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In defense of Jeremy Corbyn
Yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn was suspended as a member of the British Labour Party.
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‘Symbolic Violence: Conversations with Bourdieu’ by Michael Burawoy reviewed by Paul Leduc Browne
Michael Burawoy’s Symbolic Violence is a Marxist critique of the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. This fascinating book explores some of Bourdieu’s contradictions by staging a series of ‘conversations’ between the French sociologist and a range of important, mostly Marxist, thinkers whose writings Bourdieu ignored or dismissed in footnotes, even though he ought to have engaged explicitly with their ideas.
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From a wealthy socialite to an Israeli Govt censor, Facebook’s new “Free Speech Court” is anything but independent
Freedom of speech on the Internet is all but extinct, and on the eve of the 2020 U.S. elections, a de facto “free speech court” is going to make sure it never comes back. On Facebook at least.
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What is at stake in the study of settler colonialism?
Settler colonialism, those colonial processes based on the aim of permanently settling metropolitan populations on indigenous lands, and–crucially–the struggle against it, have been at the centre of many of the key political developments of the last three decades.
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Policing the poor and minorities as counter-insurgency
Here are seven counterinsurgency features of policing and the inequities in the criminal justice system.
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Greenwash
Alethea Warrington describes how the fossil fuels industry hopes to change its image but not its practice.
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Panic over ‘Cancel Culture’ is another example of right-wing projection
The Republican National Convention this year made fighting “cancel culture” a priority for the party. Former Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch wrote in the Wall Street Journal (7/27/20) that cancel culture was at the heart of the crisis facing academic freedom in the nation.
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Billionaires and the Pandemic
WEALTH distribution data are notoriously difficult to interpret. This is because variations in stock prices affect wealth distribution, so that a stock market boom suddenly makes the rich appear much richer, while a stock market collapse makes wealth distribution less unequal overnight.
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Chomsky: OPCW cover-up of Syria probe is ‘shocking’
Noam Chomsky says that the OPCW’s cover-up, under U.S. pressure, of a Syria chemical weapons probe raises “very severe suspicions.”
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Could rebellion in the ranks spell trouble for Maduro?
Venezuela is no stranger to protests, registering thousands of demonstrations, rallies and strikes each year. As of October 1, about 7000 protests had occurred this year (roughly 25 a day), according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflicts.
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Peter Linebaugh interview
Peter Linebaugh interviewed by Johnny Flynn of Independent Left.
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Disability, Covid and Capitalism
With phrases like “protect the vulnerable” & “underlying conditions” currently all around us, disability activist Ruth Flood looks at the horrendous treatment of disabled people under capitalism.
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Debt disaster with no escape
According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default. ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.
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Poet Suzen Baraka Tells the Truth about Voting
Set in our nation’s capital, VOTE is a visual call to arms, highlighting the devastating contradictions that so many in America are experiencing right now, and paying homage to the countless individuals that have sacrificed and are sacrificing so that we may have the right to vote, and have our vote count.
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Paradise for human victims of corporate persons
Any day now, Zambia will be the first African country to slip into a private debt default. It can only pay interest on the $3 billion in dollar-denominated bonds if it totally ignores the needs of the Zambian people.
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COVID and the trade-off
Sweden has a relatively low level of urbanisation, is away from continental Europe and has a population prepared to apply social distancing with some discipline, the cumulative COVID death rate in Sweden is not far short of Italy and Spain, and is way higher than its Nordic neighbours, Denmark, Finland and Norway, which did impose early and much stricter lockdowns.
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Indonesia’s return to an authoritarian developmental state
With the passing of the anti-worker Omnibus Law, President Jokowi’s administration follows the path of Indonesia’s dark past.
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Mauritian PM labels UK and U.S. ‘hypocrites’ over Chagos Islands dispute
The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Pravind Jugnauth, has labeled the United Kingdom and the United States “hypocrites” and “champions of double talk” over their former colonial master’s refusal to hand over the Chagos Islands.
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Daniel Ellsberg on the Assange extradition and growing fascism
The week of hearings has heard evidence that exposes the charges against Assange as trumped-up and even ridiculous.
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Putting the ‘e’ in revolution
In 2020, it’s the unadorned ‘S’ word–‘socialism’–that could be impeding the move to a socially-just transformation to an economically-fairer and ecologically-sustainable world.