June 1, 2001
p>Imperialism is not a stage, not even the highest stage, of capitalism: from the beginning, it is inherent in capitalism’s expansion. The imperialist conquest of the planet by the Europeans and their North American children was carried out in two phases and is perhaps entering a third
June 1, 2001
Recently I collected a number of my prose writings for a forthcoming volume. Rereading them, it struck me that for some readers, the earlier pieces might seem to belong to a bygone era—twenty to thirty years ago. I chose to include them as background, indicating certain directions in my thinking. A burgeoning women’s movement in the 1970s and early 1980s incited and provided the occasions for them, created their ecology. But, as I suggested in “Notes Toward a Politics of Location,” my thinking was unable to fulfill itself within feminism alone
June 1, 2001
Imagine Times Square filled with more than a hundred thousand people of all ages and backgrounds. Some have climbed telephone poles, others have reserved spaces on balconies. Imagine them waiting there together, peacefully, not to see the ball drop on New Years Eve, but to listen to the words of poor black women from West Virginia talking about the need for dignity and respect for poor people of all colors. Imagine Columbus, Ohio (the rough geopolitical equivalent of Iguala, Morelos in Mexico), the whole town decorated in colorful murals, posters, and flags welcoming the rural poor. Impossible? Okay, let’s say 50,000 in Times Square. Let’s say Detroit instead of Columbus. It’s still a stretch. We’re not even close. To appreciate the recent Zapatista march from San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas to the plaza at the heart of Mexico City—a caravan that drew over 1,500 participants, 100,000 supporters along the way, and over another 100,000 who braved the scorching sun to welcome the Zapatistas on their arrival in the capital—you have to acknowledge the uniqueness of this event, which has no easy parallels in either U.S. or Mexican history
June 1, 2001
Your March 2001 Notes from the Editors convincingly explains the failure of the deregulation of the electric industry to protect residential ratepayers, and the excessive profits garnered by electricity generators. However, you omitted the environmental dimension, which is like analyzing the economics of the tobacco industry without mentioning the health impact.
June 1, 2001
I spent ten days in Chiapas in January with Rachel Neumann, a friend and colleague. We met up in San Cristóbal, the colonial city of 35,000 people where the armed takeover of the town hall building on January 1, 1994, signaled the start of the Zapatista uprising. During our two days there, we were scrutinized, briefed, and credentialed by the non-governmental organization (NGO) that was sending us to do human-rights observation in a Zapatista indigenous community, and we met with several people to get a sense of the current political situation. Then we hiked up to the mercado early on a Saturday with our bags full of potatoes, pasta, peanuts, Gatorade, and water purification drops and left for the mountains in a colectivo
June 1, 2001
With passion and eloquence, Juan Gonzalez presents a devastating perspective on U.S. history rarely found in mainstream publishing aimed at a popular audience. The United States emerged in just two hundred years, he points out, as the world’s superpower and richest nation. “No empire, whether in ancient or modern times, ever saw its influence spread so far or determined the thoughts and actions of so many people around the world as our nation does today.” The majority of U.S. people don’t like to think of their country as an empire
May 1, 2001
In September 1969 Monthly Review published Margaret Benston's article, "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation"--one of the most important early intellectual contributions to the current wave of feminist struggle in the United States. In the more than three decades since we have continued to publish articles by socialist feminists (along with a steady flow of important feminist texts through Monthly Review Press' New Feminist Library)
May 1, 2001
From the late 1960s into the 1980s there was a vibrant women's movement in the United States. Culturally influential and politically powerful, on its liberal side this movement included national organizations and campaigns for reproductive rights, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and other reforms. On its radical side it included women's liberation and consciousness raising groups, as well as cultural and grassroots projects. The women's movement was also made up of innumerable caucuses and organizing projects in the professions, unions, government bureaucracies, and other institutions. The movement brought about major changes in the lives of many women, and also in everyday life in the United States. It opened to women professions and blue-collar jobs that previously had been reserved for men. It transformed the portrayal of women by the media. It introduced the demand for women's equality into politics, organized religion, sports, and innumerable other arenas and institutions, and as a result the gender balance of participation and leadership began to change. By framing inequality and oppression in family and personal relations as a political question, the women's movement opened up public discussion of issues previously seen as private, and therefore beyond public scrutiny. The women's movement changed the way we talk, and the way we think. As a result, arguably most young women now believe that their options are or at least should be as open as men's
May 1, 2001
A new surge of corporate concentration is in process in the United States and abroad, driven in large measure by a restruc- turing of global markets through mergers and acquisitions (M&A~). Announced worldwide merger deals reached $3.4 tril- lion in 1999, an amount equivalent to 34 percent of the value of all industrial capital (buildings, plants, machinery and equip- ment) in the United States in 1999. Of this total, nearly a third were cross-border transactions that involved companies based in different countries, up from an average of one-fourth of all mergers during most of the 1990s
May 1, 2001
"I'll say it loud; I'll say it proud: I love drug companies," HIV-positive Andrew Sullivan recently boasted in The New York Times Magazine. As one of the most visible gay journalists in the nation, the statement spoke to a core dilemma within a gay and lesbian movement split between gay assimilationists, such as Sullivan, and social justice minded queers. The question was, how had this free-market loving Tory Thatcherite become a spokesman for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) movement? Sullivan's cavalier boast neglected the point that ACT UP, the pro-queer AIDS direct action group, had not only spent almost fifteen years fighting to get expedited approval for life saving medications, but had put their bodies on the line to get drug companies to lower prices so people could actually afford them.
