The FPA’s Must Reads (March 1-March 8)

A supporter of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez reacts next to a portrait of him as she waits for a chance to view his body lying in state, at the military academy in Caracas March 8, 2013. Chavez will be embalmed and put on display “for eternity” at a military museum after a state funeral and an extended period of lying in state, acting President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday. [REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins]

The Revolutionary
By Jon Lee Anderson
The New Yorker

Okay, you caught us. It’s an article from 2001. But in the wake of Chavez’s death on March 5, Anderson’s profile on should’ve-been-a-moderate gone rouge president of Venezuela is still relevant, especially if you didn’t read it in 2001.

Three Ways to Bring Manufacturing Back to America
By Anne Kim
Washington Monthly

“In-sourcing” has pushed its way into popular political dialogue, and it will remain simply “talk” if Washington fails to act. Kim offers three ways — courting companies in the U.S., making America “user friendly,” and ending the tendency towards self-inflicted wounds from fiscal dramas — to make “in-sourcing” a reality.

“You Have All the Reasons to Be Angry”
By Eve Fairbanks
The New Republic

In the 1980s, mine strikes served as a vessel for kicking South Africa’s black liberation movement into high gear. Now some of those very activists who helped bring down apartheid have perpetuated some of the characteristics of apartheid rule, Fairbanks says, exemplified in the handling of the Marikana massacre.

Daddy Dearest
By Nihad Sirees
The Daily Beast

Bashar al-Assad, once a well-liked reformer and nerdy eye doctor, was not the prime choice for inheriting his father’s political empire. Has the system his father established — a system that requires the rule of an iron fist — ultimately lead to the violence we see today?

Soft on Sein
By Eric Randolph
Foreign Affairs

Thein Sein has been praised the world over for opening up and liberalizing the once-pariah state of Myanmar, also known as Burma. And even though these reforms are worthy of attention from the international community, praising Sein has overlooked the violence in Kachin — a region where recent transformations have not been for the better.

Blogs

When Censorship Turns Against Itself: The Story of Artistic Resistance in Iran by Azadeh Pourzand
In Need of the New Left by Richard Basas
Theory and Practice, Two Sides of the COIN by Jason Anderson
North Korean Jive by Tim LaRocco
Budget Cuts Diminish U.S. Role in the World by Joel Davis