This article was first published by the Hankyoreh on 25 November 2014; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.
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News updates or analysis.
Fracking Patria, Fracking Humanity: Capitalism and Its Doubles
Many Venezuelans think that fracking — the dangerous extraction of oil and gas through hydraulic fracturing of sedimentary rocks — is a conspiracy on the part of the United States to drive them into ruin. That is not the case, but it is an understandable error, in part because of the US’s long history of […]
Senator Sanders and the Impossibility of Reviving Democratic Party Liberalism
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont released a 12-step economic agenda on December 1, 2014. Cyber Monday at the start of the holiday commercial frenzy is not the best time to capture public attention, but Sanders probably has a strict timeline as he decides whether to run for president. The goals of Sanders’ agenda are worthy. […]
The Red-Red-Green Victory in Thuringia
Yes, “red-red-green” squeezed through to victory — by one single wavering vote. Political parties in the USA have animal symbols, donkey and elephant. In Germany they have colors: the Christian-Democrats (CDU), due to clerical ties, are black, the Greens of course green, the Social Democrats (SPD) traditionally red. When the redder Linke (Left) party came […]
“A Guernica of Political Prose”: Ashok Mitra’s Calcutta Diary
Ashok Mitra. Calcutta Diary. Kolkata: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, 2014 (first published in 1977 by Frank Cass, London). pp xxvii + 300. Rs 395. They do not trumpet their inspiration from the rooftops: “their identification with the cause is nevertheless total”. Amal Sen, the homeopath, was one such sympathiser. A dreamer of socialist dreams, he medicated, […]
A Fighter All My Life, the Memoir of Sam Johnson, a Black Auto Worker and Dissident Union Activist
A Fighter All My Life is the memoir of Sam Johnson, a black man from the South who became a Detroit auto worker and dissident union activist. Johnson was born and raised on the front lines of class conflict in America. His everyday life was fraught with danger. In the tradition of the memoirs of […]
They Fear and They Kill
It’s open season on wild turkeys. They harm no one, are decorative feathered dinosaurs. Tough to eat, so why shoot? But the season ends. It’s open season on Black youths all year, so long as you have a uniform and a gun. They are genuinely scared, the cops. Kids of color are going to eat […]
Cops, Hooligans, and Neo-Nazis in Germany
Confrontations with the police in Germany have not been quite the same as in Ferguson and other USA cities. But some were dramatic enough. Back in September 2010 mass protests in Stuttgart against a huge underground railroad station at the cost of a prized old building and a central park were hit hard by cops […]
“I Have No Real Politics”: Susie Day Talking Trash
“[S]urviving evil doesn’t make you a good person: Surviving evil and not passing it on does,” writes Susie Day in her recent book Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power. One possible way to not pass on evil is to laugh about it. Day, through her comedic ability and shrewd observations reveals (with a giant spotlight) […]
Ferguson: The Evils of the Grand Jury System
Over the last 17 years I have represented dozens and dozens of clients who were subpoenaed to testify as witnesses at state and federal grand juries regarding government investigations. A grand jury is a secret tribunal where a citizen is forced to answer questions by a prosecutor, often against their will. Those subpoenaed are not […]
The Wobblies in Their Heyday, a Hard-headed History of the IWW
Eric Chester. The Wobblies in Their Heyday: The Rise and Destruction of the Industrial Workers of the World during the World War I Era. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2014. The Wobblies are back. Many young radicals find the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) the most congenial available platform on which to stand in trying […]
The Spectre of Social Counter-Revolution
5th Dr. BR Ambedkar Memorial Lecture, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi, September 27, 2014 I I would like to use this occasion to dwell upon a point to which Dr Ambedkar had drawn attention in his closing speech to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949. In that speech he had underscored a […]
Colombian Prisons and Prisoners Mirror Class Struggle
Prisoners in Colombia have recently gained new visibility. Prisoner protest actions are one factor. Another is discussion at the Havana peace talks of prisoners as victims of armed conflict. November 2014 marks the two-year anniversary of talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government. Beginning on October 20, hunger strikes […]
Armed Woman Massacres All-Male Harvard Club, NRA Chief Calls for Gun Control
Harvard University remains shut down one day after a lone woman wielding a Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle broke through security at the university’s elite, men-only Porcellian Club and shot 14 white male students to death. The female — of indeterminate age, race, and sexual attractiveness — was described as wearing a torn leather jacket emblazoned […]
Democracy, Hypocrisy, and President Gauck
In the USA Republicans are jubilant. Jubilation here in Germany is about an event twenty-five years ago: “We beat those red SOBs!” But is there not, hidden behind the confetti, helium balloons, and crowing of the victors in both Germany and the USA, an occasional jarring note of anxiety? A man with good reason for […]
Dead Labor on a Dead Planet: The Inconvenient Truth of Workers’ Bladders
“Once labor has been embodied in instruments of production and enters the further process of labor to play its role there, it may be called, following Marx, dead labor [. . .]. The ideal toward which capitalism strives is the domination of dead labor over living labor.” — Harry Braverman1 “[T]here are no jobs […]
The Kagame-Power Lobby’s Dishonest Attack on the BBC 2’s Documentary on Rwanda
On October 1, 2014, a remarkable event occurred in Britain. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s BBC 2’s This World telecast Rwanda’s Untold Story, a documentary produced by Jane Corbin and John Conroy that offered a critical view of Rwandan President Paul Kagame and of his and the British and U.S. roles in the 1994 mass killings […]
Hawaiian Workers Fight Kaiser Pension Takeaway
Mary Ann Barnes, the newly arrived president of healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii, recently informed hospital workers that the world figure she most admires is the late Mother Teresa — because of “her humanity and selflessness.” Pictured wearing a lei around her neck, Barnes explained in KP’s employee newsletter that her top management priority […]
The Light Brigade: Cuban Doctors Fight Ebola
The Ebola epidemic . . . whereas most of the world tightens frontier control and essentially flees from the problem, Cuba opens a new chapter of solidarity and faces the danger. By sending 255 doctors and nurses to West Africa to deal with the latest Ebola outbreak, the heroic island — with few resources except […]
1918
Looking back at the years of fury and carnage, Colonel Angelo Gatti, staff officer of the Italian Army (Austrian front), wrote in his diary: “This whole war has been a pile of lies. We came into war because a few men in authority, the dreamers, flung us into it.” No, Gatti, caro mio, those few […]
