Communiqué from La Voz de Vieques on behalf of a people in struggle The general silence was strange in the face of the thinly veiled simulation exercises for a military occupation to crush the potential popular insurgency as a result of the fall of the colony. No one doubts that the colonial farce imposed […]
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“Nothing to Lose But Our Chains: Black Resistance and the Roots of Mass Incarceration”: An Inter-generational Dialogue Between Former Political Prisoners and Black Lives Matter Activists
Click here to download (for free for a limited time) the Socialism and Democracy special issue “The Roots of Mass Incarceration: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor.” Introduction by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki On Friday, March 20th, 2015 at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center in Harlem, the journal of […]
Possibility of Escape
“That is also us, the possibility of us, if the wonderful accident of our birth had taken place elsewhere: you could be the refugee, I could be the torturer. To face that truth is also our burden. After all, each of us has been the bystander, the reasonable person who just happens not to hear, […]
History of an Infamy
Translator’s Note: David Ravelo, arrested on September 14, 2010 and imprisoned in La Picota Prison in Bogota, is serving an 18-year sentence. Appeals have failed, although Colombia’s Supreme Court has been considering his case. His words below attest to a lifetime of, as he puts it, defending human rights. Beginning in the late 1980s […]
In Bad Repair: An Exclusive Interview with Mr. Zeitgeist
It isn’t often a marginalized countercultural journalist such as myself gets to interview America’s Mr. Big. But finally they let me in to see Mr. Zeitgeist. Like most of us, Mr. Zeitgeist comes from immigrant stock. His name combines the German words for “time” (zeit) and “spirit” (geist). Mr. Zeitgeist is, indeed, the Spirit of […]
Netanyahu, Censored Voices, and the False Narrative of Israeli Self-Defense
On March 3rd, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an impassioned plea to Congress to protect Israel by opposing diplomacy with Iran. Referring to “the remarkable alliance between Israel and the United States” which includes “generous military assistance and missile defense,” Netanyahu failed to mention that Israel has an arsenal of 100 or 200 nuclear […]
The European Union’s Anti-People Strategy, with a Special Focus on Greece
. . . So, our party [Communist Party of Greece, KKE] was very clear — for many years now — that the European Union is a union of capital and an anti-people hornet’s nest. The parties of the plutocracy in Greece as well as other countries lied to the peoples, fostered illusions that they […]
On the SYRIZA Government’s Agreement with the Eurogroup
No matter what you call it, the government’s agreement is in form and substance a clear extension of the memorandum, with strict supervision, with evaluation by the institutions (troika), and especially with the continuation of the anti-people reforms. Any revision of the program, e.g. lower primary surpluses, will be done not to actually relieve the […]
After the Carnival
Tsipras-Schleuder #Rosenmontag #Helau #Düsseldorf #Merkel pic.twitter.com/EiRvyRvf7k — Christoph Ullrich (@ullrich001) February 16, 2015 Every year the Rhine region and southern Germany go crazy. Carnival or Fasching, a cousin of Mardi Gras, officially beginning at 11:11 AM on 11/11 and ending with the Lent period, has been celebrated in Catholic areas since the 1820s — with […]
American Exceptionalism, Working-Class Wars, and Working-Class Peace Movements
Christian Appy. American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity. New York: Viking, 2015. Christian Appy is the author of two splendid previous books about the Vietnam War: Working-Class War and Patriots. Patriots was extraordinary in that it offered oral histories by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. The main argument of Appy’s […]
Pentagon Marks 50th Anniversary of Viet Nam War with Multi-million Dollar Re-write of History; Veterans Respond with “Vietnam War Full Disclosure Project”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the landing of U.S. ground troops in Da Nang, Vietnam, the beginning of the American War in Vietnam. To observe it, the Pentagon is undertaking a multi-million dollar campaign to rewrite and whitewash the history of that war. In response, Veterans For Peace (VFP) has announced the Vietnam […]
The Importance of the “Economic”
The world today is witnessing a rather novel phenomenon, namely a pervasive tendency towards political uprisings by the urban middle class. Not just the leaders, but even the bulk of the participants in such uprisings are educated, are reasonably well-off, and make extensive use of social media channels for keeping in touch with one another. […]
The Immediate Demands of the Greek Working Class
Throughout the previous period, PAME, the class-conscious movement, was at the forefront of the struggle against capital’s attack on labor and popular rights. We will continue in the same direction, because the problems and factors that led the vast majority of the people to poverty, misery, and the loss of rights and conquests are still […]
Europe Between the Pit and the Pendulum
If you have ever read Edgar Allen Poe‘s gruesome stories you may recall feelings of horror like those which made me, still a youngster, cringe and shudder. I have similar feelings when I hear of bloodthirsty, barely-hidden “concerts” by German Neo-Nazis, which too often lead to violence against subjects of their hatred: hippy-type leftist youngsters […]
Thousands of Greeks Take to the Streets . . . and Chant the Name of Their Finance Minister
“Has there ever been a demonstration where people chanted the name of a finance minister? This must be a world first!” says the ironic Xenia, a 53-year-old woman who has been shouting for several minutes, with thousands of demonstrators, the now omnipresent name in Athens: “Yanis Varoufakis, Yanis Varoufakis, Yanis Varoufakis!”
ECB Must Stop Blackmailing Greece
The European Central Bank’s political decision to blackmail Athens is arrogant and dumb. An institution buying vast quantities of toxic assets from banks ought to be also providing the Greek government with the necessary breathing space now, so that a solution to the European debt crisis can be negotiated. The practice of officials who have […]
The Spirit of Tony Mazzocchi Is Haunting Big Oil Today
Twelve years ago, America’s leading advocate of occupational health and environmental safety succumbed to pancreatic cancer. In the U.S., where the influence of organized labor has long been contracting, the death of a former trade union official is often little noted. Yet Tony Mazzocchi was no ordinary labor leader. His passing from the scene, at […]
SYRIZA’s Historic Responsibility, KKE’s Moment
Bandera de la república popular de España en Atenas, entre las canciones Bella Ciao y Bandiera Rossa. #Syriza pic.twitter.com/HuVaAfO3Dg — ALFON (@TxabierAlonso) January 25, 2015 As a communist, if I were Greek I would certainly be active in the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and this Sunday the party would have had my vote. […]
A Crack in Merkel’s Power over Europe
SYRIZA’s electoral victory is a historic opportunity for the whole of Europe. The Greek voters voted for an end to the catastrophic policy of cuts dictated to Greece by the Troika composed of the EU Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Central Bank (ECB). This election is therefore also a defeat for […]
Interview with KKE’s Kostas Papadakis on Why KKE Does Not Support SYRIZA: “We Are Against the EU, NATO, and Chains of Capitalism”
Greek Communist Party (KKE) MEP Kostas Papadakis firmly says: “SYRIZA has made very clear that it is not going to defy the EU or NATO. We say: What kind of left is this?” “The EU has no fear of SYRIZA. SYRIZA is not the oligarchy’s first choice, but it is the new face of social […]
