June 1, 2011
Marilyn Buck (1947-2010) spent over twenty-five years in prison for politically motivated actions against U.S. government policies and in support of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army. She wrote these poems behind bars, as a way to comprehend the reality of prison and continue her fight as a white woman against injustice, particularly U.S.-generated white supremacy. Paroled in July 2010, she died of cancer twenty days after her release.
April 1, 2011
For decades, major global and regional powers have waged war against those they accuse of fighting immorally—that is, those who use terrorism to harm civilians at home and abroad. Paradoxically, these righteous "wars on terror" are being fought in an era in which the distinction between war waged only against soldiers, and war against soldiers as well as civilians has virtually collapsed. The technological development, stemming from the Industrial Revolution, of aerial bombardment and weapons of mass destruction has made it more difficult to separate citizen from soldier.… [but] it is imperative that this distinction hold. In waging wars on terror, [upholding the soldier/citizen distinction] permits globally powerful nations to rally public opinion under the assertion that what separates us (self) from them (other) is that civilian life is paramount for us and not for "the terrorists."
March 1, 2011
A specter is haunting Ireland—the specter of James Connolly.… Connolly was shot to death by a British firing squad for his role in Ireland's 1916 rising for home rule. Celebrated as a hero of Irish independence by Irish political parties of both left and right, his socialism is all too conveniently overlooked. The Irish struggle is one that speaks to the challenges of independence, sovereignty, and democratic freedom, both then and now, for people of all countries. What value is formal political independence if it is not backed up by economic control; if the real decisions of public policy are made in boardrooms and backrooms rather than main streets and parliaments?
March 1, 2011
A revolution can only be successful when the new generation takes over from the old. When thousands of students come together because of their dedication to helping others at a school that was built to allow them to fulfill their goals, the ground is fertile for students to continue the struggle.… Students are assuming defining roles at the Latin American School of Medicine (Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina or ELAM), the twelve-year-old medical school in Santa Fe, Playa, a ninety-minute bus ride from Havana, Cuba. With their educational costs covered by the Cuban government, students learn new social relationships in medical practice that they will use in underserved communities in their countries.
February 1, 2011
According to the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, camps—for example, concentration camps, refugee camps, and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps—risk replacing nation-states as the most representative political spaces of our time. Agamben's definition of "the camp" includes extra-judicial detention centers such as Guantánamo Bay; airport hotels that hold would-be immigrants awaiting deportation; the marginalized, segregated outskirts of Europe's large cities; and even gated communities in the United States, with their private security firms and individualized "laws" that govern entry and exit. What all these spaces share is the suspension of national, territorial law and its replacement by police power. Those who reside in these legal dead zones are no longer "citizens"; they live in a state of exception to the law of the land—"exceptions" that are becoming more and more the rule.… Haiti's IDP camps are indeed "states of exception" that risk becoming permanent fixtures in the post-earthquake urban landscape in and around Port-au-Prince.
February 1, 2011
For more than forty years, defenders of the Rosenbergs have offered an argument unchanged in its essentials. The prosecution obtained the ultimate punishment…[—and that] punishment…was disproportionate and barbaric. However, the Rosenbergs' defenders now concede that "Julius Rosenberg, code-named 'Antenna' and later 'Liberal,' had worked as a spy for the Soviet Union."… The reason for this turnaround is that in 1995 the federal government made public a series of cables, referred to as the "Venona" messages, which were exchanged between the Soviet government and its operatives in the United States during and after the Second World War.… At the end of the play [Waiting for Lefty] a man runs up the center aisle carrying important information that the title character has been killed. These days, I want to shout out to the audience, as did that man, but with a different message. My imagined dramatic scene goes as follows. "Wait, wait!… Listen to me. Please listen.… You've heard the Thesis of the defense. You've heard the Antithesis of the prosecution. Don't you want to hear the Synthesis?"
February 1, 2011
T.A. Sedlak, Anarcho Grow Pura Vida in Costa Rica (Madison, WI: This Press Kills Fascists Publishing, 2010), illustrated by Leslie LePere, 235 pages, $14.95, paperback.
Anarcho Grow Pura Vida in Costa Rica is a modern story that carefully blends author T.A. Sedlak's knowledge of Costa Rica and cannabis cultivation with socialist ideals in an American capitalist dominated world.… Protagonist Ben Starosta travels through Latin America under the guise of teaching English while helping small agrarian communities develop illicit crops and reach new markets. His expertise in the risky cannabis trade funds community projects like schools and libraries, and earns him the loyalty of the communities he helps. Tension builds, as his dedication to the people is viewed as dangerous criminal activity by the CIA agents assigned to his case.
January 1, 2011
In November, Fred Magdoff traveled to Shanghai with his wife, Amy Demarest, to attend the Marxism and Ecological Civilization conference at Fudan University (see the Review of the Month in this issue). Here are some reflections from Fred about the conference, Shanghai, and China, past and present
January 1, 2011
How is it possible that a person living in a water-rich region uses more water by flushing the toilet than a person in a water-scarce region has available for drinking, food-preparation, hygiene, and cleaning—for a whole day? How is it possible that a woman living in a water-rich region only needs to open the tap to get enough water for herself and her family, while a woman in a water-scarce region has to…walk for miles and miles to get far less water of much worse quality? Why is that so? Is it bad fortune? Unfair? Destiny? Undeserved? Is it unjust? It is all these, but also much more. Water is the essence of life. It is the precondition of life.… This article has two parts. The first deals with dominant positions concerning water: the neoliberal agenda, consequences of water privatization, and the UN stance. The second part looks at what is missing in this picture and ignored by the dominant perspectives—namely, global inequalities and gender discrimination.
December 1, 2010
Existing international economic institutions and relations operate in ways detrimental to third world development. That is why eight Latin American and Caribbean countries—led by Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia—are working to build the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), a regional initiative designed to promote new, nonmarket-shaped structures and patterns of economic cooperation.… In response to worsening international economic conditions, ALBA has recently stepped up efforts to promote a full-blown regional development process.… Although the precise terms of the agreement are still to be negotiated, official statements point to the creation of an integrated trade and monetary zone, with a new regionally created currency, the sucre.
