Subjects Archives: Culture

Cuba is only a few days away from ending its coronavirus quarantine. Except for Havana, all the other provinces are free of the contagion and have begun moving toward a new normality.

The Municipal Council of Turin granted the honorary citizenship of that city in the region of Piedmont to Dr. Julio Guerra, head of the Cuban medical brigade that helped fight COVID-19 there.

Economist, musician & Money on the Left audio engineer, Alex Williams, joins the podcast to discuss money, music and method in light of Modern Monetary Theory and heterodox economics. At the outset, we chat about methodology and the riddles of “administrative capacity” that drive so much of Williams’ work. Next, Williams guides us through his […]

Third episode of VA’s “In Commune” series, focusing on the combative Panal 2021 Commune in Caracas.

As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps around the world, statist and capitalist structures predictably continue to fail us in many ways. Underlying that failure is the stress on individual responses: stockpile, isolate, and care for yourself.

The Biden campaign recently held an event outlining the presidential hopeful’s “vision for Venezuela.” Spoiler alert: it barely differs from President Trump’s.

THE ADIRONDACK CORRECTIONAL Facility is tucked away in the mountainous North Country of New York State, less than a two-hour drive from the Canadian border. Three years ago, it was converted to incarcerate teens aged 16 to 17, automatically prosecuted as adults under pernicious state law. As of this May, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, all of the young people were transferred out of the facility: It will now serve as a nursing home prison.

In many states, legal regimes sanction the predictable murder of innocent black men. Justice will not be served until the law changes.

Consider the power that networks like Fox and CNN continue to wield over that nebulous thing called public opinion; the continued dominance of NBC and CBS.

‘The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of [Iroquois Confederacy] settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible.… the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed.’ —Commands from George Washington to General Sullivan on May 31, 1779

The National Statuary Collection announced the unification of the former slave economy’s emotional heartland with the heart of national government.

The defanging of the George Floyd Uprising was not accidental but was rather a deliberate attempt on the part of the American ruling class to regain social control in the wake of the largest and most militant protests in recent memory. This article examines the dimensions of how this defanging took place: how, within the space of two weeks, we went from burning down a police station to making small budgetary demands.

At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a young man born on the day of Hiroshima nuclear bombing was selected to be the last torch bearer on the relay, to signify that Japan had stood up from nuclear ruin. In an attempt to replicate the 1964 Olympic theme, the Abe government has constructed the idea of a Fukushima “revival,” a returned to normal. Exposing this illusion is an important cultural war.

As monuments to Columbus and confederate heroes topple and Democrats ponder which militarist they wish to glorify in their replacements, it is critical to realize that statues which go up are at least as important as the ones that come down. Perhaps the best nominee for a new statue is Hatuey, who led the first guerrilla warfare against European invasion of the western hemisphere.  

Craft takes us inside prison for a chilling, hair raising verse from a ‘black’ gang  member. He encompasses an identical, mirrored reality. Birthed into a gang with allies as brothers until death, he strikes fear before it strikes him.  He clears up the controversy in one simple lyric, ‘we all on our gang shit’.

Besides not being Trump, the Democrats offer nothing, but think they can win with a candidate who has no constituency, charisma or any platform positions that would attract more voters.

The Black Lives Matter protests across the world show the ‘necessary force’ people need to use when fighting global warming, teen activist turned climate change icon Greta Thunberg believes.

Abolition of the police begins with community control, in which community representatives not only hire, fire and oversee the cops, but decide the nature of the policing that is necessary and acceptable.

In the wake of the current uprising in support of Black Lives Matter, there has been increasing interest in the use of mainstream empirical methods in economics–like randomized control trials (RCTs) and administrative data evaluation–to address issues of racism and violence in the institution of policing.

Odetta – Another Man gone Done