Legal advocates have scored some major class-related victories in 2018. In January, an appellate court held that the administration of California’s money bail system violated the Fourteenth Amendment rights of indigent defendants.
Geography Archives: United States
Boldness in the Marxist thinking of Samir Amín
The great social thinker, Samir Amin, has died. The social sciences have lost three unique figures in this year. First, the Brazilian Theotonio dos Santos, who inspired many to study the world system from a radical perspective. He was followed by the Peruvian Aníbal Quijano, who posed the concept of “cultural revolution” to give the […]
Censored documentary exposes Israel’s attack on Black Lives Matter
Israeli operatives and their U.S. lobbyists sprang into action when the Movement for Black Lives came out in support of the boycott Israel movement.
Maduro’s Beijing visit spooks a U.S. plotting Venezuela’s isolation
Given the humble goal of Caracas to free itself from the domineering whims of a U.S. imperialism keen on reviving the notorious Monroe Doctrine, it is obvious why the U.S. would see sinister motives in the fraternal reception Beijing has offered to the Venezuelan head of state.
Review of River of Dark Dreams
This marvelous work of history is a must read for anyone trying to understand the dynamics of slavery in the United States in the pre-Civil War period. Walter Johnson locates slavery as playing a central part in the development of a particularly racialised and oppressive capitalism in the slave states.
Stop blaming workers for Trump’s right-wing authoritarianism
The search for explanations of our current political climate, especially the rise of nationalists like Marine LePen in France, Narendra Modi in India, and our own president in the United States, has led pundits to return to the concept of “authoritarian” tendencies as a psychological phenomenon.
The New York Times Editorial opposing military intervention in Venezuela may do more harm than good
U.S. establishment liberals are using their opposition to Trump’s military threats as a cover to back economic sanctions currently wrecking the Venezuelan economy, argues Professor Steve Ellner.
U.S. public school teachers: declining pay, growing militancy
Strikes continue to be an effective way for teachers to improve their living and working (and by extension student learning) conditions. And, polls show that a strong majority of parents continue to support them. Popular support for teacher strikes remains strong The education pollster PDK recently asked adults what they thought about teacher salaries and […]
Venezuela poses no ‘threat to the world’—but WaPo’s claim that it does is dangerous
The phrase “a threat to the world” has a hyperlink to an earlier Tharoor piece (3/1/18), which includes the claim, “As many as 4 million Venezuelans—more than 10 percent of the population—have already left the country, according to the Brookings Institution,”
Race, class and social strategy
Marxists have long understood that the workplace is the primary strategic site of class struggle, and that class struggle is essential for cohering a radicalized working-class majority with the capacity and will to overthrow capitalism in favor of socialism. At the same time, Marxists recognize our moral responsibility to oppose—and the strategic necessity to fight—all […]
Sadly, there is no strike wave
In a September 8 post to the Jacobin website, Eric Dirnbach announced that “U.S. workers are striking again.”
We love the CIA!—or how the left lost its mind
“The Resistance” is steering so much of the left into a hard-right turn — including even Pacifica’s KPFA Radio-Berkeley.
By inviting and disinviting Bannon, New Yorker fell into its own trap
Corporate media just can’t stop cluelessly digging their own grave.
The UK government is being shamed in the Hague over its colonial record (again)
On 3 September, a four-day legal challenge to the UK’s sovereignty over the Chagos Islands began in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The islands are part of an archipelago located in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), and home to U.S. airbase Diego Garcia.
The Atlas Network’s insidious impact on the ground
Over the decades, the Atlas Network has been financing a variety of organizations that seek to influence the public and promote capitalist ideas.
How is a pretext for a cold war manufactured?
A pretext is all that is needed to start a conflict, something with which the United States has experience, from the Spanish-American War, to Vietnam, Iraq… but its latest efforts to vilify Cuba are unique.
U.S. marks anniversary of death of Native American Chief Crazy Horse
He was the Sioux Chief of the Oglala tribe and a great warrior in the Sioux resistance to the white man’s invasion of the northern Great Plains, also known as the Great American Desert.
Mike Davis on Trumps America
Donald Trump is coming to Ireland. Behind the bluster, what does his presidency actually represent? Mike Davis—a world renowned American scholar, and author of several books—was interviewed by Seán Mitchell for Rebel, about the state of Trump’s America.
Sympathy for the devil?
In recent years, as so often in the past, we’ve witnessed those at the top sabotaging the pact (simply because they have the means and interest to do so) and now, once again, they’ve undermined their legitimacy to run things.
On Labor Day, where’s labor? How did American workers lose their power?
Corporate executives have wooed both Democrats and labor union leaders with increasing assertiveness, in a concerted effort to thwart the interracial labor movement that is the only fighting force to ever battle the plutocrats to a draw.
