David L. Wilson, author, with Jane Guskin, of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (2nd ed.), reports on some looming prospects for DACA recipients, and how deporting the 2 million potential Dream Act beneficiaries might cost taxpayers as much as $54.2 billion — more than double the CBO’s projected deficit of $25.9 billion | more…
Helena Sheehan’s ‘Syria Wave’ moves from artistic culture to the mass culture that created and then abandoned (or was abandoned by) Syriza. The author, an Irish journalist and political activist who visits Greece frequently, offers a unique view of the Syriza phenomenon. The first of her six essays was written in 2012 and the last in 2016. Since the essays have not been revised, they convey the euphoria and heartbreak of the movement as they were occurring…. | more…
‘I’m not against immigrants. I’m against illegal ones. … Our country is already too full. We must put a limit on how many can come in. We simply can’t afford it. They’ll put too much pressure on our already squeezed public finance. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. Wages will fall if you increase the supply of workers.’ ¶ Who hasn’t heard such statements in our workplace, pubs or family meals? You disagree with them, but you might not have the facts or arguments to back up your opinion, so you keep quiet to avoid a shouting match and to keep the peace…. | more…
There is no end of issues to worry about when it comes to Donald Trump and his presidency of the United States, the world’s biggest economy and military superpower. Reading John Bellamy Foster’s enjoyable new book, what struck me most was the centrality to the whole Trump project of the reinvigorated fossil-fuel industry; coal, oil and gas. Trump’s ‘climate-change denialism’ coupled with his project to place fossil-fuel capitalism at the centre of making America great again, has placed us all on the ‘runaway train of the profit system’ hurtling towards the ‘climate precipice’… | more…
Anyone interested in a comprehensive account of what happened in Greece between 2012 and 2016—the struggles of the Left; the social devastation as a result of austerity; the rise, election, and capitulation of Syriza—should pick up Helena Sheehan’s latest book. Those already familiar with the period’s political drama, in search of an opportunity to reengage with the debates of the time, should also read The Syriza Wave, for the book opens multiple windows on a story that is still unraveling… | more…
Eric Holt-Giménez is the Executive Director of Food First, a “people’s think tank” dedicated to ending the injustices that cause hunger. He’s also the author of the recently published A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism: Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat. Here, he talks to C.S. Soong, host of “Against the Grain,” a radio show emanating three times a week from Pacifica station KPFA 94.1 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area…. | more…
Stephanie J. Urdang is in the UK now, publicizing her memoir Mapping My Way Home: Activism, Nostalgia, and the Downfall of Apartheid South Africa. On January 22, she talked with journalist Karina H. Maynard on Life: Arts and Culture, a morning feature of London-based Colourful radio, one of Britain’s first internet audio streams. | more…
The centenary of the Russian Revolution has no doubt produced a cascade of lugubrious foodistas, made melancholy by the moribund march past 100. There is widespread disaffection with the fact that ‘capitalism is … assumed to be immutable and [is] rarely questioned’ according to Holt-Gimenez—and rightly so. But the solemnity of the centenary was made much less draining by the availability of Eric Holt-Gimenez’s A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism. Beneath the cringe-worthy title is a serious attempt to reintroduce the ‘C-word’ into the food discourse… | more…
In the 135 years since his passing, many commentators on Marx’s work have maintained that his view of humanity’s relationship to the Earth is ‘Promethean,’ i.e., that mastery over nature is a key step to achieving the communist state. A counter-tendency in Marxian analysis, however, led first in the 1960s and 70s by scholars like Raymond Williams and Istvan Meszaros, then in the past twenty years by a new generation including John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, has maintained that ecology’s conflict with capitalist relations is central to understanding Marx’s political economy. ¶ Kohei Saito, author of Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, belongs firmly in the latter camp…. | more…
The incompatibility of sustainable development with the logic of capital has long been recognised on the left and there have been a number of insightful attempts recently by writers such as John Bellamy Foster and Ian Angus to systematise a coherent ‘red-green’ perspective on the unfolding crisis. Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams, in Creating an Ecological Society, have produced a left-wing analysis that is a worthy addition to this collection… | more…
Jeb Sprague-Silgado, author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, has researched the lineage behind the 2004 overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and has written a piece, naming some of the names in Haïti Liberté. | more…
What’s wrong with Africa? Political unrest, genocide, and one socio-economic disaster after another has plagued the continent since it gained independence in the 1960’s. Africa’s political and economic performance has been weak by world standards, mostly due to corrupt leadership and bad policies. Sadly, the African people have little to show for a generation of self-rule. ¶ With this bleak reality as a backdrop, Stephanie Urdang’s memoir about life as a white South African political activist gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of her frustrations and triumphs… | more…
Samir Amin is best known for his 1989 book, Eurocentrism, a seminal entry in critical theory on the Middle East which remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the political and economic problems facing the region today. Amin’s present book places the Arab Spring into the theoretical framework of Eurocentrism. It insightfully argues that the uprisings of 2011 fit into the long struggle for emancipation in the Arab Middle East that goes back a century… | more…