Justice's Joshua H. Kortiz interviews hip-hop artist, Son of Nun (SON), a former Baltimore City School teacher and current MC who performs class-conscious, revolutionary hip-hop

In bringing Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil, to the screen as There Will Be Blood, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has been faithful to the author’s socialist intentions. The adaptation also resonates with the politics of today as the neo-cons kill to keep democracy safe for big oil.

"Sicko" recently opened in British theaters, and Michael Moore's brilliant documentary on the U.S. health care system has been received enthusiastically across the Atlantic. This movie review by British socialists provides important insights into the attempts by British big business to privatize their health system along American lines.

This is a fascinating insight into Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement which has taken control of the Gaza Strip. Zaki Chehab, a leading Palestinian journalist, has closely followed its emergence over the last 20 years into a pivotal player on the Israel-Palestine stage. Hamas is the main rival to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Fatah (the faction of president Mahmoud Abbas and former leader, Yasser Arafat).

The 90th anniversary of the Russian revolution is being used by western commentators and historians to repeat old lies and distortions about the revolution and its aftermath. An exception is The Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin, which NIALL MULHOLLAND reviews as one of the few books published in recent years to shed new light on the subject.

The prevalence of eating disorders in the U.S. has reached epidemic proportions, now afflicting 10-15% of Americans. This is no accident, but is the result of a profit-driven culture that overemphasizes physical appearance and idealizes thinness, particularly among women.

Most histories of the struggle against French colonial rule in Vietnam reflect the Stalinist traditions of the Hanoi regime, and ignore or slander the heroic role of the adherents of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International. Ngo Van’s book, based on his own experiences as a young Trotskyist in French occupied Indochina (the colonial name for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), helps set the record straight.

Media personality Don Imus, Hip-Hop artist 50 cent, comic/actor Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame and the resurgence of the gore and snuff films like the Quentin Tarantino presented Hostel I and II are at the center of an important debate about racism, sexism, violence and the use of language within U.S. society. To discuss these individuals or events in isolation is to underestimate the impact of capitalism on cultural products.

Anyone concerned about the challenges – and possibilities – of building a movement against Corporate America and their two-party system will be interested in An Unreasonable Man, an excellent new documentary about Ralph Nader.

March is Women’s History Month, and it is appropriate to read, discuss, and reflect on the contributions by working-class women in the struggle for a better society. For those parents who want to teach our children about the history of the working class, there is a new young adult novel that presents the role that women and children have played in American labor history.

Since the early 1980s, world capitalism has followed a trajectory based on globalisation and neo-liberal policies. In Capitalism Unleashed, Andrew Glyn analyses this turn to fundamentalist, free-market policies and examines its impact on economic growth and stability, and on the distribution of wealth between the super-rich and the working class.

Socialist Alternative Radio is live on 91.5 FM in the Boston area Fridays 7 am to 9 am, or listen anytime on the Web at WMFO.org. A democratic socialist, working-class view of politics and culture, including solidarity announcements, interviews, music, and more. Write to us at BostonSAradio@aol.com.

A sinkhole has opened up in Iraq for U.S. imperialism, and confusion about how to climb out of it has delayed further military attacks (but the possibility of those quiet, CIA-led inside jobs still exists). But eventually there will be other predatory wars triggered by the need and greed of U.S. corporations to maximize their profits. War is the adrenaline of capitalism.

US president Theodore Roosevelt, it is said, choked on his breakfast and turned vegetarian when reading an advance copy of Upton Sinclair's expose of the meatpacking industry. The Jungle's graphic account of the presence of chemicals, diseased meat and rodent excrement in sausages is enough to turn anybody's stomach!

In the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore explains in simple terms the cause of global warming and why it is putting the lives of millions at risk. Anyone who cares about the world should see this film.