Monthly Review Press

The COVID Heroism of Cuban Doctors: CP reviews “Cuban Health Care” by Don Fitz

The COVID Heroism of Cuban Doctors: CP reviews “Cuban Health Care” by Don Fitz

With Covid-19 roaring through the U.S., now is a good time to discuss Cuban health care. It’s about as different from the American variety as possible. It is not for profit. It is socialized. It does not first resort to expensive medical technology. Its doctors live among the people, like in Haiti after the earthquake, not in luxury hotels, like American doctors. It does not rely on the thinking that there is a pill for every ailment. It is successful. Cuba has suffered 88 deaths from covid, and the 3408 infected people have not gone bankrupt receiving care...

“Anti-Immigrant Policies Are Not Only Cruel, They Also Have an Economic Cost”–David Wilson, via Truthout

“Anti-Immigrant Policies Are Not Only Cruel, They Also Have an Economic Cost”–David Wilson, via Truthout

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the government agency that processes visas, green cards and citizenship applications, claims it’s going broke. USCIS officials are threatening to furlough some 13,400 employees as early as August 30, after initially planning the measure for August 3. The furloughs would add to what was already a huge backlog in application processing, creating a disaster for tens of thousands of immigrant applicants. As many as 126,000 people already approved for citizenship may not be naturalized in time to register for the November elections....

Making an ecological worldview: International Socialism reviews “The Return of Nature”

Making an ecological worldview: International Socialism reviews “The Return of Nature”

Since John Bellamy Foster published Marx’s Ecology in 2000, the idea that Karl Marx had little to say on environmental issues has become untenable. Marx’s Ecology has rightly become a classic. Beginning with Marx’s doctoral thesis on ‘The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature’, and tracing the development of his thought throughout his life, Foster’s book demonstrated the way that ecological questions were at the heart of Marxism—a ‘broad ecological worldview’...

Via The Intercept: Gerald Horne on the Revolutionary Life of Paul Robeson, Antifascist Singer, Artist, & Rebel

Via The Intercept: Gerald Horne on the Revolutionary Life of Paul Robeson, Antifascist Singer, Artist, & Rebel

Jeremy Scahill, host of Intercepted, a podcast series sponsored by The Intercept, looks to the life of artist and communist thinker Paul Robeson, as a lodestar to guide us through these crisis times. Robeson's lifelong devotion to empowering workers and overthrowing fascists around the world was connected to the liberation of Black people in the United States. Professor Gerald Horne, author of Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary and, more recently, The Dawning of the Apocalypse joins Scahill to help elucidate Robeson's vision and radical contributions...