A long, warm, coatless autumn made some wonder whether climate change might cancel winter this year in a reverse of the canceled summer two centuries ago in a year called “Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.” But no, I now read that the weather will change after all. Northern blasts may soon be here. Perhaps […]
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News updates or analysis.
The Origin of Rosa Luxemburg’s Slogan “Socialism or Barbarism”
I think I have solved a small puzzle in socialist history. Climate & Capitalism‘s tagline, “Ecosocialism or barbarism: There is no third way,” is based on the slogan, “Socialism or Barbarism,” which Rosa Luxemburg raised to such great effect during World War I and the subsequent German revolution, and which has been adopted by many […]
Capitalism, Inequality and Globalization: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century
I. The Piketty Argument Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century embodies an immense amount of empirical research into the distribution of wealth and income across the population for a number of advanced capitalist countries going back for over two centuries. In particular Piketty has made extensive use of tax data for the first […]
PFLP Calls for Unified Revolutionary Front of Solidarity with the Struggle of People of Kobane against ISIS
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expresses its solidarity with the Kurdish resistance in Kobane struggling to defend themselves and their community from the reactionary armed group, ISIS, whose entry into our region has been facilitated and supported by imperialist powers and their lackeys. Comrade Khaled Barakat said that “All Palestinian and Arab […]
Call for Solidarity with Kobanê
On Monday, October 6th, ISIS forces entered the autonomous Kurdish canton of Kobanê in Western Kurdistan (North Syria) following a siege which began on September 15th. Defending Kobanê are the skilled but ill-equipped People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), who are up against The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), […]
Humpty-Dumpty and the Fall of Berlin’s Wall
“Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.” The children’s rhyme and its words Wall and Fall came to mind in connection with commemorations of the fall of the Berlin Wall — actually its opening up. Is such an allusion frivolous? Maybe. For millions, that event twenty-five years ago was marked by genuine, […]
Richard Linklater’s Boyhood: A Review
It is difficult to put into words the effect of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014). But, I suspect that the power of this spell-binding film lies in its ability to mirror for us both the cinematic experience and a certain truth about life in the first decade and half of the new century, i.e., the […]
The Problem Is Capitalism
NYC Climate Convergence, September 20, 2014 A. The Environmental Crisis The “environmental crisis” is actually a number of crises, including the following: climate change; acidification of the oceans (related to elevated atmospheric CO2 levels); pollution of air, water, soil, and organisms with harmful substances; degradation of agricultural soils; destruction of wetlands and tropical forests; and […]
Socialism and Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises
Global capitalism has huge problems coping with the second worst collapse in its history. Its extreme and deepening inequalities have provoked millions to question and challenge capitalism. Yet socialists of all sorts now find it more difficult than ever to make effective criticisms and offer alternatives that inspire. Part of the problem lies with classic […]
Massa Tom
One of my cherished historical role models growing up in rural Virginia during the 1950s and 60s was the tall, red-haired intellectual and revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson. The vast majority of those I grew up with and went to school with were far from being intellectuals (who were commonly put down as “eggheads” or worse) and […]
Who Can Stop the “Islamic State”?
The most severe crisis in the Middle East to date, the coming to power of the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria, has entered an extremely absurd phase. The European states are about to follow the lead of the U.S. by exporting arms to the Kurdistan Regional Government under the command of Mustafa Barzani. This […]
Losing Heads and Sending Arms
Two famous heads got lost in Berlin. Neither loss, I hasten to add, was connected with brutality. From the past or near future, they caused melancholy or rejoicing, depending on your viewpoint. One loss really occurred twenty-two years ago, when the 62-foot red granite statue of Lenin on East Berlin’s Lenin Square and Lenin Allee […]
Who Governs Cuba? Exploring the Social Composition of the Cuban Leadership
Not least among achievements of Cuba’s socialist revolution is expanded political participation, even exercise of power, among formerly disadvantaged groups. Rafael Hernández, editor of the Cuban journal Temas, details this story. He studied participation and entry into leadership positions in terms of age, gender, race, and profession. He mentions one consequence of inclusion that may […]
Open Shop Trend Makes Organizing the “Organized” Top Union Priority
For many years, American unions have been trying to “organize the unorganized” to offset and, where possible, reverse their steady loss of dues-paying members. In union circles, a distinction was often made between this “external organizing” — to recruit workers who currently lack collective bargaining rights — and “internal organizing,” which involves engaging more members […]
Interview with Deon Haywood: “Nine Years After Katrina, It’s All About the Takeover”
Deon Haywood is the Executive Director of Woman With a Vision, a New Orleans social justice non-profit founded in 1991 by a grassroots collective of African-American women in response to the spread of HIV/AIDS in communities of color. According to the WWAV website, “We envision an environment in which there is no war against women’s […]
National March on Ferguson, August 30, 2014
You are invited to join us at the National March on Ferguson, on Saturday, August 30, 2014. The Justice for Michael Brown Leadership Coalition will begin the march at 10 am at “Ground Zero,” the corner of W. Florissant Ave. and Canfield Dr. (63135). This site of ongoing activity is a block from where policeman […]
New Paths Require a New Culture on the Left
Speech accepting the 2013 Libertador Prize for Critical Thought, awarded for A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-first Century Socialism, Caracas, Venezuela, August 15, 2014 I completed this book one month after the physical disappearance of President Hugo Chávez, without whose intervention in Latin America this book could not have been written. Many of […]
National Lawyers Guild, Other Legal Organizations Urge International Criminal Court to Investigate War Crimes by Israeli, U.S. Leaders in Gaza
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Center for Constitutional Rights, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Arab Lawyers Union, and American Association of Jurists (Asociación Americana de Juristas)sent a letter on Friday, August 22 to Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), urging her to initiate an investigation of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against […]
Shoppers Without Borders: Cure for Media-Inflicted War Wounds
Paige Turner, a 29-year-old graduate of Grinnell College’s creative writing program, came to New York to start her life as a novelist. She got some gigs chronicling upscale Manhattan lifestyles for glossy magazines: “good background for my first socially conscious bestseller!” Things were going great — she was online most of the day, researching fashion […]
Unraveling Capitalist Globalization
Despite the prolonged global economic crisis since 2007/2008, neo-liberal economic thought and practice continue to reign supreme. In his important book Capitalist Globalization: Consequences, Resistance, and Alternatives (Monthly Review Press, 2013), Martin Hart-Landsberg makes a number of key interventions unraveling the myth of neo-liberalism as well as the dynamics underlying capitalist accumulation. First, he identifies […]
