It must be part of a bold and insurgent campaign based on resistance to racism, austerity and war that focusses on mass rallies and mobilisations. Giving in to the right can only make it weaker.
Subjects Archives: Marxism
Russia Blog #6: The FBI has no legal character but lots of Kompromat
The host of the daytime NPR program asked his guests how serious, and how “unprecedented” Trump’s decision to fire his FBI chief was. The guests answers were strange: they spoke about “rule of law” and “violating the Constitution” but then switched to Trump “violating norms”—and back again, interchanging “norms” and “laws” as if they’re synonyms. […]
The Labour party’s future lies with Momentum
On a recent visit to Britain, Noam Chomsky explained that an “extremely hostile media” is damaging Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal, and as a result is responsible for Corbyn’s unpopularity.
![Illustration shows a huge Uncle Sam getting a new outfit made at the "McKinley and Company National Tailors" with President McKinley taking the measurements. Carl Schurz, Joseph Pulitzer, and Oswald Ottendorfer stand inside the entrance to the shop and Schurz is offering Uncle Sam a spoonful of "Anti-Expansion Policy" medicine, a bottle of which each is carrying. On the right are bolts of cloth labeled "Enlightened Foreign Policy" and "Rational Expansion." The strips on Uncle Sam's trousers are labeled "Texas, Louisiana Purchase, Alaska, Florida, California, Hawaii, [and] Porto Rico." Caption: The Antis. Here, take a dose of this anti-fat and get slim again! Uncle Sam No, Sonny!, I never did take any of that stuff, and I'm too old to begin! Photo credit: <a href="http://www.davidmhart.com/blog/C20111228141034/E20120715102406/index.html">David M. Hart</a>](https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Declined1024-200x200.jpg "The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements")
The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements
When first encountering the “Impeach Bush” movement in 2007 I responded, almost flippantly, “why not impeach the system that gave us Bush?” Otherwise, I said, “we risk having someone in the White House who’ll make us long for Bush.” If prescient, my response was admittedly formulaic and evidentially deficient.
Slandering Populism
Populism properly understood is about popular and democratic opposition to the rule of the money power—to the reign of concentrated wealth. It emerged from radical farmers’ fight for social and economic justice and democracy against the plutocracy of the nation’s Robber Baron capitalists during the late 19th century. It was a movement of the left.
The Promises and Limitations of Radical Local Politics
Read Michael D Yates’s informative interview with labor journalist Steve Early and Mike Parker, leader of the Richmond Progressive Alliance. The conversation focuses on both the benefits and limitations of engaging in radical politics at the local level.
With Krleža, Against Organized Idiotism
Krleža writes about imperialist wars, corruption, oligarchy, plutocracy, the miserable life under the dictatorship of capital, and so on. Moreover, he writes from the perspective of a revolutionary socialist. Almost a century later all of those Krleža’s early themes are still critically and tragically topical. Various versions of ostensible socialism are today thoroughly discredited, but […]
Just Wait Until I Get Tenure
The first thing to understand about colleges and universities is that they are workplaces. And like all workplaces in capitalist societies, they are organized as hierarchies, with power radiating downward.… Those at the top have as their central objective control over the enterprise, so that their power can be maintained, that revenues from tuition, grants, […]
Inconsistency, Illegality, and Judge Gorsuch
Donald Trump has nominated Neil Gorsuch, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate should not confirm Judge Gorsuch. This post gives one cardinal reason for rejecting the nomination.
Surveillance: The mainstream media’s dismay with the tool of coercion
The article discusses surveillance in today’s capitalist society with a reference to a recent revelation that the German intelligence agency spied upon scores of foreign journalists.
Why you should join the #womensstrike on International Women’s Day and form a women’s council
Something new is taking shape in the world: in more than 30 countries, people are calling for an international women’s strike on the 8th of March.
Reading Marx’s Capital Today: Lessons from Latin America
One hundred and fifty years ago, Karl Marx published his book Capital, an intellectual effort of great breadth, with the aim of revealing the logic of capitalist production and providing workers with theoretical instruments for their liberation. Having discovered the logic of the system, he was able to foresee with great anticipation much of what […]
Mythologies, Guns, Racism and the Death Penalty
This past week, I have read two judicial decisions that – once again – remind me how powerful mythologies are deployed to justify conduct that harms and mutilates human beings. However, in both cases, the majority of judges penetrate the mythology and see the case in human terms. The cases can therefore teach all of […]
The Rift in the Metabolism of Nature and Society
The truth is that the environmental problems and the mounting catastrophes facing humanity have everything to do with economic and environmental injustice and a society that put the accumulation of capital before people and the planet. This is so much the case that we will increasingly see the development of an environmental proletariat where the […]
E.P. Thompson: A Giant Remembered
It is surely difficult now to grasp, for young people in the UK let alone the US and elsewhere, that thirty years or so ago, radical historian-activist Edward Thompson was by opinion polls intermittently the second or third most popular Englishman or Englishwoman, shortly after the Queen Mother. After all, the British establishment, to say […]
Forward Ever, Normal Never: Taking Down Donald Trump
This dream. Something is in the house, something’s breaking, the things I love are going away. I reach for Laura, she becomes translucent, evaporates. I wake up, telling myself this dream means I’m worried about how tired and worn Laura has grown from years of activist work trying to get people out of prison. I’ve […]
Build an Independent, Democratic Socialist Left
The following is an excerpt from Bernie Sanders’ speech at a meeting of the National Committee for Independent Political Action in New York City on June 22, 1989, published under the title “Reflections from Vermont” in the December 1989 issue of Monthly Review. It seems obvious to me that there is no way that we […]
The Mad Activist Refrains from Assassinating Donald Trump
Time to vote for our next president! Time to choose just the right person to lead our world’s most militarily advanced superpower. That’s why presidential elections should be nonviolent and fulfilling on a deep personal level! O whom, shall I choose? Let’s see. . . Hillary Rodham Clinton: Democrat and fellow feminist. Speechifies against poverty, […]
The Imperial War Museum in London: A Lesson in State Propaganda?
In January 2016, I attended Tate Britain’s Artist and Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, a disappointing exhibition that in spite of its title did not face Britain’s past in any meaningful way. On the contrary, as I argued in my review, it shied away from this bloody history in favour of quasi-glorification, non-committal wording and […]
The Significance of the Protest Encampment in Puerto Rico
The Protest Encampment at the entrance of the Federal Courthouse in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico against the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (cynically called “PROMESA”), as well as the Wall Street Junta that said law imposes, constitutes an important act of popular resistance. In addition to the dictatorial Wall Street Junta, PROMESA […]
