some elements of the Obama Administration believe that U.S. connections to groups like Jundallah and the MEK are potentially useful policy instruments vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic? Based on our conversations in Tehran, it seems clear that the perception of continuing U.S. involvement with and support for groups carrying out violent attacks inside Iran is having a corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration's seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions toward the Islamic Republic. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:23:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/elyousseph050310.html One year after the war on Gaza, during which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) murdered 1,400 Palestinians including 400 children, the IDF and war criminal Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi will be coming over for dinner. The Gaza War was a three-week Israeli military assault that took place in the Gaza Strip during the winter of 2008–2009. Ashkenazi, who serves as Israel’s Chief of General Staff, is scheduled to speak in Manhattan at a $1,000-a-plate fundraising dinner to benefit the IDF. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:22:00 EST http://bit.ly/at8wep Gay Left encapsulates a particular moment in lesbian and gay history, and in the lives of its editors and writers. It was a moment that was politically, culturally and emotionally potent, but the circumstances that made it have now passed irretrievably. It feels like another age. Yet there is still a great deal of interest in the work that we set out to do, and this website, holding all ten copies of the journal, is a response both to a need to engage creatively with our history, and to recurring debates in what is now a vast, diversified and international community. . . . What unified us and brought us together in Gay Left was a double concern: to enter a dialogue with the gay movement about socialism; and to confront the socialist and labour movements with the ideas of gay liberation. We declared in GL 1 that we were attempting to develop a 'Marxist theory of sexuality' and a 'materialist analysis of sexual oppression', and whatever the twists and turns of our efforts, that remained a consistent theme. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:26:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/baker050310.html In the establishment data, the only sector showing robust job growth is employment services. This sector added 49,800 jobs in February. Employment services has now added 307,000 jobs since employment bottomed out last September. . . . State and local government employment fell by 25,000 in February. This rate of job loss is likely to accelerate in future months as state and local deficits force further cutbacks. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:28:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/white050310.html Now with my own daughter there came a point where the wife I married would call her up and complain about me. "You know your father cursed at me in the street." At which point I would be called to the phone. "Here, your daughter wants to speak with you." This was the ultimate humiliation to be called to account by your own daughter. She who once was sitting astride your neck with wet diapers is now changing your diapers and having to chastise you. "Dad, try and act like an adult, and please stop having your wives call me up to complain." And when I would try to answer feebly that I only have one wife, she would counter with the knockout blow. "Great, but she's not my mother. I should be the one coming to you, remember?" Yes, we don't want to stumble and fall before our daughters, whereas we can be vulnerable before our sons who we feel should somehow be better able to understand because sons have the same third leg as their fathers and are therefore expected to understand that a father can trip over it. Daughters can never understand because they have no such appendage. A man's greatest fear is to become infirm or senile and have to be changed by his daughter. I know that I pray nightly that this never befalls me. America is the land of the disposable diaper and the disposable parent as well. There are more nursing homes in America than anywhere on earth. Parents live longer now than in any time in history. Certainly in previous centuries there was always either a predator or an illness or an affliction which solved the problem of old age. Certainly among slaves there was no such problem; especially in the Caribbean where I came from, the average working life was seven years. Seven years of maximum labor as a cane cutter was usually enough to solve any problem about growing old. But the present day plantation is more modified and so one can and very often does grow old and so can labor for longer periods of time even with diabetes and prostrate cancer and the myriad of other goodies which are common afflictions of Black males, either in or out of prison. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:27:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/lamrani050310.html Basing themselves primarily on prejudices and rhetoric, the media completely distort the reality of this small country and present it as the antechamber of hell. They never do comparative studies nor do they report the voices of those who have differing opinions on this issue. Let's take the example par excellence: human rights. The media frequently stigmatize the human rights situation in Cuba. In contrast, they never do a comparative study, even though it would be easy enough to take Amnesty International's annual reports and compare them. I do that in my book and the result is illuminating. In the entirety of the Americas, from Canada to Argentina, the country that least violates human rights is Cuba, according to Amnesty International. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:53:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/ad050310.html We have not forgotten our fallen friends, not for a moment. March 6 is for us a time of more formal remembrance. Their deaths and all that followed offered us an opportunity to reconsider and recover. We were able to recommit and to see that the first casualty of making oneself into an instrument of war is always one's own humanity, that, in the words of the poet Marge Piercy, "conscience is the sword we wield. Conscience is the sword that runs us through." We remember our lost comrades, their many brave as well as their damaging last acts, and we continue to vibrate with the hope and despair they embodied then. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:02:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/leverett050310.html Brazil's rejection of Secretary Clinton's exhortations to support new sanctions against Iran are focusing media attention on a bigger issue that we have been identifying for some time -- namely, that the Obama Administration will not be able to marshal the symbolically useful image of a unanimous Security Council endorsing further sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran (something which the George W. Bush Administration was effectively able to stage for the first three sanctions resolutions). . . . Let's review the state of play on Iran sanctions within the 15-member Security Council. Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:15:00 EST http://bit.ly/cLbae7 Interdependent Power and Nodal Chokepoints. There are certain features and characteristics of the logistics supply chain that can provide workers with potential or latent power. Most significant are the existence of container shipping ports as nodal chokepoints in global commodity chains, the increasingly taut 'just-in-time' supply chains, and the sequential interdependence of the system. Together, this provides an opportunity for labor to engage in disruptive action that can rapidly cripple the global movement of commodities. Lund and Wright (2003) have explored how the tighter integration of supply chains, using information technologies, poses both threats to and opportunities for union bargaining power. As they note, the sequential interdependence of the intermodal system has "the potential for a shut-down or stoppage of one enterprise to have a domino-like effect throughout the broader supply chain potentially wreaking havoc within and across industries." (p. 103). As an example they point to the United Parcel Service strike of 1997. A more salient example, for our purposes, is the 2002 West coast lockout of dockworkers. This model of disruptive action by the workers, enabled by the dependence of the powerful on the compliance and cooperation of subordinate classes and groups, has a long history of successfully advancing progressive social change (Piven, 2006). Theoretically, this relationship between superordinates and subordinates has been described by Giddins (1984) as the "dialectic of control". The fact of this interdependence "offers some resources whereby those who are subordinate can influence the activities of their superiors. This is what I call the dialectic of control in social systems" (Giddens 1984, p. 16; see also Cohen, 1989). Spatial Fixes. While it is physically impossible for the inland logistics network to be moved offshore to circumvent labor demands and requirements, it does not mean that geography and space are irrelevant to the strategies employed by capital and labor. In the case of the nodal chokepoints, the lifeblood of commodity chains can travel through more than a single container port and terminal artery. We have already noted how this strengthens the hand of shippers, shipping lines, and terminal operators in gaining favorable conditions vis-à-vis labor. Under this system, U.S. ports compete with each other for the footloose discretionary cargo, and shipping lines set up facilities at more than one location. In this latter action we see how the shipping lines' interdependence with longshore labor, and the anticipated prospect of a potential work stoppage, sets in motion the "dialectic of control" and the decision to open a "parallel port" at another location. The ability of the ocean carriers to pursue this strategy is strengthened by the differential union representation of East and West coast longshore workers, and the competition among East coast ports as a result of the ILA allowing the practice of local bargaining provisions within the parameters of the master contract. The geographic location for inland terminals, cargo freight stations, and warehouse/distribution centers are also strategic decisions that have implications for labor organization. They can be driven by the desire to circumvent union jurisdiction or exploit labor conditions in areas and regions that are rural, anti-union, and low wage. This is a topic that is in need of additional research and analysis. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/drennan040310.html IAW: Beirut is happening this week on AUB's campus. In collaboration with this event, some students worked with me under the aegis of the collective that received official recognition in December: Jamaa al-Yad. We started work on a series of posters that documented the reality of apartheid Palestine, while also listing the criminal corporations that are currently profiting off of occupation. We combined the images with Lebanese proverbs to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:01:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/sengupta040310.html Hollywood's cinematic altruism ultimately serves an important function. The films that fall within this rubric appear to celebrate local heroes such as Jamal Malik and Precious Jones. What they're really about, however, are their viewers. They affirm us as wealthy, virtuous, and lucky. They strengthen our sense of entitlement to intervene in the worlds of those we deem as impoverished, depraved, and unlucky. And they harden our demand for gratitude. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:17:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/media040310.html Dear Colleague, Eight months after the June 12 presidential elections in Iran, coverage by Western media like yours prompts us to pose the following questions based on common standards of journalism. 1. Most journalists who travel to Iran stay at hotels located in affluent north Tehran, but you convey their observations as "demands of the Iranian people." Thus in the lead-up to the 2005 presidential elections, international reporters claimed that candidate [Mostafa] Moein led his opponents in voter surveys. He actually finished fifth, with 13% of the ballot total. Is it professional journalism to generalize from the attitudes and preferences of north Tehran residents, who constitute hardly 5% of Iran's population? Do you know that Iran has 1,200 other municipalities? Is this honest and responsible reporting? Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:11:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson040310.html Within days of a January 12 earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti, the New York Times was using the disaster to promote a United Nations plan for drastically expanding the country's garment assembly industry, which employs low-paid workers to stitch apparel for duty-free export, mainly to the U.S. market. This, according to several opinion pieces in the Times, is the way to rebuild Haiti. . . . But the UN plan isn't really about creating jobs; it's about relocating them. The key, according to Prof. Collier, lies in Haiti's "propitious fundamentals" -- its "poverty and relatively unregulated labor market" and "labor costs that are fully competitive with China." Add Haiti's location near the United States: it's "on the doorstep of its market." Haiti is the "only low-wage economy in the region," Collier writes, meaning that the maquilas in nearby countries just can't compete with Haitian factories paying a minimum wage of around $3.05 a day, approximately half the minimum in the Dominican FTZs. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/brazil040310.html President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just reiterated, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Brazil will continue to maintain commercial relations with Iran and will seek a peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear issue. After meeting with Hillary Clinton at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, the provisional seat of federal government, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim reported that President Lula told the secretary that he will visit the Middle East, including Iran, next week. Lula's idea, according to Amorim, is, to talk with world leaders after the trip, in order to attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian issue. Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:08:00 EST http://bit.ly/b6QBmh In recent years, policymaking in China has put increasing emphasis on stemming the growth in inequality, which had been fairly steep since the 1980s. Policy action has taken the form of regional development measures and of reforms of various aspects of the social safety net broadly defined. The Western Development Plan has aimed at narrowing the income gap between the sparsely populated and under-developed West and the more prosperous and faster-growing East. The bulk of the expenditure, however, has been on large capital-intensive projects rather than on education and other social spending. More emphasis on education would help reduce the income gap, since human capital is a key determinant of income. Government policies to improve conditions in rural areas nationwide have involved a substantial reduction in the burden of regressive taxes and fees. Welfare assistance has also evolved: a minimum living allowance has been introduced in urban and more recently in rural areas, but it has not reduced poverty that much, not least because of how it is administered. Moreover, the financing of this allowance ought to rely more on national solidarity and its delivery needs to be better co-ordinated with that of other social benefits. A set of new indicators of nationwide inequality, based on household survey data, suggests that overall inequality has ceased to increase in recent years, and may even have inched down. Alternative measures of income inequality across provinces show that, if migration is taken into account, disparities are markedly less, and have tended to decline somewhat in recent years. Even so, geographical inequality remains very high by international standards. It reflects intra- more than inter-provincial differences, pointing to persistent, if diminishing, labour market segmentation. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:33:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/lamrani040310.html Since the coup in Honduras took place and the military dictatorship was established on June 27, 2009, led first by Roberto Micheletti and then since January 28, 2010 by Porfirio Lobo, there have been more than a hundred murders and countless cases of disappearances, torture, and violence. The abuses occur daily, but are carefully omitted by the corporate media. Thus, when Claudia Larissa Brizuela, a member of a group opposed to the coup, the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), was murdered on February 24, 2010, just one day after the death of Zapata, there was not a single word about it in the corporate press. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/iran040310.html Iran's ongoing internal political crisis has apparently led some Western anti-war organizations and activists to be ambivalent about the need to stand against Western aggression against Iran. Regardless of how activists view Iran's internal situation, we all must agree that outside pressure and interference must be opposed. Recognizing this, Iran's political opposition has urged Western countries to stay out of Iran's internal affairs. As presidential opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, has put it, "We are opposed to any types of sanctions against our nation. This is what living the Green Path means" (Statement No. 13, Sept. 28, 2009). No truly progressive democracy activist in a country targeted by the U.S. would appeal to the U.S. for support. . . . The political positions taken by anti-war activists in the West can become a real factor in strategic decisions made by the U.S. government and its allies. Because of this, we are heartened to see that in the United States the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations and the ANSWER Coalition have added the demand of "No War or Sanctions against Iran!" to their fliers promoting national anti-war protests on March 20. We call on all other coalitions, organizations and individual activists to do the same, and to further demand "No Outside Interference in Iran's Internal Affairs! Self-determination for the Iranian People!" Regardless of differences in our political analyses and views, these demands should be acceptable to all who struggle for peace, justice and a better world for all. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/maisano030310.html "Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions' purpose and power. . . ." Yikes. . . . I think that there are a few factors that are driving these horrible results. . . . The unions have not put forth any serious proposal for a jobs program and have not been effective advocates for real healthcare reform, the two domestic issues that people care about the most and could potentially be mobilized behind. They have done little or nothing to advocate for the interests of the working class as a whole during the crisis. The unions have fought hard against the administration's proposed "Cadillac tax" on high-value health insurance plans, but this is only out of self-interest and does little to combat the perception that unions are a special interest that is only concerned with protecting the advantages enjoyed by already existing union members. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:58:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bhadrakumar030310.html Holbrooke insisted his visit "had nothing to do with Georgian-Russian relations", but the reality is that Washington hopes to incorporate Georgia as a vital link in the proposed NATO supply chain leading to Afghanistan from Europe, which will bypass Russian territory. Clearly, NATO is gearing up to cross over from the Balkans, across the Black Sea, to the Caucasus in an historic journey that will take it to Central Asia via Afghanistan. Clinton also made it clear in her hard-hitting speech at a NATO strategic concept seminar organized by the Atlantic Council in Washington last Tuesday that "there can be no question that NATO will continue to keep its doors open to new members. . . . We are already working with many of these nations in Afghanistan. And we must find ways to build on these efforts. . . . We have already determined the need for a NATO that can operate at strategic distance. We need to cultivate strategic relationships in support of that goal." . . . There was indeed a noticeable lack of concrete results. On the other hand, Holbrooke was merely wetting his toes in an enigmatic region that puzzles even brilliant minds. What cannot be overlooked is that Holbrooke decided to take a look at the region at all. The summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is due to be held in June in Tashkent, can be expected to have "maintenance of peace and stability in Afghanistan" as a key agenda item. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/cocca030310.html There are many "ages of consent." But in common parlance, age of consent laws define the age at which a person can legally consent to sexual activity with someone to whom he or she is not married. They are also called statutory rape laws: statutory rape is the crime of having sex with an underage person. The age varies from country to country. Over their history, these laws have been used by a variety of people for a variety of purposes -- sometimes to the benefit of young people, and sometimes not. At the site of statutory rape, numerous groups have clashed over gender stereotypes and gendered inequalities, the right to privacy, sexual consent, heterosexuality and homosexuality, abortion and childbearing, and the role of sexuality in maintaining social hierarchies. In The Age of Consent, Matthew Waites' objective is "to provide a systematic analysis of how we think about age of consent laws and the regulations of young people's sexuality" (p. 2). . . . The ages range from 12 to 18 around the world; across the United States, they range from 15 to 18 and most states have age-span provisions which exempt young people close in age from prosecution. Some countries have separate ages for acts between people of the opposite sex versus people of the same sex -- the latter always being the higher age in such cases. . . . The age was first set at 12 in 1275 and then raised to 13 in 1875. Waites closely examines parliamentary debates over the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which raised the age to 16. As in the United States at the same time, the change came in the context of public anxieties over urbanization, industrialization, and shifting gender and sexual identities, and was finally sparked by the publication of a tract purporting to expose the "white slave traffic" of young girls into prostitution. The social purity movement (first-wave feminists and those to whom he refers as "male moralist campaigners") wanted to protect young working-class females from older middle- and upper-class males. Along with women's rather circumscribed citizenship status at the time, "The lack of decision-making competence attributed to working-class girls was not only generated by the projection of middle-class cultural assumptions, but also generated through . . . evolutionary and biologizing theories [which] . . . increasingly denied the agency of the poor" (p.72). Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:59:00 EST http://bit.ly/96OeQu Economics was in deep crisis well before the world economy buckled in 2008. Students had been turned off in droves by its relentless formalism; economists of renown were lambasting its irrelevance; and the informed public grew increasingly indifferent to the profession's intellectual output. And yet, a delicious paradox hovers over formalist economics: The greater its theoretical failure the stronger its dominance, both in the corridors of power and in academia. Tracing the history of this most peculiar failure to the early years of the Cold War, this paper tells a story of how the post-WW2 global design spawned a 'dance of axioms' which keeps economics both dominant and irrelevant. Its narrative on the evolution of Cold War economics is projected against the background of a particular account of the two phases of United States economic hegemony (1945-1971 and 1975 to date) and concludes with some thoughts on economic formalism's decisive contribution to the Crash of 2008. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:58:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/friedman030310.html Faced with mounting attacks on public education, students, parents, teachers, faculty, and other educational workers in many parts of the country have increasingly taken to the streets in defense of public education, their educational rights, and jobs. Last September, faced by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's plans to drastically cut the state education budget and raise state university tuition, the education community staged a one-day general strike, shutting down schools and universities across the state. They followed this by a series of statewide stoppages and demonstrations when the state board of regents met in November. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's planned closing of 19 public schools and giveaways to charters has been met with a wave of community organizing and protests, culminating at a January demonstration at Bloomberg's chic Upper West Side residence and another at the meeting of his stage-managed "Panel on Educational Policy" in February. . . . Last December, public education proponents in California issued a call for a national day of action in defense of education on March 4, 2010. For the moment, March 4 is the spearhead of all efforts to beat back the neoliberal agenda. We should all come out in defense of public education and in solidarity with the students, parents, teachers, workers, and faculty in California! Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:05:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/israel030310.html The 6th annual Israeli Apartheid Week is currently taking place in cities across the globe. This week, human rights advocates around the world will host educational events, creative protests, and media actions to raise awareness about Israel's apartheid policies toward Palestinians living within Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Israeli Apartheid Week promotes the Palestinian civil society call for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) as a nonviolent solution to Israeli apartheid. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:43:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/fraser030310.html I'm going to argue that what was truly new about the second wave was the way in which it wove together, in a critique of androcentric state-organized capitalism, what we can today understand as three analytically distinct dimensions of gender injustice: an economic dimension, a cultural dimension, and, now I want to add, an additional third political dimension. Second-wave feminism, in other words, subjected state-organized capitalism to a wide-ranging, multi-faceted scrutiny in which those three dimensions of critique intermingled freely. In this way, feminists generated a critique that was simultaneously ramified and systematic. In the ensuing decades, however -- this corresponds to my second moment, the neoliberal moment -- the three dimensions of critique became separated -- from one another and, equally importantly, from the critique of capitalism. With the fragmentation of the feminist critique came the selective incorporation and partial recuperation of some of its strands by neoliberalism. Split off from one another, in other words, and from the societal critique, the anti-capitalist critique that had integrated them, second-wave hopes were conscripted in the service of the project that was deeply at odds with the larger, holistic feminist vision of a just society. In a fine instance of what I'm calling here the cunning of history, utopian desires found a second life as currents that legitimated the transition to a new form of capitalism. This is the Boltanski-Chiapello argument but now adapted to this feminist argument. So, I'm going to then elaborate this argument, as I said in three steps -- first by reconstructing the second-wave feminist critique of androcentric state-organized capitalism as integrating concerns that I associate today with three perspectives of justice, which I have called redistribution, recognition, and representation. Secondly, I want to sketch the coming apart of that constellation and the selective enlistment of some of its strands to legitimate neoliberal capitalism. And, third, I want to try to weigh the prospects of recovering feminism's emancipatory promise today, in this present moment of economic crisis and possible political opening. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:41:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/food020310.html Join Eric Holt-Giménez, author and Executive Director of Food First, for a stimulating discussion of his latest book (co-authored with Raj Patel) Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice. Learn about the root causes driving the food crisis and the powerful movements that have risen in response. When: Friday, March 5, 2010 at 7:30 PM;Where: 1199 SEIU Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center Auditorium, 310 West 43rd St., Manhattan. This event is free and open to the public -- bring your friends! Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:42:00 EST http://bit.ly/aqfcRj China's growth trajectory has become tied to and dependent upon existing accumulation processes shaped by transnational capitalist dynamics. As a result, China cannot be counted on to assist in the creation of a radically new economic system. This does not mean that trade with China is to be avoided. It also does not mean that Chinese elites and western (especially U.S.) elites see eye to eye on all geopolitical issues. Capitalist competition is real and differences between these elites can and often does create openings that are helpful for other countries, especially those in the third world. At the same time, since Chinese elite interests are structurally shaped by capitalist imperatives, there are limits to the types of changes that Chinese leaders can be expected to support. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:08:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/aldrich020310.html Such public sex took place all around Paris, but particularly in the centre of the city, where sites known as fertile cruising grounds for men seeking sexual companionship included parks, squares, commercial arcades, grands boulevards, bathhouses, and public urinals. "Members of the subculture eroticized the city, and this eroticization of the city is another important part of the history of the modernization of Paris", Peniston concludes (p. 127). The "freemasonry of vice" (as the head of the vice squad and an authority on male prostitution, Félix Carlier, put it) thrived in the mid- and late nineteenth century, attracting not only the attention of the police but also of social scientists. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:21:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/horkheimer020310.html Nowadays atheism is in fact the attitude of those who follow whatever power happens to be dominant, no matter whether they pay lip-service to a religion or whether they can afford to disavow it openly. On the other hand, those who resist the prevailing wind are trying to hold on to what was once the spiritual basis of the civilization to which they still belong. This is hardly what the philosophical "theists" had in mind: the conception of a divine guarantor of the laws of nature. It is on the contrary the thought of something other than the world, something over which the fixed rules of nature, the perennial source of doom, have no dominion. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wolff020310.html One in seven mortgages is "delinquent." Relatively few have been helped and the help has been too little. Over half of "modified" mortgages re-default within 12 months. Very high unemployment levels guarantee rising mortgage delinquencies. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:39:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/day020310.html The White House moved today to protect Americans from nuclear accidents and attack by buying up rights to alarming facts pertaining to those subjects. Speaking to an enthusiastic audience of the unemployed, President Obama announced that, in the wake of federal approval of $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build two new nuclear reactors, the U.S. government will begin to secure patents on the dire warnings of global catastrophe that have long plagued the nuclear industry. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/fathollah-nejad010310.html The wave of cancellations came after a concerted campaign by neoconservative and Zionist pressure groups, such as Honestly Concerned, which are known for their unconditional support of Israeli policies and defamation of critics of Israel as anti-Semites. BAK Shalom, a pro-Zionist working group within the Left Party's youth organization, was one of the main drivers behind the campaign to cancel Finkelstein's public lectures. . . . The withdrawal of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLS) has engendered ongoing protests. In an open letter, some Left Party Members of Parliament and leading party sympathizers criticized the foundation's handling of Norman Finkelstein, judging the defamatory claims against Finkelstein as "absurd." In another open letter, former and current RLS scholarship holders concluded that the foundation risks losing its "character as a place for left-wing debates and controversies" if it continues to avoid criticism of Israeli policies. Many other leftists have also voiced criticism of the RLS's decision, recalling the famous words of Rosa Luxemburg -- "Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently" -- and warning the foundation against becoming unworthy of its name. These protests are not the first ones of this kind for the RLS: the foundation came under harsh criticism last summer for allowing three well-known warmongers -- amongst them a leading representative from BAK Shalom -- to speak at its largest student-led annual conference. The Left Party and its think-tank find themselves in an internal strife on the question of anti-Zionism and anti-imperialism, not least since the chairman of the party's parliamentary group Gregor Gysi advocated in spring 2008 for reconsidering those very principles. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:05:00 EST http://bit.ly/a95AmZ The LOC [left-of-center] policy model resembles more the 'Redistribution With Growth' model (Chenery et al. 1978) rather than the more radical 'Redistribution Before Growth' model which sees the redistribution of assets and opportunities as a necessary step to exit the under consumption trap afflicting developing countries. . . . A decline in the budget deficit was targeted in all countries, despite an increase in public expenditure (Figure 2). Overall fiscal deficits have typically been reduced below one percent of GDP (i.e. lower than the EU and US) and in several cases were turned into surpluses. . . . Tax policy has undergone gradual but deep changes, both during the 1990s and even more so since 2002. As a result, the regional tax and non-tax revenue of the central government including social security contributions rose from 15 percent of GDP in 1990 to 17 percent in 2000, and 20.2 percent in 2007 (CEPAL, 2007). Very large increases were recorded over 2002-2007 in Argentina and Brazil (9-10 points of GDP), Colombia (8.5 points), Bolivia (10 points), and Venezuela (6 points), and only Mexico experienced a small decline in the tax/GDP ratio (Cetrangolo and Gomez-Sabaini 2006). By mid 2000s, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Costarica had reached levels of taxation similar to those of the US and Japan. In contrast, with tax/GDP ratios at around 10-12 percent, several Central American countries remained mired in a 'low revenue development trap' which makes them unable to fund pro-poor and pro-growth public goods. This revenue increase constitutes an important achievement, as inability or unwillingness to raise taxation was a main factor in the large accumulation of public debt during the 1970s, the debt crisis of the 1980s, and the macro instability of the 1990s. The revenue increase resulted from a widespread reduction in excises and tariffs (following trade liberalization), a rise in indirect taxes (VAT in primis), an increase in personal and corporate income tax, and stagnation of wealth taxes and social security contributions (Table 3). LOC countries appear to have performed better, both in terms of additional revenue raised and of the progressivity of the tax instruments used (ibid.). Countries benefiting from increases in the price of hydrocarbons, metals and agricultural exports recorded an important growth in public revenue. . . . In most other countries, both LOC and conservative, monetary policy was either accommodating or neutral, tolerating therefore (with the major exception of Brazil) low or even negative real interest rates and higher inflation rates. Monetary policy aimed also at reducing the extensive dollarization of the financial system. . . . With the exception of Brazil and Venezuela, most LOC and NO LOC countries abandoned the free floats and fixed pegs regimes adopted during the prior decade, and opted instead for a competitive exchange rate regime or for managed floats aiming at preventing the appreciation of the real exchange rate. . . . The clearest example of this policy is given by Argentina, where the maintenance of a competitive exchange rate has been a cornerstone of macroeconomic policy (Frenkel and Rapetti, 2008). In this country, the adoption of a competitive exchange rate shifted labor towards the unskilled labor-intensive traded sectors (mainly manufacturing) with a strong equalizing effect (Damill 2004, cited in World Bank 2005). . . . Latin America's gross foreign debt declined from 42 percent of the regional GDP in 2002 to 20 percent in 2007, while the debt net of foreign reserves fell from 33 to 8 percent of GDP. . . . The LOC's policy model differs from the liberal one in terms of the extent to which labor policies explicitly address the problems of unemployment, informalization and instability, falling unskilled wages, diminishing coverage of social security, and weakening of institutions for wage negotiations and dispute settlements. . . . Public social expenditure started rising already in the early-mid 1990s but accelerated its upward trend since the early 2000s in most of the region (Table 4), especially in LOC countries. . . . As shown in Table 5, social security expenditure is not progressive, as it mainly covers formal sector workers with stable employment. This raises the question of how best can government expand social security coverage, whether by extending the formal sector or by setting up solidarity-based, non-contributory, universal funds providing basic benefits (such as minimum pensions) to informal sector workers and their families. Both approaches were adopted in recent years though the latter was more common. For instance, several LOC countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Costarica) introduced non-contributory social pension which started addressing this problem (Table 6). . . . An analysis of tax incidence in 11 Latin American countries for the late 1990s and 2001-2 (Cetrangolo and Gomez- Sabaini 2006) concluded that the distribution of income after taxation (but before transfers) remained broadly unchanged and worsened in Mexico and Nicaragua, as the tax system mainly relied on regressive or proportional taxes. In contrast, in most countries public expenditure redistributed income in a perceptible way. Yet, as noted above, the increase in income and wealth taxes recorded between the mid-late 1990s and 2007 in several countries should have improved, if moderately, the progressivity of the tax system though no new analysis are available in this regard. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:51:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/pflp010310.html PFLP Political Bureau member Khalida Jarrar notes that the Nablus arrests come alongside other arrests throughout the West Bank targeting the PFLP and other resistance factions. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:15:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/patnaik010310.html For some time now, Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has been arguing that three observed phenomena in the world economy in the decade after 1996, viz. the substantial increase in the U.S. current account deficit, the swing from moderate deficits to large surpluses in "emerging-market countries", and the significant decline in long-term real interest rates, can all be explained as the fall-out of a world "savings glut". While Mr. Bernanke himself has not explicitly linked this "savings glut" to the world financial crisis, others have, especially authors from the IMF stable. . . . The idea of larger ex ante savings in the EMEs themselves causing an increase in the level of activity in the US, which is presumed by all those who attribute the world financial crisis, experienced above all in the US, to the "savings glut" in the EMEs, lacks any theoretical basis. To understand the boom preceding the recent crisis we have to look at factors independent of the savings behaviour of the EMEs. These have to do with the US economy itself. Locating an "external" cause for the crisis simply will not do. . . . A rejection of the "savings glut" argument does not mean an underestimation of the problem of world economic imbalances. In particular the fact that rapidly growing Asian economies, instead of improving the living standards of their own workers and peasants, continue to run huge current surpluses cannot but be a matter of concern. But the explanation offered for these imbalances by the "savings glut" theory and the resolution suggested by it for the problem are both seriously flawed. The explanation does not lie in the spontaneous savings behaviour of these economies; and the resolution does not lie in mere fiscal measures on the part of the EMEs without a degree of "delinking" of their economies from the vortex of commodity and capital flows in the world economy. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:20:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/turkey010310.html Turks demonstrated Sunday, 28 February 2010, on the anniversary of the 1997 postmodern coup, in support of the ongoing crackdown on military officers who allegedly plotted a 2003 coup against the government. More than 30 military officers have been charged and jailed so far. In its modern history, Turkey suffered four military coups, on 27 May 1960, 12 March 1971, 12 September 1980, and 28 February 1997. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:47:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/leverett010310.html Does Israel want another war in Lebanon and/or Gaza? Certainly, the Israeli posture toward both Lebanon and Gaza has grown increasingly provocative. Violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli military aircraft are not new, but have increased dramatically in recent weeks. . . . Israel also appears to be stepping up the pace of its military incursions in Gaza and engaging in more skirmishes with HAMAS fighters there. Mabhouh's assassination in Dubai indicates that Israel has not abandoned its policy of targeted killings. . . . Why is Israel doing these things? Three possible explanations suggest themselves. . . . The Israeli agenda to prepare the ground so that the United States will be more favorably disposed to the imperative of military action has several interlocking elements. Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/grossman280210.html Of course, everyone knew the Afghanistan extension bill would pass. . . . The debate started with a bang. The entire fraction of Die Linke, the Left Party, stood up quietly as most of them unfolded signs, each with the black-bordered name of one of the Afghanis killed at Kunduz. . . . Two Christian Democrats had the courage to buck the very strong party discipline which rules the Bundestag. 226 voted Yes. Only one FDP man voted No, three abstained, 7 didn't vote at all, the other 82 voted Yes. As for the Social Democrats, after the party spokesman dramatically insisted that the increase was only for one year and "we'll be watching carefully," 113 ignored the Dutch rebellion and voted tamely Yes. 16 Social Democrats had the courage to vote No, 8 abstained, 9 refrained from voting. This was no big improvement though it was an improvement. The Greens were split as usual: 8 voted to extend, 21 voted No, 35 abstained, and 4 didn't vote. Now, the Linke: 71, all those who were present, voted No! . . . The sum: 429 Yes, 111 No, with 46 abstentions. A better result than in earlier votes, but in no way representative of the wishes of the people. Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:44:00 EST http://bit.ly/bEcK3w In conclusion, cohesion and trust contribute not merely towards the establishment of a social order as such, but also towards the establishment of checks on government. In traditional Islam, the market or urban element of society aided political centralization by its own weakness, but was devoid of trust and cohesion: but the countryside -- cohesive, endowed with fragile trust, and self-governing -- did provide a check on central power, in alliance with urban-based scripturalist moralism. Tribal life, conditioned primarily by lack of government and the consequent need for cohesion, was the only source of a certain kind of trust, which bound men in groups, even though it was also haunted by the possibility of treachery. In the towns, there was specialization, no trust, and order based on fear. Religion provided an idiom in terms of which the various elements of the total society could communicate with each other. It provided the terminology for both tribal trust and urban fear. It could intermittently help tribal cohesion to extend its scale, and to revitalize the polity by providing a new set of rulers. Modern conditions have played havoc with this system, and have in part turned it upside down. Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:56:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bt280210.html For me, the Fifth International would be, in the present situation, a permanent front of parties, social movements, and international networks. The term "front" clearly implies that each would keep its identity but would give priority to what unites us in order to achieve objectives and take the struggle forward. Recent months have once again shown the need to increase our capacity to mobilize, because international mobilization against the coup d'état in Honduras was totally inadequate. This is a matter of serious concern, because with the United States supporting the coup by validating the elections that followed, putschist forces the world over are once again thinking that a putsch is a reasonable option. In Paraguay, for example, discussion among the putschists is all about "When" and "How"? They are convinced that a coup d'état should be staged from the National Congress against President Fernando Lugo. This goes to show that mobilization in the case of Honduras was not enough. Nor was it enough in the case of Copenhagen, and now Haiti. Response to the U.S. intervention in Haiti is totally insufficient. Sun, 28 Feb 2010 11:54:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/honduras270210.html The document below is a list of 40 political murders since the June 2009 coup d'état in Honduras. The list includes only the murders that members of the Committee of the Families of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) personally investigated. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 08:38:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/osval270210.html Osval, Las Tunas, Cuba. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:17:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/hernandez270210.html Tegucigalpa -- In a multitudinous mobilization held in the capital, the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) yesterday demanded constitutional reforms and punishment of the perpetrators of the coup d'état of 28 June 2009. More than 20,000 demonstrators assembled in Tegucigalpa, according to the estimates by the organizers of the march, to celebrate 243 days of resistance, since the day when Manuel Zelaya was overthrown. Sat, 27 Feb 2010 05:59:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/rampell260210.html This well-attended Black-themed cultural extravaganza is the vision of founder Ayuko Babu, a former Black Panther Party member. Appropriately enough, 41st and Central: The Untold Story of the L.A. Black Panthers, which is as exciting as any Hollywood shoot-'em-up, won PAFF's Audience Favorite Award Documentary. The award was presented by actress CCH Pounder who, fittingly, plays the wife of the indigenous inhabitants' chief in the anti-colonial sci fi blockbuster Avatar. 41st and Central is directed by Gregory Everett, son of ex-Panther Jeffrey Everett, who is among the doc's interviewees providing eyewitness accounts, along with Panther icons Kathleen Cleaver, Elaine Brown, Ericka Huggins, and longtime political prisoner Geronimo Pratt (aka Geronimo Ji Jaga). The two hour-plus film is a riveting saga of the creation of the Panthers at Oakland and the Black Power organization's spread to Southern California, with the formation of what was arguably the Party's most militant chapter at L.A. by ex-con Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter and John Huggins. The doc recounts the socialist-oriented Panthers' clash with the so-called "pork chop" cultural nationalists of Ron Karenga's US Organization, which apparently led to the 1968 shootings of Carter and Huggins at UCLA. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:42:00 EST http://bit.ly/ab1lks . . .I will discuss mostly oral testimonies collected in the 1970s from old-time Communist activists in Terni, an industrial town in Umbria, central Italy. These stories often emphasize, not how history went, but how it could, or should have gone, focusing on possibility rather than actuality. . . . Most rank-and-file reactions to the historical-compromise policy tended to be couched in tactical terms. "We gave them too much leeway, and were punished in the election" (Veniero Moroli); "Berlinguer offered the Christian Democrats an alliance because he knew they would never take it, and then the blame would be on them (Amerigo Matteucci); "Look, Berlinguer is no liar. He did it to race faster to our goal" (Dante Bartolini). But the historical compromise was much more than a tactical move. It was a symptom and a cause of deep changes in the identity, class composition, and political role of the Communist party. This process marginalized many old-time activists, whose identity was so tightly knitted to the party that, while they hurt personally, yet they recoiled from acknowledging what it meant politically. Tactical criticism allowed them to voice their discontent, and yet remove its deeper and most disturbing sources. The primacy of tactics goes hand-in-hand with an image of history as a series of discrete "turning points," crises, and crucial moments, which dreams of the revolution as a single, traumatic, and violent confrontation, rather than as a slow and deep process of social change. Though all these narrators dreamed of a new world, they were all but incapable of imagining it. They concentrated on the revolutionary seizure of power, but were extremely vague when asked to describe what kind of society they expected afterward. The closest they would come up with was a reference to the Soviet Union -- that is, to another existing world. No wonder that, when in the 1980s the world of existing socialism collapsed, the party's identity was shaken to its foundations. The uchronic imagination thus reveals the inability of a significant part of the traditional Communist rank-and-file to acknowledge that basic aspects of the structure and theory of the Communist party (and thus of their own identity) may have contributed to the "wrongness" of history. It also reveals that, for many of these activists, it was too painful and difficult to admit -- and even to imagine -- that the party was becoming something quite other from what they had known and lived for. On the other hand, the uchronic imagination also reveals the failure of official history to explain the existential experience of a majority of the rank-and-file. Uchronia, thus, saves the precious awareness of the injustice of the existing world, but supplies the means of resignation and reconciliation. While it fans the flames of discontent by uncovering the contradiction of reality and desire, it helps to keep this contradiction from breaking out as an open conflict. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:31:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/leverett260210.html We just returned from a trip to the Middle East, which included stops in Lebanon, Syria, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. We will be writing about our meetings, discussions, and observations on this trip in future posts. First, though, we want to express our gratitude to the Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran for inviting us to come and meet with their students and faculty. . . . Shortly before we arrived in Tehran, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the Islamic Republic is turning into a "military dictatorship." As we drove around Tehran, we looked hard to see a soldier anywhere on the street but did not see a single one -- except for a couple at the entrance to the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery just south of Tehran, where many of the Iranian soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq War are buried. Over the years, we have spent a lot of time in a lot of Middle Eastern capitals. We have never been in one -- including in Egypt and Israel -- that has fewer guys in uniform on the streets than in Tehran right now. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:19:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/halper260210.html "If you do something for long enough," says Colonel (res.) Daniel Reisner, former head of the IDF's Legal Department, "the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries. . . . International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassinations thesis [that extra-judicial killings are permitted when it is necessary to stop a certain operation against the citizens of Israel and when the role played by the target is crucial to the operation] and we had to push it. Eight years later it is in the center of the bounds of legality" (quoted in Kearney 2010:29). Or, as Kasher (2010) puts it, "The more often Western states apply principles that originated in Israel to their own non-traditional conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, then the greater the chance these principles have of becoming a valuable part of international law." Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:10:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/egypt260210.html In 2005 the Tanta Flax and Oils Company was privatized and subsequently bought by Saudi investor Abdellah El-Ka'aky. In May 2009, workers launched a five-month strike backed by the state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU). An agreement was reached but workers went back on strike in December to protest the deteriorating conditions in the factory. In January the workers brought their protest to Cairo. . . . "We want the government to rid us of this investor who is fooling us. Either give us our rights according to what the government and the law say, or provide us with employment and give us our outstanding rights, which he [El-Ka'aky] scammed us and didn't give to us." . . . "A handful of MPs from the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as independents, have visited the workers and expressed solidarity with their demands. 'The example of the Tanta Flax Company has proved that the policy of privatization is a failure,' said Gamal Zahran, leader of the independent bloc in parliament. 'I will be filing an urgent parliamentary petition to this effect,' he added." Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:46:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/naiman260210.html It's a commonplace among some poorly informed commenters that Palestinians should "find their Martin Luther King." If the Israeli government can kill an American peace activist and pay little price, what chance do the Palestinian Kings have? Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:56:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/amr250210.html It is important for anti-POSCO activists to be aware, when they confront the various South Korean executives, or Orissa State politicians, or Chidambaram's paramilitary police, that behind them are their masters at CITICORP and the U.S. Treasury. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:06:00 EST http://bit.ly/ckOBCJ The gradual emancipation of women has been, without doubt, the greatest social revolution of the past few hundred years. The widespread acceptance of women's entry into the workplace, together with the admission that there is no 'natural' role for women has thoroughly transformed economic, political and social relations. But even as the number of women in the US workforce overtake men for the first time, there is a widespread sense that some of the aims and ambitions of feminism, particularly in its second 'wave', have been profoundly undermined by capitalism and a capitalist culture that has proved to be singularly adept at turning revolutionary and radical impulses into their very opposite. . . . The hyperreal sexuality of today's culture has as little to do with real libidinal emancipation as contemporary 'flexible' work has to do with true human fulfilment. Feminism must restore its links to an understanding of economic shifts and the cunning of capitalism if it is to remain relevant: less hand-wringing and despair, more structural analysis! Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/kalvellido250210.html Juan Kalvellido, born in Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain in 1968, is a working-class cartoonist who has never stopped believing in revolution. He currently lives in Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain. This cartoon was published by TeleSur. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/olsson250210.html While employers' rhetoric that immigrant recruitment filled gaps in worker availability was sometimes true, as white and black workers across the South increasingly left food processing and agricultural jobs, in many cases the preferential hiring of immigrants, especially undocumented ones, was an active strategy to replace workers considered too demanding with ones believed to be more submissive. As Angela Stuesse demonstrates in her essay on Mississippi poultry workers, racial divisions between white, black, and Latino workers are often exploited by managers, though labor organizers are slowly beginning to reach across cultural borders to forge a labor movement that transcends race and nationality. . . . While many black leaders have symbolically reached out to the Latino community, the daily interactions of African Americans and recent immigrants have been far more strained, as Stuesse points out in the case of Mississippi, and Raymond Mohl for Alabama. . . . Though the 2006 protests for immigrant rights symbolically drew on the legacy and rhetoric of the civil rights movement, any potential alliance between southern blacks and Latinos remains tenuous. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:39:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/latuff250210.html Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:35:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/borges250210.html In a deserted place in Iran there is a stone tower, not very high, without any door or windows. In its only room (whose floor is dirt and whose shape is a circle) are a wooden table and a bench. In this circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing, in letters that I don't understand, a long poem about a man who in another circular cell is writing a poem about a man who in another circular cell. . . . Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:48:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/korkut240210.html In a joint decision, the Turkish Confederation of Labour Unions (Türk-İş), the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions (DİSK), the Public Workers Unions Confederation of Turkey (KAMU-SEN) and the Confederation of Trade Unions of Public Employees (KESK) announced that the struggle of the Tekel workers was successful and that the resistance will end if the workers decide accordingly. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:28:00 EST http://bit.ly/bZkFet Will America withdraw its ambassador if Syria continues to purchase arms and develop economic relations with Iran? I doubt it. Will the US re-impose travel restrictions on Syria if Syria continues to support Iranian positions? I doubt it. Will Syria vote against Iran in the UN? No. Will Syria shutter the Iranian car factory in Syria? No. Will Syria stop supporting Hizbullah or the Palestinians? No. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:19:00 EST http://bit.ly/d64LUL Ahmet Davutoglu is the architect of Turkey's new policy, which relies on zero problems with neighboors, and soft power. He was chief foreign policy adviser to the prime minister from the start of the Justice and Development (AK) Party government, which came to power in a landslide general election on 3 November 2002. In May 2009 he became foreign minister. Davutoglu is not a politician, but an academic, and not even a member of parliament, so free of ties to constituents. And he has not just thought out an innovative foreign policy, he has implemented it. His achievements: "Sixty one agreements signed with Syria; 48 with Iraq; visa requirements lifted with eight neighbors; resolution of Lebanon's problem with Syria [over presidential succession]; two protocols signed with Armenia." This new foreign policy has won widespread popular support among a population divided internally by unresolved questions of identity: secular Turks worry about Islamization and resent AKP patronage that excludes them (especially in the state sector). At the same time, this is a crucial moment as Turkey sends its military back to the barracks and exposes the dark secrets of its "deep state" -- in particular shadowy elements within the military (which toppled four governments between 1960 and 1998) that are accused, inter alia, of coup attempts against the AKP government. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:14:00 EST http://bit.ly/cDOFsc High Court Justice John Mitting agreed with the bank that it was entitled to information about allegations against it, based on a provision on fair hearings in the European Convention on Human Rights. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:12:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/kalvellido240210.html Free election of masters abolishes neither the masters nor the slaves. -- Herbert Marcuse Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:57:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/foster240210.html On climate change, as well as in the revolts against capitalism in general, it is the external proletariat in the periphery of the capitalist world economy that will undoubtedly take the leading role. I have pointed in recent writings to the possibility of what I have called an "environmental proletariat" -- for whom resistance to environmental conditions broadly, and not simply industrial conditions, is the defining struggle. Those most oppressed in the world, who have nothing to lose, are to be found predominantly in third world regions. So this is where the environmental proletariat also is mainly to be found. This is especially evident in the effect that sea level rise will have on the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangladesh and India and on the low-lying fertile areas of the Indian Ocean and China Sea -- Kerala in India, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia. Some areas, like the low-lying delta of the Pearl River in China, correspond to the areas of fastest development (in this case Guangdong industrial region from Shenzhen to Guangzhou), and some of the sharpest class contradictions. So the world epicenters of environmental and class struggle may overlap. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:24:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bakhtiar240210.html Surveying the awful pollution, chaotic traffic, and devastating economic disparities in post-revolutionary Tehran, Bakhshi turns our attention to hyper-construction. Persisting with his ironic narration, the filmmaker introduces us to Jafar Agha, who makes bricks for a leading property developer, Babak Joon. Babak lives with his wife in a luxurious 600-square-meter apartment uptown; Jafar, in a 20-square-meter room on the south side of town with a family of four. The theme of development and progress (or supposed progress) is central. We are told that the sale of density rights -- allowing developers to construct buildings higher than ordinarily permitted -- is forbidden and that the construction of buildings without permits has been halted. We are introduced to another resident of the city, Mohandes Khani, who tells us (rosary in hand) of the time and energy he dedicates to creating low-income housing in south Tehran, before describing his other main pursuit -- buying land and constructing luxury apartments, then selling them for several times their cost when the property value rises. Such observations are accompanied by the recurring voice of Jafar Agha, a small town man who speaks politely of Tehran but also offers sincere criticisms that stand in contrast to the narrator's cool, dry tone. The result is a multilayered film that makes a point of provoking its audience, albeit playfully. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:03:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/baker240210.html There appears to be a growing divergence in price trends in recent data. . . . The bottom third of the market continues to substantially out-perform the rest of the market in the tiered indexes, indicating that the first-time buyers tax credit is likely a major factor in the recent price increases. . . . . Going forward, there continues to be substantial grounds for questioning whether this price recovery will be sustained. The Federal Reserve Board appears likely to go through with plans to end its purchase program for mortgage-backed securities at the end of March. This will almost certainly cause the 30-year mortgage rate to rise to at least 5.5 percent by the end of the year. More importantly, the renewal of the expanded first-time buyers tax credit is scheduled to expire at the end of April. . . . The paring back of loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority will also be a factor reducing demand in 2010, especially at the bottom portion of the market. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:37:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/smith240210.html As Hallward writes, they made "use of tried and tested tactics of democracy promotion. In Haiti as elsewhere, the main vehicles for delivering the policy were USAID, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and the International Republican Institute. Altogether, from 1994 to 2002, Washington would contribute some $70 million -- a staggering sum by Haitian standards -- to 'train' an appropriate political opposition to Aristide." Many, if not most, of the NGOs that ended up organized in the elite opposition's political front, the Group of 184, and that supported the coup were on the U.S. payroll. Such NGO collaboration with the coup completes a vicious circle -- the NGOs aided and abetted the "plan of death"; exacerbated through failure, mismanagement, and corruption the impact of neoliberalism on Haiti; and then supported the coup against the democratically elected government. In so doing, they undercut the sovereignty of Haitian people, all under the gloss of helping people overcome their poverty -- poverty that they, in fact, helped create. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:30:00 EST http://bit.ly/c6JwMC While the pressures on gays and lesbians in Iran to transition from one gender to another are very real, these pressures are not produced primarily by fear of criminality. On the contrary: the religio-legal framework of transsexuality has been productive of paradoxical, and certainly unintended, effects that at times benefit homosexuals. Simply put, the religio-legal prohibition of same-sex practices does contribute to pressures on gays and lesbians to consider transsexuality as a religiously sanctioned legal alternative (which is particularly important for religiously observant persons), but instead of eliminating same-sex desires and practices, it has actually provided more room for relatively safer semi-public gay and lesbian social space, and for less conflicted self- perceptions among people with same-sex desires and practices. . . . As a wise friend urged me back in 2005, before I began my field research, "Don't worry, people are very creative and make their own uses." And this is what I have in fact learned: not to underestimate the real problems and challenges, and at times dangers, that transsexuals, gays, and lesbians face in Iran, but also to see the productivity (in a Foucauldian sense) of the power of legal-medical-religious regulations, as well as the creativity with which transsexuals, gays, and lesbians use the spaces such regulative power provides, and the ways in which their active participation and struggles change things. Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:50:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/fletcher230210.html The difficulty with my critique, and I must acknowledge this, is that I am probably -- and very unfairly -- proposing another book. I believe that there needs to be something that is much more oriented toward left-wing activists and theorists who are drawn to science fiction, who use it in metaphors, and who seek in it a sense of hope that the future can be far better than is the present. While the comprehensive analysis offered in Red Planets demonstrates that science fiction is not a child's play but instead represents an important cinematic and literary locale, the book -- despite the fact that I absolutely recommend it -- does not seem to seek to touch those who were moved when they heard the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, in Star Trek: First Contact: ". . . You see, money does not exist in the twenty-fourth century. . . . The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves . . . and the rest of humanity." Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:30:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/bernal230210.html Among the principal oil operators in the Malvinas is Desire Petroleum (1996), whose founder, Labor MP Colin Phipps, participated in one of the aforementioned mid-70s missions with the aim of finding a natural wealth substitute in the archipelago. Colin died in 2009, and his son Stephen, age 52, took charge of the company with 13.38% of the equity. Former broker at the London and New York Stock Exchanges, Stephen says that that his father attended the Cabinet meeting where Margaret Thatcher decided to declare war on Argentina (WalesOnline-UK News, 3 December 2009). . . . The beginning of this final exploratory phase has, for Argentina (and UNASUR), not only geopolitical (a military base of a foreign power on national territory) and political (the only 21st-century colonial enclave in action) implications, but also fundamentally economic (the probable reserves on the islands equivalent to about US$ 502.425 million) and energy (if these reserves are proven, the lifespan of Argentina's proven reserves would extend from 6-7 years to about 27 years) ones. The British initiative greatly harms the economic and energy national security of Argentina. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:49:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/sader230210.html Why the double standard? Simply because Israel is the privileged ally of the United States in the Middle East -- the country that receives the most US aid in the world -- whereas Iran is in opposition to the United States. Plain and simple. To confirm that, ask yourself: why doesn't Hillary criticize the dictatorship that exists in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, the latter of which is the second largest recipient of US military aid? Because they are faithful allies of the United States. . . . The Non-Proliferation Treaty aims to protect the nuclear power of the great powers, those who are moreover engaged in wars and production of weapons. Denuclearization, on the contrary, is a struggle to abolish nuclear weapons -- beginning with those who hold the largest stockpiles of them in the world. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/do230210.html Q. What is your view of the current Nicaraguan government led by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega? A. I tend to follow the views of the MRS, the Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo, which split from Ortega's domination of the FSLN. However, for the Miskitos, this administration has been certainly more responsive in terms of constitutional autonomy than those of the preceding 15 years. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:17:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/economics220210.html Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis. He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers, have won the first -- and hopefully last -- Dynamite Prize in Economics. In awarding the Prize, Edward Fullbrook, editor of the Real World Economics Review, noted that "They have been judged to be the three economists most responsible for the Global Financial Crisis. More figuratively, they are the three economists most responsible for blowing up the global economy." The prize was developed by the Real World Economics Review Blog in response to attempts by economists to evade responsibility for the crisis by calling it an unpredictable, "Black Swan" event. Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:51:00 EST http://bit.ly/d4mbAW "Popular literature in premodern Japan did not depict male love as abnormal or perverse, but integrated it into the larger sphere of sexual love as a literary theme. Such a tradition had no need for strategies of masking and signaling. Sexual and romantic relations between men and boys, like relations between men and women, were discussed in terms of connoisseurship. Sexuality was simply another aspect of social life that provided a forum for proving one's sophistication and culture." -- Paul Gordon Schalow Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:06:00 EST http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mayfield220210.html Human rights activists from Vermont, New York and Israel interrupted a performance of the Israel Ballet at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, VT calling attention to the dance company's complicity in Israeli war crimes. . . . Former Israeli soldier and human rights activist Yonatan Shapira, who took part in the action, said, "The Israel Ballet comes to the U.S. during a concerted effort by the Israeli government to use arts and culture to whitewash Israeli war crimes and to conceal facts about its occupation and racial discrimination against the Palestinian people. Rather than distancing itself from the Israeli government, the ballet has proudly embraced its ties with the state." The Israel Ballet receives around $1 million annually from the Israeli government and is being advertised as a valued cultural representative of the state by the Israeli Consulate in New York. The dance group also boasts holding "special performances" for Israeli soldiers. Shapira is an army refuser who is active with Boycott!, the Israeli group that supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the Israel. Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:50:00 EST