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…For Brother Glen
A poem in remembrance of Glen Ford, whose untimely death on July 28, 2021, we deeply mourn.
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Cuba’s cultural counter-revolution: U.S. gov’t-backed rappers, artists gain fame as ‘catalyst for current unrest’
Painting itself as a grassroots collective of artists fighting for freedom of expression, the San Isidro Movement has become a key weapon in the U.S. government’s assault on the Cuban revolution.
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Moving Beyond Capitalist Agriculture: Could Agroecology Prevent Further Pandemics?
The current complex of COVID-induced crises fits hand-in-glove with the system’s “normal” operation. Stability has been the delusional realm of a small sliver of the Global North, awash in post-World War Two imperialism and the repeated reinvention (and re-imposition) of various plantation systems of cheap and racialized labor.
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Building Digital Commons with Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow joins Money on the Left to discuss what Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) means for building digital commons. He walks us through his important critical genealogy of Intellectual Property law as well as his contribution to the urgent anti-monopoly accord called the “Access to Knowledge Treaty.”
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U.S. State Department lectures Cuba about human rights and living conditions
Today with the height of imperial arrogance and hubris, the U.S. State Department issued a joint statement to further its plans to destroy Cuba and all the gains it has made in health, education and welfare.
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The demonisation of Mariátegui
During the campaign for the presidency of Peru, the rural teacher and candidate Pedro Castillo, emphasized his identity with the thought of José Carlos Mariátegui.
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Lil Nas X launched a Bail Fund project with ‘Industry Baby’ but sure, stay mad at him for being naked in a music video
In addition to implementing mutual aid to fight mass incarceration, Lil Nas X’s ‘controversial’ visuals are inspiring young queer Black boys to be free.
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Sex workers and COVID-19: Resisting the pandemic and criminalization
Georgina Orellano, secretary-general of the Association of Women Sex Workers of Argentina (AMMAR), says that “the pandemic has highlighted the inequality” in society and deepened the problems faced by sex workers. Sex work, which is not recognized in Argentina, has become more precarious, she says.
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Serve the People: The eradication of extreme poverty in China
On 25 February 2021, the Chinese government announced that extreme poverty had been abolished in China, a country of 1.4 billion people. This historic victory is a culmination of a seven-decade-long process that began with the Chinese Revolution of 1949.
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The importance of Marxist materialism in an age of opinions
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” — Karl Marx, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’
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Michael Ratner’s inspiring activist life culminated with dramatic change on Israel
Michael Ratner personally changed human rights law, and in doing so he let go childhood views of Israel. “I thought of [Israel] as the home of my people. I had my bedroom ceiling painted with the seven wonders of the world and a huge map of Israel. I had no idea how my view of Israel would change later in life.”
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Mikhail Bulgakov, “Master and Margarita” and the anti-Russian hysteria in the United States
You cannot argue with mass hypnosis. You can keep a diary, write a chronicle that reveals the falseness of the spirit of the age to hopefully enlighten future readers, because, as we hear in another of the main points of Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita, “manuscripts do not burn.” That is what I do….
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Strange: challenging pandemic logics
In 2020, the U.S. government perpetually wavered in acknowledging COVID-19 as a real danger. We lived through screens, bombarded by commercial messages professing how corporations were here for us, how we were in this together, that we should be optimistic. This is strange, indeed, but to be more specific about a pandemic’s root causes would not sell products and would not reassure people to go back to normal.
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Jack and Jill tumble: Berlin Bulletin No. 192, July 3, 2021
After legally receiving a Christmas gift of 24,000 euros from her party, Annalena Baerbock somehow neglected to report it in her tax returns. No big deal, some might think, but after the scandals about Christian Democrats nobly enriching themselves when purchasing face-masks, and two far bigger scandals hanging over the head of the Social Democrats’ chancellor candidate Scholz (currently still Finance Minister), the squeaky clean reputation of the Greens had been a major asset. No longer!
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A third coronavirus wave is washing over the world
In countries where public health restrictions were in place, they were half-baked or have been lifted too soon. Where they are imposing them now, it’s too late; the Delta variant of the coronavirus is surging around the world.
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How not to unite a class: a response to DSA’s Class Unity caucus
Felipe Bascuñán responds to a debate on the Left about the relationship between oppression and class and why getting the answer right is essential to forging a united class struggle.
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#BetitaTaughtUs: Chicanisma and El Movimiento
With deep sadness and respect, Organizing Upgrade is sharing a few more tributes to movement elder Betita Martinez, who died June 29. In her 95 years she lived many lifetimes, and brought her commitment, wit and political clarity to several of the most significant social movements of our day.
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Peru to officially declare Pedro Castillo as the new President
Electoral authorities concluded an electoral review in which the leftist.
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Amílcar Cabral: Liberator, theorist, and educator
Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral was born September 12, 1924 in Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, one of Portugal’s African colonies. On January 20, 1973–48 years ago today–Cabral was murdered by fascist Portuguese assassins just months before the national liberation movement in which he played a central role won the independence of Guinea-Bissau.
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Haitian ruling families create and kill monsters
In March, hundreds of thousands of Haitians took to the streets of Port au Prince to demand an end to corruption and the departure of President Jovenel Moïse, whose term of office had expired.