Resources By Year of Publication
Resources in the Connexions Library

Clicking on the title of an item takes you to the bibliographic page for the resource, which typically also contains an abstract, a link to the full text if it is available online, and links to related topics in the subject index. You can find items through the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, Library of Congress, and Format indexes.
Particularly recommended items are flagged with a red Connexions logo:

2010 & later 2000-2009 1980-1989 1970-1979 1960-1969 Before 1960

2010 & later Publications

2013

Aaron Swartz and the Assault on Open Information
Malicious Government Prosecution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The great corporate-supported push to hide essential, publicly funded information behind private firewalls and government secrecy, represents a breathtaking breach of the basic tenets of democracy.
Aaron Swartz and the Fight for Information Freedom
They Can't Stop the Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Aaron Swartz was a target of a deliberately vicious, sadistic government campaign in which the federal government wanted to make his pain an example to the entire progressive techie community. What’s more, his death was the outcome of a policy that is a threat to human freedom.
African Americans Ignored in the Age of Obama
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A truly equal and diverse United States is not possible unless all Americans come to grips with the origins of the race issue, its centrality to U.S. politics, and why African-American issues must be central to revitalizing the civil rights and labour movements — which also requires rebuilding the dream for full equality by direct action.
AIPAC’s Doomsday Conference
It's the End of the World Again
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Iran, Israel, and the improbability of nuclear attack.
American Blowback
Cop-on-Cop Crime in LA
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Anti-Capitalist Demonstration of May 1, 2013 in Montreal
Journée des Travailleurs et Travailleuses: Manifestation Anti-Capitaliste
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2013
Montreal 2013: police state. Montreal's municipal goverment passes a bylaw that suspends the right of citizens to assemble unless they have received advance permission from police. Citizens who assert their right to assembly are kettled by police and arrested.
Apocalypse and the Left
Endgame or Business as Usual?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Archiving With May Day Rooms
From the Marx Memorial Library to Cold Bath Fields
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
In our day, as the traces of our radical movements are being thrown into rubbish pits, as state sponsored “austerity” demands the commodification of every inch of space, and with sinister intent destroys the evidence of our past, its joys, its victories. Clear out the closets, empty the shelves, toss out the old footage, shred the underground press, pulverize the brittle, yellowing documents! Thus neo-liberalism organizes the transition from the old to the new; they must silence alternatives.
At the Dark End of the Street - book review
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape and Resistance — A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle McGuire.
The BBC's 'Bogeyman' Narrative on Hugo Chavez
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The changes in Venezuela, and throughout Latin America, over the past decade: the development of peaceful, democratic alternatives to the policies of neoliberalism; standards of living improved for millions of people following a process that has had popular, democratic support, are at risk of being written off as simply the actions of another 'anti-American' 'bogeyman' due to the media's relentless negative treatment of the Venezuelan government.
The Bias of Human Rights Watch
Promoting Injustice
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The reports issued by Human Rights Watch over the past decade have increasingly exhibited a bias towards certain rights over others. More precisely, Human Rights Watch repeatedly focuses on political and civil rights while ignoring social and economic rights.
Black against Empire
The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2013
Overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party.
Book Review: Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politivcs of Anarchism and Syndicalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Book Review: The Condition of the Working Classes in England
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Reveiw of Nicholas Comfort, Surrender: How British Industry Gave Up the Ghost, 1952–2012 (2012) and Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class (2011).
Building a Solidarity City
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A Solidarity City is the creation of a community that rejects a system that engenders poverty and anguish, not solely for immigrants and refugees, but also for other Montrealers confronting these same realities.
Business journalists go on the attack; demonize Atlantic seasonal workers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
National business journalists and columnists have bought into Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s demeaning view that folks in the Atlantic region are backward and have a defeatist attitude. Framed in disrespectful language, they’re promoting untested economic ideas that, if adopted, would seriously damage the economy – and the people – of the region.
The Century of Rosa Parks
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Rosa Parks was a veteran militant of many civil rights battles long before she became an icon.
Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers, and the Question of Unions in Contemporary Capitalism
Review of Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out The Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Bardacke tells the story of one movement’s evolution from grassroots obscurity to such (relatively little-known) successes as the Salinas Valley (California) general strike of lettuce pickers in 1979—a veritable mass strike in Rosa Luxemburg’s sense—and from there to the collapsed shell of a union nonetheless administering fourteen non-profits with millions in assets.
The Chavez Legacy
The Revolution Within the Revolution Will Continue
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Chavez was a leader who, in unity with the people, was able to free Venezuela from the grips of US Empire, brought dignity to the poor and working class, and was central to a Latin American revolt against US domination.
China’s Cyber-War: Don’t Believe the Hype
Net Threat Inflation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Addressing cyber-theft, U.S hypocrisy, and China.
C.L.R. James's Conflicted Intellectual Legacies on Mao Tse Tung's China
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
On the evolution of C.L.R. James’s thoughts about Maoism.
Colombian Workers Injured and Fired
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The General Motors subsidiary in Colombia, Colmotores, fired over 200 workers who were injured on the job, ranging from spinal fractures to cancer.
The Corporate State and Manufactured Dependence
Sure, It Can Get Worse...It's Happening Right Before Our Eyes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The ‘resistance is futile’ mindset that supports plutocrats and the global corporations they own assumes the existing order is the only possible order and the costs of resistance are too great because ‘they’ have state power and unlimited economic resources on their side.
The Coup
1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2013
In 1953, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency organized the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. Over the next 26, the U.S. backed the unpopular, authoritarian shah and his secret police; in exchange, it reaped a share of Iran’s oil wealth. The blowback was almost inevitable, as this new and revealing history of the coup and its consequences shows.
The Coup of Coups
Putting the Shah of Shahs on the Peacock Throne
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Daughters of India Violated and Abused
A Woman's Lot
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Widespread sexual abuse rapes the land and inflicts harm upon the women of India who are isolated from the emerging "New India".
Death of a Hero
The General, The Media Adulation And The Forgotten Victims
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
If all this glorification of a military commander had happened in the North Korean or the Soviet-era press, lavishly praising an 'original' who'd given years of 'patriotic service' in wars abroad, it would have rightly elicited scorn and ridicule amongst commentators here.
Deranging America
Drugged, Indebted, Armed-to-the-Teeth
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A question worth asking: Who benefit from a more compulsive, hence more violent, population? Well, if you’re pushing eternal warfare, which we are, you’ll need a pool of nutcases who are willing to shoot anyone for any reason, or none at all, and more deranged oafs at home to go “Rah! Rah!” over any bombing run or drone hit. Are we going into Mali next? Why not? Where is it, by the way? There has never been a country fighting so many wars without a serious debate about any of them. And if you want people to buy first, think later, to rack up life-wrecking debts to satiate all ephemeral cravings, then you ply them with poison, flickering television and thumping music. You don’t want a population capable of deliberating, reflecting, thinking clearly or even listening attentively, much less reading, but one that can be jerked around by any sexy come-on or dumbed down slogan.
The Dialectic of Monstrosity - review
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires, and Global Capitalism' by David McNally.
Django Unchained, or, The Help: How “Cultural Politics” Is Worse Than No Politics at All, and Why
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
On reflection, it’s possible to see that Django Unchained and The Help are basically different versions of the same movie. Both dissolve political economy and social relations into individual quests and interpersonal transactions and thus effectively sanitize, respectively, slavery and Jim Crow by dehistoricizing them. The problem is not so much that each film invents cartoonish fictions; it’s that the point of the cartoons is to take the place of the actual relations of exploitation that anchored the regime it depicts.
The Empire’s Shill
The Real Mission of the New York Times
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The Environmental Movement at the Crossroads
Gang Green or New Green?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
There is a growing culture of resistance in the environment movement
Eugene Genovese (1930-2012) - obituary
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
After his death last year at the age of 82, most obituaries of Eugene Genovese — the historian of American slavery whose masterpiece, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, was published in 1974 — stated that he traveled from left to right, from Marxism to conservatism.
Evil Traffickers and Innocent Children?
It's Not So Simple
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
One of the most pressing reasons why teenagers like Adri need to migrate for work is because there’s no other way for them or their families to access the money that is essential to life in any capitalist economy.
The Evolution of Evolution - review
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Darwin’s Ghosts' by Rebecca Stott.
Eyes Like Blank Discs
The Guardian’s Steven Poole On George Orwell’s Politics And The English Language
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013 Published: 2014
Poole’s review of Orwell is itself a textbook example of the kind of alienated response described by Orwell, Fromm and Schmidt. Whereas Orwell’s essay is the work of an impassioned, outspoken individual opposing 'the machine society’, Poole’s article is the work of a corporate professional operating ‘within the confines of an assigned ideology’.
‘Factivism’ and Other Fairytales from Bono
The 'Inner Nerd' Gets It Wrong, Again
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A rebuttal to U2 singer Bono's claims regarding the 'imminent eradication of extreme poverty'.
Feminism's March from Nation to Home - interview
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Johanna Brenner interviews Ninotchka Rosca.
15 Benefits of the War on Drugs
Training Your Kid to be a Snitch (Against You)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Mocking the government's 'War on Drugs'.
A Flame Gone Out - obituary
The Legacy of Stephane Hessel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Obituary for Stephane Hessel.
Food Justice: Monsanto, Factory Farming, And Beyond
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
It starts with alternative vision: While the dominant hierarchy drowns in its own hypocrisy, fear, and greed let’s use our energy and passion to create -- occupy -- a whole new cultural model.
Freedom of Information Takes Another Hit in the United States
Keeping Americans Safe
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The United States is a land of ill-informed sheep and the home of a bunch of cowards — cowards in government who are afraid of the truth and the open debate over facts and ideas, and cowards among the broader public who willingly allow these steady encroacments on our freedom in the name of “fighting terror.”
From "Triple Oppression" to "Freedom Dreams" - reviews
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Reviews of 'Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 1945-1995' by Cheryl Higashida, 'Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War' by Dayo F. Gore, and 'Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism' by Erik S. McDuffie.
The Good Intentions That Pave the Road to War
R2P and Genocide Prevention
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Groups need to investigate impact of damaging corporate media censorship
Freedom to Read Week 2013
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Gun Control: Carnage in Context
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
What "the right to bear arms" means today is murkier in a society which is profoundly unorganized, exceptionally violent, highly racist, and with desperately inadequate care for the mentally ill.
Hondurans Walk for Dignity and Sovereignty
Step by Step
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
About the Walk called 'Caminata Dignidad y Soberanía Paso a Paso' (Walk for Dignity and Sovereignty Step by Step), which culminated with over 400 people from various groups representing the social movements in Honduras reaching the National Congress in Tegucigalpa with various demands.
How Chavez Changed History for the Better
A New Kind of Socialism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Hugo Chavez's impact on Venezuela.
How should we remember Ralph Klein?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Ralph Klein was one of Canada's most aggressive neo-liberals. Klein's true legacy is a string of anti-social policies and programs.
How To Make India Safer For Women
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
What’s to be done to make India, a country where women are veneered in the temple and beaten at home, safer for women?
Humanity Imperiled: The Path To Disaster
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
For the first time in the history of the human species, we have clearly developed the capacity to destroy ourselves. That’s been true since 1945. It’s now being finally recognized that there are more long-term processes like environmental destruction leading in the same direction, maybe not to total destruction, but at least to the destruction of the capacity for a decent existence.
Immigration Reform: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The introduction of “immigration reform” legislation is a tribute first and foremost to the heroic activism of proud “Undocumented and Afraid” youth coming forward to demand their rights and refusing to live in the shadows.
India: Growing Inequality and Destructive Development
Misery for the Many, Benefits for the Few
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Under the careful guidance of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund the Indian government has for the last twenty years or so, embraced market liberalization and the global market; garlanded corporations with all manner of subsidies and damned the poor to greater poverty, destitution, suffering and, suicide in the case of farmers.
Indians, Leftists, and Rebellion in Bolivia - review
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia' by Jeffery Webber.
Inside the Capitalist Crisis
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The bi-partisan austerity offensive — corresponding to the logical of capitalist profitability and accumulation — continues.
The Institutionalization of Tyranny
When Victory Has Nothing to do With Justice
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Republicans and conservative Americans are still fighting Big Government in its welfare state form. Apparently, they have never heard of the militarized police state form of Big Government, or, if they have, they are comfortable with it and have no objection.
Israeli Property Theft is Nothing New
Is the Custodian of Absentee Property Awaiting the Absentees?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Just the Beginning of Canada’s Filthy Tar Sands
A Qualitative Jump Down a Black Hole
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The technology used in Canada's tar sands will be used to open up other potential oil deposits that could more than double all know oil reserves. The disaster threatens to keep expanding.
Just winning next election not enough for Liberals or NDP
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
if there is a new government, it will come to power with the extreme right wing more entrenched than ever before.... Aggressive organizations are determined to maintain policies that tend to reward the rich and penalize the rest of us.
LAPD Chickens Come Home to Roost
Why I'm More Scared of the Cops Than I Am of Christopher Dorner
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Last Sparks From Tahrir Square
Tahrir Square Died, But Not the Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Once again, the prisons of Egypt are full. The hospitals are overflowing with injured men and women. But the fight, the ‘process’ goes on; it is not dying. Tahrir Square died, but the revolution is getting stronger.
Laura Flanders talks to Gar Alperovitz about What Then Must We Do?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Alperovitz says we may be witnessing the prehistory of the next American Revolution.
Left Out History - review
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power' by Amy Sonnie and James Tracy.
Lenin On The Need For Political Compromise
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Considering the nature of compromises and how to deal with them.
Gerda Lerner, 1920-2013
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Gerda Lerner has been the single most influential figure in the development of women’s and gender history since the 1960s.
Librarians and Palestine
An Interview with Vani Natarajan
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Working to preserve Palestinian records and memory in the face of deliberate destruction by Israel.
A Life Beyond Imagination - review of Searching for Sugar Man
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of “Searching for Sugar Man”, Malik Bendjelloul directing.
Mali, Wahabis, and Saudis
Following the Money
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The impact of the Wahabi movement in Mali.
Marxism as if the planet mattered
A Return to Marx’s Ecological Critique
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels held that capitalism inevitably tears apart the natural conditions that sustain life. They argued capitalism's exploitation of working people, and the unsustainable exploitation of nature, were linked and part of the same process.
May 5, 1818: Birth of Karl Marx
Seeds of Fire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Marx breathes dialectics and revolution. For Marx, radicalism means going to the root, and Marx’s radicalism seeks to go to the root of capitalism, to comprehend its essence dialectically, to understand its inherent contradictions – and the seeds of revolution it contains.
Mental Illness in the Workplace
It Still Haunts
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The Metaphors of Movements - review
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Guerillas in the Industrial Jungle: Radicalism’s Primitive and Industrial Rhetoric' by Ursula McTaggart.
A Microcosm of the Nation–Control Unit Prisons
Out of Control
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Out of Control: A Fifteen Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons' by Nancy Kurshan.
Monsanto: Contamination By All Means Necessary
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
What happens when you allow commercial interests free rein over a nation state's food and agricultural policies? Consumers and farmers end up paying the price.
Monsanto vs. Vernon Bowman’s Farm
The Fiction of Intellectual Property
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Monsanto’s entire case against Vernon Bowman — as with Percy Schmeiser — is that their profits will be negatively affected if they’e not empowered to dictate what Vernon Bowman does on his own land and with his own stuff. The relief they’re requesting is that the state should therefore so empower them.
The New Worker Organizing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Many, perhaps most, worker center–based organizing projects focused on workers in low-wage jobs, are conducted with the active support and, often enough, leadership provided by a variety of community-based organizations—with support from one or more unions.
Northern Freedom Chronicles - book review
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Review of 'Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North' by Thomas J. Sugrue.
Occupy Cincinnati as a Case Study
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Occupy Cincinnati was "an event, not a movement." It is argued that viewing Occupy — both in Cincinnati and nationally — as a movement, causes it to be seen as something that is now over, diminishing its significance.
Occupy the Workplace - review
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present', edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini.
On Democracy As A Good
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Is democracy good in itself? Exploring the impact of democracy during and after the Arab Spring.
Open Borders and the Tragedy of Open Access Commons
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
“Open borders” refers to a policy of unlimited or free immigration. I argue here that it is a bad policy. If you are poor and your country provides no social safety net, you move to one that does. If you are rich and your country makes you pay your taxes, you move (or at least move your money) to one that doesn’t. Thus safety nets, and public goods in general, disappear as they become both overloaded and underfunded. That is the “world without borders,” and without community. That is the tragedy of open access commons.
Osama Bin Laden, Bradley Manning and Me
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
As far as can be deduced, the government believes that the documents and videos that Bradley Manning gave to Wikileaks, which Wikileaks then widely distributed to international media, aided the enemy because it put US foreign policy in a very bad light.
Pamplona's locksmiths join revolt as banks throw families from their homes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
In the years of the housing boom, Spain's banks offered 100% mortgages. Now, while receiving millions in public aid, they are throwing people out of their homes. But there's a rebellion under way.
The Paranoia of The Superrich And Superpowerful
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The United States is in favor of stability. But you have to remember what stability means. Stability means conformity to U.S. orders. We “stabilize” countries when we invade them and destroy them.
Photographing Tragedy
What Victims Actually Want
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
What is the use of a photo when the human conscience has grown numb, and barely appreciates the artistic expression of the photo, not the moral and political crisis it represents?
The Police State is Real
It Has Happened Here
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The Bush regime’s response to 9/11 and the Obama regime’s validation of this response have destroyed accountable democratic government in the United States. So much unaccountable power has been concentrated in the executive branch that the US Constitution is no longer an operable document.
Post-war Left Feminism - review
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A review of 'Feminism, the Left, and Postwar Literary Culture' by Kathlene McDonald.
Postering Revolution
Wheat Paste, the Marxist Glue
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
On the role of postering in the activist agenda.
Postmodernism, the Academic Left, and the Crisis of Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Over the past fifty years, postmodern theory — an umbrella term generally used to refer to such diverse theoretical movements and paradigms as post-structuralism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and others — has generally dominated most fields in the humanities and some in the social sciences. But the economic meltdown in 2008 and the subsequent chronic crisis in capitalism have dealt a fatal theoretical blow to the varied and nearly ineffable assemblage of perspectives that are often grouped under the rubric of “postmodernism.” postmodernism was indeed tragedy. It was tragedy for the massive amounts of “cultural capital” that it wasted; it was tragedy for the defrauding of intellectual integrity that it represented; it was tragedy for the abandonment of reality that it recommended. Further, like the financial fiasco, it was criminal.
The Power of Idle No More
A Resurgent Radicalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The remarkable Idle No More movement is the biggest and most important national outpouring of grass roots aboriginal anger ever seen in Canada.
Preparing for a Post-Chávez Venezuela
Not One Step Backward, Ni Un Paso Atrás
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Hugo Chávez is no more, and yet the symbolic importance of the Venezuelan President that exceeded his physical persona in life, providing a condensation point around which popular struggles coalesced, will inevitably continue to function long after his death.
Primitive Heterosexuality
Carnal Knowledge
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Public Declaration: Solidarity against police repression in Montreal
We will not submit to the municipal by-law P-6
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
With this public declaration, we assert our opposition to by-law P-6: we will continue to demonstrate without negotiating our demo routes with police, and we will systematically challenge all tickets that arise from this by-law.
Putting Socialism Back on the Agenda
Daring to Hope
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Is Socialism Capitalism's future?
Rallying to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Despite uncomfortably cold weather in Washington, DC the February 17 mobilization to stop the Keystone XL Alberta-U.S. tar sands pipeline drew a crowd conservatively estimated at over 20,000.
Remembering a Vietnam Veteran
The Death of Sgt. Van Dale Todd
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The Representation of Torture in the 'War on Terror'
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
A nation cannot claim to act to promote democracy and human rights whilst it kidnaps citizens the world over, places them in secret detention and tortures them.
Reproductive Justice Needed
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Many wonder why the fight to maintain legal abortion is still so heated forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Dianne Feeley points to attitudes about women that provide the political space for the right-wing’s attacks.
The Return of COINTELPRO?
Time to Target the Real Terrorists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The FBI was using its offices and agents across the country as early as August 2011 to engage in a massive surveillance scheme against Occupy Wall Street. The documents show a government agency at its most paranoid.
Revenge of the Pomo
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The repression (either physically or ideologically via social amnesia) of utopians by the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, and now (certain varieties of) Post-Modernism has led us to a situation in which some search for authenticity in the wrong places. The gap between virtuous and misplaced authenticity is a symptom of repression, the loss of some deeper truths about solutions be they cooperatives, political mobilization, or honest journalism.
The Sinicization Of Tibet
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
In 1950s, China incorporated Tibet into its territory and since then, it has began a major reform of all aspects of Tibetan life - social, religious, political and economic. The Tibetans had organised an armed resistance but it could not challenge the Chinese army. As a result of this, thousands of Tibetans fled from Tibet and seek asylum in nearby countries like India, Nepal and Bhutan where they have created refugee or exile communities. But other forms of resistance had been continued and is still continued by Tibetans in Tibet and in exile.
SNCC Movement Worker Reflects
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Gloria House reflects on how SNCC saw the struggle of African Americans as linked to the struggles of colonialized people, and identified with liberation movements domestically and internationally.
Social Networking and the Death of the Internet
How Do You "Like" That?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Social Networking is, by its nature, a capture environment. The companies that offer the services, particularly Facebook, host your site and control all the information on it. Facebook — a group of linked pages on a giant website — is constraining and not very powerful. In order to use it, you have to use it the way they want you to and that’s not a whole lot of “using”. But there is a comfort in having one’s options limited, being able to use something without learning anything about it or making many choices about how you use it. That alluring convenience is a poisoned apple, however.
Strictly Legal
The Caronia Decision and a Culture of Mercantile Nihilism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The Caronia decision reveals an injustice system whose function is to provide legal cover for the excesses of the corporate elite. Caronia is a wake-up moment, announcing that the institutions and the philosophy that sustains it are broken, maybe beyond repair, and must be replaced now, while we’re still standing, by new social forms imbued with sane and humane values.
The Struggle Against Rape and Sexual Assault
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Soma Marik discusses how to advance the struggle against sexual assault in the wake of the bus gang rape of last December, which led to massive demonstrations throughout India.
Surveillance USA
NSA and the PRISM Project
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The government is merrily going about its business of keeping tabs on you in virtually every conceivable way.
To Look and Communicate
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
We Zapatistas know that just as there are many worlds in this world that we inhabit, there are also many forms, modes, times, and places to struggle against the beast, without asking, nor hoping, for anything in exchange.
Too Big to Jail
Not Too Big to Resist
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
US rich evade punishment while the poor are criminalized in the two-tier justice system.
The Torturer as Feminist: From Abu Ghraib to Zero Dark Thirty
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
How “feminism” is used in service of the American empire.
Toward a Literacy of Rebellion
Compañeros of the Word
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The words dignity, dream, democracy, justice, struggle and liberty are among those central to the Zapatista vision, but perhaps it is the word compañero, the building block of the community and the organization, that holds and contains all of these other words in it.
Trotsky Reconsidered: Claude Lefort's Perspective
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
In spite of all the ink spilled that says the opposite, Trotsky may have been closer to Stalin than he was to Lenin. That’s the argument made by Claude Lefort (one of the leading members of Socialisme ou Barbarisme) in a 1948 essay, “The Contradiction of Trotsky.” He criticizes Trotsky for having over and over again pursued a conciliationist approach towards Stalin and failing to uphold what Lefort claims would have been Lenin’s positions if he had still been alive.
Turkey’s Urban Uprising
The Struggle for Democracy against Inequality, Oligarchy, Oppression, and Tyranny
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
In Turkey, a wave of urban uprisings had spread across the country, involving hundreds of thousands of protesters, in dozens of cities, met with massive state repression and violence, resulting in a few deaths and thousands of injuries and arrests.
The U.S. Empire & Modern Day Christian Martyrs
80th Priest Killed in Colombia Since 1984
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
there has been almost no media coverage of the killings of the “two bishops, 79 priests, eight men and women religious, as well as three seminarians” killed in Colombia alone between 1984 and 2011.
US Still Fighting “Threat” of Liberation Theology
The Wikileaks Revelations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The assault on the Church in Colombia is both state policy of Colombia as well as the United States which is propping up that military with billions of dollars of assistance, and which views organized movements for social justice in Latin America as a threat to its economic domination of the region.
VAWA Must Pass to Protect All Women, Regardless of Race
The Fight Ahead
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
No woman deserves to be beaten, raped, or killed, regardless of her race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.
Voter Suppression Hits Mississippi
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Concerns regarding the polarization of voting in Mississippi between classses and actions taken with the apparent goal of suppressing the non-white opposition.
Walmart: Black Friday and Beyond
Against The Current vol. 162
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The “Black Friday” strike at Walmart stores surprised and elated many on the left and activists throughout labour and allied movements.
What Is the "Working Class"?
Against The Current vol. 163
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
I used to hold up signs about “Workers Power” at demonstrations. I rarely do that any more. This is because almost no one understands what “workers power” might mean. They also do not know what “worker” means.
What Then Must We Do?
Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2013
Gar Alperovitzexplains why that the time is right for a revolutionary new economy movement, what it means to democratize the ownership of wealth, what it will take to build a new system to replace the decaying one — and how to strengthen our communities through cooperatives, worker-owned companies, neighborhood corporations, small and medium-size independent businesses, and publicly owned enterprises.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
The Anti-Empire Report
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The double edged sword of declaring war and fighting "terrorism".
Why Cooperative Businesses Are Not the Answer
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The problem with the worker-owned cooperative business economic model is that this model retains one of the most important defining characteristics of the capitalist model with which we are so familiar today: production of commodities to be sold for a profit in the market place.
The Will of the People Doesn’t Mean Jack Shit to the Drug Warriors
Gangsters With Federal Pensions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
The DEA vs. voter-approved marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado.
Will the Real Gwyn Morgan Please Stand Up
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Would You Believe That the United States Tried to do Something That was Not Nice Against Hugo Chávez?
The Plan to Destabilize Venesuela
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2013
Wikileaks releases documents on U.S. efforts to overthrow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

2012

Abortion and Conscience
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
I am as in favour of a woman’s right to abortion as I am hostile to Creationism. I recognize, however, a fundamental difference between insisting that all biology teachers teach the theory of evolution and forcing a doctor to perform an abortion against his or her will. I recognize, too, a fundamental difference between defending a woman’s right to choose and insisting that this includes the right to compel a doctor to perform an abortion. Not to recognise such distinctions is to distort the very idea of morality.
Abortion, Infanticide, Humanity, Free Speech
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Abortion is right, and infanticide is wrong, because there IS a moral boundary between the fetus and the newborn.
Activist archiving in Toronto
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
People gather in Toronto to discuss what many hope will grow into a movement for archiving grassroots histories.
Adivasi Movements in India: An Interview with Poet Waharu Sonavane
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Waharu is a Bhil Adivasi, long-time poet and activist. Since the 1970s, he has been organizing for Adivasi self-sufficiency among his community near his hometown in western India.
Afghanistan: the Smell of Defeat
Cut-and-Run Time
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The United States hasn’t liberated Afghanistan. It hasn’t rebuilt Afghanistan. It hasn’t removed the warlords from power, curtailed opium production, established strong democratic institutions, or improved life for ordinary working people. The US hasn’t achieved any of its strategic objectives.
African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions (Book Review)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
This book sets out to place the host of new movements arising across the continent in a singular socio-political context.
African Odyssey Turns to the South
The Great Migrations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Chronicles the economic hardships faced by Africans and the means they take to alleviate their suffering.
Against Fundamentalism and Imperialism
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A view of the inside forces in Pakistan.
The Age of Hell
Entrenching Murder as the American Way
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Washington Post has just laid out, in horrifying, soul-slaughtering detail, the Obama Administration’s ongoing effort to expand, entrench and “codify” the practice of murder and terrorism by the United States government. The avowed, deliberate intent of these sinister machinations is to embed the use of death squads and drone terror attacks into the policy apparatus of future administrations, so that the killing of human beings outside all pretense of legal process will go on, year after year after year, even when the Nobel Peace Laureate has left office.
Air Force Invades the Rocky Mountains
Sky Grab
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Communities throughout rural America are fighting to stop more Air Force flights overhead. In addition to New Mexico and Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arizona, Kentucky and Maine are some of the other states fighting intrusive low-level flights.
America Likes Democracy, Except In Venezuela
Chavez in the Crosshairs
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Venezuelans can be sure that their vote counts. The government in Venezuela has done everything to increase voter registration and participation.
American Autumn: An Occudoc
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Shot on the front lines and meeting spaces of the Occupy movement in NYC, Boston, and Washington, DC from the earliest days through the end of January 2012, American Autumn: an Occudoc is an inside looking out view of the occupy movement.
American Decline in Perspective
Empire and Its Discontents
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
American Jacobins
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In a recent broadside against the Occupy movement, Alexander Cockburn assailed, among other things, “the enormous arrogance which prompted the Occupiers to claim that they were indeed the most important radical surge in living memory. Where was the knowledge of, let alone the respect for, the past?”
American Poetry's "Labor Problem" - Book Review
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review of 'Hog Butchers, Beggars, and Busboys: Poverty, Labor, and the Making of Modern American Poetry' by John Marsh.
America’s Baleful Worldwide Pressure
The Way the Wind Blows
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The overweening arrogance of the United States in conduct of its foreign relations is evident throughout the world.
America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff
How Today’s Fiscal Austerity is Reminiscent of World War I’s Economic Misunderstandings
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An exploration of how today’s fiscal austerity is reminiscent of World War I’s economic misconceptions.
America’s Last Chance
One Against the Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The United States is rapidly being turned into a police state.
Anti-Science: Left and Right Together?
A Systematic Attack on Rationality
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The suggestion that left and right thinking may be converging on matters scientific will, no doubt, be offensive to some on the left. After all, the right chooses myth over evolution, and oil profits over climate science.
The Anti-Semitism That Goes Unreported
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Our grandparents knew that the order-enforcement authorities wouldn't intervene to help a Jewish family under attack; we know that the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Police, the Civil Administration, the Border Police and the courts all stand on the sidelines, closing their eyes, softballing investigations, ignoring evidence, downplaying the severity of the acts, protecting the attackers, and giving a boost to those progromtchiks. The hands behind these attacks belong to Israeli Jews who violate international law by living in the West Bank. But the aims and goals behind the attacks are the flesh and blood of the Israeli non-occupation. This systemic violence is part of the existing order. It complements and facilitates the violence of the regime.
Arab Detroit, Targeted Community
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Since September 11, 2001, the Detroit area’s Arab-American community has become a convenient source of media reports, an object of investigation by government agencies, and a target of hatred for Americans looking for someone to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
Arab Jews vs. Palestinians: Israel's Refugee Pawns
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Israel's attempt to compare Arab Jews to Palestinian refugees.
The Arab Spring, the West and Political Islam
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The contemporary Arab political system, until the recent outbreak of Arab revolutions, is the byproduct of a number of domestic, regional and global arrangements and developments in the post-World War II international order.
Are US Troops Targeting Journalists?
Incidents Raise Suspicions on Motive
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It is dangerous in the extreme to be a journalist covering America’s wars, at least beginning with Vietnam.
Ask a Silly Question
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
An inquiry into the polling and market industry. Through bogus street polls, we see how frequently people are willing to give opinions on subject matter they know nothing about.
Assessing the Battle of Longview
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
How does the Occupy movement connect with more militant segments of the workers’ movement?
At the crossroads between 'Green Economy' and rights of nature
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Under the rhetoric of “green economy”, capitalists are actually attempting to use nature as capital, proposing unconvincingly that the only way to preserve natural elements such as water and forests is through private investment.
Attacking Gun Culture at Its Source
No Justice, No Peace
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When you rob people of their self-respect and sense of control over their own lives, use them as means to your own ends, and treat them like garbage, don’t be surprised if you don’t like the destructive methods they choose to assert their sense of self. By all means let’s feel sympathy for the innocent victims when the worm turns — but let’s also never forget who set things in motion.
Austerity and Resistance: Lessons from the 2012 Quebec Student Strike
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The student strike in Quebec has ended, in a rather clear victory. After a seven month-long struggle — the longest of its kind in Quebec history — students have won a cancellation of the proposed tuition hike, a pledge to repeal the infamous Law 78 that had criminalized demonstrations, and the ouster of Premier Jean Charest and his Liberal government.
Bad Pharma, Bad Journalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
‘The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal’, from Ben Goldacre's new book, Bad Pharma presents a disturbing picture emerges of corporate drug abuse.
The Ballot and the Bullet
Election Diary, Venezuela
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The 2012 Venezuelan election, like Chávez himself, is the result of something far more profound that has been developing for decades, and which has accelerated considerably in recent years.
Banks Are "Where the Money Is" In The Drug War
Big Lenders Face Few Hard Consequences for Violating Anti-Money Laundering Laws
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Man of the largest banks in the world have been accused of failing to comply with anti-money laundering laws — thereby enabling, collectively, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of suspicious transactions to move through the banking system absent adequate monitoring or oversight.
A BDS Movement That Works
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In 2005, a call was issued for global nonviolent resistance to occupation through acts of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.They had three goals: an end to occupation and return to the pre-1967 Green Line, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and recognition of the Palestinian right of return.
A Bend in the Labyrinth - Book Review
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review of 'The Century’s Midnight: Dissenting European and American Writers in the Era of the Second World War' by Clive Bush.
Berlin's oldest squatters in town defend threatened community centre
Pensioners take a stand against development of their comunity centre
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Dozen of pensioners took over a community centre in the east Berlin suburb of Pankow last month after the local council said the building they had used as a community centre for 15 years had to make way for real estate development.
Beware the Anti-Anti-War Left
Why Humanitarian Interventionism is a Dead End
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Ever since the 1990s, and especially since the Kosovo war in 1999, anyone who opposes armed interventions by Western powers and NATO has to confront what may be called an anti-anti-war left (including its far left segment).
Beyond capitalist green economy: In defence of Mother Earth and the commons
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Democratic Left Front calls for action against destructive corporate interests that are driving the commercialisation and commodification of the natural environment.
Beyond the Sacred
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A transcript on Malik's talk "Beyond the Sacred" at a conference on blasphemy.
Big Brother's Getting Bigger
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Government surveillance and attacks on the privacy of American citizens were bad enough under the Bush regime but they are getting even worse during the Obama years.
The big robo-calling question: will anyone go to jail?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Good investigative journalism could break this affair wide open, but will the owners of the Harper-friendly corporate media allow their journalists to go beyond normal reporting and do the hard work necessary to get to the very bottom of this dark story?
The black bloc and the Battle of Seattle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Black Teachers’ Revolt of the 1960s
Educational Apartheid in Chicago
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Chicago’s educational apartheid has a history which includes the racial segregation of its schools, the allocation of resources on an unequal basis and second class treatment for teachers of color. It was Jim Crow North. But there was also resistance, a resistance which grew into a powerful social movement during the 1960’s.
Book Review: A Review of Mary Gabriel’s Love and Capital and Some Thoughts Prompted by the Review
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In Love and Capital, published in 2011, Mary Gabriel makes a really good case that love was at the center of the life of the revolutionary named Karl Marx.
Book Review: African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Conspicuously absent from the renewed and resurgent discourse amongst anti-capitalist forces and the popular imagination was sub-Saharan Africa, “black Africa,” the Africa of the eternal cycle of dictators, corruption, famine, “bad governance” and debt. African Awakenings: The Emerging Revolutions ambitiously sets out to remedy this and place the host of new movements arising across the continent in a singular socio-political context.
Book Review: C.L.R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt (1939,1969)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
What makes A History of Pan African Revolt enchanting is the thread of speculative philosophy that holds the assorted anecdotal historical commentaries on labor strikes, anti-racist rebellions, heroic personalities, and anti-colonial events together.
book Review: C.L.R. James, A History of Pan-African Revolt (1939, 1969)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A small and dangerous volume, this republication of C.L.R. James’s A History of Pan-African Revolt is a concise survey of Black freedom struggles in the United States, the Caribbean, and on the African continent from 1739–1969.
Book Review: Eric Leif Davin, Crucible of Freedom: Workers' Democracy in the Industrial Heartland, 1914–1960 (2010)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review on Eric Leif Davin's Crucible of Freedom: Workers' Democracy in the Industrial Heartland 1914-1960.
Book Review: John Eric Marot, The October Revolution in Prospect and Retrospect: Interventions in Russian and Soviet History (2012)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
This is a book review concerning a very important book, one of the very few books published since 1991 on the “Russian Question” that will compel people (this reviewer included), long wedded to different characterizations of the post-1917 or post-1929 Soviet regime, to think through their commitments.
Book Review: Marixism without Marx: Recent Interpretations of the Economic Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book Review: Marxism without Marx: Recent Interpretations of the Economic Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book Review: Michael D. Yates, ed., Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back (2012)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review on Michael Yates Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back.
Booker's Place
A Mississippi Story
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
In 1965, African-American waiter Booker Wright spoke out in a television documentary, outraging many white Southerners and resulting in his murder. Years later, the filmmaker's son returns to examine the repercussions of the interview on Wright's family and the community as a whole.
Boom and Bust... Literally
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The richest country in the world is faced with literal “boom”—in the form of exploding sections of electric, gas and steam systems—and “bust”—in the form of collapsing roads and bridges—on a widespread and regular basis.
Border Vigils
Keeping Migrants Out of the Rich World
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A look at immigration controversies, focusing on the migrants circumstances.
A Brief History of Superpowers
The Neck Irons of Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
From the Congress of Vienna of 1815 to the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to the “Allies” invasion of Russia in 1918 to the formation of what became the European Union in the 1950s, the great powers of Europe and the world have gotten together in grand meeting halls and on the field of battle to set the ground rules for imperialist exploitation of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, to Christianize and ‘civilize’, to remake the maps, and to suppress revolutions and other threats to great-power hegemony.
Bringing the Battlefield to the Border
The Wild World of Border Security and Boundary Building in Arizona
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The U.S.-Mexican border has not only become Ground Zero for every experiment in immigration enforcement and drug interdiction, but also the incubator, testing site, showcase, and staging ground for ever newer versions of border-enforcement technology that, sooner or later, are sure to be applied globally.
The Brutal Tragedy at Marikana
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The following statement, “A Brutal Tragedy that Never Should Have Happened,” was issued by the editors of Amandla! immediately following the August 16 shooting of striking miners.
Burdened with Debt Reloaded: The Politics ofr Devaluation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A series of defensive and sectional struggles at workplaces in the private sector reveal that the Greek industrial capital has already taken advantage of the new institutional framework of the “state of emergency” now ruling in Greece to prop up its profitability or just transfer its own debts and losses onto the workers.
Burying the Typewriter
Childhood Under the Eye of the Secret Police
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Carmen Bugan reflects on what life was like growing up in Romania during the 1980's with a dissident father.
Business is Booming for the Prison Profiteers
The GEO Group Cashes In
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Though GEO (formerly Wackenhut) is hardly a household name, they are a major player in the private corrections sector, combining a self righteous amorality in profiting from human misery with a ruthless sense of just how to make a buck in this business.
Call Me Kuchu
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
In Uganda, a new bill threatens to make homosexuality punishable by death. David Kato - Uganda's first openly gay man - and his fellow activists work against the clock to defeat the legislation while combating vicious persecution in their daily lives. But no one, not even the filmmakers, is prepared for the brutal murder that shakes the movement to its core and sends shock waves around the world.
Campaigning for A Millionaires Tax
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In February 2012, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) launched a simple, clear initiative to raise taxes on Californians with incomes greater than $1,000,000 per year. The folding of this campaign for the Millionaires Tax (MT), following a compromise with the governor, has been felt as a seismic shock for many activists in California.
Can You Pass The US Christian Right Quiz?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Canada’s Spy Groups Divulge Secret Intelligence to Energy Companies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Documents raise fears that info on environmentalists, Indigenous groups and more shared with industry at biannual, secret-level, briefings.
Canada’s Spy Groups Divulge Secret Intelligence to Energy Companies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Documents raise fears that info on environmentalists, indigenous groups and more shared with industry at biannual, secret-level, briefings.
The Cancer in Occupy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are the cancer of the Occupy movement. The presence of Black Bloc anarchists — so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass, seek physical confrontations with police and destroy property — is a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.
Canned Dreams
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
A simple can of ravioli propels this spectacular 30,000-kilometre, eight-country journey through all phases of food production and the far flung sources of international ingredients.
The Careerists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by the most colourless human beings.
The Case for Grassroots Archives
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Grassroots archives play a valuable role in what has been called "the battle of memory". People's history projects such as grassroots archives preserve and share stories of resistance, hidden histories, and alternative visions.
Censorship? Haaretz Deletes Amira Hass Article On Surging Settler Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Israel’s Haaretz has mysteriously deleted a powerful article by Amira Hass headlined “The anti-Semitism that goes unreported,” about an unchecked upsurge in violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers.
Characterising the period
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An analysis of the fundamental contradiction today is that between global capitalism and the system of nation-states. In this brief but sharp overview Nigel updates his analysis by bringing it to bear on the global economic crisis and the political reactions it is provoking.
Chatting with Chomsky
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The linguistics professor, political theorist and activist discusses the Occupy movement, Obama’s first term and the economic crisis in Europe.
"Chavs", class and representation
A review of Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Chavs traces the rise of an offensive caricature of the working class: a racist hooligan, an alcoholic thug; women unable to control their vaginas, men unable to control their fists; brainless, feckless scroungers-working class people, as represented by the term chav, are nothing more than parasitic growths on society. Jones demonstrates how the figure of the chav is used to deflect blame away from the structures that create inequality onto individuals.
Chicago Teachers Strike Back
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Chicago Teachers Union stage a walkout that leads to an improved contract.
Chicken Game: Eurocrisis, Again.
Washington vs. Berlin
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
How does one take an autonomous position against the European policies of social butchery without falling into nationalist, anti-German nostalgia or into rhetoric against “Anglo-Saxon speculation”? How do we put together struggles about rights, work and life with a constitutive struggle on the issue of debt, while avoiding any recourse to solutions “from above” to the risk of default?
Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
The days of human history.
Chile: Return of the Penguins!
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The struggle to democratize Chile’s educational system has, for the first time since the country’s return to bourgeois democracy in 1990, challenged the very foundations of its neoliberal model.
China in Revolt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Few in the West are aware of the drama unfolding in today’s “epicenter of global labor unrest.” A scholar of China exposes its tumultuous labor politics and their lessons for the Left.
China's capitalism and the crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Coupled with spectacular growth rates since the late 1970s, China’s “soft landing” and apparent rapid recovery from the crisis appear to support claims made by some on the right and the left that the 2008 recession has been a catalyst for the core of capitalism shifting to the East and setting in motion a change in global geopolitics.
Chomsky on Civil Liberties, Obama and the Future of Progressive Politics
Left of Left
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Interview with America's premier political dissident Noam Chomsky.
Chris Hedges and the black bloc
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
From its inception back in the European autonomist movements of the 1980s, the black-clad activists refuse to answer anybody outside of their ranks. Within the “affinity group”, everything is cool. Outside of it, who gives a shit? Ironically, this kind of elitism is not that different from the “vanguard party” posture which puts the needs of the sect above that of the mass movement.
The CIA's Death Machine at Work (book review)
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In compelling detail, two leading civil rights attorneys — both leaders of the Center for Constitutional Rights (New York) — recount the extraordinary life and deliberate killing of the world’s most popular revolutionary, Ernesto Che Guevara. Using internal U.S. governmental documentation, only recently released, the authors use their forensic skills to analyze the evidence of the CIA’s involvement in the execution of a war prisoner captured alive.
Class Struggle in Vietnam: From the Colonial Yoke to Wage Slavery for Global Capital
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Struggles which have unfolded since the first big strike wave in Vietnam in 2006.
Class Struggle in Vietnam: From the Colonial Yoke to Wage Slavery for Global Capital
Wildcat Strikes in Vietnam
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An alternation of repression and concessions is only one element among many of the whole apparatus of control and domination by the CPV. In the last analysis, it is repression which wins out, ranging from direct military and police force to administrative detention, from constant surveillance of the conversations and writings of the population to an ever stricter control of the use of such modern means as cell phones and the Internet.
Classic Book: Frankenstein
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A look at the continuing relevance of Mary Shelley's classic to debates about science, technology and nature today.
Climate Crisis Threatens Food Security of Iran, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Togo, Comoros, and Many Other Countries
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Climate crisis is threatening seafood and fish in gulfs, seas, and oceans. As a result, countries dependent mainly on fish and seafood are threatened.
CLR James, Frantz Fanon And The Meaning of Liberation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A look at the Haitan Revolution and its place in history.
C.L.R. James' Visionary Legacy
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In order to understand the connection between Black History Month and revolution, we must explode the stifling separation between art and everyday life that bourgeois society everywhere seeks to impose on us.
Colombia’s Agent Orange?
Roundup Not Ready
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A core element of U.S. anti-drugs policy in Colombia has been the destruction of coca fields by aerial chemical fumigation thus impacting the cocaine trade at its source. The continuation of this policy is based on three core myths: (1) That fumigation can target coca fields with pinpoint accuracy; (2) That the chemical used is harmless to humans and the environment; and (3) that aerial chemical fumigation is an effective method of eradicating coca cultivation.
Barry Commoner 1917-2012
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Barry Commoner, biologist, environmental, socialist, humanist, and one of the central leaders of the anti-nuclear-testing movement, dies at 95. He is particularly remembered for the “Four Laws of Ecology” he laid out in his book The Closing Circle: (1) Everything is connected to everything else. (2) Everything must go somewhere. (3) Nature knows best. (4) There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Community Organising - A New Part of the Union
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A look at Unite’s community union organizing.
A Convergence of Realities
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
What's striking the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement and its popular slogan “We are the 99 percent” is how much the central demand of the movement resonates with the Black community. African Americans with few exceptions are in the bottom 20% of income and wealth. Double digit unemployment is the norm in “good” economic times.
Convicts, Collateral Damage, and the “War on Drugs”
The Real Crime is the War Itself
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Two recent court cases in southern California provide insight into the identity of those smuggle drugs across the international boundary between the two countries. But more importantly what they do is highlight how the ludicrous “war on drugs” produces casualties of many sorts.
Copyright in Latin America: New Enforcement Measures Pose Major Threats to Internet Users in Panama and Colombia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
After years of being one of the most progressive regions in the world in terms of balanced copyright policy, Latin America is unfortunately sliding into copyright maximalism, enacting increasingly restrictive copyright enforcement measures into their federal laws.
Corporations profiting out of food crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The small group of food multinationals that monopolise the world food market are positioning themselves to take full advantage of the crisis: the latest food price hikes threaten to drive more people back into hunger.
Countering the Israel Lobby’s Dominance
Can Jewish Liberals Transcend the Wiesel Doctrine?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The distance between largely secular American Jews and the Zionist establishment is likely to widen. This will weaken the political power of the Israel lobby only if American Jews as a whole are prepared to announce unambiguously their antipathy to their self-proclaimed representatives.
Criminalizing Truancy
Should Kids be Jailed for Skipping School?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
American jurisdictions are increasingly turning to the criminal justice system to deal with truancy. Students and parents are being fined, and in some cases jailed, for missing school.
Crucible of Freedom: Workers' Democracy in the Industrial Heartland, 1914-1960
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Working people created a new America in the 1930s and 1940s which was a fundamental departure from the feudalistic and hierarchical America which existed before. In the process, class politics re-defined the political agenda of America as for the first and time in American history the political universe polarized along class lines. The author explores the meaning of the new deal political mobilization by ordinary people by examining the changes it brought to the local, county, and state levels in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Pennsylvania as a whole.
Cruel Harvest
U.S. Intervention in the Afghan Drug Trade
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Mercille argues that the United States is not concerned about waging a real war on drugs, and that alleged concerns about narco-terrorism mostly act as pretexts to justify occupation. The United States in fact shares a large part of the responsibility by supporting drug lords, refusing to adopt effective drug control policies and failing to crack down on drug money laundered through Western banks.
Cruise industry chafes at regulation that would help clean up Alaska's air
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The cruise ship Sapphire Princess will emit the same amount of sulphur dioxide as 13.1m cars as it takes its guests from Whittier, Alaska to Glacier Bay and eventually Vancouver.
Cry for "Bread & Roses" Still Resonates
100 Years After the Lawrence Strike
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When worker solidarity prevailed over corporate power in the icy streets of Lawrence a century ago, it made the promise of a better life real for many. The Bread and Roses strike became a consciousness-raising experience, not only for textile workers and their families, but the nation as a whole.
Cut It Out: An Open Letter to Black Bloc Anarchists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Black Bloc tactics actually serve the cause of the 0.1%.
A Dangerous Lack of Rigor
Cross Examine Authority
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Explores two recent events reveal the lack of rigor that has come to pervade our public sphere: the failure of the UN (or anybody else) to question seriously the case for war against Iran, and the first presidential “debate.”
The Dark Side Of The “Green Economy”
Why some indigenous groups and environmentalists are saying no to the “green economy.”
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Just a few years ago, the term “green economy” referred to economies that are locally based, climate friendly, and low-impact. But since the global economic meltdown began in 2007, the green economy has come to mean something more akin to the wholesale privatization of nature.
Data Mining You
How the Intelligence Community Is Creating a New American World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Joseph K., that icon of single-lettered anonymity from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial, would undoubtedly have felt right at home in Washington.
The Day the Internet Died
An Oral History of the Egyptian Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When Hosni Mubarak Shut Off Cell Phones and the Internet in January 2011 Was the Moment When More Egyptians than Ever Went Out into the Streets.
The Debate at Halle
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
There were two defining moments in the history of the international working-class movement in the first half of the 20th century. The first, by far the most discussed and written about for obvious reasons, was the revolution in Russia in October 1917 and its subsequent isolation and defeat. The second was the disaster in the German movement, which had been for half a century the model of a militant, socialist working-class movement, and the subsequent collapse of that movement in the face of Nazism.
Debt: The First 500 Pages
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We need more grand histories, but 5,000 years of anecdotes is no substitute for real political economy.
Deconstructing The Locavore’s Dilemma
A response to Pierre Desrochers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The book 'The Locavore's Dilemma' constructs a straw man argument while ignoring what the locavore movement really has to say.
Designs on equality
City planning is a mechanism of discrimination - it mainly serves the able-bodied
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The idea of “universal design” is to stop creating public infrastructure that privileges one particular group, whether it’s car drivers, the able-bodied or those with paycheques, and start envisioning people with parallel but not identical mobility and sociability needs: children, teens, seniors, new immigrants, those on low incomes, parents, those with sports injuries or with physical and mental limitations, and those who care for any of the above.
Destroying the Commons
How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Our rights and liberties and under ever-increasing attack.
Detroit's Crisis -- Coming to You?
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
There are two realities to grasp about the current plight of Detroit. Reality one: Detroit is caught in a set of interlocking crises, from the level of the world economy and national political gridlock down to the viciously reactionary Michigan state government and the yawning divide between the city and suburban Detroit, that would severely challenge the most competent, the most visionary, the most energetic and most progressive city leadership.
Detropia
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
A documentary on the city of Detroit and its woes, which are emblematic of the collapse of the U.S. manufacturing base.
DID YOU HEAR IT? It’s the sound of their world ending. It’s that of ours resurging.
Communique from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Communiqué of the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Mexico.
The Different Faces of ‘Popular Resistance’ in Palestine
Manipulating History
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Apparently, ‘popular resistance’ has suddenly elevated to become a clash of visions or strategies between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and its rivals in Gaza, underscoring an existing and deepening rift between various factions and leaderships.
A Diversion We Don't Need
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We know from our own experience that none of us wants to have the Diversity Of Tactics argument again. So why does it continue to happen? Because we radicals and anarchists have unintentionally become a Silent Majority, unwilling for whatever reason to prevent these ideologues, who are only a tiny handful of people with loud voices, from controlling the direction of our meetings.
Do the Greeks get it?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A word has to be said about the somewhat depressing character of the clash between reformism and ultraleftism in Greece. Radical youth might have a natural prejudice against the KKE and PAME because it is so compromised with class-collaborationist coalition building. But instead of trying to figure out a way to win the ranks of the CP to the revolutionary cause, it sees its membership as part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Doing Time for Peace
Moral Lights
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Hundreds of Americans, young and old, are regularly going to prison, sometimes for months or years or decades, for nonviolently resisting U.S. militarism.
Drone Strikes? What’s To Feel Bad About?
Really Sorry We Burned the Korans
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Drone Warfare
Killing by Remote Control
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A comprehensive look at the growing menace of drone warfare, with an extensive analysis of who is producing the drones, where they are being used, who are "piloting" these unmanned planes, who are the victims and what are the legal and moral implications.
The Drug Store in American Meat
We're Eating What?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Food consumers seldom hear about the drugs oestradiol-17, zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate and the names are certainly not on meat labels. But those synthetic growth hormones are central to U.S. meat production, especially beef, and the reason Europe has banned a lot of U.S. meat since 1989.
Drug War-Related Homicides In The US Average At Least 1,100 a Year
Full Extent of Carnage Unknowable Because US Government Doesn’t Track Violent Crime Linked To The War On Drugs
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The stubborn resistance against entertaining any other options beyond a fundamentalist adherence to prohibition for dealing with drug use in the United States is cloaked in an arrogant denial of the human costs of the drug war and the possibility that ending it would lead to less, not more, death. The US, by some estimates now spends about $40 billion a year at home and abroad waging its war on drugs and has imprisoned currently up to 400,000 people on drug-related charges — the vast majority of them nonviolent offenders.
An Education in Occupy
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Two months earlier, I had been sitting in class listening to an ILWU member talk about Export Grain Terminal’s (EGT) union-busting tactics in Longview, WA. “Great,” I thought, “but how can I help from the campus of a little college in Moraga, California?”
The Egyptian workers’ movement and the 25 January Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
This article is an exploration of one of the fundamental processes that brought the revolution back to Tahrir: the rise of an organised working class movement.
Egypt's Aunt Peaceful
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Ghada Shahbender knows the Egyptian Revolution Didn´t Start in January 2011, because she was there seven years ago reminding the government ¨We Are Watching¨
Egypt's Year of Revolution
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An interview with Carl Finamore, who went on a reporting trip to Egypt for ten days in 2011.
Empire and Its Discontents
“Losing” the World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
End the Prison-Industrial Complex, Now!
A Moral and Political Crime
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In both political and moral terms, ending this prison industrial complex system is an imperative. As in the 1950s and 1960s, we must organize, mobilize and go into the streets. The existing system is the problem, not the solution.
Espoir Voyage
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Like many young men of his country, Joanny travelled from Burkina Faso to the more affluent Ivory Coast in search of work and a better life. For many young Burkinabe men this emigration is a ritual and rite of passage — but Joanny never returned. Years later his brother, Burkinabe filmmaker Michel K. Zongo, decides to retrace his steps.
The Evil of Humanitarian Wars
Iraq, Libya, Syria: We have no right to play God
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The West’s duty is not to intervene more but to intervene far less. We already massively arm tyrannies such as those in the Gulf so that they can protect the oil that we consider our birthright; we offer military, financial and diplomatic cover for Israel’s continuing oppression of millions of Palestinians, a major cause of political instability in the Middle East; and we quietly support the Egyptian military, which is currently trying to reverse last year’s revolutionary gains.
The Expo Files
Articles by the Crusading Journalist
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Collected here for the first time are Stieg Larsson's essays and articles on right-wing extremism and racism, on violence against women and women's rights, on homophobia and honour killings.
Facing Facts in Wisconsin
Progressives and Workers Were Sold Out by Obama and the Democratic Party
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The time has long since come for labor and progressives to bolt the Democratic Party and coalesce around a new genuinely progressive, working people’s party.
The false solutions of Rio+20
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Food production and people's sovereignty in Africa could be seriously compromised by carbon capture projects and the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) mechanism.
FBI Ignored Deadly Threat to Occupiers
US Intelligence Machine Instead Plotted with Bankers to Attack Protest Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Dcuments show that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.
Fictitious Capital and Contracted Social Reproduction Today: China and Permanent Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Once gain, as in 1914, capital requires, in order to survive as capital, a vast devalorization of all existing values, however great the destruction of human beings and means of production which that entails.
Fighting Back: Sotheby's and OWS
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Forty-two teamster art-handlers at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City have been locked-out of their jobs for more than four months. Against the Current interviewed Sotheby’s shop steward David Martinez about what’s at stake, and how they’ve built links with the Occupy movement to fight back.
Filmmaker “Gringoyo” Putting the Fun Back Into Revolution
Harnessing Humour to Build Video Viewership and Social Movements
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
These satirical videos not only talk about movements, they are filmed in conflict zones in moments of political tension. Gringoyo moves in a very real world with the freedom of a cartoon.
Final Blow to Affirmative Action?
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The current state of affirmative action in the United States.
Finding North
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
A documentary that investigates incidents of hunger experienced by millions of Americans, and proposed solutions to the problem.
Five Reasons the Super-Rich Need Big Government
The Real Welfare Kings and Queens
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Taxes represent payment for society’s many benefits, which get bigger and better as people get richer.
Flag, Fetish and Illusory Community
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Patriotism is usually understood as “love of country.” With the help of Marx’s theories of the state and of alienation, we explore what is meant by “love” and “country” in this definition. By viewing society as a contradictory relation between a social community, based on the cooperation required by the existing division of labor, and an illusory community dominated by the interests of the ruling economic class, it becomes apparent that the “country” which patriots love is not the country they actually live in.
Flags of Convenience
Corporate Anarchy on the High Seas
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Maritime lawlessness isn’t confined to pirates. Thanks to a system of ship registration called ‘flags of convenience,’ it is all too easy for unscrupulous ship owners to get away with criminal behaviour
Follow the Money, Find the Leader
Billion Dollar Candidates
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The point is not whether Barack Obama wins re-election as President. The point is not whether Mitt Romney can win. The point is that you can’t dream of contesting without a billion dollars. That figure merely ensures you can run, not win.
Foreclosures and the Police State
Hernandez Family Foreclosure Sparks Anti-Eviction Outrage
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The story of the Hernandez family, who became local heroes in their determination to keep their Van Nuys home from foreclosure.
Four Conferences on Matriarchy
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The growth of a diverse and broad international wave of feminism has led to the development of what has been called Modern Matriarchal Studies, which includes research both on ancient societies and on existing communal cultures.
Four Futures
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Capitalism will end. Maybe not soon, but probably before too long; humanity has never before managed to craft an eternal social system, after all, and capitalism is a notably more precarious and volatile order than most of those that preceded it. The question, then, is what will come next.
The Four Laws Of Ecology And The Four Anti-Ecological Laws Of Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An exponential growth dynamic is inherent in capitalism, a system whereby money is exchanged for commodities, which are then exchanged for more money on an ever increasing scale.
14 Years of Injustice
Time to Free the Cuban Five
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Five Cubans fighting terrorism in south Florida have served 14 years of prison, more than enough time for the US public to learn from its media about the horrific injustice done by the US government to these Cuban men. But the media has barely touched the grotesque frame up of the Cuban Five.
France: The NPA in Crisis
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
France's new Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) is in crisis. While only two years ago many on the international left talked about the NPA as one of the brightest lights on an otherwise dim revolutionary horizon, today the Party is hemorrhaging members and struggling to stay afloat.
Free Trade and Economic Imperialism
Economic Progress Toward Ecological Suicide
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Looming global environmental catastrophe renders the last several hundred years of Western economic theory dubious, if not outright suicidal. Economic ‘progress’ that increases dependence on unsustainable economic practices produces catastrophe in increasing proportion to the benefits that even proponents claim will result.
Freedom Riders
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When Hillary Clinton expressed dismay over gender segregation on buses in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem — where women are forced to sit separately — she somehow neglected to mention the Jewish-settlers-only bus system in the Occupied Palestinan Territories.
From "Occupy" to ...
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The question isn't whether the magnificent “Occupy” movement will continue after police action and the onset of winter have largely emptied the encampments. The righteous rage that made the movement possible, and the enormous social and economic crisis that made it necessary, are not going away anytime soon. Quite the contrary — capitalism’s inherent contradictions, made worse by economic policies in Europe and the United States that seem calculated to maximize the damage, pose the real possibility of a new global financial meltdown and potential world depression.
Fuck Love
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Further on Marikana Miners
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The circumstances surrounding the mass murder in Marikana, and the political wildfire it unleashed for the African National Congress and the trade union movement, are the subject of an ongoing discussion within the South African and international left. Background material on the South African political climate.
G-Dog
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Unlikely gang expert Jesuit Father Boyle, known as G-Dog, creates Homeboy Industries, leading former gang involved youth to become a positive force in their communities.
The Gates Foundation's Leveraged Philanthropy
Corporate Profit Versus Humanity on Three Fronts
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Gates' leveraged philanthropy model is a public-private partnership to improve the world, partly through targeted research support but principally through public advocacy and tax-free lobbying to influence government policy. The goal of these policies is often to explicitly support profitability for corporate investors, whose enterprises are seen by the Gates Foundation as advancing human good. However, maximum corporate profit and public good often clash when its projects are implemented.
Gaza: What Would Lincoln Do?
Sasha, Malia: Tell Your Parents About Sara al-Dalou!
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The point of invoking Lincoln is not to guess what he might do in Obama’s shoes, but to reflect on what he did when forced to balance political calculus, the rule of law, and moral and humanitarian considerations.
General Strikes, Mass Strikes
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Inspired by the boldness of the movement, activists of Occupy Oakland issued a “call for a general strike” in that city for November 2 — a sign of the movement’s radicalism and its sense of where social power lies.
The genocide in Namibia (1904-08) and its consequences
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The repatriation of human remains more than a century after they were taken to Germany from Namibia has evoked painful memories of colonial wars in which primary African resistance was crushed, and genocide perpetrated (1904–08) in what was then the colony of German South West Africa.
Germany and Genocide in Namibia
Special Issue of Pambazuka News - #577 - March 2012
Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
First Published: 2012
Between 1904 and 1908 imperial Germany waged an atrocious and inhumane war of extermination against the Herero, Nama, Damara and San peoples in its former colony ‘German South West Africa’, now the Republic of Namibia.
Germany’s genocide in Namibia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Germany, which has done commendable remembrance work about the Holocaust, seems to have forgotten or deliberately buried its violent colonial past. A past that hides the first genocide of the 20th century.
Gimme the Loot
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Once the heroes of nations, pirates went from being state-sponsored champions to tolerated annoyances to the basest sort of criminals. Henry Morgan was knighted after plundering Panama in 1674; fifty years later hundreds of pirates were dangling from the gibbet at remote trading posts along Africa’s Gold Coast.
Give Us Our Money Back!
How Harper Protects Canada's Tax Cheats
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
There is a class of people and corporations in this country whose illicit financial practices have an enormous negative impact on the country and its citizens. Yet the law and order regime of Stephen Harper barely plays lip service to the issue of tax evasion through tax havens. While Harper cuts billions from government programs in the name of deficit reduction, he refuses to go after billions of dollars in revenue lost to tax evasion and avoidance every year.
Globalization of Capital, Globalization of Struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Something has escaped the control of the Democrats, the NGOs, the SEIU and the left sects — of official society and those attempting its mere facelift — which will not be easily brought to heel. Hundreds of thousands of people who had never before been in mass mobilizations (or mobilizations of any kind) found themselves confronting the police, facing tear gas and pepper spray, going to jail and learning in the streets what can never be learned any other way.
The government’s attempt to eradicate the travelling way of life
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Elly Robson explores the deliberate criminalisation of the travelling way of life by Britian's coalition government.
Greece: Syriza Shines a Light
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Like a swan moving forward with relaxed confidence while paddling furiously beneath the surface, Syriza, the radical left coalition that could become the next government of Greece, is facing enormous challenges calmly but with intensifed activity.
Guatemala: Peaceful Resistance in the Face of Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Anti-mining activist speaks out for first time since being shot.
Happy Hookers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Exploring the lives of sex workers and their would-be saviours.
Health Care Reform or Ruin?
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Far from laying the health care debate to rest, the Supreme Court decision on Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) put life back into it. Calling the individual health insurance mandate a “tax” aroused anger on the right, but the court’s ruling on federal Medicaid money is what really puts a new dimension into the fight.
Here We Go Again
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
One thing should be clear. The violence across the Muslim world in response to an American anti-Islamic film has nothing to do with that film. Yes, The Inocence of Muslims is a risibly crude diatribe against Islam, but the violence is being driven less by religious fury than by political calculation. In Libya, Egypt and elsewhere, the crisis is being fostered by hardline Islamists in an attempt to seize the political initiative in a period of transition and turmoil. The film is almost incidental to this process. The real struggle is not between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between different shades of Islamists, between hardline factions and more mainstream ones.
Herman's House
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
'What kind of house does a man who has been imprisoned in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?' This film captures the remarkable creative journey and friendship of Herman Wallace, one of the Angola 3, and artist Jackie Sumell while examining the injustice of prolonged solitary confinement.
Hitler's Bestiary from the Inside
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Over a decade ago, I spent several months poring through the Martha Eccles Dodd papers at the Library of Congress. I was driven to research her life while working on a book about Left feminist culture and anti-fascist resistance in the McCarthy era. I had just read two of Dodd’s novels (Sowing the Wind and The Searching Light) and was driven to find out more about the sources of Dodd’s attraction to antifascist causes.
The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
Dispatches from the Front Lines
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Michael E. Mann, lead author of the original paper in which the Hockey Stick graph first appeared, shares the story of the science and politics behind the controversy of climate change, and the implied threat to those who oppose governmental regulation and other restraints to protect the environment and planet.
Housebroken
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
There’s a second environmental crisis, just as potent as the first.
How Empires Fall
An Interview With Jonathan Schell
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Jonathan Schell discusses non-violent activism.
How I Became a “Recovering Documentary Filmmaker” and Learned to Reach a Wider Public
The School of Authentic Journalism Saved My Life: Your Donations Make It Possible
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A look into the way that the The School of Authentic Journalism guides journalists and organizers to reach wider audiences.
How Israel Stacks the Legal Deck
Court System Provides Little Justice for Palestinians
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
To Palestinians, Israeli military courts are sites of repression, not houses of justice. Palestinian defendants facing trial in 2010 were found guilty in 99.74% cases.
How Laws Assault Queer People (book review)
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Queer (In)Justice is authored by Joey Mogul, a partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of DePaul University’s Civil Rights Clinic; Andrea Ritchie, an attorney and organizer who works on issues of police misconduct; and Kay Whitlock, an organizer and writer around structural injustices.
How Not to Get Eaten When the Dinosaurs Escape from their Cages
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The risks of moving too quickly to occupy TV stations, and “Suggestions for Radicals” who are in for the long haul.
How Private Prisons Profit From the Criminalization of Immigrants
Lobbying for Lock-Up
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
How a nation uses its power to deny a person’s freedom has always been a critical measure of authoritarian rule. Massive incarceration based on race, ethnic origin or nationality, political beliefs, class, sexual orientation, age or other inherent characteristics is a form of tyranny. Yet few people realize that this is happening on an enormous scale in the United States.
How 7 Historic Figures Overcame Depression Without Doctors
Drugless Antidotes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
While Sylvia Plath and Ernest Hemingway received extensive medical treatment for depression but tragically committed suicide, other famously depressed people — including Abraham Lincoln, William James, Georgia O’Keeffe, Sigmund Freud, William Tecumseh Sherman, Franz Kafka, and the Buddha — took different paths.
How the Colombia Trade Agreement Accelerates Human Rights Abuses
U.S.-Colombia Mass Displacement Policy Succeeding
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would lead, indeed by design, to the immiseration and mass displacement of rural peoples, especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian. The article explores the displacement of indigenous peoples in the last year.
How the Left has Won
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Capitalism was the unintended consequence of bourgeois revolutions, whereas socialism has been the avowed purpose, or at least a crucial component, of every revolution since 1911. This difference has become so important that when we think about the transition from capitalism to socialism, we take the short view: we look for ideological extremes, social movements, vanguard parties, self-conscious revolutionaries, radical dissenters, armed struggles, extra-legal methods, political convulsions – as if the coming of socialism requires the abolition of capitalism by cataclysm, by insurgent, militant mass movements dedicated to that purpose.
How to Grow Up Under Occupation
A Childhood Under the Nazi's
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Rochat illustrates the effect adult wars and occupations have on children, and how the relative safety of the Anglo-Saxon world make it hard to comprehend what effect these wars have on children in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other countries under attack.
How to Rig an Election
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Election fraud in the United States in the era of computerized voting machines controlled and programmed by far-right corporate executives.
Humanity Once Came to the Cliff's Edge of Total Self-Annihilation -- Let's Make Sure It Never Happens Again
Revisiting the catastrophe that almost was
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The world stood still 50 years ago during the last week of October, from the moment when it learned that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba until the crisis was officially ended -- though unknown to the public, only officially.
The Humiliation of Bradley Manning
Kangaroos Missing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It is a bitter irony that Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose conscience compelled him to leak evidence about the U.S. military brass ignoring evidence of torture in Iraq, was himself the victim of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment while other military officers privately took note but did nothing.
The Ice Melts Into Water
Arctic Ice Melt, Psychopathic Capitalism And The Corporate Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Last month, climate scientists announced that Arctic sea ice had shrunk to its smallest surface area since satellite observations began in 1979. An ice-free summer in the Arctic, once projected to be more than a century away, now looks possible just a few decades from now. Some scientists say it may happen within the next few years.
The Illusion of Democracy
Liberal Journalism, Wikileaks And Climate Deceptions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In an era of permanent war, economic meltdown and climate ‘weirding’, we need all the champions of truth and justice that we can find. But where are they? What happened to trade unions, the green movement, human rights groups, campaigning newspapers, peace activists, strong-minded academics, progressive voices?
I’m Omar Saad and I will not be a soldier in your army
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Omar Saad, a young (Druze) Palestinian musician from the Galilee has received a summons to the Israeli army. The Druze citizens of Israel are forced to enlist in the Israeli military, since 1956, when conscription law applied to Druze men (not to other Palestinians).
Imagine a Stadium
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A plea for organization.
Immigrant Youth Victory!
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
President Obama’s directive removing the threat of deportation from hundreds of thousands of young people is a tribute to the heroism of those who have come out as “Undocumented and Unafraid.” It’s still a long way from stopping the terror affecting immigrant communities — but under an administration that frankly has been a disgrace and disaster for civil liberties, human rights and due process, this victory shows the power of well-rooted and courageous activism to make a positive difference.
The Importance of Journalism and Communications to Social Movements
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Remarks of Javier Sicilia to the School of Authentic Journalism.
In Defence of Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
On Jacques Berlinerblau's book How to Be Secular.
In Defence of the Terror
Liberty or Death in the French Revolution
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A discussion about the causes and consequences of revolutionary violence, with the premise that dismissive disgust at bloodshed is an overly simplistic response.
In Defense of Free Speech
It's Easier to Blame Bad Filmmakers Than to Address Massive War Crimes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The answer to speech you disagree with is … (drum roll) … MORE SPEECH.
In Mexico, Finally, a Revolt Against the Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The summer will determine if the “I Am 132” moment becomes a movement and that’s why “Mexican Spring” is a poor choice of words for it.
In perspective: John Holloway
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
John Holloway’s Change the World Without Taking Power (2002), like that other key text of autonomist post-Marxism, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri’s Empire (2000), cut with the grain of the global anti-capitalist mood at the beginning of the millennium. More than this, Holloway’s book was the focus for important debates on the international left and deserves praise both for emphasising the link between socialism and human self-activity and for criticising the idea that the capitalist state can be used to bring about socialist change.
In Remembrance of Things Lost
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It’s astonishing that I actually have to make an argument (and a losing one at that) against murdering children, but this is the reality we ourselves have given birth to.
In This Timeless Time
Living and Dying on Death Row in America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
An exploration of life on Death Row in Texas and in other states, as well as the convoluted and arbitrary judicial processes that populate all Death Rows. In chronicling the lives and deaths of these prisoners in words and pictures, the authors document the capriciousness of capital punishment and capture the day-to-day experiences of Death Row inmates in the official "nonperiod" between sentencing and death.
Incarcerated Inside Israel
Palestinians Tortured and Isolated
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Detention without trial, the presumption of guilt, denial of family visits, solitary confinement, torture, violent interrogation, and denial of access to appropriate health care, such is the Israeli judicial system and prison confinement experienced by Palestinian men, women and indeed children.
Incinerating Assange - The Liberal Media Go To Work
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The media response to Assange’s asylum request tells us much about the default brutality and reflexive herdthink of elite corporate journalism. The crucial importance of his achievements, of his cause, was deemed utterly irrelevant beside his allegedly unbearable personal failings.
The Indefinite Detention of the Progressive Voter
The Politics of Continual Servitude
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Earlier this year President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law. It allows for the indefinite detention without trial for any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism.
Infiltration To Disrupt, Divide And Mis-direct Are Widespread In Occupy - Part I
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
This article describes public reports of infiltration as well as results of a survey and discussions with occupiers about this important issue.
Information Overload
Driving a Stake Through the National Security State
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Here’s an idea. Let’s all start salting all of our conversations and our written communications with a selection of those 300 key words. If every liberty-loving person in America virus were to do this, the NSA would have to employ all 15 million unemployed Americans just to begin to look at all those transcripts!
Inocente
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Inocente is both a timeless story about the transformative power of art and a timely snapshot of the new face of homelessness in America: children.
Intellectual Charlatans & Academic Witch-Hunters
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Butler’s work has always divided critics. While some view her as a courageous and innovative thinker, others view her as an intellectual charlatan.
The International Context of Global Outrage
Part I: Looking back on the movements that preceded the Arab Spring, the Indignados, and Occupy Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Interview - Greece: the struggle radicalises
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Editor of the Greek newspaper Workers Solidarity on the latest developments in Greece.
An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Human Rights Record
Nothing Can Justify Torture
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
America’s human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring.
Invaluable History and Important Lessons - Book Review
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review of 'The Party: The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988. A Political Memoir. Volume 2: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988' by Barry Sheppard.
The Invisible War
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
An investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the US military.
Invitation to form Operative Groups YoSoy#132
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
#YoSoy132 is against Enrique Peña Nieto, seeks the democratization of the mass media, and behaves as a peaceful movement.
Is Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Is that an archive in your basement... or are you just hoarding?
Sources News Release
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Are you an 'accidental archivist'? Have you been saving the publications and documents produced by the social justice projects you've been involved in? Then Connexions would like to hear from you.
Islamophobia, Left and Right
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Should Muslims be worried about rising Islamophobia? Of course they should! Anti-Islam bigotry is becoming a key element of the revival of the far Right – a Right that doesn’t merely slander Muslims but also takes action against them.
Israeli Apartheid Week: Call it as it is
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Israeli government pays students to spread propaganda online
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Israeli government has launched a program to pay students to promote the Israeli agenda on Facebook and internet chatrooms.
Israel's 'right to self-defense' - a tremendous propaganda victory
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
By supporting Israel's offensive on Gaza, Western leaders have given the Israelis carte blanche to do what they're best at: Wallow in their sense of victimhood and ignore Palestinian suffering.
Israel's starvation diet for Gaza
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Israel’s calculating of daily caloric needs shows how it manages the lives of Palestinians in Gaza in almost microscopic detail. Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day.
Israel's starvation diet for Gaza
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Israel’s calculating of daily caloric needs shows how it manages the lives of Palestinians in Gaza in almost microscopic detail.
Issues that Obama and Romney Avoid
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
With the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza reaching its peak, it’s useful to ask how the political campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we face. The simple answer is: badly, or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do about it?
It Started in Wisconsin
Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Labor Protest
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A collection of accounts of the first great wave of grassroots resistance to the corporate restructuring of the Great Recession in Wisconsin in the spring of 2011.
Javier Sicilia Calls Out to Alternative Media as a Force for Communication
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
At the 2012 School of Authentic Journalism, a poet reviews the first year of the movement against the drug war that he inspired.
John Kerry and Me
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Experiences in community organizing and electoral organizing.
John Pilger: The dirty war on WikiLeaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
War by media, says current military doctrine, is as important as the battlefield. This is because the real enemy is the public at home, whose manipulation and deception is essential for starting an unpopular colonial war.
Jurassic Park in France: The Return of the French Communist Party and the Melenchon Phenomenon
An Interview with Yves Coleman
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
For the moment what preoccupies working class people in France is not so much the next elections but the euro crisis and the massive layoffs postponed by the bosses and the Right until after the elections.
Justice, Peace and the Israeli State
Rule by Ruthless Force
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
International Law and the creation of a world body to aid in the direction of nation states to live in peace and justice under defined conditions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charters of the UN suggests that Israel must change, it must recognize that it is not the sole determiner of world events, that it has lifted its beliefs beyond those that exist elsewhere in the world and it must, therefore, reverse its direction to become one with its neighbors and all the nations of the UN.
Knowing Too Much
Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Norman Finkelstein studies the history of Jewish American support for Israel and how it is shifting.
Krisis
GR2011 - The Prism
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Krisis focuses on the economic crisis in Greece and how it has affected the nation. The desire was to tell the story of the tormented country through a new type of narrative - a group of 14 photojournalists and videographers collaborate to create a multimedia experience, of which the film is one part.
Kurt Vonnegut and the American Police State
Just Say "Hi-Ho!" as They Strip Search You
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The country seems to have crossed over a dark threshold. We are now a police state in all but name. Cops and wannabe cops are shooting innocent people and nothing gets done.
Landmines still exacting a heavy toll on Vietnamese civilians
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
37 years on, unexploded bombs continue to ruin lives in the former wartime frontline regions of Vietnam.
The Left and South Africa's Crisis
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An interview with Brian Ashley, the editor of the South African journal AMANDLA!
Letter from Baltimore
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Coming to grips with the impact of Occupy Baltimore means not just evaluating what the movement has been able to do or not do on its own terms but rooting its experiences in this larger picture of class decomposition and re-composition that in Baltimore followed in the wake of the same patterns of deindustrialization, suburban flight and disinvestment .
Letter From Mexico City
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A letter from a Mexican comrade about the specifics of the “neo-liberal” phase of capitalism in Mexico since the 1970s, and the role in it of Carlos Salinas, as Mexican president from 1988 to 1994, and subsequently.
A Letter To Other Occupiers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We need to act within a wide strategic context, and engage in more than tactical exercises. We need to invite local people to join our ranks and institutions. We cannot hope to win the trust of others, especially others different from ourselves in class background, cultural preferences, race, or gender, unless we stay long enough to win that trust one day at a time. We must be prepared to spend years in communities where there may not be many fellow radicals. In thinking about our own lives, and how we can contribute over what Nicaraguans call a “long trajectory,” we need to acquire skills that poor and oppressed persons perceive to be needed.
Letter to the Editors
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The argument for sweatshops comes not only from “free market” ideologues but sometimes from voices of establishment liberalism. An argument against.
The liberal way to run the world - "improve" or we'll kill you
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Since 1945, more than a third of the membership of the United Nations - 69 countries - have suffered some or all of the following. They have been invaded, their governments overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections subverted and their people bombed. The death toll is estimated to be in the millions. This has been principally the project of the liberal flame carrier, the United States.
Liberties and Commons for All
Preface to the Korean Edition of Magna Carta Manifesto
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Liberties and Commons for All expresses two aspects of the ancient English Charters of Liberty; first is the restraint on political power of the King, second is the protection of subsistence in the commons.
The life and times of Occupy Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and the Occupy movement that rapidly spread across the country in late September 2011, marked a watershed moment in the re-emergence of mass struggle and radical politics in the United States.
A Life of Challenge to the Dogma of “Objectivity”
Richard Bell Is Practiced at Juggling Journalism, Advocacy and Politics
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Journalism, advocacy, politics: Are they completely different fields or aspects of the same game? Can someone actually do all three? Richard Bell has done them all and has lived to tell the tale.
Living by the Clock of the World: Grace Lee Boggs’ Call for Visionary Organizing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Grace Lee Boggs recently argued that activists should spend less time on protest organizing because it “leads you more and more to defensive operations” and “Do visionary organizing” because it “gives you the opportunity to encourage the creative capacity in people and it’s very fulfilling.”
Living Under Occupation
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In her autobiography, Palestinian militant Leila Khaled calls the 1960s “America’s decade,” pointing to several spots around the world where the U.S. intervened against people’s struggles as evidence that the decade was not a cause for celebration.
Long Distance Revolutionary
A Journal with Mumia Abu-Jamal
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
The life and situation of Mumia Abu Jamal.
Looking Back on Occupy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A look at the Occupy movement and its relevance today.
Mad, Passionate Love - and Violence: Occupy Heads Into the Spring
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Occupy movement had its glorious honeymoon when old and young, liberal and radical, comfortable and desperate, homeless and tenured all found that what they had in common was so compelling the differences hardly seemed to matter. Until they did.
Make Art! Change the World! Starve!
The Fallacy of Art as Social Justice – Part I
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Make-Believe Crisis in Iran
More lies and Misinformation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Iranian nuclear program scenario has been in place for years and is becoming tedious, but we now seem to have arrived at a new plateau of mass hysteria thanks to the 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign. Why?
Make Sure You Don't Fall: Perspectives on the Recent Social Agitation in Chile, Part One
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Discontent and rage have always been there, but while Social Democracy was in power, the supporters of the regime—well placed in the open spaces for action and thought in high schools, universities and companies—were able to use them to channel protests into directions that did not endanger the political credibility of the ruling parties.
Make Sure You Don’t Fall: Perspectives on the Recent Social Agitation in Chile, Part One
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
To understand and make sense of the recent wave of social unrest in Chile, we have to refer to the history of the last half century of this country: the revolutionary upsurge that had its peak in late 1972, the destruction of the social movement after the military coup, the neo-liberal restructuring imposed by the Pinochet regime and the consolidation of that legacy by successive civilian governments.
Making the Future
Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Mama Illegal
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
They gave the smugglers all their money and risk their life on their journey across borders: Three women from a small town in Moldavia, living now in Austria and Italy as cleaning women. On top of their hard job they live a life in illegality without documents, far away from their children and family for years.
'The Man Who Knew Everyone' - Gore Vidal Through The Eyes Of The One Per Cent Press
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Since Gore Vidal's death the corporate media have had nothing serious to say about his political dissent warning against the dominance of corporate power. As Vidal himself put it: ‘The bullshit just flows and flows and flows, and the American media is so corrupt and so tied into it that it never questions it.’
The Man Who Was Chemically Tortured
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The torture of David Hicks at Guantanamo.
The March 29 Strike Against Labor Law Reform in Spain
Outline of the Conjuncture
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The general strike of March 29, although it mobilized a good part of the population, apparently took place with more pain than glory. Once the day of the strike was over, everything seemed to continue as before: namely, the continuation of an aggressive policy against the wage-labor population, in an economic context characterized by recession.
The March 29 Strike Against Labor Law Reform in Spain: Outline of the Conjuncture
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The general strike of March 29, although it mobilized a good part of the population, apparently took place with more pain than glory. Once the day of the strike was over, everything seemed to continue as before: namely, the continuation of an aggressive policy against the wage-labour population, in an economic context characterized by recession.
Marikana A Point of Rupture?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
South Africa, despite 18 years of majority rule, continues to be one of the most unequal societies on an increasingly unequal planet and is in crisis. Around half the population, mostly black Africans, live below the poverty line. Almost half of all black African households earned below R1670 a month in 2005–06, while only 2 percent of white households fell in that income bracket.
A Marxist Ecological Vision
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The questions facing environmental activists, and socialists in particular, range from the sheer scale of the environmental disasters already underway to the problems of beginning a transition from a system organized around massive consumption of fossil fuels, vast megacities and global agribusiness.
A Marxist History of the World: Making the future
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Historian Neil Faulkner concludes A Marxist History of the World by looking at what that history can tell us about the possibility for radical social change.
A Marxist History of the World part 100: 1968-1975: the workers’ revolt
1968-1975: the workers’ revolt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
As the crisis of capitalism spread around the world, the working class took centre stage – but the revolt did not result in successful revolution anywhere.
A Marxist History of the World part 101: The Long Recession
The Long Recession
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
By the early 1970s, the levers of state economic management had stopped working and the world economy entered a long period of stagnation.
A Marxist History of the World part 102: What is neoliberalism?
What is neoliberalism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The ‘free-market’ theory provides a pseudo-scientific justification for the greed and poverty endemic to the system, and the main beneficiaries are the global mega-corporations of neoliberal capitalism.
A Marxist History of the World part 103: 1989: the fall of Stalinism
1989: the fall of Stalinism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The revolutions of 1989 represent great victories for mass action, but they were limited in effect.
A Marxist History of the World part 104: 2001: 9/11, the War on Terror, and the New Imperialism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Al-Qaida terror attacks allowed the great powers to justify new imperialist wars to safeguard the interests of global capital.
A Marxist History of the World part 105: The 2008 Crash: from bubble to black hole
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The financial crisis represents the end of an era in which greed and casino-madness had been given free rein by market deregulation and rising debt.
A Marxist History of the World part 106: The Second Great Depression
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Four years after the beginning of the crisis, the neoliberal elite is trapped by the contradictions of the system on which its wealth depends.
A Marxist History of the World part 56: The Indian Mutiny
The Indian Mutiny
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Indian Mutiny was the subcontinent’s first war of independence, with Indians of different ethnic and religious backgrounds fighting side-by-side despite the divide and rule fostered by the British.
A Marxist History of the World part 57: The American Civil War
The American Civil War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
One hundred and fifty years ago North America saw the start of a revolutionary war fought between rival systems and opposing political ideologies. Neil Faulkner looks at The American Civil War.
A Marxist History of the World part 58: The Meiji Restoration
The Meiji Restoration
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An event which would shape the history of the Far East until 1945, Japan’s bourgeois revolution ‘from above’ is explored by Neil Faulkner in this week's Marxist History.
A Marxist History of the World part 59: The Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In this week's chapter of the Marxist History series Neil Faulkner looks at how Germany’s ruling elite brought about a bourgeois revolution ‘from above’.
A Marxist History of the World part 60: The Paris Commune: the face of proletarian revolution
The Paris Commune: the face of proletarian revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Franco-Prussian war produced the first proletarian revolution in history, and showed to the world for the first time what a workers’ state looks like.
A Marxist History of the World part 61: The Long Depression, 1873-1896
The Long Depression, 1873-1896
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner writes about the The Long Depression – an unprecedented economic slump which started the countdown to the First World War.
A Marxist History of the World part 62: The Scramble for Africa
The Scramble for Africa
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The imperial competition to control Africa spawned a predatory colonialism of mines, plantations, and machine-guns and propelled humanity towards industrialised world war writes Neil Faulkner.
A Marxist History of the World part 63: The Rape of China
The Rape of China
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at the impact of western imperialism's repeated and bloody attempts to control the wealth of China
A Marxist History of the World part 64: What is Imperialism?
What is Imperialism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at how the growth of giant monopolies and the fusing of industrial, bank, and state capital created global competition - and the roots of World War I.
A Marxist History of the World part 65: The 1905 Revolution: Russia’s great dress rehearsal
The 1905 Revolution: Russia’s great dress rehearsal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at how the Russian Revolution of 1905 helped Leon Trotsky formulate an answer to the century-old riddle of Russian history: what form must the revolution take in order to be victorious.
A Marxist History of the World part 66: The Ottoman Empire and the 1908 ‘Young Turk’ Revolution
The Ottoman Empire and the 1908 ‘Young Turk’ Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at how the revolution that began in Turkey in 1908 initiated a process that would transform the middle east over the following two decades.
A Marxist History of the World part 67: Reform or Revolution?
Reform or Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The world Socialist movement was blown apart as its members supported the First World War. Neil Faulkner looks at how the question of reform or revolution lay behind the split.
A Marxist History of the World part 68: 1914: descent into barbarism
1914: descent into barbarism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the summer of 1914 capitalism tipped humanity into an abyss of barbarism that would leave millions dead. Neil Faulkner looks at the First World War.
A Marxist History of the World part 69: The First World War
The First World War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at how capitalism plunged humanity into an abyss of carnage, destruction, and waste without precedent, as mass production methods produced industrialised slaughter.
A Marxist History of the World part 70: 1917: the February Revolution
1917: the February Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
As WWI turned into a protracted, bloody struggle the initial enthusiasm gave way to growing class tensions which exploded first in Russia's February Revolution.
A Marxist History of the World part 71: Dual power: the mechanics of revolution
Dual power: the mechanics of revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The centuries old Russian monarchy was overthrown in a matter of days in February 1917. Neil Faulkner looks at the months of turmoil that followed.
A Marxist History of the World part 72: February to October the rhythms of revolution
February to October: the rhythms of revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The situation of 'dual power' that emerged after the overthrow of the Tsar in February 1917 was marked by a series of major political crises.
A Marxist History of the World part 73: 1917: the October Insurrection
1917: the October Insurrection
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A Marxist History of the World part 75: The German Revolution
The German Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
At the end of the First World War, the epicentre of revolution moved from Petrograd to Berlin. Why did the German communists fail where the Bolsheviks had succeded?
A Marxist History of the World part 76: Italy’s ‘Two Red Years’
Italy’s ‘Two Red Years’
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Like Germany, Italy was on the brink of revolution in the summer of 1920, after the strains of imperialist war had levered open deep fractures in an unstable social order.
A Marxist History of the World part 77 World Revolution
World Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the five years after the First World War, revolutionary contagion spread around the world. It showed the extraordinary possibilities that arise when the masses become active in making their own history.
A Marxist History of the World part 78: The First Chinese Revolution
The First Chinese Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In 1927, the Chinese nationalists smashed the country's first working-class revolutionary movement – a defeat that would shape the whole subsequent history of China.Counterfire
A Marxist History of the World part 79: Revolt in the Colonies
Revolt in the Colonies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The anti-colonial revolts of the early 20th century were inspired by radical ideas, but, as the examples of Ireland, India and Mexico show, history exacts a heavy price for political timidity.
A Marxist History of the World part 80: Stalinism: the bitter fruit of revolutionary defeat
Stalinism: the bitter fruit of revolutionary defeat
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Neil Faulkner looks at the time when the Bolshevik regime turned in on itself and morphed into a mockery of its socialist ideals.
A Marxist History of the World part 81: The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Although the 'American Dream' became a reality for millions in the 1920s, it was built on shaky grounds - the huge speculative bubble that was building up on Wall Street was waiting to collapse
A Marxist History of the World part 82: The Hungry Thirties
The Hungry Thirties
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Beginning with the Wall Street Crash in 1929, the world economy entered the Great Depression. The misguided policies that world leaders pursued ensured that millions of lives were torn apart.
A Marxist History of the World part 83: 1933: The Nazi seizure of power
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
By the early 1930s, the German ruling class was determined to use the Nazis to make the world safe for German capital. But the fascist victory was not inevitable – it resulted from the failure of those who opposed fascism.
A Marxist History of the World part 85: June 1936: the French general strike and factory occupations
June 1936: the French general strike and factory occupations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the mid-1930s French workers launched a wave of strikes and occupations. Neil Faulkner explains how the Stalinised Communist Party worked to contain this resistance.
A Marxist History of the World part 86: The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In 1936, after General Franco had led an unsuccessful coup against a democratically elected government, revolution swept across Spain. Neil Faulkner explains why the workers were ultimately defeated.
A Marxist History of the World part 87: The Causes of the Second World War
The Causes of the Second World War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
As Hitler sought to expand Germany's sphere of influence in Europe, Britain's policy of appeasement reflected the interests of the British ruling classes – until German power became overwhelming.
A Marxist History of the World part 89: 1941-1945: barbarism in a world gone mad
1941-1945: barbarism in a world gone mad
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Second World War was characterised by primeval savagery. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Militarist Japan waged war with unprecedented brutality, but the ‘democracies’ also committed terrible war crimes.
A Marxist History of the World part 90: The Second World War: resistance
A Marxist History of the World part 90: The Second World War: resistance
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Large parts of Occupied Europe were liberated by local resistance movements. But the potential for a revolutionary transformation was smothered at birth.
A Marxist History of the World part 91: The Cold War
The Cold War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Second World War had created a world divided between two imperialist blocs. Their nuclear arsenals acted as a ‘deterrent’, but rivalry and suspicion meant that war was never far away.
A Marxist History of the World part 92: The Great Boom
The Great Boom
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the first three decades after the war, the world economy experienced unprecedented growth rates and falling unemployment. But the boom rested on unstable foundations.
A Marxist History of the World part 93: Maoist China
Maoist China
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
After the revolution of 1949, the Chinese Communists resorted to state capitalism to force the country’s industrialisation. The consequences were disastrous.
A Marxist History of the World part 94: End of Empire?
End of Empire?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In spite of the imperialist powers' attempts to cling on to their colonies, formal empire was finished by the late 1970s. But this was not the end of imperialism.
A Marxist History of the World part 95: Oil, Zionism, and Western Imperialism
Oil, Zionism, and Western Imperialism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
British support for the Zionist movement led to the foundation of Israel in 1948. In conjunction with US imperialism, the Israeli state is an enduring source of oppression in the Middle East.
A Marxist History of the World part 96:1956: Hungary and Suez
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
1956 was a year of war, revolution, and disillusionment – a year after which nothing could ever be quite the same again.
A Marxist History of the World part 97: Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The reforms that Fidel Castro introduced after the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship were real, but they were bestowed from above and straitjacketed by poverty.
A Marxist History of the World part 98: The Vietnam War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
How an army of peasant guerrillas managed to defeat US imperialism in a full-scale war.
A Marxist History of the World part 99: 1968 - the long sleep ends
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The long sleep of the post-war period was brought to an end in 1968, as revolts erupted across the developed world.
Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout in 1932 and the Founding of our National Parks
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Massacres Under the Looking Glass
The ICC and Colombia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The International Criminal Court (ICC) just published its Interim Report on Colombia. In the Report, the ICC explains that Colombia has been under preliminary examination by the ICC since June 2004. The military carried out its most notorious violations while under the ICC’s Clouseau-like scrutiny.
The Meaning of Mondragon
Fantasties and (Possible) Realities
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We can apply lessons learned from the extensive experience of worker self-management to encourage their unrealized radicality.
The Media's Dirty War on Occupy
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In media portrayals of a protest movement widely criticized for its broad message and vague demands, one picture of the Occupy movement remained consistent across various outlets: the protestors are filthy.
Medicare Myths and Realities
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Since medicare is an extremely popular social program, the media and right-wing politicians have learned that it is unwise to attack it directly. Instead, they propagate myths designed to undermine public support for, and confidence in, the health care system, with the goal of gradually undermining and dismantling it.
Meme Wars
The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Meme Wars presents a new way of looking at our world that challenges and debunks many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics and brings to light a more ecological model. The book is image-heavy and full-color throughout,
Memory as Resistance: Grassroots Archives and the Battle of Memory
Preservation as subversion: Do grassroots archives have a future?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
CONNEXIONS and Beit Zatoun are spotlighting grassroots archives this November with an open house and networking event November 24, a talk and discussion November 27, and an exhibit (November 16-27). Grassroots archives play a valuable role in what has been called “the battle of memory”. Mainstream media and institutions of power consign inconvenient histories, struggles, and alternative visions to what George Orwell called “the memory hole.” People’s history projects such as grassroots archives preserve and share stories of resistance, hidden histories, and alternative visions. Their role is particularly important as official archives are forced to restrict acquisitions, limit access and discard materials as funding is slashed.
The Mexican Student Movement Is Younger & Faster than "Occupy"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It has been decades since I have seen any march of this size include a pledge by participants with that much discipline and awareness that the march is about influencing public opinion (in other words, not about "us" but about everyone). It reminds more of the guidelines from the victorious struggles of Ghandi to win independence from colonial rule in India, the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s and the anti-nuclear movement of the 70s.
The Microfinance Delusion
Marred by Wall Street-Style Greed, Profiteering, Client Abuse, and Market Chaos
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
By celebrating self-help and individual entrepreneurship, and by implicitly discrediting all forms of collective effort, such as trade unions, social movements, cooperatives, public spending, a pro-poor ‘developmental state’ and – most of all – collective moves to ensure a more equitable redistribution of wealth and power, microfinance fits in well with the ideology of neoliberal policy-makers.
The Mortal Sea
Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Reveals the long history of warnings against overfishing and that the sea is not an 'infinite resource'.
The Movement for Peace Marches On Against the Drug War
The Goal Is Clear: Peace With Justice and Dignity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The one-year anniversary of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, a grassroots groundswell against the drug war, played out March 28 in a small plaza in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City — absent the cameras and pens of the mainstream media.
A Movement Without Demands?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We claim that far from being a strength, the lack of demands reflects the weak ideological core of the movement. We also claim that demands should not be approached tactically but strategically, that is, they should be grounded in a long-term view of the political goals of the movement, a view that is currently lacking. Accordingly, in the second part of this text, we argue that this strategic view should be grounded in a politics of the commons.
Mumia Faces Life in Prison
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
On Wednesday, Decemerber7, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams held a news conference to announce that the city will no longer seek the death penalty against long-time political prisoner and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jama — convicted in a frameup trial for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
The Murder of Trayvon Martin
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Popular anger, mass protests and leadership from Trayvon Martin’s parents, the African-American community and its organizations have exposed the racial divisions that run throughout U.S. society.
My Freedom, Your Freedom
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Knowing nothing but drugs and violence since childhood, Kuebra and Salema have spent their adult years in and out of a Berlin prison, their experiences calling into question the effectiveness of incarceration.
A Nation of Little Lebowski Urban Achievers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The religion of self-improvement is a way of redirecting criticisms or outrage from socio-economic structures back to the individual, imprisoning any reformist or revolutionary impulse within our own feelings of inadequacy – which is why the process of improving our nation’s schools has taken on the tone of a spiritual cleansing rather than a political reckoning. Now, instead of saying “our socioeconomic system is failing us,” an entire generation of children will learn to say, “I have failed myself.”
Neo-Racism in the Southwest
The (Mis)education of the Coming Majority
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
What is taking place in southern Arizona deserves our attention as the most fanatical episode in the war against public education.
Nestlé: Malevolent Corporation Capitalizes on Global Water Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Demand for water is outstripping supply at an accelerating rate. Nestlé’s goal is to shift government policy away from providing public municipal water supplies to people, and toward a dependency on bottled water to provide basic drinking water.
New group urges progressives to build 'One Big Campaign' to take on Harper
Sources News Release
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A campaign urging Canadian social activist groups to work together under one massive umbrella to take on the Harper regime and his right-wing supporters was officially launched today.
The New Police Surveillance State
The Rising Price of Political Assembly
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Police are increasingly being deployed to restrict if not prevent mass political actions, especially directed at the banks.
The Newsfakers
Whose hands are behind those dramatic YouTube pictures?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
YouTube and blogs have made it easier than ever to fabricate events. The media are happy to run unsubstantiated reports and footage.
The Next War on Washington’s Agenda
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It could not be more obvious that Washington’s war preparations against Iran have nothing to do with deterring Iran from a nuclear weapon. So, what are the war preparations about?
No Heroes in Montreal – Why Endless Protest Does Not a Movement Make
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
No matter what you’ve taken to the streets to oppose – no matter how just your cause – your message gets lost when you don’t engage the community, you don’t exercise discipline, or you just start acting like assholes.
No-Nonsense Guide to Equality
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A wide-ranging exploration of why inequality persists and what can be done about it.
Noam Chomsky: Palestine 2012 – Gaza and the UN resolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An analysis of the political context of Gaza since the first free elections in the Middle East were held.
Not a Carwash
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
In the Albanian capital of Tirana, students, professors, activists and film lovers take to the streets when authorities attempt to redevelop the property of the city's only art house theatre for profit. The changing face of post-communist Albania is the backdrop for this classic battle between art, commerce, artistic passion and government indifference.
Not Quite "Ordinary Human Beings"—Anti-imperialism and the anti-humanist rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In our struggle against Zionism, racism, and all forms of colonialism and imperialism, there is no place for antisemitism or the vilification of Jews, Palestinians or any people based on their religions, cultures, nationalities, ethnicity or history.
Notes Towards a Critique of Maoism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Maoism was part of a broader movement in the twentieth century of what might be called “bourgeois revolutions with red flags,” as in Vietnam or North Korea. To understand this, it is important to see that Maoism was one important result of the defeat of the world revolutionary wave in 30 countries (including China itself) which occurred in the years after World War I. The major defeat was in Germany (1918–1921), followed by the defeat of the Russian Revolution (1921 and thereafter), culminating in Stalinism.
Nothing Is Ever Won Without Organizing
Remarks to the First Nonviolence Training Session of the Mexican Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
All organizing begins with the telling of a story. When we listen carefully to somebody’s story, we learn what motivates him, what she is passionate about. Listening is the first skill and duty of a community organizer. Before we can get somebody to do something, we have to learn what he and she want, which is usually different than what we presumed they wanted.
The November 2011 General Elections in Spain: Indignation Trapped in the Ballot Box
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The “outrage” expressed in the Spanish streets, deflated after the electoral ritual, is confronted with the limitations of the movement’s citizen-based abstractions (electoral reform, the affirmation of democracy, denouncing corruption, etc.) when confronted with the reality ( labor reform, social cuts) imposed by capital and its democratically elected administrators. Or, perhaps, indignation has completed its cycle and we are at the beginning.
NYC Transit Workers' Fare Strike 2012: Can Occupy Open Horizons for a Frustrated Labor Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Transit workers belonging to New York City’s Transport Workers Union Local 100 exhibit a familiar sight in the 21st century U.S. labor movement: broke, angry, slandered, disillusioned, directionless and top heavy.
The NYT’s Love Letter to Death Squads
Hymns to the Silence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It is, I confess, beyond all my imagining that a national leader so deeply immersed in murdering people would trumpet his atrocity so openly, so gleefully - and so deliberately, sending his top aides out to collude in a major story in the nation's leading newspaper, to ensure maximum exposure of his killing spree.
The Oakland Port Shutdown
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A personal account of the growing dialogue between the labour movement and the Occupy organizing, as seen by someone heavily involved in attempting to build these linkages.
Obama signs police state legislation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Militarism and aggressive war abroad go hand in hand with authoritarianism and dictatorship at home.
Obituary: Eric Hobsbawm: 1917-2012
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An obituary for Eric Hobsbawm.
Obituary: Flint Sitdowner: Olen Ham (1917-2012)
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Obituary for Olen Ham.
Occupation Diaries
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
An inside look at daily life in Palestine.
Occupy and the Urgency of Inclusiveness
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Occupy is a social movement that purports to give expression to working class concerns in the absence of working class participation. Occupy has evolved into a form of organization that effectively excludes many who might otherwise participate, and, even worse, may ultimately result in a predominately middle class orientation over time.
Occupy Atlanta: Privilege Politics of Popular Self-Management for the Post-Civil Rights City
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Occupy Atlanta (OA) movement, like the OWS movement more generally, revealed a national response to the general economic crisis.
Occupy and Detroit's Crisis
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
What's the new center of gravity on the political landscape? Dan La Botz has provocatively remarked that Occupy Oakland’s November 2 shutdown of the Port of Oakland — one of the largest recent labor actions — was initiated from outside union structures. Earlier, in New York City, on the morning Mayor Bloomberg dispatched police to expel Occupiers from Liberty Park, 5,000 people — many city workers, transit workers and teachers — turned out, forcing him to back off.
Occupy Everywhere
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The decision by Time magazine to name “the protester” its Person of the Year was largely a response to the two major events that bookended 2011: the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement.
Occupy Isla Vista for the 99%
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Isla Vista is an unincorporated community within the Santa Barbara County, a gentrified ghetto on the sunny seaside of southern California packing 23,000 people within its meager 1.8 square miles. The core is composed of students studying at the nearby University of California, with a largely ignored community composed of Latino/Latina working-class and other permanent residents, including a houseless population.
Occupy LA: The Worst of the Best
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A report from the 2011 Occupy movement in Los Angeles.
The Occupy movement and class politics in the US
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Occupy movement that began in New York in September 2011 and has spread with remarkable speed across the country represents a massive shift in the politics of the United States.
Occupy Oakland activists take up the question of decision-making
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Exclusionary strategies and tactics alienate those of us who are interested in a slower, more solid, more inclusive approach of mass movement building.
Occupy Oakland: The Port Shutdown and Beyond–All Eyes on Longview!
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Occupy movement – and especially Occupy Oakland – has demonstrated remarkable resilience and an almost unprecedented ability to repeatedly mobilize mass actions against economic injustice and police brutality.
Occupy Portland Regroups
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Early on a dark and freezing Monday morning, December 12, 2011, more than 800 people descended on terminals five and six at the Port of Portland. Having announced their intention to occupy and shut down the port, the demonstrators arrived to find that the Port of Portland management had beaten them to the punch and closed the two terminals over “safety concerns.”
The October Revolution in Prospect and Retrospect: Interventions in Russian and Soviet History
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
The author tracks the development of Bolshevism from its inception in 1904 to the October Revolution in 1917. In the post-October period, the author, drawing on the work of Robert Brenner, shows that any NEP-premised programme of economic advance was destined to fail.
The Oil Road
Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A look at a particular oil pipeline and its history, both locally and as a part of the global oil industry.
On Describing the Other
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
My criticism is not primarily about Judith Butler’s style; it is principally about the substance of her arguments and, more broadly, of poststructuralist arguments. I am not opposed to ‘difficult’ writing. There are many philosophers with whom it repays to work through the difficulties, the obscurities and the obtuseness; Hegel, for instance, even Heidegger in parts. Butler, in my eyes at least, is not such a philosopher.
On the Second Coming of Religion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The question we should ask is not just: ‘What is it about religion that makes people believe or behave in certain ways?’ It is also: ‘What is it about contemporary societies that draws many people, both religious and non-religious, towards nihilistic, narcissistic, anti-modern forms of belief?’
On Translating Securityspeak into English
In the Land of False Cognates
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Security State has its own language: Securityspeak. Like Newspeak, the ideologically refashioned successor to English in Orwell’s “1984,” Securityspeak is designed to obscure meaning and conceal truth, rather than convey them.
Once Again on Education: Beyond Ordinary Leftism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An article exploring elements of education in the USA.
One of the Greatest Environmentalists of the 20th Century
Barry Commoners RIP
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Dr. Barry Commoner, equipped with a Harvard PhD in cellular biology, used his knowledge of biology, ecosystems, nuclear radiation, public communication, networking scientists, political campaigning, and community organizing to become the greatest environmentalist in the 20th century.
One Thousand Years of Solitude
Life in the SHU
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Indefinite solitary confinement: a large-scale experiment in sensory deprivation and social isolation.
Our Land, Our Lives
Time Out On The Global Land Rush
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the past decade an area of land eight times the size of the UK has been sold off globally as land sales rapidly accelerate. This land could feed a billion people equivalent to the number of people who go to bed hungry each night. In poor countries, foreign investors have been buying an area of land the size of London every six days. With food prices spiking for the third time in four years, interest in land could accelerate again as rich countries try to secure their food supplies and investors see land as a good long-term bet.
"Our Path Doesn't Depend on Media Coverage"
The Zapatistas and Their Coming Strategy Together with Mexico's Original Peoples
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Communiqué from the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee-General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army.
Out of Bounds
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Why do we talk so much about hate speech these days? Largely because hate speech has become a way of rebranding extremist ideas to stress their moral content; in other words, of rebranding obnoxious political claims as immoral arguments. Where once we might have challenged such sentiments politically, today we are more likely to seek criminal sanctions to outlaw them.
Outsourcing in India and the US Election
Thus Spake the Cyber-Coolies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When Romney criticized outsourcing in his election campaign, he broke with Republican tradition. Outsourcing had been one of the few topics in which both parties appeared to genuinely disagree on, the one issue in which the underlying class dynamics of the pro-business Republicans and labour-backed Democrats were laid bare.
Overwrought Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Americans lived in a “victory culture” for much of the twentieth century. You could say that they experienced an almost 75-year stretch of triumphalism -- think of it as the real “American Century” -- from World War I to the end of the Cold War, with time off for a destructive stalemate in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam too shocking to absorb or shake off.
OWS and the working class
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
As frustrating as this may sound to the left, who are justifiably excited over a revival of radical politics, many workers cannot see the movement’s relevancy to their own lives, yet still feel the pangs of the crisis perhaps more painfully than most.
Palestine Freedom Battle "will be won": Interview with Author Miko Peled
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An interview with Miko Peled, the Israeli author of The General’s Son.
Paraguay: A well-rehearsed coup
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The story behind the overthrow of Paraguayuan President Fernando Lugo.
Passion, Perversion, and Politics
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Folson Street Fair is the centerpiece of a growing number of gatherings of formally illicit or deviant sexual practices that are taking place across the country. In the 2012 election, sexuality - especially abortion and homosexuality - is a critical issue. The election is about values, a choice between two ethical standards. Once again, Americans have to choose between the humane, the secular, and the religious.
Paul D’Amato and the Red Condom
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Paula Broadwell, Whistleblower
It's More Than a Sex Scandal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We await the follow-up to Paula Broadwell’s assertion that two prisoners were being held at the CIA “annex” near the consulate in Benghazi at the time of the assault that left Ambassador Christopher Stephens and three other Americans dead.
The Pensions Funding Gap
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A pension crisis of major dimensions is growing in the United States across all three forms of defined benefit plans (DBPs) — public, private single-employer, and private multi-employer plans. Corporate America and its political friends have begun to use the economic crisis that commenced in 2007 as an opportunity to initiate and expand yet another offensive, aimed at further undermining defined benefit pensions.
The Pentagon's New Plan to Confront Latin America's Pink Tide
Panetta Down South
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was in Uruguay recently, where he spoke of the need to strengthen the southern hemisphere’s police forces. This proposed policy has a precedent, almost unknown in this country, but potentially indicative of what awaits Latin American governments willing to cooperate with their northern neighbor’s defense establishment.
The Persecution of Wikileaks
Burning the Messenger
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
There is a landmark case, actually more of an affair, involving the US government and WikiLeaks, the online organization that provides anonymity for sources to leak information. The US feels it has leaked too much information about the wrong country, the US.
Personal histories of the early CIO
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Transcript of a talk given by 5 people who were involved in CIO organizing in the 1930s.
Perspectives on Putin's Russia
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The demonstrations of December 10 and 24, 2012 in Moscow, in which tens of thousands of people took part, show clearly that the period of social passivity in Russia is nearing its end.
Pfizer’s Elixir of Youth?
Tamoxifen Makes Women Live Longer (Says Manufacturer of Tamoxifen)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It was a great moment in Pharma funded physician “education.” At a symposium at the American Psychiatric Association’s 2010 meeting called “Mood, Memory and Myths: What Really Happens at Menopause,” two Wyeth/Pfizer funded speakers tried to resurrect the benefits of cancer-linked hormone therapy. But the mostly-female audience was having none of it: what can we do about our “tamoxifen brain” from the cancer we already have, they wanted to know.
Pitfalls and radical mutations: Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary life
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the 1960s and 1970s Fanon was the quintessential Third Worldist. He was taken up by movements that looked to guerrilla struggle in the countryside and in the newly independent Third World. His work became a manual to Maoists and the guerrilla intelligentsia predicting an imminent revolutionary wave that would overturn the world from the countryside.
Poetry and Latin American Revolution
Written in Blood and Dreams
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A discussion about the poetry, and about the songs, that have had such a decisive influence on the changes and revolutions in South America.
The Police Riot at OccupyCAL
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
I remember as if it were just yesterday. I was linked in arms, peacefully protesting in support and solidarity with the students of UC Berkeley and my friend Meleiza. What I would soon have to witness would leave me traumatized and utterly disgusted.
Police State India
Robert Clive and the Forbidden
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Describing security-mania in India.
Police Violence and Media Coverup
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Among many tactics used by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD ) to disorient, dishearten, and divide members of Occupy Los Angeles during our detention at city jails, one of the more insidious was denying us access to the news.
Political Developments in South Africa
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An excerpt from the South African journal Amandla! regarding current political events in South Africa.
The Politics of the Exodus Myth
Pillar of Superstition
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Cook provides conclusions that would suggest that the Bible as the word of God is rather a fabrication created for the masses for political, religious and cultural reasons.
Portuguese Workers vs. Austerity
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The General Strike of March 22, 2012 was the second called by the Portuguese trade unions since the IMF/European Commission/European Central Bank (“Troika”) intervened a year ago to impose austerity measures that almost forced the country to its knees. This is the third strike since the financial crisis took hold.
Preliminary Observations on the Chicago Teachers' Strike
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An insight into the Chicago's teacher strike and its victories.
Preparing for a Digital 9/11
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In recent years, in one of the more dangerous, if largely undiscussed, developments of our time, the Bush and then Obama administrations have launched the first state-planned war in cyber space. First, there were the "Olympic Games," then the Stuxnet virus, then Flame, and now it turns out that other sophisticated malware programs have evidently followed.
Price of Gold
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Mongolia is known for its original Nomad culture as well as the spectacular natural landscape. Since gold deposits have been discovered however, both are threatened.
Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, Private Empire is the masterful result of Coll’s indefatigable reporting. A penetrating, newsbreaking study, Private Empire is a defining portrait of ExxonMobil and the place of Big Oil in American politics and foreign policy.
Professor’s Work Shows People Power Trumps Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Erica Chenoweth’s research is taking the bang out of armed struggles.
Profit by Fiat
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The current bond rigging scandal, in which banks colluded to rig bids on municipal bonds, was a scam that the banks learned from the mafia, who in turn learned it from the Rockfellers and tehri partners in crime.
Protests, Prosecution And Punishment In Saudi Arabia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Saudi Arabia is experiencing protests, prosecution and punishments.
Psychologists’ Collusion in Ongoing Illegal Detentions
The Status Quo of Torture
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The pursuit of Julian Assange is an assault on freedom and a mockery of journalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Four years ago, a barely noticed Pentagon document, leaked by WikiLeaks, described how WikiLeaks and Assange would be destroyed with a smear campaign leading to "criminal prosecution". We are witnessing the implementation of that plan.
Pushing Demands at OWS?
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A debate is going on about whether Occupy Wall Street should adopt a list of demands. A number of people I know and respect have supported the Demands Working Group in New York and have called for the General Assembly to adopt their list. The draft includes great demands — there is nothing I’ve seen that I don’t agree with, and I’ve worked hard for some of them for much of my life. Yet I keep thinking that pushing the list of demands is not the way to go right now.
Putting Syria Into Some Perspective
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The 19th- and 20th-century colonialist-imperialist mentality is alive and well in the West.
Racist Violence is Used to Maintain an Unjust Social Order
From Trayvon Martin to Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
While it would be gratifying and is socially necessary to bring Trayvon’s murderer to justice, the continuation of America’s system of racial oppression must also be ended or we just wait for the inevitable next wrongfully murdered black youth.
Radical Simplicity And The Middle Class
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A description of what a life of radical simplicity might look like suggesting radical simplicity is appealing, provided that the transition was anticipated and widely negotiated.
The Radicalization of Decolonize/Occupy Seattle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A report on Occupy Seattle 2011.
The Rain On Our Parade
A Letter To My Dismal Allies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we’re talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.
The Red and the Black
Profit is the motor of capitalism. What would it be under socialism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In this essay, I start from the common socialist assumption that capitalism’s central defects arise from the conflict between the pursuit of private profit and the satisfaction of human needs. Then I sketch some of the considerations that would have to be taken into account in any attempt to remedy those defects.
Reflections on the New School Occupation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
On November 17th, 2011, the Study Center at 90 Fifth Avenue, an office building leased by the New School University, was occupied by participants in the all-city student assembly in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
Religous Freedom and Authoritarian Atheists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Many contemporary atheists adopt an unpleasantly authoritarian stance. Many now demand, in the name of ‘reason’ or ‘science’, state restrictions or bans on views that might cause ‘harm’. It is a strange attitude for those who supposedly believe in free speech and free thought.
Remembering Another Occupy
Anniversary of the 1937 Sit-Down Strike Wave
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Remembering David Montgomery
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When the organization of American Historians met in Milwaukee in April, its program schedule included one very special session: a memorial tribute to David Montgomery. David, historian and political activist, died of a brain hemorrhage on Dec 1, 2011. He was 84 years old.
Reports from the Occupy Wall Street Events of Mid-November
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Resistance After Foreclosure
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In 1973, in the class- and race-polarized city of Boston, City Life began as a socialist collective fighting against evictions and gentrification in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Over the years, it has evolved into a radical non-profit organization with a long history of doing tenant organizing and tenants’ rights work all across the city. City Life was able to avoid sectarian debates to maintain itself as a radical center for housing organizing.
Resistance in China Today
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Cases of resistance in China continue to grow.
A Response to Norman Finkelstein
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A response to Norman Finkelstein's attack on the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Tilley says that Finkelstein's insistence that the movement has to adjust itself to mainstream public opinion is bizarre: "Since when do human rights campaigns adjust their arguments to please mainstream opinion? Changing mainstream opinion is their very task. If activists took mainstream opinion as the proper guide to moral action, we would never have had the anti-slavery abolition movement, or the women’s suffrage movement, and apartheid would flourish in South Africa to this day. Indeed, we wouldn’t have most human rights campaigns. The toughest ones, which are often the greatest ones, must often start small and grow slowly."
A Review of Mary Gabriel's Love and Capital and Some Thoughts Prompted by the Review
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
So much of what parades as Marxism has very little to do with Karl Marx. Mary Gabriel knows Marx and we know him better after we read her book.
The Revisionaries
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
The Revisionaries follows the attempts of a creationist Board of Education member to revise the science and history curricula to better suit a white, Christian nation.
Revolution against “progress”: the TIPNIS struggle and class contradictions in Bolivia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Evo Morales's green light to a decades-old project to build a highway connecting Villa Tunari north to San Ignacio de Moxos through the indigenous territory and national park known as TIPNIS (Territorio Indígena del Parque Nacional Isiboro-Sécure), was the catalyst of his government's unpopular ratings.
The Right Kind Of Terror
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
When is an act of terrorism not terrorism? When the victims are officially sanctioned state enemies.
"Right to Work": Menace to Labor
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A year-long battle ended in January with Indiana becoming the 23rd “Right to Work (RTW)” state — and ominously for labor, now the wedge state for opening the rest of the industrial Midwest to RTW campaigns. In neighboring Michigan, the home state of the United Auto Workers, rightwing state legislators are pushing to follow the Indiana example in the name of “competitiveness.”
The rise and fall of the Jewish Labour Bund
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The history of the Bund, or Algemeyner Yiddisher Arbeter Bund in Rusland un Poyln (General Jewish Labour Union in Russia and Poland), is one riven with contradictions. It brought together tens of thousands of Jewish workers during its 52 years of existence in struggle against oppression and exploitation.
The Rise of Fascism in Greece
Waiting is Not an Option
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In Germany, Spain and Italy (and elsewhere) in the early 1930s during those troubled times, unemployment was high, Left alternatives were weak, resentment against others oozed in the streets, and terrible insecurities pushed nominally good people, the middle classes, into supporting the forces of hatred and nationalistic fervour.
Robots Kill, But The Blood Is On Our Hands
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Killing individuals (and whoever is near them) has become the primary substitute in U.S. public policy for capture/imprisonment/torture. Torturing someone to death is not what former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo calls "clean." Blowing them and anyone near them into little bits is "clean." As Medea Benjamin documents, the United States has avoided detaining people, only to murder them with a drone days later.
Rolling Back Reconstruction
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The 'Reconstruction Amendments” — the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution — are targeted in many of the Tea Party and far-right Republican campaigns against the rights of immigrants and women, marriage equality and LGBT rights, and voting rights for African Americans and other minority ethnic groups.
Rooted in the neighbourhood: what happened to Spain’s assemblies?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Oscar Reyes reports on the successes and setbacks of neighbourhood assemblies in Spain.
Roots of U.S. Capitalism (book review)
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
This is a thoughtful, learned, stimulating, challenging and altogether valuable volume. It reprints a series of reflections by the Marxist sociologist Charles Post on various aspects of the rise and evolution of capitalism in North America between the colonial era and the late 19th century.
Russell Means: Warrior for the People
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The life of Russell Means, Lakota warrior for the people whose stance of never backing down inspired a generation of Native American rights, was celebrated on Wednesday, Oct. 24, in Kyle, South Dakota. Means' piercing words and clarity of style on American Indian rights, placed him at the forefront of the struggle of the American Indian Movement that spans four decades.
The Russian Revolution Revisited - Review
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012 Published: 2102
A review of 'The October Revolution in Prospect and Retrospect: Interventions in Russian and Soviet History' by John Eric Marot.
Sasha and Emma
The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A biography.
Scattered Sand
The Story of China's Rural Migrants
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Each year, 200 million workers from China’s vast rural interior travel between cities and provinces in search of employment: the largest human migration in history. This indispensable army of labour accounts for half of China’s GDP, but is an unorganized workforce — “scattered sand,” in Chinese parlance — and the most marginalized and impoverished group of workers in the country.
Science, Myth, and History
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The story of ‘Kennewick Man’ - the debate around a 9000-year old skeleton and what it reveals about current ideas of culture, race and science.
The second coming of the radical left
Crunch-time for the eurozone?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Nearly five years after it started, the global economic and financial crisis shows no signs of resolving itself. On the contrary, in Europe it is taking a more virulent form, as the eurozone inches towards some kind of moment of truth. The slow motion catastrophe in Europe threatens to kill off the chronically weak recovery in the US.
Seeds of Fire
A People's Chronology
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Recalling events that happened on this day in history. Memories of struggle, resistance and persistence.
Selected Archive Projects
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A list of some archive projects concerned with grassroots movements for social justice.
The Selective Compassion of the Media & Human Rights Establishment
Ignoring the Victims of State Crimes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
“Human rights” doctrine has devolved into a mere tool used by the U.S. to carry out its imperial aims, and many times by means (such as war) which cause many more human rights violations than they purport to solve.
Selective Outrage - Iran And Libya
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Shadows of Liberty
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Examines the new media monopoly by corporations in America versus the public battle for truth and democracy.
Shooting to Kill Immigrants on the Mexican Border
A Border Agent Fired First at Immigrant Smugglers?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Sometimes it takes a small tragedy to call attention to expose a much bigger one.
The small tragedy happened when Nicholas Ivie, a US Border Patrol agent, was shot dead on a dark night in rough terrain along the border with Mexico in Arizona, a state that has been obsessing about illegal border crossers coming into the US from Mexico seeking jobs.
A Short History of Black Voter Suppression
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Right's organized movement to suppress the votes of African Americans and Latin Americans, and the urban and rural poor by means of the passing of voter ID (Poll Tax) laws in states receives no mention in the dominant media.
Silences on the Suppression of Workers Self-Emancipation: Historical Problems with CLR James's Interpretation of V.I. Lenin
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
CLR James believed one of his major intellectual legacies was the clarification of the wisdom of V.I. Lenin. However, James's readings fail in making Lenin's role in history and politics transparent. James's Leninism attempts to reconcile the validity of workers self-management and the aspirations of a political party to seize state power. This is in conflict with James's own genuine and original political legacy: clarifying the direct democratic gathering forces which will create the new society.
SIU's Community of Resistance
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A solidarity rally to prepare for a joint strike.
Six Media Companies Control 90% of What We Read, Watch and Listen to
Resource Type: Unclassified
First Published: 2012
Six Nations and Dundalk Fight Corporate Crap
Why We Should All Support Their Struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Dundalk is situated at the highest elevation in Ontario, the headwaters of both the Grand and Saugeen rivers, and sits on land deeded to the Six Nations through the Haldimand Proclamation of 1763. Despite the ecological importance of the region and the outstanding land claim, the municipal council and a corporation are attempting to force through a plan to build a “bio-solids” processing facility just a stone’s throw from the town.
Six Ways the Media Has Misreported Syria
How One-Sided Reporting is Facilitating Escalation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian conflict has been mostly simplistic and black & white with a Hollywoodian good (opposition) and evil (Syrian government) story.
The Sky is Always Darkest Just Before the Dawn
Class Struggle in the US from the 2008 Crash to the Eve of the Occopations Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We can safely assert that for most working people, the “recession” has never ended, and is about to get worse.
Slavery still shackles Mauritania, 31 years after its abolition
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Rigid caste system and ruling elite have enabled a centuries-old practice to continue into the 21st century.
Smoke Traders
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Smoke Traders tells the story of the contraband tobacco trade and the effect on individual lives and communities from a Native perspective.
Social Movements in South Africa
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Investigation into the current political movements in South Africa.
"Solidarity" Beats Austerity
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The tumultuous month of November 2011 marked the emergence of a powerful and widespread movement on public university campuses throughout California. Brutal police repression of Occupy encampments at UC Berkeley and UC Davis gained national media attention and sparked massive solidarity actions among social justice movements around the nation and the world.
Solitary Confinement FAQ
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating inmates in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades.
Somebody Else's Atrocities
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Atrocities commited by official enemies are routinely condemned, but atrocities for which our own country is responsible are rarely mentioned.
South Africa After Marikana - Interview
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Suzi Weissman interviews Leonard Gentle.
The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Paul Preston charts how and why Franco and his supporters set out to eliminate all ‘those who do not think as we do’ – some 200,000 men, women and children across Spain.
The SP's Roots and Legacy: In the American Grain - Book Review
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review of 'American Socialist Triptych: The Literary-Political Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Upton Sinclair, and W.E.B. Du Bois' by Mark W. Van Wienen.
The State and the Social Movements
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The article deals with the systematic, pervasive web of containment of social struggles and class conflict developed by the Brazilian Workers' Party (Partido do Trabalho, or PT) over decades, beginning in the 1980s, and culminating in its ten years in state power since 2002, first under Lula (2002–2010) and now under Dilma Rousseff (2010–).
Straphanger
Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A discussion of the major modern urban transport systems of the world.
The Strategy and Organizing Behind the Successful DREAM Act Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Undocumented youth have shown that ordinary people build extraordinary people power, even in the United States.
The Strike and Its Enemies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Like the progressive labour bureaucrats, today’s generation of young radicals have spent all of their formative years living in the era of capitalist realism — the era of There is No Alternative. And it’s perhaps for this reason that each tenet of the union bureaucrat philosophy finds its distorted mirror-image in the views of the young anti-union radicals. They tend to believe that middle-class intellectuals and full-time activists should take the lead role in strategy and that these groups do not have different material interests than rank-and-file workers. That building “communes,” rather than confronting capital, should be the movement’s main mission.
The strike that led to Tahir Square
An act of courage that launched a revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Labour struggles at Egypt's largest cotton mill, starting in 2006, laid the groundwork for the revolution of 2011.
The Struggle in Balochistan
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The complicated situation that is modern Pakistan.
Stuxnet on the Loose
Security for the One Percent
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Suspicions that the Stuxnet computer worm was indeed developed by the United States and Israel has once again exposed American exceptionalism. Espionage and sabotage are presented as intolerable criminal transgressions, normally causing our elected officials and military leaders to erupt in fits of righteous indignation. That is, unless the United States is doing the spying and the sabotaging.
Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A study of the role of the FBI in the postwar Red Scare, focusing especially on Ronald Reagan's long and creepy relationship with the FBI. It is also a fascinating account of the origins and development the New Left, and a powerful examination of how the FBI corroded due process and democracy.
Swing of the Pendulum?
Against The Current vol. 159
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The defeat of the Wisconsin recall of anti-labor Governor Scott Walker, along with the Republican jubilation that followed, demands a close examination of the state of U.S. politics. In the post-Citizens United era, it’s certainly true that unlimited Super-PAC funds from the likes of the Koch Brothers and other dark corners of “the one percent” lubricate the political machinery of the right wing’s “ground game,” savage media wars, lying attack ads and voter suppression campaigns.
SWP: Long March to Oblivion - Book Review
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Book review of 'The Party: The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988. A Political Memoir. Volume 2: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988' by Barry Sheppard.
SYMPOSIUM: Truth and Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Insurgent Notes invited members of Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) that we were able to contact and individuals of organization that we knew had been influenced by one or more of the aspects of STO's theory or practice to respond to a series of questions.
Syria: Arab Solution Needed
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Of all the Arab regimes that have been toppled since the start of the Arab Spring last year, Syria’s Assad regime is the most dangerous. While it is impossible to quantify oppression and repression, the Assad regime has certainly surpassed its Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan and Yemeni counterparts in its assault on the rights of its people and other Arabs over the years.
The Takeover of Motor City
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In early April the Detroit City Council and Mayor Dave Bing signed a “consent agreement” with Michigan Governor Rick Snyder that essentially turns over the city’s financial management to an appointed board.
Teach for America: The Hidden Curriculum of Liberal Do-Gooders
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Teach for America, suitably representative of the liberal education reform more generally, underwrites, intentionally or not, the conservative assumptions of the education reform movement: that teacher’s unions serve as barriers to quality education; that testing is the best way to assess quality education; that educating poor children is best done by institutionalizing them; that meritocracy is an end-in-itself; that social class is an unimportant variable in education reform; that education policy is best made by evading politics proper; and that faith in public school teachers is misplaced.
10 Shocking Incidents of Police Brutality Caught on Tape
Finally, a Reason to Like CCTV
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The internet is full of videos exposing police officers’ use of excessive physical force when trying to apprehend or detain “potential criminals”. Every year in fact there seems to be an increase in YouTube video uploads, video views, and news stories depicting this type of injustice.
Terror in a Christmas Tree
Israel Tries to Ban Non-Jewish Celebrations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Who would imagine that Israeli Jews could be so intimidated by the innocuous Christmas tree?
Their "Recovery" and Ours - Review
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A review of 'Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few' by Jack Rasmus.
They Are Still Killing Trade Union Leaders
Global Capital's Death Squads and Night-Riders
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Question: So what happens these days in developing countries when a prominent, charismatic union activist - with the courage to stand up to sinister, government-supported business groups who have, on more than one occasion, already threatened his life - attempts to get the country’s underpaid, under-benefited workers to join a labor union? Answer: They kill him.
Thirteen Ways Government Tracks Us
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Privacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens. Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people.
Three Big Lies of the Super-Rich
Why Being in the Highest Class Doesn't Mean You're a High Class Person
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The conservative spin of the media is designed to protect the rich from challenge.
Through the Labyrinth of Steel Doors
A Weekend in Texas
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Visiting a friend in a Texas prison.
To Name The Unnameable
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Discussing Salman Rushdie's non-appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
Richard Sennett contends that "living with people who differ -- racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically -- is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today. We tend socially to avoid engaging with people unlike ourselves, and modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city."
Tombstone
The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A look at 'the great famine', a concealed result of the Great Leap Forward in China.
Toward Revolution and Collective Leadership - Interview
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
An interview with Andrés Antillano. Bolivia.
The Tragedy of Norman Finkelstein – Time to Say Goodbye
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Norman Finkelstein seems to have moved from an anti-Zionist position to believing that the best we can do is create a Palestinian bantustan while Israeli remains as a state where Jews rule and Palestinians remain legally and economically oppressed.
Trying to change the world?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Getting your story across is an uphill battle when you’re challenging the status quo.
SOURCES can help you get your message out.
TSA Drug-Running Scandal Betrays Drug War’s Pretense
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The cost of bribing US border and airport security personnel is chump change in the narco-trafficking business.
A "Tunisia Moment" Coming?
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A prominent commentator and a brother of the former president, Moeletsi Mbeki caused a major stir last year when he announced that South Africa is headed for a “Tunisia Moment.”
12 Reasons You'll Be Hearing More About The Commons In 2012
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
"We Power" stands at the convergence of economic and cultural trends.
Twenty five years of revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The period since 1987 has been, in one sense, extraordinary in the sheer number of revolutions that have occurred. If one thing seems certain, it is that revolution is alive and well across the globe, and is indeed a very “normal” part of the political process in the modern capitalist world.
Two Months in LA's Solidarity Park
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Occupy Los Angeles was the largest of the “Occupy” encampments: In the space of two months, we grew from around 50 to nearly 500 tents. Our camp developed neighborhoods, tribes, collectives, a print shop, a library, a people’s university, a wellness center, a meditation tent, a kid’s village, and all sorts of fascinating community problems to go with them. This is the particular joy and struggle of being an occupation, and not a traditional group of community organizers; the internal conflict of a commune or a family was playing out simultaneously with our movement and message-building.
2013 Unoccupied
Sun Tzu's Messages to the Occupy Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The ”Occupy” movement has apparently receded into the long night. The structural challenges remain the same, and opposition is still needed. What has been exposed as fruitless, however, is the idea of occupying parks in chaotic sieges that signify nothing.
The Unbelievable Inhumanity of Solitary Confinement And Punishment for as Little as Reading a Book
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The majority of those in solitary confinement were given the punishment for nonviolent, low-level offenses such as having unauthorized books or disobeying an order or growing their mustaches too long.
United in Anger
A History of ACT UP
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
United in Anger: A History of ACT UP is a documentary about the birth and life of the AIDS activist movement from the perspective of the people in the trenches fighting the epidemic. Utilizing oral histories of members of ACT UP, as well as archival footage, the film depicts the efforts of ACT UP as it battles corporate greed, social indifference, and government neglect.
The Unknown Slave Rebellion
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Though the planters had no difficulty reconciling the wealth they enjoyed and the price the slaves paid, the region’s black laborers did. By aborting their own children, poisoning livestock, lighting fires, and escaping to the cypress swamps, the slaves struggled to dilute, deflect, and if possible demolish slaveholders’ authority. Even open revolt was not beyond question. While it was a card that slaves played only rarely — planters tended to take a dim and deadly view of armed rebellion — the German Coast teemed with violent possibilities. The planters’ world rested on a powder keg to be ignited by the smallest of sparks.
Unlawful Dissent
New Laws Around the Globe Don’t Curb Inequity, They Undercut Social Protests and Gag Free Speech
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The state is increasingly encroaching upon dissent as social conditions worsen.
US Consulate Killings - Spontaneous Religious or Planned Political?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
On September 11, four Americans, including the US ambassador, were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The following day, the BBC's Lunchtime News reported that the killings were part of 'disturbances' which were 'linked to an anti-Islamic video'. The BBC's News at Six explained that the US ambassador was killed 'in a protest'. This was mild language indeed given that the consulate had been attacked with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
US Military Brands Assange, WikiLeaks As "The Enemy"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Secret US Air Force documents reveal that the American military has branded WikiLeaks and its editor Julian Assange as "the enemy", placing them on a legal par with Al Qaeda and threatening them with the same treatment: indefinite detention without trial, and death.
The U.S.-Pakistan Co-dependency
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
After a cross-border NATO air strike in November resulted in the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers, Pakistan responded forcefully, closing the Af-Pak border to NATO traffic, expelling the U.S. military from an air base inside Pakistan, and boycotting the International Conference on Afghanistan.
Using a Black Icon to Sell Apartheid
Israel's Chutzpah
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Apologists for Israel are now using fabricated 'quotes' from Martin Luther King to make it seem that King supported Israeli apartheid.
The Vertical Farming Scam
Wrong on So Many Levels
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Vertical farming would involve using the floorspace of tall urban buildings for growing food plants through largely hydroponic methods. This is envisioned as a way to integrate food production with dense human populations, increase production per unit of land area, protect crops against pests without the use of chemicals, and take vulnerable agricultural soils out of production by relocating crops to cities. It can, in fact, achieve none of these goals.
A village about to be demolished
A glimpse into occupation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Susiya is a microcosm of life for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Palestinians living in the little village of Susiya and elsewhere are under constant threat of demolition, expulsion and forced relocation.
Wade Michael Page and the rise of violent far-right extremism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The man who opened fire in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was not just a crazed loner, but a vocal neo-Nazi – in fact, his white supremacist ideology reflected a growing form of extremism that expresses its strength through violence rather than at the ballot box.
Wadim
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
The story of Latvians who sought asylum in Germany, their lives there, and the consequences when harsh immigration policies suddenly tear them apart in this critique of laws written and applied without regard for human consequences
The Waiting Room
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
The film watches a Californian hospital for a full day, observing what patients and staff go through as they deal with the over-crowded, under-funded US health care system.
Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball
The Best of Joe Bageant
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
25 essays by the self-proclaimed redneck socialist, edited by Ken Smith.
The War Crimes of a Sergeant, the War Crimes of a Nation
A Double Standard of Justice
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
It is alleged that on the evening of March 10-11, 2012, US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales left his base in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, fully armed and loaded, and murdered 16 civilians in a nearby village.
The War of Northern Aggression
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A leading Civil War historian challenges the new orthodoxy about how slavery ended in America.
The War on Women--And Us All
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The war on women’s reproductive rights is being fought in the U.S. Congress, in state legislatures and in the courts, and played out in the media. This war seeks to restrict women’s ability to control their reproductive lives — with each law more outrageous than the last — under the excuse that they are “protecting the unborn.”
We Are Legion
The Story of the Hacktivists
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists takes us inside the world of Anonymous, the radical "hacktivist" collective that has redefined civil disobedience for the digital age.
We Are Wisconsin
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
When a Republican Governor’s bill threatens to wipe away worker rights and lock out public debate, six (extra)ordinary citizens join the growing protest at the Wisconsin State Capitol, and spend the next twenty-six days building a movement that not only challenges the bill, but the soul of a nation.
We Have Still Had It Up to Here: The Year a Movement Was Born
Mexico’s Struggle to End the Drug War Is Unlike Any in the World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The truth is that Mexican public opinion has never fully swallowed the fiction – believed by many in the United States – that the drug war is somehow about stopping drugs or their abuse. Almost everybody knows that it is primarily a means to enrich the pockets of corrupt politicians and police.
Welcome to the World’s First Bunker State
Room for Jews Only in Israel’s ‘Villa in the Jungle’
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The bunker state is almost finished, and with it the dream of Israel’s founders is about to be realised.
What Choice in 2012?
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The outcome of the November 2012 election is clear: It will be the most vicious and racist in modern U.S. history, and by far the most expensive of all time. Are critical issues at stake in this political year? Absolutely, yes — but not the questions we’ll get to vote on.
What If America’s Leaders Actually Want Catastrophic Climate Change?
Thinking the Unthinkable
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Our leaders, political and corporate, may be puerile, egocentric greed-heads, but they are not stupid. They surely for the most part recognize that the Earth is heating up and heading at full speed towards ecological, social and political disaster. How else to explain, then, their astonishing unwillingness to take action?
What Is Wrong With Multiculturalism? [Part 1]
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Thoughts about iimmigration, identity, diversity and multiculturalism.
What progressive groups must do to defeat, or stymie, the Harper regime
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Canada’s progressive community needs to make some significant changes if it hopes to slow down the assault being carried out on the country by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives and their right-wing allies.
What Really Happened in Gaza
Israel Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The official storyline is that Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense on 14 November, 2012 because, in President Barack Obama’s words, it had “every right to defend itself.” The facts, however, suggest otherwise.
What's Wrong With Multiculturalism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
My view is that both multiculturalists and their critics are wrong. And only by understanding why both sides are wrong will we be able to work our way through the mire in which we find ourselves.
Whatever Happened to Al Jazeera?
All the News That's Fit to Slant
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In Al Jazeera’s early days in the mid and late 1990s, the channel took on taboo subjects and proudly challenged the status quo. In recent months, however, Al Jazeera has begun to change course. It has deviated from its journalistic responsibilities in Libya, and is now completely losing the plot with Syria. The channel is in urgent need to revisit its own code of ethics.
What’s Left of Queer?: Immigration, Sexuality, and Affect in a Neoliberal World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We need to refuse the narratives of abjection that are routinely forced upon us. They only render us immobile creatures, begging for help. We are all neoliberals now. We’re all selling our bodies, our lives, our stories to the media and to provide comfort to ourselves. Those stories have to be challenged and reworked or we lose sight of the larger story of economic exploitation, at our peril.
When Chomsky Wept
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A portrait of Noam Chomsky.
When Plutocrats Blame the Poor
Hard Times Redux
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The image of the self-made man has always been a fiction concocted for the edification of the poor, not a concrete policy prescription, as should be clear by now from the behavior of our very own ‘self-made’ caste of plutocrats.
When Populism is Dangerous for Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
George Galloway’s stunning victory in last week’s Bradford West by-election afforded a rare opportunity to witness naked imbalance, establishment scorn of any challenges, and blatant anti-Muslim propaganda in the corporate British media.
When War Passes for Foreign Policy
Who Will Pay the Price?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
“Take the profit out of war,” said activist Kevin Zeese, “and you take out war.” His audience was made up mainly of U.S. war veterans gathered in New York to observe — and protest — the 11th anniversary of the conflict in Afghanistan.
When Will We See Tanks in Barcelona?
Against The Current vol. 161
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The current situation in Spain regarding an independent Catelonia.
Who Are the Control Rods?
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
After losing a war, one of the worst things that can happen to a society is for its people to be told it was a “victory.” The inability or failure to learn the lessons of the United States’ defeat in Iraq enables the plunge into the next disastrous adventure: Can you say “Iran”?
Who Cares?
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Rosie Dranfeld captures the gritty and dangerous world of Edmonton's sex-trade workers. In this post-Pickton era where the unthinkable is now a gruesome reality, women voluntarily provide police with DNA samples for future identification.
Who Killed Ekaru Loruman?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Climate change arrives in a world primed for crisis. The current and impending dislocations of climate change intersect with the already existing crises of poverty and violence. By this “catastrophic convergence,” I do not merely mean that several disasters happen simultaneously, one problem atop another. Rather, I am arguing that problems compound and amplify each other, one expressing itself through another.
Who Speaks for the 99%
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The bitter truth about U.S. politics is that neither ruling-class party speaks for the working class or poor.
Why aid projects in Palestine are doomed to fail
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
So long as aid in Palestine remains detached from the everyday realities of occupation and operates on the aggressor’s terms, it will continue to be ineffective.
Why Are We The Good Guys?
Reclaiming Your Mind From The Delusions Of Propaganda
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that we are great defenders of human rights, a free press and the benefits of market economics. Mistakes might be made along the way, perhaps even tragic errors of judgement. But the prevailing view is that the West is essentially a force for good in the wider world. Why Are We The Good Guys? is a provocative challenge of this false ideology.
Why Are We The Good Guys? - Book Review
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
One of the unspoken assumptions of the Western world is that ‘we’ are great defenders of human rights, a free press and the benefits of market economics. Mistakes might be made along the way, perhaps even tragic errors of judgement. But the prevailing view is that 'the West' is essentially a force for good in the wider world. Why Are We The Good Guys? is a provocative challenge to this false ideology.
Why Do They Hate George Galloway So Much?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The ferocity of the attacks on George Galloway by the British commentariat is one of the most revealing outcomes of his victory in the Bradford West by-election.
Why I Stand with Occupy
Against The Current vol. 156
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Why is India so bad for women?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Of all the G20 nations, India has been labelled the worst place to be a woman. How is this possible in a country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy?
Why Israel Desires to be Hated by Palestinians
Gaza 2012: On the Use and Abuse of Hatred and Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Israel desires to be hated by Palestinians. By provoking violence Israel has not merely managed to divert the limelight from its apartheid nature. It has also managed to convince that, as Joseph Massad of Columbia University once captured, it has the right to occupy, to dispossess and to discriminate, namely the claim that the apartheid premise which founds it should be put up with and rationalized as reasonable.
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere
The New Global Revolutions
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
From London to Cairo, Wisconsin to Tehran, Paul Mason charts new forms of collective action: fluid networks of agile, Twitter- and Facebook-savvy networks of youthful protesters. The events, says Mason, reflect the expanding power of the individual and call for new ways of thinking about political alternatives, elite rule and global poverty.
Why Opposing Islamophobia is not a Defense of Extremism
Standing Up Against Knee-Jerk Discrimination and Xenophobia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Recent events have generated a lot of debate about Islam, Muslims, free speech and Islamophobia. Unfortunately, much of that debate has fallen back upon rather tired arguments about not only what "Muslims are like" but also how those who oppose Islamophobia are somehow defending repression or appeasing extremists.
Why People Vote Against Themselves
Wisconsin and the Collapse of Liberalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The reasons people vote against their self-interest are numerous and varied but key to them is often a culture under great stress believing false promises being made to it by the powerful.
Why Race Matters in the 2012 Elections
Against The Current vol. 160
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
We sometimes hear that the drive by the Republican Party and the far right to "suppress the vote" -- attempting to ensure the election of a Republican president and win control of the Congress -- is just hardball politics, not about race or racism. Yet the primary target is people of color.
Why The Language of the Commons Matters
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
Our very language for identifying problems and imagining solutions has been compromised. We may have many unattractive human traits fueled by individual fears and ego, but we are also creatures entirely capable of self-organization, cooperation, a concern for fairness and social justice, and sacrifice for the larger good and future generations.
Why the Washington Post Killed the Story of Murdoch’s Bid to Buy the US Presidency
Carl Bernstein Caught in the Matrix
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
WikiLeaks Begins Publishing 5 Million Emails From STRATFOR
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A Wisconsin Idea Resurgent
Against The Current vol. 158
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
More than a year has passed since the mass protests of February-March 2011, at Madison and elsewhere across Wisconsin, erupted in response to Republican Governor Scott Walker’s effort to bust the state’s public employee unions.
Wisconsin Uprising
Labor Fights Back
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2012
A collection of accounts from the early stages of the Wisconsin uprising against the corporate world in the of spring 2011.
Without Women, No Food Security
Against The Current vol. 157
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
In the countries of the Global South, women are the primary producers of food: the ones in charge of working the earth, maintaining seed stores, harvesting fruit, obtaining water and safeguarding the harvest.
The World's Most Fashionable Prison
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
Fashion designer Puey Quinones works with inmates in a Philipine prison to teach them how to sew, work with fabrics and see their ideas go from sketch to finished product.
The Wrong Solution To The Wrong Problem
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
What is it to have free press?
You are all suspects now. What are you going to do about it?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
A state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy.
The Young Man Was
Part 1: United Red Army
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2012
The start of a film trilogy that traces 1970s ultra left movements' turn to violence; Part One is based on the negotiations of the 1977 JAL hijacking, between the Japanese Red Army members on board the plane and the Dhaka control tower in Bangladesh.
Zapatista March
The Deafening Silence of Resurgence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2012
The voiceless and the faceless are saying listen up! There is a forgotten Mexico here, a Mexico that is starving and disparate and the march, a silent march is an emblematic message in and of itself.

2011

About Connexions - Japanese
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Absurd charges brought against reporters covering Occupy Wall Street movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement’s protests and marches are not only exposed to police brutality but also to a sort of judicial lottery when detained. The situation varies from state to state, according to local laws, but the freedom to report news and information is being violated almost everywhere, not only for professional journalists but also for bloggers and for activists who want to cover the protests themselves.
An Account from Madison
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Among the first publicized actions in opposition to the union-busting Budget Repair Bill was the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) February 14th delivery of valentines to Governor Walker’s office. Colin, an adjunct professor of English and a new member of Solidarity, recalls: “We marched on the sidewalk, not the street…People would look at each other to make sure others were chanting. Some clearly felt embarrassed and most didn’t know the chants.”
Activist Toolkit (rabble.ca)
Resource Type: Website
First Published: 2011
A wiki-style of resources for activists.
Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We are subjected to ever more pervasive messages to consume, encouraging dissatisfaction. Yet this column depends on it.
African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An inclusive account of the source of popular discontent and an insight into the struggle for democratization, from the popular uprisings in Northern Africa all the way into the heartland of the African continent.
Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
for the 43 members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, working at the Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center
America in Decline
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
American Autumn Part 2
Occupy Wall Street: Organizing the Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
American Dreamers
How the Left Changed a Nation
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
History of the radical left in the United States from the abolitionists to anti-globalization activists. The author sees the left as historically championing a pluralist spirit that runs counter to the "born capitalist" American society.
The American Way of Torture
CounterPunch Diary
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The "Anarcho-Liberal"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The diversity of the global justice movement is undeniable, but to the extent its prominent intellectual voices represented broader trends, we can see the crystallization of a new type of radical that would come to prominence on the Left. The reconfiguration of the Left at the end of the twentieth century created a void. The “anarcho-liberal” filled it.
Anatomy of Egypt's Revolution
Conditions and Consequences
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Like perfect storms, several factors have to simultaneously and collectively come together for popular uprisings or protests, even massive ones, to turn into a revolution. That is why only a few of them have been successful in world history.
Another Immoral Adventure
US Troops to Uganda
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When we support brutal governments in foreign countries – be it through aid, training, or troops on the ground – there are real and lasting consequences for the people who live there. There are many reasons to oppose the US incursion into Uganda (the risk of blowback, the chance of escalation, the furtherance of the imperial presidency, the financial cost, the practical fact that we can’t intervene everywhere, and so on), but the most important argument is moral.
Anti-Capitalism or Anti-Imperialism?
Interwar Authoritarian and Fascist Sources of A Reactionary Ideology: The Case of the Bolivian MNR
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Recounts the evolution of the core pre-MNR intelligentsia and future leadership of the movement and its post-1952 government from anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, pro-Axis ideologues in the mid-1930?s to bourgeois nationalists receiving considerable US aid after 1952.
Anti-Terrorism Begins at Home
Viva House refuses to sign United Way "loyalty oath"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Baltimore is refusing to certify that it does not use United Way funds to support terrorism, saying the request smacks of McCarthyism.
Anti-Imperialism and the Iranian Revolution
Fetters of the past, potential for the future
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Iranian Revolution, and the anti-imperialist ideology that corresponded to its rise and demise, was indeed a tragedy from the perspective of proletarian revolution; to hold such an ideology today is indeed farcical. It does nothing but bring workers, students, and women’s organizations into an illusory harmony with those who maintain their oppression and exploitation.
The Arab Revolts and the Cage of Political Economy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Though the Arab revolts of 2011 herald a new era where people have powerfully asserted their inalienable right to protest (and we hope they will continue doing so), the powerful cage of political economy has remained intact even after six intense months of protest. The intent of the imperial US power in the region, along with its allies Israel and the European Union (EU), remains unchanged.
Arabs and the Holocaust
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Palestinian tragedy, a late product of 19th-20th century colonialism and imperialism in general, must also be understood as a very specific aftershock of the greatest industrial genocide in history, the Nazi holocaust, which shook the ways in which we view human society and history.
Assange and Posada in the Propaganda System
Mixed Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Posada's case is a dramatic illustration of the fraudulence of the so-called "War on Terror" and highlights the U.S. refusal to abide by the rule of law. Assange's case shows well the U.S. establishment's fear of the free-flow of information that might interfere with foreign policy and reveal that there are many more Posadas whose service to the empire might be disclosed. And the media's cooperation in this protection of Posada and pursuit of Assange is clear. \
Assignment 1: LGBT Equality
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
IN OUR IMMEDIATELY post-Don’t Ask Don’t Tell society, Stuart Biegel’s The Right to Be Out invites us to create a public education system where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) equality is a reality.
Athenians Teach a New Lesson in (Workers) Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Popular Assembly at Syntagma has been able to go beyond democratic discussion to democratic decisions but the construction of real workers democracy is still under way. While thousands take part in the assembly, there are five million living in Athens and millions more in the rest of Greece. To democratically include all these millions requires a system of delegation, in which delegates from neighborhoods and workplaces attend city-wide assemblies and delegates from these attend a nationwide assembly.
The Attack on American Muslims
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Flailing after Muslims is a convenient way for the right — extreme and mainstream — to prove their credentials as “genuine, God-loving Americans.” Islam, they charge, is not a religion of peace, of Western values; it’s an ideology of terror. “You can’t trust Muslims.”
Austerity and U.S. Decline
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The full frontal assault on public workers and their unions in one state after another — stripping collective bargaining rights and dues checkoff, slashing wages and pensions and health benefits, abolishing seniority and tenure for teachers, mandating yearly decertification votes, threatening jail terms for strikers — is as massive and instantaneous as it was unexpected by the labor bureaucracy and many union members. To say “the class war is back” is an understatement. It’s an authentic firestorm sucking the oxygen from labor rights, from Wisconsin to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and other states.
Authors of Gaza youth manifesto speak to Electronic Intifada
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We, the youth of Gaza, who make up sixty percent of Gaza's 1.6 million residents, have increasingly felt repressed in many aspects, starting from the long-standing Israeli occupation of our lands -- particularly the four-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza -- through the injustice inflicted everywhere by the rulers of Gaza, who we elected four years ago.
Autonomy zone on Wall Street?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Prefigurationists argue that they can create self-contained, self-governing societies as pockets of autonomy within the capitalist system. While the goal of creating a democratic decision-making process and remaining independent of the mainstream political system is necessary to create a movement that challenges the entrenched power of Wall Street and the corporate elite, the goal of constituting an autonomous authority within capitalism is impossible and can lead to some dangerous illusions.
The Awakening in America
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The dynamic of social movements is far more important than their ostensible ideological positions. Revolutions arise out of complex processes of social debate and interaction that happen to reach a critical mass and trigger a chain reaction — processes very much like what we are seeing at this moment. The “99%” slogan may not be a very precise “class analysis,” but it’s a close enough approximation for starters, an excellent meme to cut through a lot of traditional sociological jargon and make the point that the vast majority of people are subordinate to a system run by and for a tiny ruling elite.
The Battle for Brooklyn
The Abuse of Eminent Domain
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An article about the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which chronicles the fight waged by residents and business owners of Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighborhood facing demolition of their property to make way for the Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
Battle for Brooklyn
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Battel for Brooklyn is an intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by residents and business owners of Brooklyn’s historic Prospect Heights neighborhood facing condemnation of their property to make way for the polarizing Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
BBC Joins Smear Campaign Against Assange and Wikileaks
Indicting the Messenger
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The campaign by the establishment press against Julian Assange is intensifying.
The Betrayal
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
The filmmaker's personal journey to confront her past, baring her soul to those most hurt by her troubled youth when she ricocheted from far-left radicalism to neo-Nazi fascism out of a desperate need to belong.
Beyond the Fields
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There is a strong historical link between the United Farm Workers in its heyday and myriad forms of progressive activism today. UFW alumni, ideas, and strategies have influenced Latino political empowerment, the immigrant rights movement, union membership growth, and on-going coalitions between labor, community, campus, and religious groups.
Bias in the Eye of the Beholder
“Liberal Media” Misperceptions in the American Mind
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In a time of economic instability, growing poverty, and chronic income and financial insecurity, Americans are increasingly critical of a governing system that they feel has failed in providing for their basic needs. This general distrust, however, can at times manifest itself in ignorant and destructive ways. So it is with the “liberal bias” claims, which misdirect public attention away from the very real bi-partisan, official source bias of the media, and toward some mythic media conspiracy to marginalize conservatives in favor of an “elite liberal agenda.” We should be careful to acknowledge this reality next time we hear friends, family, or acquaintances lamenting the “liberal media elite.”
Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
First there was a film about banana workers saying the Dole Food Company had made them infertile. Then Dole attacked the filmmakers. Now it's time for a new film!
The Big Thirst
The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A jurnalistic account of the secret life of water.
Big Three Auto Contracts: Lowlights of 2011
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
By the end of October, autoworkers at the Big Three will have approved their 2011-2015 contracts. Since Ford was the most profitable corporation, and one that had avoided bankruptcy, it was the logical corporation for the UAW to target. During the economic crisis Ford workers voted down a round of concessions that would have suspended their right to strike until 2015, so by bargaining first at Ford the union could have maximized its potential power to put an end to the concessions.
Bleeding Wisconsin
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Bloomberg and NYC's Education Wars
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The New York City school system averted catastrophe on June 24, 2011 when mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew reached an accord to prevent more than 4000 teacher layoffs. Under the deal, the teachers’ union agreed to suspend sabbaticals for one year and to reorganize the way in which teachers without full programs are assigned.
Bolivia: WikiLeaks Expose US Conspiracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Recently released United States embassy cables from Bolivia have provided additional insight to the events leading up to the September 2008 coup attempt against the Andean country’s first indigenous president.
Bolivia's Growing Crisis
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A confrontation between the government of Bolivian president Evo Morales and a part of his indigenous social base is leading to a serious political crisis. A violent police assault on indigenous community protests against a road being built through their self-governed Isiboro Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) have led to a growing confrontation.
Bolivia's Uncertain Revolution
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Bolivia under the presidency of Evo Morales has become a favorite topic among progressives and social democrats, who have likened his ascendency to the nation’s highest post as nothing short of revolutionary. The buzz around Morales, a long time social movement figure and the first Indigenous president of the Andean nation has only lost a little luster since his election almost six years ago.
Bolshevism, Gender & 21st Century Revolution
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
2017 will mark the Russian Revolution’s 100th anniversary. Socialists will again ask how the revolution was made and why it degenerated.
The Boomerang Is Almost Home
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It should never be forgotten that while colonization, with its techniques and its political and juridical weapons, obviously transported European models to other continents, it also had a considerable boomerang effect on the mechanisms of power in the West, and on the apparatuses, institutions, and techniques of power.
Boycott the state, not just the settlements
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
West Bank settlements would not be viable without government aid, so boycotts should target the Israeli state as well.
Bradley Manning, Solitary Confinement and Selective Outrage
What about the Others?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Calls attention to the widespread use of solitary confinement with Bradley Manning as a specific example.
Bradley Manning's Torture Commonplace In U.S. Prisons
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The corrosive, solitary confinement being inflicted upon PFC Bradley Manning in the Quantico, Va., brig is no exceptional torture devised exclusively for him. Across the length and breadth of the Great American Prison State, the world's largest, with its 2.4-million captives stuffed into 5,000 overcrowded lock-ups, some 25,000 other inmates are suffering a like fate of sadistic isolation in so-called supermax prisons.
Brief Theory of the Present Crisis
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
This article is a summary and development of the argument that I have been writing in the journal Critique, both in the Critique Notes and a number of articles. I have left out two issues discussed in Critique, that of the case against the falling rate of profit as the only or fundamental cause and why the ruling class has opted for austerity.
Britain’s Own Pravda-Style Propaganda
Ten Years Of ‘Involvement’ In Afghanistan
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
British study has the goods on corporate execs
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading businesses and compared the results with the same tests on patients at Broadmoor hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses' scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients; in fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.
The Buckeye Socialist Alternative
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Dna La Botz Socialist for Senate campaign in Ohio represents an important success in the recent context of leftist third party initiatives. Running the first Socialist Party campaign for national office in Ohio since 1936, La Botz garnered 25,368 votes statewide, one of the more successful socialist electoral bids in decades. This experience provides some important lessons for how the left can engage the electoral arena in this period.
Budget Woes, Class Wars
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The full frontal assault on public workers and their unions in one state after another — stripping collective bargaining rights and dues checkoff, slashing wages and pensions and health benefits, abolishing seniority and tenure for teachers, mandating yearly decertification votes, threatening jail terms for strikers — is as massive and instantaneous as it was unexpected by the labor bureaucracy and many union members. To say “the class war is back” is an understatement. It’s an authentic firestorm sucking the oxygen from labor rights, from Wisconsin to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and other states.
Burning Truth
Invisible Truth
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Make no mistake about this: Hoang Hung was killed as a warning to other journalists. Make too much noise and you will be roasted alive like this man.
Margaret Burroughs
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Margaret Burroughs, longtime Chicago artist and activist, died on November 21, 2010 at age 93. Producing poetry, block prints, paintings, sculptures, and participating in theater, she was a modern day renaissance woman. She leaves behind two major institutions — the Du Sable Museum and the South Side Community Art Center — that are her legacy to a life dedicated to promoting African-American art and culture.
Business as Usual
The Economic Crisis and the Future of Capitalism
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
In Business as Usual Paul Mattick explains the recession in jargon-free style, without shying away from serious analysis. He explores current events in relation to the development of the world economy since the Second World War and, more fundamentally, looks at the cycle of crisis and recovery that has characterized capitalism since the early nineteenth century. Mattick situates today’s crisis in the context of a capitalism ruled by a voracious quest for profit.
The Butterfly and the Boiling Point
Charting the Wild Winds of Change in 2011
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Revolution is as unpredictable as an earthquake and as beautiful as spring. Its coming is always a surprise, but its nature should not be.
Campaigning with Issues
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Ann Menasche. Ann Menasche, who ran for Secretary of State in California on the Green Party ticket, was interviewed by Dianne Feeley for ATC. Menasche is a longtime activist and an attorney concentrating on disability rights.
Can the Egyptians Come to Canada to Liberate Us?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As I sat glued to Al Jazeera for two weeks watching the Egyptian revolution unfold from my home in Toronto, I must confess to having experienced feelings of jealousy. How nice it must be, I thought, to live a country where people want democracy.
Canada's Imperialism Without Illusions
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Against The Current interviewed Canadian author and activist Todd Gordon on April 29, 2011, shortly before the May 2 national election in Canada. Gordon is the author of Imperialist Canada (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2010). We followed up with additional questions after the election.
Captive Nation - Egypt And The West
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What mainstream media consumers will find almost nowhere (perhaps literally nowhere) is a detailed analysis of how US-UK support for Mubarak fits with a pattern of US-UK support for dictators across the world over many decades, indeed centuries.
Captivity
118 Days in Iraq and the Strugle for a World Without War
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An account of a peace activist kidnapped while leading a peace delegation in Iraq.
Carl Oglesby: A Mentor & Leader
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In my lifetime I’ve heard two speakers whose unadorned eloquence and moral clarity pulled my heart right out of my chest. One was Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, speaking from the roof of the Busy Bee Market in Andersonstown in Belfast the apocalyptic day that hunger striker Bobby Sands died.
The Case of Occupy and the Longshoremen’s Union
Who’s Speaking for Whom?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Occupy Oakland should not be pretending to speak on behalf of Oakland's dockworkers, and should not be telling the dockworkers when and how they should strike. Occupy Oakland's actions are the opposite of democratic, and an affront to the basic notiions of worker's self-activity, workers' empowerment, and workers' control.
The Catherine Ferguson Struggle
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for teen mothers, has been central in controversies surrounding the closures and charters of Detroit’s public schools. Although the cost of $19,000 per student each year is comparable to the cost of educating students at other similar schools, the operational costs, from an Emergency Manager’s perspective, were excessive.
Central America Raises Its Voice in Defence of Its Migrants
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Spiralling violence against Central American migrants in Mexico has prompted legal reforms, diplomatic actions, and the creation of new mechanisms to protect citizens in this region.
A Challenge to Canada’s Wealthiest 0.1%
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Change of the Century
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The heroes of Tahrir Square in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, and in Tunisia, have already changed the course of 21st century history. They have torn a huge hole in the fabric of imperialist dominion over the Middle East. They have begun to reverse what has been 35 years of almost continuous “permanent counterrevolution” in the region.
Chavs
The Demonization of the Working Class
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An analysis of Britain's working class and the sociopolitical attitudes regarding them.
Chevron's Crude Attacks
Court Sides With Big Oil
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Yet another instance of the increasingly pro-business stance of the US legal system.
A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street
The Tangled Purse Strings
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Undemocratic movements are vulnerable to being taken over by a vocal minority or a chraismatic individual.
Chocolate Nations
Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Speculation, pests, political corruption, taxation, land rights, civil war and the IMF are forces at play in this investigation of cocoa agriculture and export in West Africa.
Chris Hedges' Vision & Nightmare: Is There a Human Future?
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There are few writers today who can bring to vision the articulate passion that Chris Hedges directs against the present corporate system; its vile and self-satisfied destructiveness, and the symboitic collusion between this structure of perversion and the betrayal engaged in by “the liberal class.” I believe this aspect of Hedges’ perspective is vitally important and obvious to any reader who begins with the sense that our political culture is in a descending spiral of decay.
The CIA and the Drones
How the Agency Became "One Hell of a Killing Machine"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Claiming the Power to Resist
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Stories and storytelling have power. Stories can help us understand each other as subjects, narrators and protagonists of our own experiences, rather than as objects that are simply being acted upon by forces outside of our control.
Class & Race in A Modern Catastrophe: Lessons of Katrina
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic disaster that resulted in over eighteen hundred fatalities, the displacement of at least 1.2 million people, and economic losses that are not yet finally accounted, but may approach $100 billion. Approximately 2.5 million residences were damaged by the category three storm that made landfall on the morning of August 29, 2005.
Climate Crisis – The Collapse In Corporate Media Coverage
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We find that Britain and the US – the two countries responding most aggressively to alleged 'threats' to human security in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya – are also the two countries least interested in responding to the very real threat of climate change.
Collateral Damage - WikiLeaks In The Crosshairs
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The mainstream media have distorted and deceived in their coverage of the Wikileaks story to manufacture, isolate and target a 'threat' for destruction.
A Comment on Antiwar Strategy
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The debate among antiwar activists on the necessity and movement-building effectiveness of mass demonstrations has been ongoing since the mid-1960s during the Vietnam War, and is not likely to be settled soon. I want to comment here on a related but different argument raised by David Grosser in his stimulating article on antiwar organizing strategy.
Community Organizing: A Holistic Approach
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Kuyek examines the creation of positive social change based on a coherent and wide-ranging analysis of the context in which the work is done and the principles needed to make it effective.
Complicating “White Privilege”
Class, Race and Images of Wilma
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Concerted Effort From Europe Against Israeli Produce Exporter Agrexco
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In Montpellier, France, over 100 activists from 9 countries gathered for the first ever European Forum Against Agrexco. Delegates from Italy, UK, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Palestine joined the French organizers for two full days of workshops aimed at strengthening the boycott campaign against the Israeli agricultural export giant.
Confederacy Redux?
Why We Should Celebrate Reconstruction
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Reconstruction is the era that some have referred to as the United States' greatest moment of democracy.
Confronting intimidation, working for justice in Palestine
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
If once you do not cave in, you discover that as time goes by, the ability of Zionist lobbies of intimidation around the world to affect you gradually diminishes.
Conservative Frank Luntz Has Set a Trap for Progressives -- Here's How to Outsmart Him and Boost the Occupy Movement
Progressives' basic morality needs to be talked about over and over again, in every corner of the country.
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Luntz doesn't want progressives pointing out that corporations govern our lives far more than any government does - and for their profit, not ours. He doesn't want any discussion of corporate waste, or military waste, which is huge.
Conservatives have perfected the trick of defending power by attacking it
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The UK Cameron government is atempting to use a tried-and-proven trick: defending the elite by pretending to attack it.
Conversation with an Anarchist
Democracy, Authoritarianism & Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011 Published: 2012
Corporate-owned media manipulation threatens Canadian democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How freedom of expression is threatened because corporate-owned media in Canada censor and manipulate the news.
Counterpower Making Change Happen
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Counterpower is the single idea which explains why social movements succeed or fail. It has helped win campaigns, secure human rights, stop wars and even bring down governments.
Crayons of Askalan
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
In 1975, at the age of fifteen, Palestinian artist Zuhdi Al Adaw is sentenced and confined in the high security prison of Askalan, Israel for fifteen years. With the help of his fellow prisoners and their families, he manages to stay alive by smuggling in colour crayons and smuggling out his allegorical artwork done on pillowcases, so it finds its way to the outside world.
Crisis in the encampments: Can the Occupy movement be saved from itself?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The question now is whether the Occupy movement can survive as an effective force for political and social action. The decision made some time ago to set up permanent encampments is turning out to be a disaster and is taking attention away from other more productive activist events.
Crisis in the EU: From the Periphery to the Center
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The crisis of 2007-2009, coming from the U.S. core of the globalized system, the crisis that threatens the weak links of the euro, and the third crisis that started to affect Eastern Europe in 2009 have a major common point. Whether we are talking about the United States, Greece or the Baltic States, these crises are the repercussions of profoundly unbalanced growth.
The Dangerous Cult of the Guardian
A Thought Police for the Internet Age
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Guardian includes some fine reporting and occasionally insightful commentary. Possibly because it is farther from the heart of empire, it is able to provide a partial antidote to the craven coverage of the corporate-owned media in the US. Nonetheless, it would be unwise to believe that the Guardian is therefore a free market in progressive or dissident ideas on the left. In fact, quite the contrary: the paper strictly polices what can be said and who can say it in its pages, for cynical reasons we shall come to.
The Day America Died
Assassinating Awlaki
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As long as the President sanctions an illegal act, executive branch employees are no longer accountable to the law that prohibits the illegal act. On the president’s authority, the executive branch can violate US laws against spying on Americans without warrants, indefinite detention, and torture and suffer no consequences.
The Deadly Costs of Muslim Sectarianism
Sunni v. Shia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A war of extraordinary brutality is being waged across the Muslim world which is largely ignored by the media. It is a war in which victims are assassinated or massacred with no chance to defend themselves. Most of those who die are poor people murdered in obscure places without the world paying any attention.
Death in a New York Food Sweatshop
The Killing of Juan Baten
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
For thousands of recent immigrants, the eastern section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is where you go to find work in food processing and distribution factories that service many of New York City's markets and restaurants. If you've ever eaten a meal in New York, you can be assured that you've consumed food that has been produced and distributed through one of these food companies and those in a few adjacent neighborhoods.
The Death of Democracy
Israel's Flood of Anti-Democratic Laws
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Democracy is dying in both Israel and the United States, and much of the world is turning away in revulsion.
A Death Sentence For Africa
The Durban Climate Deal And Eight Corporate Media Unmentionables
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Carbon emissions, already at their peak, will continue to increase for at least the next eight years, pushing humanity closer to the brink of climate collapse. Rather than address the madness of a global system of corporate-led capitalism that is bulldozing us to this disaster, the corporate media mouthed deceptive platitudes.
The Debate Around Liu Xiaobo
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We do not entirely share the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s statement on its decision to award the Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, praising China for having “achieved economic advances to which history can hardly show any equal” but regretting that it is in breach of several international agreements on human rights and China’s own constitution concerning these rights.
Debt: The First 5000 Years
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Graeber traces the history of debt from ancient societies to modern economic crises, arguing that debt has often driven revolutions and social and political change.
The “Decent Left” and the Libya Intervention
A Reply to Michael Bérubé
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Western elites were perfectly comfortable with Gaddafi’s oppressive rule, including his use of torture. These states only broke with Gaddafi when his hold on power tottered, in response to the Arab Spring, and he ceased to be useful. He was no longer viewed as a reliable protector of Western access to Libya’s oil resources.
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Document accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011.
Defender of the Movement
Albert Goldman for the Defense
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A profile of the radical lawyer.
Defining an American State of War
Nine War Words That Define Our World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Nine common terms associated with our present wars that probably don't mean what you think they mean.
Destroying Estonia
The One Per Cent’s New/Old Solution to Economic Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Many economists and financial press writers mimic children on amusement park rides. They think their austerity policies are “steering” their vehicle rather than being guided by underlying structural forces.
Destroying Libya’s Welfare State
NATO's Great Victory
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
For NATO, its corporate allies, and its media mouthpieces, such prosperity for workers simply will not do. We live in a world where austerity for the workers is the order of the day – for those in Libya, Greece, Italy, Spain, Great Britain and the U.S. as well. And those who stand in the way of such austerity measures, whether they be a nationalist government in Libya, Communists in Greece or Occupiers in the U.S., must be dealt with accordingly – by violent reaction.
Detroit: Disappearing City?
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Forty percent of Detroit today is considered virtually “unoccupied.” The administration of Mayor Dave Bing is trying to figure out how to move the remaining residents of these areas out, in the name of “rightsizing” the city. Of course he hasn’t revealed any specifics — and the devil is in the details! Residents are wary: without the money to relocate people and the services needed, it’s just another round of displacing the urban poor.
Detroit Public Schools: Who's Failing?
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It's no scret that the Detroit Public Schools have been in a state of chaos for some time. When former Democratic governor Jennifer Granholm appointed Robert Bobb as Emergency Financial Manager in 2009, many hoped that he would make positive changes. The district was carrying a $219 million deficit, not to mention some of the country’s lowest graduation rates and standardized test scores.
Detroit Symphony Musicians on Strike
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The musicians of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra have been on strike since October 4, 2010. Thirty-five concerts have been cancelled, while the musicians have organized nine magnificent performances with guest conductors in various churches and synagogues in the area. They charged $20 admission and got their friends to volunteer to be ushers and ticket sellers. At a concert of 1100 I attended in a Grosse Pointe Woods church, parishioners seated on either side of me were attending their first symphonic concert.
Direct Action in Hard Times
Activist Strategies from Brazil to Wisconsin
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Factory occupations, land occupations, and other tactics.
Dollarization, Democracy & Daily Life in Zimbabwe
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Satellite TV is big in Zimbabwe; owing to the limited and propagandistic programming on state-sponsored Z-TV, and the travails of night travel on a decaying road network, just about every house in Harare, from the poor/working class Mbare township to the luxury suburb of Burrowdale, sports a dish that brings South African soapies, Al Jazeera and, most importantly, the latest in reality TV to living rooms across the land.
Domestic reality does not match bold words on Internet freedom of expression
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The U.S. government gives lip service to online free speech but simultaneously acts in ways to drastically limit freedom of expression.
The Domestic War on Protesters
It's Not Just Egypt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
While the US claims to uphold right to demonstrate around the world, there have been countless examples throughout the history of this country of protests being shut down by an overwhelming police presence. In recent years, it has become routine for police departments to use a host of tactics to limit and prevent mass demonstrations. These tactics have included mass arrests of demonstrators, preemptive arrests and trumped up charges against protest organizers.
DREAM Deferred, Fight Continues
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Drought
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
As a result of the persistent drought, an entire community prepares for an inevitable exodus from their homeland in northern Mexico.
Drugs, Race & the Gulag Industry
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Across the country corrections department officials and captains of the incarceration industry are in crisis. Though the nation’s over bloated prison system is far from breaking, the halcyon days of proliferating maximum security units and juvenile detention centers appear nearly at an end. Prisons are bursting at the seams and states, reaping the backlash of years of neoliberal tax cuts, have no money to “fix” the problem with another round of construction.
The Earth Grabbers
Fighting the Minerals-Petroleum-Coal Complex
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Climate justice means that the Minerals-Energy Complex will have to take the same course as apartheid.
Ecology and Socialism
Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
The current environmental movement is at an impasse, stuck on false panaceas like cap-and-trade, cutting individual consumption (“live other so that others may simply live”), and outright reactionary “solutions” that revolve around some form of population control (as if the number of people on the planet was the problem rather than the nature of the relationship between said people and the planet). Williams does an excellent job debunking these notions with a plethora of factual information and empirical data.
The Economic Crisis in Fact and Fiction
Paul Mattick Jr. with John Clegg and Aaron Benanav
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Paul Mattick Jr., the author of Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Future of Capitalism.
Education Over Incarceration
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In cities across America, young men from low-income communities are ending up in prison more than they are making it to college — at the rate of seven to one. And during the nation’s protracted economic slump and high rate of unemployment, especially among African Americans and Latino Americans, we can expect that ratio to grow.
Egypt and Beyond
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Gilbert Achcar. Gilbert Achcar, who grew up in Lebanon, is professor of development studies and international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, and author most recently of The Arabs and the Holocaust: the Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.
Egypt at the tipping point?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorship
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Fisk joins protesters atop a Cairo tank as the army shows signs of backing the people against Mubarak's regime.
Egypt Protests Photos
Resource Type: Photo/Image/Poster
First Published: 2011
Egypt Shakes the World
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Suzi Weissman interviewed Yoav Peled and Mark LeVine on her program “Beneath the Surface,” KPFK Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles, on February 11, 2010. The following are edited excerpts from those discussions. Thanks to Meleiza Figueroa for transcribing.
The Egyptian Uprising in the American Media
Obscuring the Obvious
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It is no wonder that most Americans are hopelessly in the dark. Middle East “news” in the mainstream is constructed so that people remain in a perpetual state of confusion and fear.
An Empire of Lies
Why Our Media Betray Us
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Contrary to its avowed aim, mainstream journalism invariably diminishes the impact of new events when they threaten powerful elites.
The Empty Press Room - How Corporate Journalism Happily Lost Interest in Climate Change
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the media’s coverage of climate change, are we really still stuck on square one of some ghastly board game?
The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing of political debates.
The Enemy That Barely Exists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Al-Qa’ida has proved so elusive and difficult to eliminate mainly because it has never existed in the form that governments and intelligence agencies pretend.
Ethnic Cleansing of Invented People
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Once we connect the dots it is not hard to see that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is only a small part of the Israeli Palestinian issue. The greater issue is the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Zionist state. The way forward for Israelis and Palestinians alike is to oppose the ethnic cleansing by opposing all its manifestations.
Europe's New Road to Serfdom
Trichet Threatens Greece with Iron Heel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The conditios for Greece's new loan package is that Greece must initiate a class war by raising its taxes, lowering its social spending – and even private-sector pensions – and sell off public land, tourist sites, islands, ports, water and sewer facilities. This will raise the cost of living and doing business, eroding the nation’s already limited export competitiveness. The bankers sanctimoniously depict this as a “rescue” of Greek finances.
Every Crook Can Govern
Prison Rebellions as a Window to the New World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In their self-organization, the hunger strikers have begun to rupture structures of segregation.
Evolution not "Reinvention: Manning Marable's Malcolm X
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Manning Marable's final book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, is a serious political biography of one of the most historic figures of the African-American community. Marable’s interpretation of papers provided by Malcolm’s family estate, along with files from the FBI, New York City Police Department and new interviews from those who knew Malcolm and the Nation of Islam (NOI), add to our understandings and debates about Malcolm’s views and evolution.
Exploring Imperial Pathologies
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The historical analysis of imperialism as a system of domination and subordination, of colonizer and colonized, of the “developed world” or global North over the “underdeveloped” global South, maintained for the benefit of the “imperial center” or “metropol” continues to evolve. Several recent studies focusing on the distortions, indeed the social and political pathologies inherent in the system, help to deepen our grasp of U.S. imperialism as something far greater and more complex than a system of economic and political relations.
Exposing Israel's Most Dangerous Secret
What's Really Going On at the Israeli Institute for Biological Research?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Israel's preparations for biological and chemical warfare.
The Face of Imperialism
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Parenti redefines empire and imperialism to connect the current crisis in America to its own bad behavior worldwide.
A Family, A Tragedy, A Movement (book review)
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
This book is a gripping account of a fire and a shooting. Yet it is so much more. The lives of James and Annie Hickman, the tragic death of their four children, and James’ trial after shooting their landlord, form the center of Joe Allen’s book. But Allen constructs his narrative with the vivid stories of those who came together around the Hickman tragedy as his building blocks.
The Fate of Vietnam's First Revolution
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
This book opens with a vivid, gut-wrenching account of the arrest, detention and torture of two young Vietnamese revolutionaries in Saigon in June 1936 by the Sûreté, the political police who defended France’s colonial might. We are spared no details: the electric shock treatment; the kicking; the insertion of a wood plank in the prisoner’s mouth while his wrists are tied back to his ankles and he is beaten.
The Field of Magic
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Field of Magic is a docu-poem about people living for over two decades in Buda forest near the closed down Kariotiške.s dump, 40 km from Vilnius, Lithuania. A result of four year’s work, the film captures the perspective of the dump dwellers in telling the story of a dissolving community, its uniqueness, daily rhythm, peculiar way of life, every-day joys and sorrows.
First Nations Under Surveillance
Harper Government Prepares for First Nations “Unrest”
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There needs to be unity on the ground with coordinated political actions between First Nations Peoples in order to protect, defend and advance First Nation pre-existing sovereignty, and First Nation Aboriginal and Treaty rights to lands and resources. Divide and conquer tactics can only be met with new strategies of alliance-building, and by bringing the leadership back down to the land.
5 Broken Cameras
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Structured around the violent destruction of each one of Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village turmoil.
The Fix Is In: Washington's Planned Social Contract Destruction
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
New audit figures show that Bernanke's Fed gave Wall Street and European banksters at least $16.1 trillion (called emergency loans) from December 1, 2007 - July 21, 2010, besides unknown amounts earlier and in the past year. Moreover, it's well known that trillions of dollars are stolen, handed to corporate interests and never returned, as well as gotten in other illegal ways. As a result, taxpayers get stuck with the bill, the nation with unsustainable mounting debt, heading it eventually for ruin.
Focus and determination required: A call to all progressive organizations to unite under one big umbrella
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We need a movement powerful enough to pressure corporate media owners into providing equal coverage, and with access to enough financing to support the development of alternative, independent media. If the progressive movement is to be successful in improving society, it is hugely important for it to be able to reach the general public with its information creating a balanced view of important issues in Canada.
The Foreclosure-to-Rental Screwjob
Bernanke's Double-Whammy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The US government is preparing to bail out the banks once again.
Foundations and Social Change
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Corporate philanthropy is money laundering, pure and simple. It is an institution that serves to legitimate ill-gotten gains, and to hide the fact that were it not for our system of regressive taxation, people could hypothetically exercise some sort of democratic control over money stolen from workers and cheated out of debtors and consumers.
451 at Zuccotti Park
"Where man starts by burning books he ends up by burning people."
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The books at Zuccotti Park were hauled away in dumpsters belonging to the sanitation department. The pretext of the destruction was “cleaning” the park which, the Mayor said, was filled with “filth”. This is the rhetoric of Mein Kampf.
FRANCE: Battling Over Pensions
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
France was rocked in September-October 2010 by some of the country’s largest protests in recent memory, as workers fought to prevent cuts to their public pensions. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s agenda promised to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and the age for a full pension from 65 to 67.
Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster: A `realistic’ answer to the ecological crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Resolving the ecological crisis is incompatible with capitalism. We must build a movement that works against capitalist logic with the aim to overcoming it in favour of a properly sustainable and egalitarian form of society.
From Cairo to Madison, The Old Mole Comes Up For An Early Spring
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Individual sectors, even as large as public employees in the U.S., have to reach out to all those who have been ground down over the past forty years. Any working-class movement worthy of the name embraces the interests of the most oppressed, and that today includes the 15-20% of the U.S. population currently unemployed and increasingly foreclosed into homelessness, the casuals and temps, the harassed immigrant workers both legal and illegal, the millions of marginalized youth, white black and Latino, and the three million people in prison. We know very well that not every struggle that erupts can immediately enlist all such people, but a “climate” must be created in which that universal outreach—what we might call a “class for itself” orientation– is understood as a necessity.
From Portugal to Egypt: a Cautionary Tale
The Anti-Empire Report
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The events in Egypt cannot help but remind me of Portugal. Here, there, and everywhere, now and before, the United States of America, as always, is petrified of anything genuinely progressive or socialist, or even too democratic, for that carries the danger of allowing god-knows what kind of non-America-believer taking office.
From Tahrir to Palestine
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Nabeel Abraham, a professor of anthropology and director of the honors program at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan, is a longtime Palestinian and Arab community activist. Against the Current asked him to comment on the following question: “What impact do you think the Egyptian events might have on the Palestinian struggle — both against the Israeli occupation and for internal democracy — over the next few months or maybe the next year?”
Fuck Hamas! Fuck Israel! Gaza youth offers up a cry of despair
Rapid global reaction to cyber-manifesto surprises its drafters
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A group of Palestinian youth put out a manifesto that calls for an end to divisive party politics in Gaza and the West Bank. The youth want peace and freedom.
Fuel For Occupy Wall Street's Fire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Ultimately, the Occupy Wall Street protests have already succeeded. The movement has successfully re-focused the nation's debate on who ruined the economy and who should be targeted, shifting blame away from immigrants, unions, and other groups of working people, like public employees. The protests have also re-fueled working people's energy after the post-Wisconsin letdown, activating the energies of many who want to collectively organize for progressive change in the interests of working people.
Fury Mounts Among Greek People
"Do you think we are the parasites of Europe?"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Nobody trusts the government or the opposition because people blame them for starting the crisis in the first place.
The Futile Undertaking of Palestinian Statehood
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Eventually a state that represents all its inhabitants on the basis of equality and genuine respect and dignity for all its citizens is one that the world will some day celebrate, not a phony declaration that legitimizes the oppressive nature of one and confers false hope on the other.
Generation NGO
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Young Canadians are increasingly active and engaged in global issues. Many are eagerly poised to contribute—in smaller and even larger ways—to international development and the Canadian national politics that, for better or worse, shape the field.
German autonomen: morality police
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On the origins of "black bloc" tactics.
Get Up, Stand Up
Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Levine offers insights into the epidemic of political passivity in America and analyzes how major U.S. institutions have created helplessness and fatalism. He proposes ways of recovering dignity, energy, and unity in order to wrest power away from the corporatocracy.
Givebacks in a Deepening Crisis
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What can be called the latest phase of “concession bargaining” emerging in the past year — politically imposed concessions taking back working people’s “social wage” — is historic.
Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis & Resistance
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Global Slump analyzes the global financial meltdown as the first systemic crisis of the neoliberal stage of capitalism. It argues that – far from having ended – the crisis has ushered in a whole period of worldwide economic and political turbulence. In developing an account of the crisis as rooted in fundamental features of capitalism, Global Slump challenges the view that its source lies in financial deregulation.
The Golden Rule Of State Violence: Terrorism Is What They Do; Counterterrorism Is What We Do
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A defining feature of state power is rhetoric about a ‘moral’ or ‘ethical’ role in world affairs. Errors of judgement, blunders and tactical mistakes can, and do, occur. But the motivation underlying state policy is fundamentally benign. Reporters and commentators, trained or selected for professional ‘reliability’, tend to slavishly adopt this prevailing ideology.
Goldstone's shameful U-turn
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
This shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination.
A Great Aridness
Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
In A Great Aridness, William deBuys paints a compelling picture of what the Southwest might look like when the heat turns up and the water runs out. This semi-arid land, vulnerable to water shortages, rising temperatures, wildfires, and a host of other environmental challenges, is poised to bear the heaviest consequences of global environmental change in the United States.
The Greater Toronto Workers Assembly: A Hopeful Experiment
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We are living in a kind of transitional era, where the old forms of working class organization and politics are sorely in need of a replacement, and the theoretical and practical bases of those replacements are still in the process of being born. The Greater Toronto Workers Assembly is one attempt to create a working class institution that tries to address this crisis within the class and on the left on the level of a city, in this case, Toronto.
GREECE: The Crisis Continues
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What's happened in Greece after the explosive strikes and street protests that erupted over the terms of the European bailout in 2010?
Growing Up ILWU in Tacoma, Washington
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
I grew up with militancy in a longshore family.
Gutting Cities and Public Education
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Almost sixty more Detroit public schools are to be closed over the next two years — with up to 45 open to being taken over by charter operators. This is the “Renaissance 2012 Plan” developed by state-appointed “Emergency Financial Manager” Robert Bobb. As Bobb’s two-year term ends it appears to have been a pilot project for the wholesale and anti-democratic restructuring of local governance.
Has Europe's Crisis Peaked Yet?
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A discussion with Eric Toussaint, president of the Committee for Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM) in Belgium.
Hate Speech and Free Speech
The Wrong Kind of Climate Control
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Laws against sedition, in whatever guise, are an attack on free speech. Unlike laws against those rare instances of incitement which trigger immediate and actual violence against a present target (as in "get him boys!"), laws against sedition are always couched in vague, open ended terms because the real target is not the alleged "dangers" protected against but some political agenda or ideology that is opposed.
Hell No
Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
In the Age of Terrorism, the United States has become a much more dangerous place—for activists and dissenters, whose rights are all too frequently abridged by the government. A report on government attacks on dissent and protest in the United States, along with a readable and essential guide for activists, teachers, grandmothers, and anyone else who wants to oppose government policies and actions
Here’s the Key Question in the Libyan War
As the “Humanitarian Warriors” Gloat…
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
My principal opposition to this recent war is precisely that, at a time when even some in Washington were hesitant, the “humanitarian interventionists”, with their sophistic pretense of “protecting innocent civilians”, have fed and encouraged this monster by offering it “the low-hanging fruit” of an easy victory in Libya. This has made the struggle to bring a semblance of peace and sanity to the world even more difficult than it was already.
Historic Declaration by Palestinians, Israelis in Support of Israeli Social Protest, Anti-Colonial Struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Some 20 political parties and social movements from both sides of the Green Line issued an historic declaration in support of the social protests currently rocking Israel and their necessary linkage to the struggle against Israel’s occupation and colonial policies.
History, Theory, Politics & Invisible Man
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Paul Heideman's spirited critique of my review of Barbara Foley’s Wrestling with the Left testifies to the reach of Foley’s study. That the politics of Ellison’s novel would be up for debate in a journal like Against the Current would be unthinkable without Foley’s efforts. In multiple articles going back more than a decade, and culminating in Wrestling, Foley challenges the consensus critical position that Invisible Man was made possible by Ellison’s clean break from the left, and that the novel offers an objective and accurate critique of U.S. Communism.
Home is Where the Hatred Is
A Conversation With Isabel Wilkerson
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Homeless in America
Throw Them Out With the Trash
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets — not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping.
Hope: The Care And Feeding Of
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Hope is based on uncertainty, on the premise that we don’t know what will happen next.
The Hour of Sunlight
One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Traces al Jundi's evolution from Palestinian militant to prisoner to peacemaker.
How Canada Subsidizes Illegal Israeli Settlements
Enabling Crimes Against Palestinians
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Canada's tax system currently subsidizes Israeli settlements that Ottawa deems illegal, however, the Conservative government says there's nothing that can be done about it.
How Change Happens: A Three-Fold Strategy
To build a new economy, we must work on three fronts
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The power of authentic culture stories gives civil society the ultimate advantage in the contest for the human future. Stories alone will not, of course, bring down the institutions of Empire. Nor should we welcome the inevitable chaos that the collapse of Empire will bring if we have not first laid a foundation of the new rules, relationships, and institutions of a New Economy.
How Israel Empowers Islamist Movements
Shukran, Israel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
If Islamist movements come to power all over the region, they should express their debt of gratitude to their bete noire, Israel. Without the help of successive Israeli governments, they may not have been able to realize their dreams. That is true in Gaza, in Beirut, in Cairo and even in Tehran.
How Offshoring Has Destroyed the Economy
Nobel Laureate: Globalism Has Been Ruinous for Americans
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
All of economics is predicated on the notion that resources are inexhaustible, and that the only challenge is to use them most efficiently. But if resources are not inexhaustible and cannot be replicated by human capital, the world economy is being ruthlessly exploited to its detriment and to the detriment of life on earth.
How Smart Are the "Smart" Meters?
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What does it really mean when a corporation calls a new product “smart?” Gas and electric corporations are calling their newest technology “smart meters.”
How the 'ecosystem' myth has been used for sinister means
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When, in the 1920s, a botanist and a field marshal dreamed up rival theories of nature and society, no one could have guessed their ideas would influence the worldview of 70s hippies and 21st-century protest movements. But their faith in self-regulating systems has a sinister history.
How the French pension system works
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Behind the pension reform demonstrations–discontent with politics and politicians, and with the capitalist system itself.
How The Oligarchy Gets Politicized
A Short History of Elite Responses To Political-Economic Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The political activism of the elite is striking in times of crisis, when the latter takes the form either of severe economic contraction or of working-class militancy, or both.
How to Change the World
Tales of Marx and Marxism
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
How to Start a Revolution
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
A documentary on the work and ideas of Gene Sharp, a theorist of non-violent revolution.
Hunting the CIA's Keystone Kommandos
On the Trail of Agency Kidnappers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
You cannot overstate the CIA’s capacity to bungle things. Sheer incompetence explains far more of America’s espionage fiascos than most of us might think. The other point is the importance of hubris in CIA history—the idea that the CIA operates in such a different universe, is so far above the law, that its people often feel they can’t possibly get caught, and that if they do, they couldn’t possibly be punished.
I am Occupied/Yo Soy Occupado
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Imperialism 101
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and political leaders.
In Defense of Grand Narratives
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
The postmodernist attack on Marxism conflates the crudities of “Marxism-Leninism” with the thought of Marx himself. Its critique of Enlightenment rationality fails on its own terms, but it also fails to discern Marx’s break with his Enlightenment forebearers. Marx’s goal — the emancipation of the human individual from need and the flowering of “rich individuality” — is not that of rationalism, Hegelianism or classical political economy.
In Memory of Carl Oglesby
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Forty-six years ago this November, then-SDS president Carl Oglesby stood on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. and told those assembled to protest the war in Vietnam that the men who were responsible for that war were not evil, they were “trapped in a system.” They were, like Antony had told the crowd of those who had killed Caesar, “all honorable men.” Indeed, they were all liberals.
In Praise of Marx
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Why might Marx be back on the agenda? The answer, ironically, is because of capitalism. Whenever you hear capitalists talking about capitalism, you know the system is in trouble.
India’s Autoworkers Behaving Like the Old UAW
The Real Deal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
While it’s true that international banks and corporations have their slimy tentacles in everything from foreign governments to foreign armies, the world’s workers have two weapons of their own. One is the crippling, paralyzing effect of no-go dockworkers. The other is the logistical potential of the Internet.
India’s Vanishing Vultures
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Can the world’s fastest growing nation restore its prime scavenger before there are untold human consequences?
The Inquisition of Climate Science
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
The Inquisition of Climate Science is the first book to comprehensively take on the climate science denial movement and the deniers themselves, exposing their lack of credentials, their extensive industry funding, and their failure to provide any alternative theory to explain the observed evidence of warming. Lawrence Powell's book clearly reveals that the evidence of global warming is real and that an industry of denial has deceived the American public, putting them and their grandchildren at risk.
Inside 15M: 48h with the indignants
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Inside the Global Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Inside the Global Crisis
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
“The roots of the modern financial system lie in developments in the early 1980s when investors of capital could not find avenues where they could obtain reasonable returns after a decline, from the early 1970s onwards, in the profit levels of traditional companies.”
The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The economic context points to the paradox of the Internet as it has developed in a capitalist society. The Internet has been subjected, to a significant extent, to the capital accumulation process, which has a clear logic of its own, inimical to much of the democratic potential of digital communication, and that will be ever more so, going forward. What seemed to be an increasingly open public sphere, removed from the world of commodity exchange, seems to be morphing into a private sphere of increasingly closed, proprietary, even monopolistic markets.
Interrogating the Feminine Mystique
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Stephanie Coontz. Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Dianne Feeley interviewed Stephanie about her new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s.
Introduction to Is There a Human Future?
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Following Chris Hedges’ forced retirement as a war correspondent and New York Times reporter (where his reputation was forged by his acclaimed first book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning), Hedges has emerged as a trenchant and increasingly radical critic of the politics and imperial culture of the United States. His prolific articles and speeches paint a picture of a society well on its way to self-destruction through the dominance of corporate power and sheer greed.
IRELAND: Slaying the Celtic Tiger
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Like most nations, Ireland has its share of myths and legends. Most of us know a few of them — Saint Patrick drove out the snakes, the Children of Lir were turned into swans, the ancient warrior Cúchulainn took on all comers. And, since the mid-1990s, Ireland and the international community trumpeted a new myth and legend, the so-called Celtic Tiger.
Is Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?
How a Giant Weapons Maker Became the New Big Brother
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The increasing influence and role of Lockhead Martin, the giant weapons corporation.
Israel Shamir and Slavoj Zizek
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Despite my general aversion to Slavoj Zizek, I want to defend him against the misrepresentations found in Israel Shamir’s Counterpunch article from July 14th titled “Doing a Full Monty for Tel Aviv: Zizek and the Gaza Flotilla“. Zizek is not above criticism but Shamir’s article is nothing but a hatchet job.
It Doesn’t Matter to Them If It’s Untrue. It’s a Higher Truth.
The Anti-Empire Report
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The lies used to justify the US/NATO attack on Libya.
Jai Bhim Comrade
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
India’s Dalit (oppressed) castes were abhorred as “untouchables”. The film, shot over 14 years follows the music of protest of Maharashtra's Dalits. In an age of increasing bigotry and superstition, it is both a record of recent history as well as eloquent testimony to a tradition that has survived amongst the subaltern for thousands of years.
Journalists, community groups need to develop independent Canadian media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It is shocking that – in the 21st Century – we still have a system under which corporate over-lords – not the journalists who produce the news – control the process that determines the content of mainstream media.
Keep the TTC public
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Privatization of public transit around the world has been a disaster for taxpayers and riders. In this video, we learn of some of these disasters and why Toronto should avoid TTC public-private partnerships. Narrated by Canadian actor Eric Peterson.
Keller's Hatchet Job
The NYT vs. Assange
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
For evidence of the sorry state of honesty and integrity in American public life, one need go no further than the New New York Times.
Koch Entertained Justice Thomas At His Private Club
Supreme Court Scandal Widens
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Koch Whisperers
Big Brothers Buy in at Big Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A review of documents and tax records for the dizzying, interconnected web of corporate front groups, frequently created, supported and influenced by Charles or David Koch, shows just how dangerous these groups espousing free markets and liberty have become to a free society. The game plan is to devalue the rights of actual citizens by seeking human voices dangling from a corporate marionette string, that might be willing for the right amount of cash incentive to broadcast the Orwellian reverse-speak: liberty means more liberty for corporations (corporate serfdom for real citizens); freedom means corporate freedom to privatize national resources, pollute the environment and fleece the consumer with impunity; free market means the freedom to draw a dark curtain around how the corporations are actually screwing us and stealing our liberty.
The Lasting Legacy of Florynce Kennedy, Black Feminist Fighter
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Several decades after the 1960s political upheavals, very few people recognize the name of the Black feminist lawyer and activist Florynce “Flo” Kennedy (1916-2000). However, during the late 1960s and 1970s Kennedy was the country’s most well-known Black feminist. When reporting on the emergence of the women’s movement, the media covered her early membership in the National Organization for Women (NOW), her leadership of countless guerilla theatre protests and her work as a lawyer helping to repeal New York’s restrictive abortion laws. Indeed, Black feminist Jane Galvin-Lewis and white feminists Gloria Steinem and Ti-Grace Atkinson credit Kennedy with helping to educate a generation of young women about feminism in particular and radical political organizing more generally.
Laughing at the People of Walmart While Class Warfare Rages in America
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What is it that POW and the TSG are really selling? Conformity, my friends. You there, in your comfortable suburban house or your hipster urban condo pad, yes, you are one of the cool people. You’d never be caught dead out in public dressed like one of these freaks.
Laying the Groundwork for Change
A Review of Michael Riordon, Our Way to Fight: Peace-Work Under Siege in Israel-Palestine.
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Michael Riordon's new book (published in Toronto by Pluto Press/Between the Lines, 2011, 242 pages) explores what a just peace between Israel and Palestine might look like and how it might be built. It does so by describing the work of a wide range of NGOs and movements, both Palestinian and Israeli, involved in a non-violent struggle for peace and/or justice.
Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
I love the public library service for what it did for me as a child and as a student and as an adult. I love it because its presence in a town or a city reminds us that there are things above profit, things that profit knows nothing about, things that have the power to baffle the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism, things that stand for civic decency and public respect for imagination and knowledge and the value of simple delight.
The Left’s Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Lenin
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Lessons from COINTELPRO
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We can best honor those who have been murdered by our government and their agents, not by mourning but by organizing, by building movements that put into practice solidarity across borders that are inclusive in all the important ways - class, gender, race, sexual orientation, language, immigrant status and age - that resist boldly and courageously all forms of inequality and environmental degradation.
Let Them Eat Cuts
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The good times are flowing again for Wall Street and bank executives, and U.S. corporate profits have rarely if ever looked so lush. But it’s a brutal moment for working people, with much worse possibly to come. These twin realities set the economic and political agenda heading into 2011-12. Everyone knows the Republicans are hell-bent on “making Obama a one-term president,” but few expected that they’d capture the White House in 2010. If that’s an exaggeration, it’s a mild one.
Let Them Eat Diversity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Alter Benn Michaels says that “'left neoliberals' are people who don’t understand themselves as neoliberals. They think that their commitments to anti-racism, to anti-sexism, to anti-homophobia constitute a critique of neoliberalism. But if you look at the history of the idea of neoliberalism you can see fairly quickly that neoliberalism arises as a kind of commitment precisely to those things."
Letter from Tokyo: In "The Zone" of Disaster
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On the morning of Thursday, March 17th, six days after the earthquake and tsunamis, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper had just one advertising supplement: a full-color glossy piece from a Buddhist temple, selling grave sites.
Letter to the Next Left
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The problem of agency is especially relevant to what remains of the Left today, and it is the part of C. Wright Mills’ Letter to the New Left that is the most problematic.
Libya
From Colony to Revolution
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Provides the background to the Libyan revolution by discussing its history from colonization up through the 2011 rebellion/foreign intervention that ousted Mu'ammar al-Qadafi.
Libya and the Arab Uprisings
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
First Published: 2011
The sweeping upheavals in Arab countries and North Africa continue to unfold. Among these events, the uprising in Libya and the subsequent United Nations/NATO intervention have provoked intense controversy within the international left and antiwar movement. The debate is an inevitable and necessary one — given both the imminent massacre that appeared likely to occur if the Qaddafi regime recaptured Benghazi and other opposition population centers, and what we well know to be the far-from-humanitarian motives of the imperialist intervening powers.
Libya and the World We Live In
The Holy Triumvirate
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO and the European Union — recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like “humanitarian”.
Living and Working Uncovered
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Sonya Huber. Sonya Huber (www.sonyahuber.com) is the author of Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir.
Living "Illegal"
The Human Face of Unauthorized Immigration
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Local and Organic Food and Farming
The Real Gold Standard
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When the local chemical grower tells you that local is better than organic, tell them that they should switch to organic so that you can trust their food to be safe, clean, inspected, and environmentally friendly. Local food is not the gold standard, and may not even be safe. Local-organic is the gold standard.
Local Harvest for an Urban Landscape
Laying the Foundations for Sustainable Local Food Systems
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How do you create a locally harvested food system for a city of 100,000?
Lockdown High
When the Schoolhouse Becomes a Jailhouse
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Schools in the U.S. are increasingly imposed unprecedented restrictions on students' rights, dignity, and educational freedom. In what is being called the school-to-prison pipleline, the police and practices of the juvenile justice system, including so-called "zero tolerance" policies, are pushing students out of schools.
Looking North for Labor Revival?
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It isn't news that the U.S. labor movement is in profound crisis, and has been for some time. Readers of this magazine are by now all too familiar with the symptoms: waves of concessionary contracts, eroding labor laws, vicious government and employer attacks, defeated strikes, the precipitous decline in union membership.
Love and Capital
Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A biography of Karl and Jenny Marx.
Lower classes quicker to show compassion in the face of suffering
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Researchers have found that people in the lower socio-economic classes are more physiologically attuned to suffering, and quicker to express compassion than their more affluent counterparts. By comparison, individuals in the upper middle and upper classes were less able to detect and respond to the distress signals of others.
Lupercalian Valentine's Day
Whip It Good
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The tradition of honoring all-inclusive, natural LUST around February 14 pre-dates classical times when Ancient Romans celebrated the Lupercalia, an archaic festival of the now obscure old shepherd god Lupercus (or perhaps Faunus, the Roman Pan), and a celebration of communal sexuality, purification, fertility, the rush of hormones, the howl of the wolf, the crack of the whip and the coming of Spring.
The Making of Egypt's Revolution
People Power in Action
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Man Who Recorded the World
A Biography of Alan Lomax
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Documentarian of the folk culture of American life,, Lomax was diligent and tireless in preserving the irreplaceable vernacular cultures that have fallen into the past.
Manning Marable and Malcolm X: The Power of Biography
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Social movement theorists have written much about the political opportunities, constraints, and levels of organizational readiness enabling or inhibiting popular insurgency. We still know less, however, about the complex framing processes involved in forging and maintaining activist identities and self-narratives.
The March on Blair Mountain
A Historic Day in West Virginia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The coal industry is an industry which has admitted it can not make a profit without breaking laws.
Marxism and organization
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Marxist History of the World part 26: Africa: cattle-herders, iron-masters, and trading states
Africa: cattle-herders, iron-masters, and trading states
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Neil Faulkner looks at the early civilisations in Africa and how geography ensured the continent would develop differently from Eurasia.
A Marxist History of the World part 27: New World Empires: Maya, Aztec, and Inca
New World Empires: Maya, Aztec, and Inca
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The early civilisations of the Americas were limited by its geography - in only two areas did urban revolution occur and civilisations develop: in parts of Mesoamerica, and in the Central Andes.
A Marxist History of the World part 28: The cycles and arrows of time
The cycles and arrows of time
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In Part 9 of A Marxist History of the World, we paused to discuss ‘how history works’. It would be useful to pause again to review some general lessons of the history of the ancient and medieval civilisations we have looked at since.
A Marxist History of the World part 29: The peculiarity of Europe
The peculiarity of Europe
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Why Europe? Why was it that the second great transformation in human existence - the development of capitalism and industrial society - was pioneered on the western edge of the Eurasian land-mass?
A Marxist History of the World part 30: The rise of western feudalism
The rise of western feudalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Following the collapse of the Roman Empire Western Europe became a politically fragmented region of warring states from which a radically new social, military, and political order developed.
A Marxist History of the World part 31: Crusade and Jihad
Crusade and Jihad
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Crusades lasted 200 years and represented the most extreme expression of the futile violence inherent in western feudalism - a murderous attack on the Middle East by western feudal thugs under the banner of religion.
A Marxist History of the World part 32: Lord, burgher, and peasant in medieval Europe
Lord, burgher, and peasant in medieval Europe
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Feudalism is often portrayed as a stagnant system where little changed over centuries. The reality was a system that was more dynamic and productive than anything before it argues Neil Faulkner.
A Marxist History of the World part 33: The class struggle in medieval Europe
The class struggle in medieval Europe
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Despite dominating western Europe in the 11th century by the 14th century Feudalism was faced with a crisis that generated a wave of revolutionary struggle. Neil Faulkner looks at the causes and outcomes.
A Marxist History of the World part 34: The new monarchies
The new monarchies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Neil Faulkner looks at how the transition from feudalism to capitalism introduced a new model of unified states, centralised government, royal armies, internal repression and national-dynastic wars.
A Marxist History of the World part 35: The new colonialism
The new colonialism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Portuguese and Spanish overseas empires founded at the beginning of the 16th century were soon followed by Dutch, English, and French empires. Neil Faulkner looks at how the transformation of the world by European colonialism began.
A Marxist History of the World part 36: The Reformation
The Reformation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Reformation after 1521 tore apart church and state. Neil Faulkner looks at how the new social forces formed inside late medieval Europe helped undermine the thousand year domination of the Roman Catholic Church.
A Marxist History of the World part 37: The Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Neil Faulkner looks at how the Reformation was followed by a counter-revolutionary response which involved a dogmatic reassertion of Catholic orthodoxy: the Counter-Reformation.
A Marxist History of the World part 38: The Dutch Revolution
The Dutch Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
For more than 40 years, with wildly fluctuating fortunes, the Dutch Revolution of 1566-1609 took the form of a protracted popular war of national defence against the Spanish Empire.
A Marxist History of the World part 39: The Thirty Years War
The Thirty Years War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Between 1618 and 1648 Germany was wrecked by insecurity, depopulation, disruption to trade, the destruction of property, and military plundering. Neil Faulkner looks at The Thirty Years War.
A Marxist History of the World part 40: The causes of the English Revolution
The causes of the English Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Neil Faulkner looks at the how the unresolved contradictions in English society and the attempt to establish Continental-style absolutism led to the execution of the king, and the establishment of a bourgeois republic.
A Marxist History of the World part 41: 1640-1645: revolution and war in England
1640-1645: revolution and war in England
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The attempt to impose Absolutism by Charles I led to a revolutionary civil war in which the King would be executed - Neil Faulkner looks at the English Civil War.
A Marxist History of the World part 42: The Army, the Levellers, and the Commonwealth
The Army, the Levellers, and the Commonwealth
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Neil Faulkner looks at how even the most radical bourgeois forces, if they are to preserve their property and status, must break the momentum of the movement that has brought them to power.
A Marxist History of the World part 43: Colonies, slavery, and racism
Colonies, slavery, and racism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Capitalist contradictions were most evident in the 18th century, when the wealth of the merchant-capitalist class of Britain’s port-cities was contrasted with the untold human misery of the slaves, ramping up the historical significance of racist ideology.
A Marxist History of the World part 44: Wars of empire
Wars of empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The English Revolution transformed Britain into a capitalist economy engaging in geopolitical competition. Neil Faulkner looks at how Britain became the dominant global superpower of the 19th Century.
A Marxist History of the World part 45: The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What gave the Enlightenment its subversive, politically corrosive character was its critique of institutions and practices which appeared comparatively irrational in the light of modern thinking, argues Neil Faulkner.
A Marxist History of the World part 46: The American Revolution
The American Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In 1764, Americans thought of themselves as British subjects of King George III. By 1788, they would, by their own decisions and actions, have made themselves the free citizens of a new republic forged in revolution and war.
A Marxist History of the World part 47: The French Revolution - Storming of the Bastille
The French Revolution - Storming of the Bastille
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the latest of his series on the Marxist understanding of history, Neil Faulkner explores revolution and counter-revolution in 18th-Century France.
A Marxist History of the World Part 48: The French Revolution - The Jacobin Dictatorship
The French Revolution - The Jacobin Dictatorship
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In his latest instalment, Neil Faulkner explores the rise of the Jacobin dictatorship and the ever-present threat of counter-revolution in 18th Century France.
A Marxist History of the World part 49: The French Revolution - Themidor, Directory and Napoleon
The French Revolution - Themidor, Directory and Napoleon
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In his third chapter on the French Revolution, Neil Faulkner discusses the contradictions of bourgeois revolution - but celebrates the gains it won.
A Marxist History of the World part 50: The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Frederick Engels was sent to Manchester, centre of the Industrial Revolution, to dispel his radicalism. Instead it made him the revolutionary he is remembered as today, Neil Faulkner explains.
A Marxist History of the World part 51: the origins of the Labour Movement
the origins of the Labour Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Capitalism's industrial revolution gave birth to its own gravediggers, argues Neil Faulkner as he examines the rise and fall of Chartism.
A Marxist History of the World part 52: The 1848 Revolutions
The 1848 Revolutions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Even when progress is reversed, some hard-won gains are permanent. Neil Faulkner examines how the counter-revolution in 1848 failed to entirely turn the clock back.
A Marxist History of the World part 53: What is Marxism?
What is Marxism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In his latest instalment, Neil Faulkner explores the complex history of Marxism - and how capitalism produced its own gravediggers.
A Marxist History of the World part 54: What is Capitalism?
What is Capitalism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In this critical chapter of his world history, Neil Faulkner explores capitalism and what it means from the Industrial Revolution to the present day.
A Marxist History of the World part 55: The Making of the Working Class
The Making of the Working Class
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The development of capitalism entails two complementary processes. The first, explored in MHW 54, is competitive capital accumulation. The second, explored here, is the making – and continual re-making – of the working class.
May Day at 125
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the spring of 1886 workers at Chicago’s McCormick Harvesting Machine Company struck for the eight-hour workday. They were locked out by the employers, who hired strikebreakers in their place. On May 1 a protest parade was held outside of the plant; two days later police attacked the demonstrators, killing one.
Maybe 99% is a bit much, but…
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It is a fact that over the last couple of decades, much of the growth in total income in the U.S. has gone to the upper reaches of society.
The Meaning of the Revolution
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
These are the words of Asmaa Mahfouz, a 26-year-old woman whose January 18 blog is said to have helped mobilize the million that turned up in Cairo and the thousands in other cities on January 25. Asmaa’s blog, like the stories of many Egyptian women of this revolution, offer a challenge to two key questions framing U.S. discourse on the Egyptian revolution.
The media consensus on Israel is collapsing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Across the political spectrum, once-taboo criticism is now common.
Memories of [my] Syndicalism
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A handful of friends, old and new, have asked me about the path that my ideas and activities have taken me, some 50 years after I happened across a civil rights picket line in my hometown of Champaign, Illinois in the summer of 1960. The following is a radical memory unusual in some ways, but with many similarities to the memories of my New Left contemporaries in the outcome.
Julian Mer-Khamis
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We mourn the tragic and senseless assassination of the brilliant revolutionary filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis, who was gunned down April 4 in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. His documentary film “Arna’s children,” about his mother’s lifelong struggle and her work in founding the Jenin Freedom Theater, and the realities of life for Palestinian youth under occupation, is a masterpiece. The Freedom Theater is a priceless center for resistance as well as the healing of these young people.
Migration
Changing the World
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
The author discusses the increasing trend of migration in the modern world, its causes and effects, and peoples and governments responses.
Milton Rogovin: Portraitist to the People
He Gave Them Respect
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
His photography did not turn people into victims, nor did it make them heroes.
Mining companies funded Indonesian abuses
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Two mine operators have cosy ties with the Indonesian military, who have a long history of human rights abuses.
Moral Poverty and the Riots
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Because the right has appropriated the arguments about moral failure, many on the left have rejected moral arguments altogether. The left talks much about the social and economic impact of neoliberal policies. But little about their moral impact. Such willful blindness is dangerous. Morality is as important to the left as it is to the right, though for different reasons. There can be no possibility of a political or economic vision of a different society without a moral vision too. Moral arguments lie at the heart of our understanding of social solidarity, and of the distinction between notions of social solidarity and pious rightwing claims of ‘we’re all in it together’.
Mountaintop Removal: Environmental And Human Destruction For Profit
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) is an initiative "to stop the destruction of our communities and environment by mountaintop removal, to improve the quality of life in our area, and to help rebuild sustainable communities."
Mubarak's Last Gasps
From Counter-Attack to Departure Day
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt.
Mubarak's third force terror tactic
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
President Mubarak unleashed his 'personal' thugs in a failed attempt to silence protestors seeking an end to his regime. The tactics of deploying so-called third forces is a tried and tested method of autocratic regimes, usually utilised when the regime realises that it is on the strategic defencive politically.
The murder of the Mon Valley
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Only the combined struggle of the international working class can overcome the tyranny of capital and transform the world into a place fit for human beings. This must be our goal. Otherwise the murderer of the Mon Valley may become the murderer of humankind.
The Murdered Women of Juarez
Trails of Impunity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The murder of young women, often raped and tortured has brought international infamy to Cuidad Juarez.
Murfreesboro vs. Islamophobia
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When the Muslim community in Murfreesboro, Tennessee sought a permit to build an expanded Islamic Center, local bigots saw an opportunity to exploit the same “moral panic,” invented by the Tea Party, the Christian Right and much of the corporate media, that would also emerge in New York around the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” The amalgamation of racial, ethnic, religious and national identities into a demonic Islamic “Other,” has been spreading throughout the United States as well as Western Europe.
Murfreesboro vs. Islamophobia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When the Muslim community in Murfreesboro, Tennessee sought a permit to build an expanded Islamic Center, local bigots saw an opportunity to exploit the same “moral panic,” invented by the Tea Party, the Christian Right and much of the corporate media, that would also emerge in New York around the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.”
My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.
The Myth of Greek Profligacy
Destroying the Livelihoods of Thirteen Million People
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The top 20 per cent of the income distribution in Greece pay virtually no taxes at all, the product of a corrupt bargain reached during the days of the junta between the military and Greece’s wealthiest plutocrats. No wonder there is a fiscal crisis.
The Myth of Precision-Guided Coercion
From Serbia to Libya
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The weapons makers love the marriage of high-cost precision weapons to coercive diplomacy, because it generates an astronomical need for a never ending flow of money into their financial coffers with orders for new weapons.
Nearly $2 Trillion Purloined from U.S. Workers in 2009
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The upward redistribution has remained as hidden as possible. The forms it has taken—as bonuses, bloated salaries, elephantine stock options, padded consulting fees, outsized compensation to boards of directors, sumptuous conferences, palatial offices complete with original artwork, retinues of superfluous “support” staff, hunting lodges, private corporate dining rooms, regal retirement agreements, and so on—defy exact categorization. Some would appear as profit, some as interest, some as dividends, realized capital gains, gigantic pension programs, retained earnings, or owners’ income, with the remainder deeply buried as “costs of doing business.”
The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums – is on the rise. How do we stop it?
New Orleans' Police Death Squads
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Malcolm Suber, a New Orleans community activist and fighter for justice, and a former candidate for city council. Against the Current asked him to comment on the struggle around murders by police during Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing fight over police brutality.
The Next American Revolution
Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Why revolution is not only possible and necessary, but in some places already in the making.
The Next Step for Occupy Wall Street: Occupy Buildings, Occupy Workplaces
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The occupation movement needs to build on the creative militancy in the streets of thousands of people (as shown in Oakland, Portland, Seattle, New York and elsewhere) to reach out to that large majority which sometimes seems, a block or two from the street battles, to be going about business as usual. The growing number of anti-eviction and anti-foreclosure actions has made that outreach.
Nim and Noam
Skinner, Chomsky and the Chimp
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How psychologists abused a chimpanzee in a failed attempt to prove that Noam Chomsky was wrong about language.
9/11 and the “War on Terror” - Had the U.S. done the right thing, thousands of lives could have been saved
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In reflecting on the disastrous last decade we might ask, What would the world be like today if the United Sates, Britain, Canada and the other countries using their military might to kill fanatical young people had instead used that money to buy school books, drill wells, educate people, and promote religious tolerance throughout the Middle East – and at home?
The 9/11 Conspiracists: Vindicated After All These Years?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The 9/11 conspiracists seize on coincidences and force them into sequences they deem to be logical and significant. Their treatment of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence is whimsical.
No Fooling—Corporations Evade Taxes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Closing corporate loopholes so that corporate income tax revenues in the United States match the 3.4% of GDP collected on average by OECD corporate income taxes would add close to $200 billion to federal government revenues—more than five times the $39 billion of devastating spending cuts just made in the federal budget in 2011. Returning the corporate income tax revenues to the 4.0% of GDP level of four decades ago would add close to $300 billion a year to government revenues.
No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way
Voices from Symphony Way
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Accounts from Symphony Way pavement dwellers, joined together in an anti-eviction campaign, living in shacks insisting that the government provide permanent housing.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Surveillance
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
In the world of CCTV, email and DNA, this book shows the extent to which Big Brother is watching us all.
The No-Nonsense Guide to World Population
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Are we heading for a population ‘explosion’? How many people can the planet sustain?
“No one represents us”: the 15 May movement in the Spanish state
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On 15 May 2011 thousands of people, mainly young, demonstrated all over the Spanish state under the slogans “For real democracy now” and “We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers”. The demonstrations explicitly rejected the participation of political parties or trade unions.
Notes on the Fly
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011 Published: 2012
A report from Occupy Wall Street
The Nuts and Bolts of Occupy Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Obama Reality Disconnect
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There is a sharp reality disconnect in the Black community. On the one hand, the Black population continues to support the first African-American president, Barack Obama, by more than 90%.
Occupy and the Tasks of Socialists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Occupy Movement a valuable partner
'Idea' to build a united Canadian progressive
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The progressive community must learn it has to confront power with power – something we don’t do well in Canada. It seems enough to most Canadians to simply point out that something is wrong, and leave it to someone else to shoulder. This doesn’t cut it any more. We need to stop being nice, and start fighting harder!
Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An unofficial record of the New York branch of the Occupy movement, Occupy! combines adrenalin-fueled first-hand accounts of the early days and weeks of Occupy Wall Street with contentious debates and thoughtful reflections.
Occupy Wall Street vs. Kingian Methods
Where are the Demands?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The students, the labour unions, the working poor, the immigrants, the activists all over the country should come up with the solutions and make the demands. There can be dangerous consequences in organizing efforts when there is no clarity. It’s often a matter of life and death.
Occupy Wall Street - Wikipedia article
Connexpedia article
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
About the demonstrations in New York City, 2011.
Occupy Wall Street! Observations from a New York Public Sector Worker
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A lot remains to be seen, but if Madison is any indication, upping the ante in this struggle and achieving real results will require more than crowds ... it will require the focused activity of significant layers of the organized working classes, that have the roots and the experience to help leverage the power that is being built against the establishment here and nationally. Even if we don't get concrete wins, this will have been a hugely important protest but there is a potential for it to be concretely effective as well.
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem.
Of Forest and Trees Part Two
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Capitalism is first and foremost a system of accumulation. Value is, if not nothing today, pretty much nothing tomorrow. The reproduction of value is pretty much everything. Swindles, looting, theft certainly exist but only phenomenally, as expressions of moments in the organization, and disorganization, of value production.
Ohio Workers, Services Under Fire
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As in so much of the country after the recent election cycle, a newly-elected Republican administration has taken the reigns of state government in Ohio. The centerpiece of their ambitious austerity agenda is the notorious Senate Bill 5, which will severely restrict the collective bargaining rights of most public sector workers in the state. The bill has galvanized a section of Ohio workers to a degree not seen a decades. On March 31, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed SB 5 into law, but the movement to defeat the bill still carries on.
On 9/11 and the Politics of Language
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Martin Espada. Called "the Latino poet of his generation” and “the Pablo Neruda of North American authors,” Martín Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. He has published more than 15 books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator.
On a Cross of Coal
How Massey Crucified Miners
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Federal investigators investigated the Massey mine disaster in which 29 miners died discovered that Massey Energy was keeping two sets of books (safety logs). One log reflected actual mine conditions, which, alas, were demonstrably unsafe, and the other log was a fictionalized showpiece, a veritable Potemkin village, used to mislead government safety inspectors.
On Egypt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Historical compromise over an attempt at democratic change.
On Troy Davis
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A letter to the editor by Theresa El-Amin, regional director of the Southern Anti-Racist Network.
On Tunisia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When proletarians are willing to defy the forces of repression with bare hands and not retreat from the bullets of the police, they bring to oppositional ferment a determination that can shake state power, despite the more than 100 deaths reported. This is exactly what happened in Sidi Bouzid during the final days of December 2010 and in the first half of January 2011. Thus, in three stages, the movement which began in the south spread to all regions of Tunisia, to finally conclude in Tunis beginning on January 11.
One Fine Day
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
The documentary One Fine Day, shows six people from different cultures and religions who all, through a small nonviolent act, have had a significant and positive influence on society. Director Klaas Bense investigates how frustration can be turned into positive actions. He looks at what one single individual can achieve, and the often severe, personal consequences.
The 1% of the 99% and an Anti-Capitalist Alternative
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What we need right now is for autonomous political organizing in both unionized and non-unionized workplaces, schools,and in the streets.
One Year of the BP Blowout
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the years after Hurricane Katrina, I saw New Orleanians suffer from lack of health care. The storm and subsequent flooding caused immediate illness, with infections from the foul flood water and debris. As time passed, ever-present mold exacerbated respiratory conditions and mental health deteriorated in the face of immense stress.
Organic and Beyond
Friendship, Solidarity and Patriotism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Organic is not enough. Organic will be an effective proposal for change only to the extent that it is integrated into the local and global movements that carry on the fight for food sovereignty, climate justice, ecological debt, women's rights and labor organizing; and against enclosures of common goods.
The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto
What Now?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Unprecedented wholesale and retail control of the organic marketplace by companies employing a business model of selling twice as much so-called "natural" food as certified organic food, coupled with the takeover of many organic companies by multinational food corporations, threatens the growth of the organic movement.
Organizing Around Transit: At the Intersection of Environmental Justice and Class Struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
For the older big cities in North America, public transit is critical to their daily functioning. Organizing among workers and riders on public transit has a strategic importance.
The origins of racism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Racism is so embedded in our society that many people assume it has always existed. But, says Yuri Prasad, it is really a modern phenomenon that developed with capitalism.
Our Way to Fight
Peace-work under siege in Israel-Palestine
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Documents the lives and work of grassroots peace activists, Israelis and Palestinians fighting for justice and human rights on both sides of the wall. The book also explore events that stirred people to action, and the escalating risks they face in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The title is borrowed from a young Palestinian who makes and teaches film in the Jenin refugee camp. "This is my way to fight," he said. Like other people featured in the book, he is a peace activist. Like them he is also, in his own way, a freedom fighter. If a just peace can grow in this beautiful, hard land, the seeds for it will have been planted by people like these.
Pakistan's Dark Journey
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The recent verdict of a lower court sentencing a Christian woman to death in a “blasphemy” case, and the subsequent murder of the Punjab Governor who supported the imprisoned woman, has posed the very vital question of whether Pakistani society has become intolerant, violent and extremist to the point of incorrigible.
The Palestinian Facebook Movement: Can it take up the baton of revolution?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
At the heart of the new movement is a proposal that Palestinians should return to the methods of the first, unarmed, intifada – similar to what has recently been happening in many Arab states. This, they believe, is the right way to achieve the political and social aspirations of the Palestinians, and an alternative to the two failed strategies previously attempted: armed struggle and futile negotiations.
Pappe and Israel's New Historians
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An irony of Israeli political culture is that Zionism is exceptionally rigid in comparison to the democratic philosophy that legitimizes the U.S. political system, yet the breadth of political debate that appears in Israeli mainstream media is much wider than one would find in the United States.
Party and Class in Revolutionary Crises
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Russian Revolution of October 1917, the first successful revolution made by and for workers in world history, posed an immense paradox for revolutionary socialists. On the one hand, the combination of the most advanced forms of industrial capitalist development with a largely non-capitalist countryside and autocratic-absolutist state institutions made Russia “the weak link” in world capitalism, the society where a workers’ revolution could first succeed. On the other, Russia’s economic underdevelopment and the minority status of the working class in the population made the prospects of constructing a viable, democratic post-capitalist society impossible.
Party and Class in Revolutionary Crises
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
While the pre-World War I Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not leave original theoretical tools to guide the reconstruction of revolutionary workers’ organizations, the study of their historical experience remains invaluable.
Peace Out
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Charles Wilkinson explores the costs of damming, fracking, and extracting, and how they implicate every gas tank and light switch in this country.
Pentagon Fingered as a Source of Narco-Firepower in Mexico
The Big Clubs in Mexico’s Drug War Aren’t Slipping Through the Gun-Show Loophole
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars.
The People’s Police Commission
Trial By Amateur Video
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Now we have a people’s police commission of our own. It’s called amateur video. And it will do to criminal scum like Lt. Pike what a whole world of police commissions, pretending to act on our behalf, couldn’t.
Perpetual War
“Grand Strategy” after 9/11
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A decade after the attentats of 9/11, the United States and its European allies are trapped in a quagmire. The events of that year were simply used as a pretext to remake the world and to punish those states that did not comply. And today the majority of Euro-American citizens flounder in a moral desert, now unhappy with the wars, now resigned, now propagandized into differentiating what is, in effect, an overarching imperial strategy into good/bad wars.
The Persecution of Pvt. Bradley Manning
A Sick Game
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The torture and prolonged confinement without trial of Pvt. Manning are the tactics of a totalitarian state. They are exactly what is done in countries like China, Iran, and Burma.
Pham Binh's historical survey of demands
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Phil Ochs Lives!
"There But For Fortune"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Phil Ochs and his influence.
Philippines: Resisting Gobble-ization
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In his latest book, Epifanio San Juan Jr. uncovers the concealed operations of power and the historic inequalities of political economic systems that have impacted Filipinos in an age of globalized crisis and contradiction. While the definition of globalization is often debated, for the majority of people in the Philippines the process of globalization can be more accurately described as “gobble-ization.”
A Plague of Prisons
The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Drucker sees prisons as the problem, not the solution.
Police Violence, Resistance and The Crisis of Legitimacy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What clearly sets a number of recent cases apart is not the fact of police violence, but the fact that that violence is being challenged. The controversy, in other words, is not only about violence, but about authority. It is a crisis of legitimacy.
Police Violence, Resistance and The Crisis of Legitimacy
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On September 5, 2010, Los Angeles police shot and killed a Guatemalan day laborer named Manuel Jamines.
Political Repression in Russia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When someone in Russia today calls himself a Communist, in most cases it will turn out that what you have is a particular version of a National Socialist; all too many anarchists turn out to be “national anarchists.”
Political Repression in Russia
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The full implications of the extraordinary drought that struck the European part of Russia this past summer became apparent only in the third quarter of 2010, when accurate statistics on the human casualties and economic losses became available. But from the outset a solid foundation on which to base projections emerged from amongst the potpourri of facts and expert opinions.
The Politics (and Anti-Politics) of Occupy Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
At present, the occupation reveals a lot about where people's politicization begins in the United States.
Politics and the Prayer Warriors
Dominionism Hits the Big Time
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Dominionism is a totalitarian movement within Christian evangelicalism that aims at taking over the centers of power—law, culture, government and the like—and establishing a dictatorship. Once having gotten power, Christian Dominionists would then impose their religious practices on the rest of America.
Politics without Democracy, Democracy without Politics
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The aim of the Occupy movement is to create a big tent, to represent the 99%, in the name of democracy. But democracy requires not big tent politics, but the very opposite. It requires the drawing of political lines, the engaging in political conflict, the making of political choices.
Postmodern Imperialism
Geopolitics and the Great Games
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An analysis of the development of imperialism over the past century.
Power and Terror: Conflict, Hegemony, and the Rule of Force
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
This updated and revised edition explores the dynamics of power relationships and international negotiations, and the use of terror between the Western countries and the nations of the Middle East in the post-9/11 era. Chomsky looks back to patterns since the Second World War to show how acts of terrorism today cannot be understood outside the context of Western power and state terror throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. This new edition offers the best opportunity to follow Chomsky’s analysis in its development during the ten years since 9/11.
The Power of Nonsense
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Slavoj Žižek's diagnosis of late capitalism is of genuine interest. His remedies, however -- dictatorship and terror -- are a disgrace.
The Price of Torching Mosques
Burning Rage
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
By reminding Palestinians on either side of the Green Line of their common fate, Israel may yet unleash a force too powerful to control. The price tag – this time demanded by Palestinians – will be high indeed for the Jewish supremacists.
A Primer on Immigrant Rights
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The struggle for immigrant rights is one of the most important struggles of our time, and it occurs under a working-class banner.
The problem of autonomism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Direct action is crucial to win – but it needs to be orientated to building a mass movement, through strikes, civil disobedience and occupation.
A Profound and Jarring Disconnect
The Writing on the Wall
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How the US government has gone against the wishes of the public majority on key issues.
A progressive dialogue on the future: Six questions for leftists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Leftists don't spend enough time or energy working on important strategic questions. If we could resolve a handful of these, even tentatively, and try out some solutions, we would be far more successful. Here are six from my list of the most important questions, as well as my answers, which by their very incompleteness and inadequacy should suggest that more people should work on them.
Prospects for African Americans
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Much of the debate in Washington and Wall Street is about the ongoing world economic crisis and what to do about it. The ruling elites’ solution: cut taxes for the rich, who will “trickle down” their investments to hire more people who will then jumpstart the economy. The fact that this hasn’t worked for the past 10 years is irrelevant.
The protest march of September 3—where to?
Efrat, Yacov Ben
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We, workers from all sectors, Arabs and Jews, marched to the square on Saturday with a clear message: Bibi, your time is up, go home! We marched with a socialist worldview, according to which the economy should exist to serve society, not capital. Those who truly struggle for social justice must seek universal justice. There will be no true welfare state until the occupation is ended!
The public reaction to new power lines could kill renewable energy: they must be buried
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Anti-wind campaigners are highly selective. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales, obsessed by wind farms, says nothing about the opencast coal mines ripping south Wales apart. Nor do you hear a word about the destruction of the ecosystems of upland Wales (and England and Scotland) by sheep grazing. These champions of the countryside want to save it from only one threat.
Queer theory and politics
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Queer theory and politics originated in the 1990s and continue to be influential today. This article traces the development of queer theory and politics, and assesses their claim to provide a radical alternative to what they see as the LGBT mainstream.
Querying Young Chomsky
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Chomsky offers observations on what a desirable society might look like from the perspective of the heritage of libertarian socialist or anarcho-syndicalist or communist anarchist views.
rabblepedia
Resource Type: Website
First Published: 2011
An encyclopedic-like section containing definitions and descriptions of organizations, people and things related to activism.
The Radical Camera
New York's Photo League, 1936-1951
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Artists in 'the Photo League', active from 1936 to 1951, were known for capturing sharply revealing, compelling moments from everyday life.
Rebuilding the Antiwar Movement
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
First, thanks to David Grosser for starting an important discussion. However, as two socialists who have been involved in antiwar organizing, we think the problem is more complex than he suggests. Further, the specific solution he calls for would mistakenly shift the focus of the movement away from mass action as a strategic orientation.
Rebuilding the Left in a Time of Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The type of organizers we need to develop need to be those who have developed the skills and capacities and depth that allow them to be good at taking a defensive struggle and saying ‘we can both fight it, and maybe fight it more effectively, if we can link it to a set of demands that are forward looking. They need to be visionary in terms of a socialist strategy.
Reflections for the US Occupy Movement
From Barcelona's Neighborhood Assemblies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The deeper a struggle’s historical roots, the greater its collective knowledge.
A Rejoinder on Antiwar Strategy
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Let me first restate as concisely as I can the main points of my essay “A New Strategy for Antiwar Organizing: Going Where the Millions Are”.
Remembering Manning Marable
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Malcolm X has been getting quite a bit of the attention lately, especially with respect to A Life of Reinvention — and deservedly so — but as Professor Marable himself would tell you, no one shaped his intellectual development more than W.E.B. Du Bois.
Remembering the Paris Commune
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
TThis spring marks the 140th anniversary of the revolt that led to the establishment of the world’s first workers’ government, the Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune has always had a special place in the hearts and minds of revolutionaries, and can inspire today’s activist generation with the potential for “power to the people.”
Renewing New York
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Howie Hawkins. Howie Hawkins, a Green Party and socialist activist, ran for Governor of New York State. Dianne Feeley interviewed him for ATC.
Report Confirms Gang Rapes at Canadian-Controlled PNG Mine
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
One of the world's largest mining organisations, Barrick Gold, is in damage control this week following the release of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report outlining longstanding incidents of sexual and physical violence at the company's Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) mine in Papua New Guinea.
Report from Spain: On the May 15th Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A brief account of the culmination of the “May 15th movement” in Barcelona in 2011.
The Repression Strengthened Us!
Letter From Bolivia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A response to Paul LeBlanc’s “Marxism and Organization”
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We need to be flexible tactically and organizationally while remaining steadfast on our goals.
Restless Cities
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A collection of narratives and visual art that strive to capture the essence of life in the city. For the author, the urban dweller is a wanderer, a people watcher, a daydreamer attuned by virtue of his life in the metropolis to potentially transformative experiences.
Rethinking Educational Failure and Reimagining an Educational Future
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
If we start not from the goal of acculturating most children to the demands of an economy which promises only to make things worse, but from the goal of preparing all children to live in a world worthy of human beings, we will find a very different kind of education reform to advocate for. It will have some things in common with some parts of current reform efforts
but it will go beyond and transform them.
Rethinking The Idea Of 'Christian Europe'
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Looking to the traditional, moral and identity platform of Christianity in Europe.
The Return of the Albuquerque Death Squads
Police War on the Poor
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
APD is at war with the poor because it has come to equate any expression of poverty or drug addiction not as an effect of structural inequality, but rather as another opportunity to dispose of what its officers call “human waste.” Like elsewhere being poor, suffering from a mentally illness or battling a drug addiction is a crime.
The Revolt of the Aganaktismeni
Huge Popular Uprisings in Greece
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The 'Outraged' movement is getting more and more rooted among lower classes against a Greek society that has been shaped by 25 years of total domination of a cynical, nationalist, racist and individualist neoliberal ideology that turned everything into commodities.
A Revolution's Heritage (book review)
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
S. Sándor John's Bolivia’s Radical Tradition explores in detail the emergence in Bolivia of what became the strongest Trotskyist tradition in the Americas, thanks in large part to militant tin miner unions.
Rights vs. Privileges
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We now owe our 'liberties' to the good will of the government, which can withdraw them at any time, rather than to our ability to force the government to respect them.
Rightwing Manipulation of the Wisconsin Revolt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Manipulation of opinion surveys is easy enough for those seeking to muddy the waters of political debate regarding the current war on unions.
The Rise of the Tea Party
Where Did They Come From?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Tea Party has never been a genuine social movement or political outsider but rather an elite-dominated group that was closely linked to the Republican establishment from its inception.
Robert Wedderburn: race, religion and revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As a Scottish-Jamaican “mulatto” radical preacher and leader of working class movements in 19th century London, Wedderburn has been identified as a “linchpin” of the “Atlantic Working Class” — that group of amorphous, multi-ethnic, subaltern peoples linked by the ocean in suffering and resistance around the Atlantic continents of Africa, the Americas and Europe.
Rupert's Empire of Slime
Murdoch's Knife in the Heart of Journalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the name of freedom of the press Rupert’s Fox News and commentators spew verbal venom on notions that smack of socialist, pink or liberal thought – like taxing billionaires and regulating their corporate and banking behavior. Indeed, the Foxers promote billionaires not paying taxes as an example of virtue and freedom. “You don’t want your government squandering taxpayers’ money.” Sure, imagine life without cops, firemen, schools, road repair service, etc.
The Rushdie Affair and Its Aftermath
Kenan Malik's "From Fatwa to Jihad"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Rushdie affair is shrouded by myths—that the hostility to The Satanic Verses was driven by theology, that all Muslims were offended by the novel, that Islam is incompatible with Western democracy, that in a plural society speech must necessarily be less free.
Sacred Roots of A People's Music
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The goal of Timothy Brennan’s Secular Devotion is an ambitious one, to create an historical map of African culture’s influence on the social politics of the Americas in general and the United States in particular.
The sad, sad world of Israel?s big-time liars
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Stuart Littlewood views Israel’s propaganda minister, the self-confessed racist and squatter Yuli Edelstein, and takes a close look at the manual to which Edelstein and other Zionist propagandists work, the “Global Language Dictionary”.
Saving Face
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Every year in Pakistan, there are at least 100 people attacked with acid -- the majority women. Many more go unreported. This documentary Saving Face is the story of two survivors of such attacks — their battle for justice and their journey of healing. Saving Face follows their personal stories and that of the nation of Pakistan as it attempts to tackle this vexing social problem.
Scarlet Road
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Scarlet Road follows the extraordinary work of Australian sex worker, Rachel Wotton. Impassioned about freedom of sexual expression and the rights of sex workers, she specializes in a long over-looked clientele – people with disability.
The SEIU as Case Study
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
About 40 years ago I had a job in a rubber molding factory in Easthampton, Massachusetts, where the union in the shop was the IUE (International Union of Electrical Workers). We all knew that there were negotiations going on between the Company and the Union, but we were never told what was happening.
Selective Sympathy
War’s Mayhem and Murder is Somehow Less Hard to Bear than the Humane Termination of an Injured Animal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How strange that we as human beings can be so sensitive and warm-hearted about an animal, and yet can be so detached from reality and so compartmentalized in our emotions and our moral sense that we can simply dismiss as “collateral damage” the lives of tens, hundreds or even thousands of innocent men, women and children who, for cold, calculating geopolitical reasons of dubious merit, will be killed by our or our allies’ actions.
9/11 and the Clash of Atrocities
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Responding to the terrorist attacks of September 2001, Against the Current’s “Letter from the Editors” made an impassioned plea that the alternative to war was a political movement for social justice. Like many on the left, the editors pointed out that only an agenda for social justice could save the people of Afghanistan and Iraq from America’s military wrath and help curb the attraction of individual terrorist solutions.
Serious Guns and White Terrorism
Two Unasked Questions in Tucson Mass Murder
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle
Lorena's Tale
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The working conditions of many domestics, which include 18-22 hour days and violent beatings, cannot but be described except as virtual slavery. Apparently among the items of the "job description" of a domestic slave in Saudi is being forced to minister to the sexual needs of the master of the household.
Shining a light on the black bloc, part 1: Italian autonomism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The combination of autonomist thuggery and Red Brigade terror had a lot to do with the implosion of the Italian left. While the Italian bourgeoisie was ready to carry out a repression even if the left had been far more intelligently organized, this was no excuse for carrying out tactics calculated to drive the average working class person into the arms of the government in the name of “security”. Revolutionary politics is really a project that is designed to win people to a cause. This involves patient explanation. Once someone develops a revolutionary consciousness, there is little that the state can do to vanquish it. A broken window can easily be replaced, but a revolutionary mind is permanent.
The Shocking Ways the Corporate Prison Industry Games the System
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The United States, with just 5 percent of the world’s population, currently holds 25 percent of the world's prisoners, and for the last 30 years America’s business entrepreneurs have found a lucrative way to cash in on the incarceration surplus: private for-profit prisons.
Shot in the Head
Gabrielle Giffords, Tom Hurndall and Palestinian Children
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In the past 10 years Israeli forces have killed at least 255 Palestinian minors by fire to the head, and the number may actually be greater, since in many instances the specific bodily location of the lethal trauma is unlisted. In addition, this statistic does not include the many more Palestinian youngsters shot in the head by Israeli soldiers who survived, in one form or another.
Should we 'take down' the banks or try to save the best of capitalism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
If Canada is to rid itself of the destructive neoliberal Conservatives, perhaps the best that we can do, given present conditions, is to push the New Democrats and Liberals to embrace some aspects of traditional liberalism and combine those policies with some tough, new measures to protect the public.
The Situationists and the Occupation Movements (1968/2011)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In what ways does the Occupy movement of 2011 resemble the French Situationists of the 1960s?
The Situationists and the Occupation Movements: 1968/2011
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Six True Things Politicians Can’t Say
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The 60-Year Unemployment Scandal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Since the 1940s, the jobless rate for blacks in America has held remarkably, if grimly, steady at twice the rate for whites.
Slavs and Tatars Presents Molla Nasreddin
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Molla Nasreddin was an Azerbaijani magazine published from 1906 to 1930 in Azeri, a Turkish dialect. Named after a traditional figure of fun, the text and numerous illustrations lampoon hypocrites of the period in the clergy and the government. It has been reissued by a group of artists called Slavs and Tatars.
Smoking Typewriters
The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Describes the emergence of an underground press in the 1960s. Writers and participants reflected the spirit of cultural and political protest and encouraged the development of the New Left's highly democratic "movement culture".
Soft-Powering Cuba
Regime-Change in a Box
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
How the U.S. uses "soft power" to undermine governments abroad and democracy at home.
Wilebaldo Solano, 1916-2010
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Wilebaldo Solano, the last member of the original leadership of the Partit Obrer d’Unificació Marxista (POUM — Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification), died in Barcelona on September 7, 2010, at 94. As an anti-Stalinist communist party, the POUM helped lead the Spanish Revolution of 1936.
Some Big Things Ha-Joon Chang Doesn’t Tell You About Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Chang exposes deadly falsehoods in many of the prevalent neoliberalism’s supposedly self-evident “free market” truths. But Chang’s book is plagued by key difficulties that belie its claim to iconoclasm, suggesting Chang’s own conservative adherence to dominant Western power structures and doctrines.
Some thoughts on Whiteness and the 99%
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Soundbitten
The Perils of Media-Centered Political Activism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Sobieraj argues that activist groups' efforts to get media attention for themselves and their concerns often ends up undermining their capacity to communicate with ordinary people.
SPAIN: Women's Crises
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Over the past three years there have been numerous debates within the Spanish political and social left about the impact of the current economic crisis on working people, and the (in)efficacy of the measures the government adopted to ameliorate them. There has not been much talk, however, about the specific consequences that both the crisis and governmental response have had on women.
Staff at 'Grinch' KPMG well looked after while advocating 'workers' comp' cuts
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
KPMG – which operates across Canada and internationally – performs “hatchet jobs” for governments – often governments that don’t have the nerve to take the lead themselves when they want cutbacks.
Statement by Jewish Activists and Organizations active in BDS against Israel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Jewish response to the February 2011 Statement of Jewish Zionist Organizations on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
Stieg Larsson in the Struggle
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Stieg Larsson came to support the Vietnamese liberation struggle in 1968, when he was only 14 years old. He joined the Kommunistiska Arbetarförbundet — (The Communist Workers League), the Swedish section of the Fourth International –– around 1974 in the northern town of Umeå. There he distributed the party’s paper for soldiers –Röd Soldat (Red Soldier) — among the conscripts in his infantry regiment.
The Stones Cry Out: The Power of the Occupation in the City Square
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Gathering in the city, taking strength from its history, remembering its past and our past, we stand firm.
Stop Signs
Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A global ecological critique of the American automobile addiction.
Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline!
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Keystone XL is a proposed 1700-mile pipeline that would transport tar sands oil (also called oil sands) from Alberta, Canada into the United States, crossing six states from Montana to Texas and Louisiana. The proposed pipeline, which has a price tag of $7 billion, would add to the extensive existing network of oil pipelines, carrying tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
A Strategy for Antiwar Organizing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There is a paradox here: The organized antiwar movement’s effectiveness has declined, even while public opinion polls showed that antiwar sentiment among the public as a whole has grown steadily. A movement which declines while opportunities for growth are becoming more favourable is a peculiar one indeed.
A Strategy for Antiwar Organizing
Against The Current vol. 150
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
According to a recent CNN poll, “American support for the war in Afghanistan has never been lower” and “only 37% of all Americans favor the war, [while] 52% say the war in Afghanistan has turned into a Vietnam.”
Strike Wave Sweeps Brazil
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Workers in Brazil—in heavy industry, services, the public sector, and agriculture—are involved in a series of strikes and mass protests such as the country hasn’t seen in decades.
Suck It Up: Using Our Pride Against Us
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Support the New Freedom Riders
End US Support for Israeli Apartheid
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Palestinian Freedom Riders are seeking their rights to be treated as equal human beings free to move about in their own land.
The Swing of That Truncheon Thing
The Nature of the Beast Revealed
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Historically, police violence is a fact of life in every society. In a society based on a capitalist economy, the police serve those that have the most money and property. When the authorities and their policies are under attack, the police will always be called in to protect them. No one should be shocked when the police act brutally. There is a reason the most thuggish of the uniforms are often the ones called to disperse angry crowds.
'Taking back the media', effective campaigning required to empower Progressive Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Taking liberties: When elite representatives define 'national security'
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Most reporters assigned to the national security beat are not physically embedded within the RCMP and CSIS in the way those covering the occupation of Afghanistan seem to become stenographers for the Canadian military. But they tend to write as if they were, buying the assumptions created and sustained by those who benefit most from them while generally ignoring the fact that these agencies have a historical profile that reads "pathological liar."
Taksim is not Tahrir—yet
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Much of the talk of “neoliberalism” coming from such leftist organizations is often a call for a return to state-administered enterprises under “workers’ control”, which is nothing more than bureaucratic state capitalism. It should be remembered that even under the most intense periods of nationalization in Turkey, often glorified among the social democrats and the like, was fought against by the working class.
Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On the overthrow of Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egypt's Mubarak.
Tearing Away the Veils: The Communist Manifesto
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
At the dawn of the twentieth century, there were workers who were ready to die with the Communist Manifesto. At the dawn of the twenty-first, there may be even more who are ready to live with it.
The 10 Dumbest, Most Offensive Political Ads in Recent Memory
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Not a single election cycle goes by without some attempt to use fear of the "other" to win votes. Sadly, the results are sometimes successful.
Ten Points for the Occupied Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Against Wall Street’s culture of economic exploitation, environmental degradation and human oppression we stand together to testify that another world is possible, a decent and humane world, a democratic world of liberty, dignity and solidarity.
Ten Years Later: We're Less Free
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The abuse of government/police power in this country is not a new or recent phenomenon — as evidenced by the government’s court-sanctioned internment of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII, the red scare of the 1940s-1950s to repress the labor movement and other progressive causes, the use of grand juries and COINTELPRO during the ’60s to repress the civil rights and anti-war movements.
Tennessee: Another Battle Front
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As attacks on public sector workers heat up around the nation, Tennessee has experienced its own battles over collective bargaining — even though few segments of the public sector workforce belong to unions.
The Tent Intifada
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The bug that had spread from Tahrir Square in Cairo to Del Sol in Madrid now landed in Tel Aviv. The slogan coined in Cairo, "Social Justice!" became the main slogan in Israel.
A Theater for the Poor
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Each phase in the nine-year-history of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) now reads like a chapter from a cautionary tale for future generations of young radicals.
Theses for Discussion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Programmatic points.
Theses for Discussion - Korean text
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
They Found Nothing. Nothing.
The IAEA, Iran And ‘Fantasy Land’
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What is so breathtaking is that the apparent consensus on Iran, like the case against Iraq, is a fraud.
Thinking About Equality
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Back in 1937, as fascism seemed poised to seize power in much of Europe, George Orwell noted in A Road to Wigan Pier that a “genuinely revolutionary socialism” would have no chance of reversing the tide unless its supporters put aside their factionalism, ceased using jargon that few people could understand, and mobilized around propaganda stressing justice, liberty, and the plight of the unemployed.
This Is What Complicity Looks Like: Palestine and the Silencing Campaign on Campus
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The campaign to silence Palestine solidarity reaches its annual crescendo during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).
Three Ways Labor Can Fight Back
Time to Declare War
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Unions need to streamline their message, make it less cerebral and more visceral.
Three Years After "Yes We Can"
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
No, he didn't. That’s the epitaph on the tombstone of liberal and left-wing hopes that greeted the historic election of Barack Obama in November 2008. Did anyone imagine then that the election itself, more than anything he’d do in office, would be the high point of the Obama presidency? Or that three years later, the power of “Yes we can” would be the eruption of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) spreading to one city after another — essentially nothing to do with President Obama?
Throwing Out the Master’s Tools and Building a Better House
Thoughts on the Importance of Nonviolence in the Occupy Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Diversity of tactics does not mean that anything goes and that democratic decision-making doesn’t apply. If you want to be part of a movement, treat the others with respect; don’t spring unwanted surprises on them, particularly surprises that sabotage their own tactics—and chase away the real diversity of the movement.
To Rebuild Teamster Power
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
An interview with Sandy Pope. Sandy Pope is the candidate for General President of the Teamsters Union in the election this coming October, running against incumbent James Hoffa Jr. She’s a longtime member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union and president of Local 805 in New York City.
Tokyo Letter: After the Disaster
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Just before 3pm on March 11th, I was standing in the intersection of two small streets in central Tokyo, saying goodbye to my partner before leaving for a work trip to the United States. Earthquakes are common in Japan, but we knew right away this one was different. The earth rumbled and rolled, shifting back and forth and around, the intensity rising and falling and rising again.
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
An expose of the environmental and human costs of turning tomatos into an industrial product.
Toward A Queer Marxism?
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Scholarly approaches to sexuality since the 1980s have become increasingly divorced from practical sexual politics, and both have largely given up on earlier attempts to engage with Marxism. Now this may be changing. A stimulating new book by Kevin Floyd maintains that people in queer studies are paying more attention to Marxism’s “explanatory power.” From the activist side, Sherry Wolf of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) has made an impressive effort to sum up LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) theory and practice from a Marxist perspective.
The Tragic Ironies of Breivik's Terror
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We need to challenge neo-fascism and anti-Muslim bigotry, just as we need to challenge Islamism. But in both cases we also need to keep a sense of perspective about the nature of the threat.
Traité du Savoir-Vivre for the Occupy Wall Street Generations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Once upon a time, twenty thousand people descended on Wall Street, the capitol of capital, occupied it nonviolently, and won exactly what they demanded. This is not a fairy tale. It really happened. This is the story of how it happened.
Triangle Fire Remembered
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
March 25 is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which killed 145 workers, mostly young women immigrants. The factory, located on the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of the Asch building near Washington Square in New York City, employed 500 workers.
Tunisia, Then Egypt
Why Now?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Under what circumstances does passivity turn into revolt?
The Tunisian Intifada
"Yezzi Fock!" (It's Enough!)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
12 Most Absurd Laws Used to Stifle the Occupy Wall St. Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As Occupy Wall Street protests spring up in cities across the country, authorities are thinking up creative ways to contain this peaceful and inspiring uprising. Although laws and municipal ordinances vary from city to city, there is a consistency in the tactics being used to stifle the movement.
Two Systems of Justice
One for the Corporate Class; One for the Rest of Us
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
We have two systems of justice. One for the corporate class. And one for the rest of us.
The UAW vs. Indian Casinos
Which Side Are You On Boys
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The issues raised by Indian gambling casinos and their opposition to labour unions.
Una diferente forma de democracia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Understanding Class and Species
A Lesson From Thaddeus Russell
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
University remains a rigidly class-based institution—not only in what it teaches but also in how it operates.
An Unfinished Revolution
Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A study of Marx's analysis of the American Civil War as a conflict about slavery, not tarrfifs. Marx saw the north as a bourgeois republic, and the south as expansionist.
The Unfolding Arab Uprisings
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Suzi Weissman interviews Mark LeVine.
The Union in Academia
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Cary Nelson is a distinguished professor of English and the president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a group that is part professional association and part union. This book is perhaps half about academic freedom and half about the AAUP, and Nelson’s struggles to have it become a less staff-dominated institution.
The UN & the Future of Palestine
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
“You can't make this stuff up,” the Prime Minister of Israel lectured the UN General Assembly. Binyamin Netanyahu was referring to the history of Libya under Qaddafi, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, chairing UN Commissions on Human Rights and Disarmament respectively.
Unlocking Uncle Sam's House of Horrors
Smashing Plato's Cave
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The effects of Wikileaks in showing the public what is really happening.
The Unnatural History of the Sea
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A history of the commercial fishery and an update on its precarious and untenable siituation. The age old delusion that the sea is an inexhaustible resource has resulted in a fishing arms race that could spell extinction for some species.
Unpacking for a Disaster
What You Need to Survive the Unexpected
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In crises, for some authorities, the media, and many outside observers, civilization tends to consist mainly of property relations, and so they pay more attention to whether someone’s taking crackers than whether a grandmother is dying in the wreckage (while law enforcement goes after the cracker-taker).
'Upstanding Citizens' Escape Justice in Tory 'In-and-Out' Scandal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The "In-and-Out" Scandal: Case should have proceeded against 'Upstanding citizens'.
This is a story about illegal activities, deceit and lying involving an overzealous group of Canadians who seemed prepared to do just about anything to accomplish their mission – win a federal election.
The Urge to Surge
War is a Drug
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Englehardt describes the effects of the US surge addiction with the military issue as an example.
US and Colombia Escalate Attacks on Liberation Church
In the Lion's Den
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The war on liberation theology.
Us and Them
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
To move beyond wishing and hoping, our self organization has to overcome and overwhelm the limits, the divisions, the separations of workers and poor by categories of “organized,” “unorganized,” “immigrant,” “native,” “legal,” “illegal. No one’s illegal. Nobody’s organized until everybody’s organized.
US Justice on Trial
Why Cameron Should Tell Obama to Get Stuffed
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The US justice system and extradition treaty.
US Teaching "Counterinsurgency" Courses To Mexican Military in Drug War
State Department Report Details Special Forces “Mobile Training Teams” South of the Border
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
To fight the drug war in Mexico the US military conducted specialized trainings both inside and outside of the country with a focus on combating “narco-terrorism” and “counterinsurgency” conflicts.
Venezuela from Below
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A View from Israel
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Michael Warschawski, a founder of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, spoke with The Real News Network on Israeli reactions to the Egyptian uprising.
A View of the Occupy Wall Street Movement from the Inside
A Participant’s Critique of the Occupation of Wall Street
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement was supposed to be a revolt against a hierarchal, dehumanizing oligopoly. In reality, all that was created was a microcosm of the same system, but with new leaders. Like our nation’s leaders, Occupy Wall Street’s leaders listened to everyone’s grievances, then decided upon a pre-determined plan of action that cleverly borrowed the language of their constituency.
Violence Goes to College
Are We Going to Hell?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The priorities of the campus are clear. An Assistant Professor earns an annual salary in the low $60,000 range; a Lieutenant in the campus safety department (the man who fired the pepper gas, for instance) brings home $110,000.
Wall Street occupation ignites mass movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The simple, horizontal structure originally created around a GA using modified consensus has become a barrier to practical and political work by the occupiers and those involved through working groups.
Wall Street's Role in Narco-Trafficking
"Business is Booming"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Every major bank in the US has served as an active financial partner of the murderous drug cartels.
War Colleges
The Politics of Militarization and Corporatization in Higher Education
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
One consequence of the increasing militarization of American society can be seen in changes that have taken place in public and higher education. Schools have become the testing grounds for new modes of security and military-style authority.
War of the Killer Robots
Four Realities About Drones
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Drones are "killer robots," they do make war easy and game-like, and therefore likelier, drone strikes do kill too many civilians and they do violate the International Law of Armed Conflict. I am puzzled and disturbed that some feel that the debate over the use of drones in warfare can be enhanced by denying these facts.
Was There an Alternative?
Looking Back on 9/11, a Decade Later
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There is every likelihood that the Jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11. The “crime against humanity,” as it was rightly called, could have been approached as a crime, with an international operation to apprehend the likely suspects. That was recognized at the time, but no such idea was even considered.
Wealth, Illth, And Net Welfare
http://www.countercurrents.org/daly151111.htm
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Wellbeing should be counted in net terms — that is to say we should consider not only the accumulated stock of wealth but also that of “illth;” and not only the annual flow of goods but also that of “bads.”
Wealth in America
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The greatest wealth transfer in America history goes on – into the bank accounts of the nation's 2% upper crust from the increasingly threadbare pockets of the lower 85% - to the sounds of silence.
Leonard Irving Weinglass
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Len was not a ’60s radical. He was something more unusual, a ’50s radical. He developed his values, critical thinking and world view in a time when non-conforming was rare. He told a newspaper interviewer in Santa Barbara in 1980 that “I would classify myself as a radical American. I am anti-capitalist in this sense — I don’t believe capitalism is now compatible with democracy.”
The well-intentioned dolts putting a price on nature are delivering it into the hands of business
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It’s the definitive neoliberal triumph: the monetisation and marketisation of nature, its reduction to a tradeable asset. Once you have surrendered it to the realm of Pareto optimisation and Kaldor-Hicks compensation, everything is up for grabs. The well-intentioned dolts who produced the government’s assessment, have crushed the natural world into a column of figures. Now it can be swapped for money.
What Did They Know...?
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What did they know and when did we know it?
What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism
A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
A manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Magdoff and Foster argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power — no matter how “green” — are incapable of making the changes that are necessary.
What happened to the SWP (U.S.)?
Recent memoirs stir discussion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The goal of socialist political cadres must be the development of a broad team leadership working together in a democratically functioning organization, practically united in strategic perspective and tactical projects, allowing multiple tendencies and pluralism, thus balancing out strengths and weaknesses over time and in different places.
When Push Comes to Shove
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When the police are ordered to move against the OWS demonstrators, we must move to counter the police. Our response should be that workers in all different kinds of jobs act immediately to interrupt business as usual-regardless of what union leaders say or do. For example, transit workers should refuse any request to assist in the transport of individuals who are arrested. Truck drivers should refuse all deliveries to city agencies-other than those providing health care or emergency services. The more interruptions, the better!
When Qaddafi Was Our Friend
The CIA's Libyan Helpers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It was counterterrorism cooperation, together with Qaddafi’s abandonment of his nuclear ambitions, that cemented U.S./Libyan ties. Qaddafi’s intelligence services opened their files to the CIA, were given CIA training, and took in the CIA’s prisoners.
Where Heaven Meets Hell
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Drawing strength from their families and their Muslim faith, Indonesian sulfur miners face gruelling labour and treacherous conditions on an active volcano, while struggling to overcome the desperate poverty and illiteracy that plague their community.
Where is Phil Ochs When We Really Need Him?
There But For Fortune
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Whiff of Jim Crow
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Republican party and its rightwing base are on a concerted drive to suppress the vote in coming elections. The targets are African Americans, other ethnic minorities, the elderly and young.
Who Speaks for the Climate?
Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
This book helps students, academic researchers and interested members of the public explore how the media portray climate change and how they shape the spectrum of possibilities for policy action. Providing a bridge between academic research and real world developments, Boykoff makes sense of media reporting of climate change.
Who threatens us most – peaceful campaigners or a private militia run by police chiefs?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The people challenging corporate power are often defamed as destructive anarchists. Yet they are seeking to defend the fabric of our lives from the anarchic destruction of market fundamentalism. The police, on the other hand, are fighting – often without obvious justification – to shield destructive companies from both unlawful and lawful challenges. They are defending neoliberalism’s atomising, kleptocratic projects from those who question them.
The Whole World is Watching
Chinese Diggers?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Thousands of villagers at Wukan, in China’s Guangdong province, are protesting the theft of their communal land by a corrupt local government in collusion with developers.
Why aren't people voting?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
There is much ado about “voter apathy”, with a focus on young people, who in creative and desperate ways are urged and “mobbed” to vote. Unfortunately, much of this effort is barking up the wrong tree: unless we can guarantee that hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are eager to vote can actually do so, we are subjecting them to a nasty piece of Catch 22 where the victims of voter obstruction get the blame for being apathetic and not doing their civic duty.
Why Is BDS A Moral Duty Today?
A Response To Bernard-Henri Levy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The reality of the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions.
Why Kosovo But Not Palestine?
The Right to Exist
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Barak Obama pretends that he is vetoing UN recognition of a Palestinian state because it did not come about as a result of negotations. But meanwhile the US has recognized Kosovo, which came into being without negotations, and in violation of international law.
Why Marx Was Right
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
Eagleton takes common objections to Marxism and demonstrates how and why they are wrong.
Why No Reporters in Suez?
The Real Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
What is happening in Tahrir Square Cairo has been built on the backs of millions of Egyptian workers who waged 3,000 strikes over the past eight years.
Why Supermarket Tomatoes Suck
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Excerpted from the book "Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit".
Why the Revolt in Egypt?
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Why has the Arab world suddenly erupted in revolution from Tunisia to Egypt, from Bahrain to Yemen? Above all, why Egypt, the largest and most important of the Arab nations?
Why We Loved the Zapatistas
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
It would be absurd to admonish the Zapatistas for failing to overcome generations of poverty in a single sweep, but is it too much to ask their privileged supporters abroad to pay more attention to the material conditions in Chiapas and less on the innovative ways they use their laptops to conjure “resistance”?
Why Wikileaks Matters
The Lies of Diplomats
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
On the secret diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks.
A Wikileak on the US and Al-Jazeera
Blaming and (Killing) the Messenger
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
A Wikileaks-released cable from the U.S. embassy in Doha, Qatar, shows that U.S. officials were angry with Al Jazeera in the wake of Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza, because, alone of news networks the world over, al-Jazeera had actually shown what was happening on the ground to Gazan civilians besieged by an unrelenting Israeli air, artillery, and ground attack.
Wikileaks, the US, Sweden and Devil's Island
The Anti-Empire Report
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Wilebaldo Solano As I Knew Him
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
I first met Wilebaldo Solano in Paris in 1997 after corresponding with him since the late 1980s. I had translated an article Wilebaldo wrote about Victor Serge and the POUM,(1) and finally meeting him was an inexplicably emotional occasion, a moment of warmth, solidarity and enthusiasm for us (Wilebaldo, his wife Maria Teresa and myself).
A Winter's Tale Told in Memoirs
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The Socialist Workers (SWP), now a curious sidebar in the history of radicalism, is a linear descendant of the political movement initiated in the United States by pro-Bolshevik followers of Leon Trotsky on the eve of the Great Depression. For 45 years, until the mid-1970s, the movement associated with the SWP was at the crossroads of the Far Left.
Wisconsin and Beyond
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As the last decade or more have demonstrated, unions don’t grow incrementally as a result of their patient, even persistence efforts to recruit. Rather, unions grow more or less rapidly in periods of intense conflict and labor upheaval. Such was the clear experience of the 1930s. In a somewhat more uneven fashion, the period from the mid-1960s through the 1970s saw rising numbers of strikes, increased rank and file rebellion, and the addition of four million members to the ranks of organized labor.
With My Heart in Yambo
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2011
Twenty-four years ago director Fernanda Restrepo's two teenage brothers disappeared. A year later, the family finally learned the worst possible news: the brothers had been kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the Ecuadorean police, and then dumped. Restrepo embarks on the painful journey of recounting her family’s story, and documents yet one more search in Lake Yambo, where the boys’ bodies were dumped.
Women in the Paris Commune
Against The Current vol. 153
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
During the Seige of Paris, women organized their own Vigilance Committee in Montmartre, the political center of the working class. La Révolution politique et sociale devoted a major portion of its pages to reporting on the Vigilance Committee and a variety of women’s clubs and societies. This included the Union des Femmes, the women’s union that was a section of the First International.
Women, Revolution and the Future
Against The Current vol. 151
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Valentine Moghadam is director of the Women’s Studies Program and a professor of sociology at Purdue University. She responded to some questions from Against the Current early on February 11, 2011, shortly before the announcement of Hosni Mubarak’s resignation.
Workers and Environmentalists Unite!
Obama Has Betrayed Both
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
When there are zero jobs available, any job will do. This fact has been exploited by corporations now re-labeling themselves ”job creators,” since being a job creator in a time of depression brings a religious status similar to a rain god during a drought. Democrats and Republicans have lavished eternal praise on the “job creators” and in consequence have created a political atmosphere that is rabidly pro-corporate “job creators” and anti-everything else. In practice this means that ANY new law or regulation that hinders the power or profits of “job creating” corporations is instantly attacked as a “job killer.”
Workers’ Assemblies: A Way to Regroup the Left?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Herman Rosenfeld is a member of the Canadian Socialist Project and the General Toronto Workers’ Assembly, a new initiative aiming to reinvigorate working class and radical politics in the city. He spoke to Tom Denning about the methods and activities of GTWA and the challenges it faces.
Workers Guarantee the Egyptian Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The middle class, which sacrificed much in this astonishing revolution, faces the task of choosing an ally at this critical juncture. If these young, educated people choose the army and the Muslim Brotherhood (who are also part of the middle class), the result will be the foreclosure of freedom. However, if they choose their natural ally, the working class, they will discover a powerful partner in protecting the achievements of the revolution and in building a new democracy.
Workers' Revolts of the 1970s
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
In my world as a teenager becoming politically aware in Detroit in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the issues that mattered most were the war in Vietnam and race relations at my school. The events that shaped my high school years included fights between Black and white students, watching the families of white friends leave the city for Ferndale and Oak Park, the racially charged mayoral race in 1969, the election of the city’s first Black mayor in 1973, and my own increasing involvement in the movement to end the war in Southeast Asia.
A World at Financial War
Will Greece Let EU Central Bankers Destroy Democracy?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The crisis for Greece – as for Iceland, Ireland and debt-plagued economies capped by the United States – is occurring as bank lobbyists demand that “taxpayers” pay for the bailouts of bad speculations and government debts stemming largely from tax cuts for the rich and for real estate, shifting the fiscal burden as well as the debt burden onto labor and industry. The financial sector’s growing power to achieve this tax favoritism is crippling economies, driving them further into reliance on yet more debt financing to remain solvent.
World Development An essential text
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
The ultimate introduction for school students of World Development, Geography and General Studies.
Wrestling with Ellison
Against The Current vol. 155
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Nathaniel Mill's review of Barbara Foley’s Wrestling With the Left (ATC 152, May-June 2011) raises a number of very important issues for understanding the politics of Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece, and by extension 20th-century African-American literature as a whole. In particular, Mills’ criticisms of Foley’s neglect of potentially liberatory moments in the text foregrounds the crucial issue of how revolutionary critics should go about the task of investigating novelistic politics.
The Years of 9/11
Against The Current vol. 154
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
The decade that opened with the attacks of September 11, 2011 may have symbolically closed with the elite U.S. death-squad assassination of Osama bin Laden. But the turmoil of these post-9/11 years, notably the self-inflicted wounds of U.S. capitalism, have exceeded the terrorist mastermind’s wildest dreams. There are the wars that George W. Bush, with the support of congressional Democrats, launched in Afghanistan and Iraq — wars that the government promised wouldn’t have to be paid for — leading to a major U.S. defeat in Iraq, a defeat all the more damaging because it is not acknowledged as such, and a quagmire in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Young Activist's Guide to Building a Green Movement and Changing the World
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2011
If you want to make a significant and sustainable impact on the health of our planet, this powerful and practical guide can help. Author and activist Sharon J. Smith shares proven strategies and lessons learned from the winners of Earth Island Institute’s Brower Youth Awards—America’s top honor for young green leaders. Here are all the tools you need—from planning a campaign and recruiting supporters to raising money and attracting media attention—to turn your ideas into actions and make changes that matter.
Youth Subdued
8 Ways Young Americans Have Been Dominated
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. But now young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it.
Zionism's Many "Returns"
Against The Current vol. 152
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
Zionist historians — like their counterparts in Australia, South Africa, the United States and other settler societies — hold the dispossession of the Palestinian people to be extraneous to their general history, rather than the integral part that it is. Studying Israel’s foundational myths and historiography through the lens of comparative settler colonialism allows Gabriel Piterberg to keep the Palestinian half of the relational history ever present.
Zizek and the Gaza Flotilla
Doing a Full Monty for Tel Aviv
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011
As long as we misunderstand the importance of Palestine for the world’s future, we shall be trapped in an endless “Middle East Crisis”.
Zuccotti Park's Burgeoning Micro-Neighborhoods May Indicate Deeper Divisions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2011

2010

About Connexions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010 Published: 2011
Abraham Serfaty, communist, anti-Zionist, democracy activist, Moroccan Jew, dies aged 84
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Towering Moroccan activist Abraham Serfaty died Thursday aged 84, after a lifelong struggle for freedom, first against the French colonial rulers and then against King Hassan II's monarchy.
The Absurdity of Hi-Tech Servitude
What You Sacrifice to Hold a Job in the New Economy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In terms of "jobs," war is evidently a burgeoning growth-industry. Back in the "Homeland," the demands of "internal-security" offer new openings for countless other "surplus-persons" in need of some "employment"—as law-enforcement and anti-terrorism personnel, prison guards—or prison inmates.
Accumulation, Imperialism, and Pre-Capitalist Formations
Luxemburg and Marx on the non-Western World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An Act Of State Terrorism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We have to appeal to the core of people who have already been active on one level or another around the Palestinian question, or those who are already convinced, to re-galvanize the movement, and go out and convince yet wider layers of people. We must argue the Palestinian case, and also push the case more generally to very wide layers of people.
African-American Socialist Pioneer
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In holding aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America, Winston James singled out Hubert Henry Harrison for his “pioneering role in what became known as the New Negro radicalism of the 1920s.” Yet, James noted, Harrison remained an understudied figure who had not been the subject of a major biography.
African Americans' Forced Labor
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As Americans we are taught that slavery was abolished after the Civil War. A close reading of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reveals, however, that this was not exactly the case. Although this amendment did outlaw slavery for the majority of American citizens, anyone convicted of a crime could still, quite legally, be kept in a state of bondage without claims on civil liberties and without remuneration for their forced labor.
AFSCME 3299 Fights Back
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In February 2009, four months after the economy crashed, the members of AFSCME Local 3299 ratified a contract with the University of California that has rightfully been called “historic” for the relative gains won by the union on wages and the wage structure. The union represents service and patient-care technical workers, who struggled for more than 18 months to win this agreement.
After Oaxaca's Popular Rebellion
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
“Think about it,” a popular bumper sticker read, “6 more years would be 86.” On July 4, 2010, the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca held statewide elections. Despite open vote-buying and other fraud perpetrated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), it was not enough to ensure victory on this occasion, thereby ending 81 years of uninterrupted PRI rule in Oaxaca.
After Obama's Health Care Law
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How can the single-payer health care movement move ahead after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? The right wing wants to repeal the law, which it sees as “intrusive big government.” Single-payer activists are rightly angry that the bill fails to produce the universal national health insurance that our society desperately needs, and instead provides massive subsidies to the private corporate insurance vampires.
After the Democrats' Debacle
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How far have politics “moved to the right” in the United States — and for how long? Although we’re going to press before the November 2 midterm elections, you’re probably reading it after the anticipated Democratic debacle and the attendant speculation about the viability of the Obama presidency. Whether the Democrats have retained slim majority control of one or both houses of Congress obviously matters for some legislative purposes and power relations, but our view of the broad trends is pretty much the same either way.
After the Floods, the IMF
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Pakistan in recent years has found itself in the headlights of the international press with increasingly regularity. As Obama’s surge into Af-Pak has taken shape over the last 12 months, the country and its people have been thrust to the forefront of political discussion for forces left, right and center.
After the Wheeler Occupation
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One astute observer of the Wheeler occupation noted that the events of November 20 represented a synthesis of the twin strategies of the current student movement: “popular organizing” in the form of general assemblies on the one hand, and a “militant resistance” enamored of occupations on the other.
All That We Share
A Field Guide to the Commons
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons is a wake-up call that will inspire you to see the world in a new way. As soon as you realize that some things belong to everyone—water, for instance, or the Internet or human knowledge— you become a commoner, part of a movement that’s reshaping how we will solve the problems facing us in the twenty-first century.
American Taliban
How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
America#s main international enemy#Islamic radicalism#favors theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, reviles homosexuality, subverts science and education, and reveres force over diplomacy. Markos Moulitsas shows how the American right shares those very same traits. He argues that our domestic jihadists are a greater threat to American democracy than any Islamic terrorist.
America's Complicity in Evil
Barbarism on the High Seas
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Once again the US government has permitted the Israeli state to murder good people known for their moral conscience. The Israeli state has declared that anyone with a moral conscience is an enemy of Israel.
Amid Censorship, Israel's Media Does Its Part
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel's media has once again chosen the low road, the one carefully couched in patriotism and praise for the right-far-right coalition government.
An analysis of the G20 protest and the black bloc
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It should be clear that the actions of the black bloc reflect their politics. The actions in Toronto mirror those tactics used elsewhere. The tactics and politics regardless of their intent are inherently elitist and counter-productive. In fact they mirror the critique of reformism many on the left have. The NDP says vote for us and we’ll do it for you, the black bloc says in essence the same thing – we will make the revolution for you. At best the tactics of the black bloc are based on a mistaken idea that the attacks on property and the police will create a spark to encourage others to resist capitalism, at worst they are based on a rampant individualistic sense of rage and entitlement to express that rage regardless of the consequences to others. The anti-authoritarian politic they follow is imposed on others. Very rarely will you see a black bloc call its own rally, instead the tactic is to play hide and seek with the police under the cover of larger mobilisations.
Analyzing the Crash
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The present economic crisis, which began in the United States late in 2007 and picked up speed early in 2008, may have caused production in the American economy to fall precipitously, but had the opposite effect on the production of books seeking to analyze the world economic crisis.
Anarchism & Socialism
Reformism or Revolution?
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
In these essays grouped around common themes, Wayne Price draws on decades of extensive practical experience in antiwar and student movements, marxist tendency groups and affinity-based anarchist organizations, to make an insightful case for "pro-organizational," class-struggle anarchism.
Anarchy is struggle for life, freedom and dignity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A communique by the Circle of Fire anarchist collective and the Anarchist Bulletin BLACK FLAG on the events of May 5th, 2010 in Athens, when three bank workers were murdered by 'anarchist' arsonists. The murders came as an ultimate result of an irrational, meaningless and needless violence which is promoted by an autistic, un-political and anti-social concept that has become a parasite to the anarchist # antiauthoritarian movement, sucking its blood and disparaging it, leading it to criminalisation and social isolation.
An Answer to Charlie Post
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Charlie Post is an old friend of mine and I respect his views. But I beg to disagree… In our book, Olivier Besancenot and myself pointed to several limitations of Che Guevara concerning issues as workers’ democracy and the critique of Stalinism. But we tried to grasp his thought not as a monolithic body of theory, but as thinking in movement, a movement going towards a more democratic conception of socialism. Did he come to a full understanding that socialism is “the democratically organized power of the working class”? No, he didn’t, but that doesn’t mean that he “rejected” it.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu to UC Berkeley: Divesting is the Right Thing To Do
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In South Africa, we could not have achieved our freedom and just peace without the help of people around the world, who through the use of non-violent means, such as boycotts and divestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the Apartheid regime.
Arizona's Racial Profiling Push
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is quick to blame the federal government for the economic and social ills of her state. Responding to a growing movement to boycott Arizona for its new “show me your papers” law as “thoughtless and harmful,” she complained that the outraged response “adds to the massive economic burden Arizonans have sustained for years due to the federal government’s failure to secure its borders.”
Arundhati Roy on Obama's Wars, India and Why Democracy Is "The Biggest Scam in the World"
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on President Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India and Kashmir and much more. Roy also talks about her journey deep into the forests of central India to report on the Maoist insurgency.
Asia Inhales While the West Bans the Deadly Carcinogen
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in much of the world, is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia#s development and construction boom. This white powder causes 100,000 occupational deaths per year, according to Medical News Today.
The Assault on Israeli Legitimacy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel has consciously orchestrated acute misery and poverty in the Palestinian territories over the past two decades in an effort to subdue and ethnically cleanse the captive population. Israel, despite warnings from many within the Israeli establishment, has embarked on a course that will see it, like the South African apartheid regime, become ever more isolated and reviled.
Australia Rejects Israeli-Ordered Media Censorship
A Little Justice for Al Manar TV
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Australia rejects politically motivated censorship attempts.
Authentic journalism: weapon of the people
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The path out of the crises wrought by commercial journalism opens when citizens steal back the mission that big media claimed but failed to do: Honest, coherent storytelling.
Auto Industry Strikes in China
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Strikes in China are nothing new, but the recent strike wave was remarkable in at least three respects: the amount of concessions granted to workers; the degree of publicity it initially received in the Chinese media; and the prospects for showcase union reform that it has helped push onto the agenda.
Banamex v. Narco News Precedent Protects WikiLeaks, Too
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The story – one that defines the times we live in - has been going on for a while now: State power (and that includes private-sector “states” such as corporations and commercial media organizations) can no longer hide behind commercial (and State-owned) media to consolidate and centralize power when citizens deploy decentralized, small scale, and even temporary media resistances outside of those institutions in these ways that make big media irrelevant.
Banning of Books Alarms Freedom Advocates
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The confiscation and banning of books by Malaysian authorities is sending alarm bells ringing among activists, who want the repeal of laws that the government is using to suppress freedom of expression.
Daniel Bensaïd: The Power of Indignation
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Daniel Bensaïd, the lively and inspired French Marxist thinker and activist, has left us. This is a great loss, not only for us, his friends, his comrades of struggle, but for revolutionary culture. With his irreverence, his humor, his generosity, his imagination, he was a rare example of a militant intellectual, in the meaning of these words.
Beyond the dross
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Pilger and Platt discuss the craft of journalism.
Beyond the Echo Chamber
Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
According to the authors, a new breed of networked progressive media are informing and engaging millions. By harnessing a participatory media environment, they have succeeded in influencing political campaigns, public debates, and policymaking.
Beyond the Profits System
Possibilities for a Post-Capitalist Era
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Shutt offers an analysis of the collapse of the capitalist system by determining factors inhibiting its revival and goes on to offering an alternative to the current system.
Bigger Slicks, Sicker Society
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Corporate crime is strikingly analogous to the BP slick. The visible stuff is the slime on the surface that gets most of the attention. You can see it, taste it, smell it. The bigger part stays underwater where it poisons and kills silently, out of view, gets caught in the currents and escapes containment — just like those oil “plumes” poised to swirl around the Florida peninsula and head up the Eastern seaboard.
The Billionaires’ Tea Party
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
Both a journey through a unique moment in American history and a thoroughly researched piece of investigative journalism. Through an examination of astroturfing and disinformation, we see how citizen democracy has been captured by powerful corporate interests that threatens not only the heath of American democracy, but that of its citizens and the planet as a whole.
Black Liberation and the Fight for a Socialist America
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
From slavery to convict labour, from the chain gang to the assembly line, American capitalism has been built upon the lash-scarred backs of black labour. Any organization that claims a revolutionary perspective for the United States must confront the special oppression of black people#their forced segregation at the bottom of capitalist society and the poisonous racism that divides the working class and cripples its struggles.
Blasted in a West Virginia Mine
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Conditions in the mines are caused by capitalism. The 25 dead miners in the latest mine disaster in West Virginia are dead because union-busting and the disregard of safety precautions for the sake of speed-up and higher profits.
Blau-Kamm case exposes the dark underbelly of Israe's security state
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In a properly democratic country, Kamm would have an honorable defence against the charges, of being a whistle-blower rather than a spy, and Blau would be winning journalism prizes not huddling away in exile. But this is Israel. Here, despite a desperate last-stand for the principles of free speech and the rule of law in the pages of the Haaretz newspaper today, which is itself in the firing line over its role, there is almost no public sympathy for Kamm or even Blau. The pair are already being described, both by officials and in chat forums and talkback columns, as traitors who should be jailed, disappeared or executed for the crime of endangering the state.
Bob King and the "New" UAW
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Last June the 35th UAW Constitutional Convention in Detroit elected new national officers headed by Bob King. Even before his election, King had been heralded in the media as desirous of transforming the UAW into an activist union. He supported the US Social Forum, co-sponsored the August 28th Detroit march for “Jobs, Justice and Peace” and encouraged UAW participation in the October 2nd “One Nation Working Together” demonstration in Washington DC.
Body Parts and Bio-Piracy
Tissue, Skin, Bone and Organ Harvesting at Israel's National Forensic Institute
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A report on the tissue, skin, bone and organ harvesting conducted for many years at Israel’s L. Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Bogus, Misdirected and Effective
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Tea Party movement is steeped in misinformation and denial. But it has a lot to teach the left.
Book Review: "Anarchism & Socialism: Reformism or Revolution?" by Wayne Price
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Book Review: Kevin Anderson, Marx at the Margins (2010)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Anderson’s argument is based on a careful and comprehensive reading of the writings of Marx (and, to the extent necessary, Engels) on: (1) the history, economics and politics of societies and nations outside Western Europe (but including Ireland); (2) movements of national liberation, as in Ireland, Poland and India; and (3) the relationship between ‘race’ and class in countries such as England and the United States.
The Borrower and the Billionaire
A Foreclosure Story
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In this excerpt adapted from The Monster, Michael W. Hudson writes about the nation’s largest subprime lending empire through the fortunes of its owner and one of its customers.
Bring In The Paper, Bring On The Torches
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The ideologists of capitalism are paid handsomely to proclaim the rationality of the free market system, where all men are recreated equal by their commodities as buyers and sellers. Finance capital, however, recreates itself in the irrationality of the markets, in the divergence between prices; in the disparity between particular prices and particular values.
Brothers-in-Arms: Capitalism and Corporate Journalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An essential role of corporate journalism is to shore up public confidence in an unjust, crisis-riven financial and economic system. Although plenty of gloom and doom is permitted, especially in the face of obvious crisis, the legitimacy of the system is rarely questioned.
Dennis Brutus: Honored by the Enemies He Kept
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
So much has been said about the loving and nurturing characteristics of Dennis Brutus and his political and literary contributions. Those who knew him understood how much he wanted to encourage future generations of radicals and poets.
Burmese media combating censorship
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Bye Bye, Miss American Empire
Neighborhood Patriots, Backcountry Rebels, and their Underdog Crusades to Redraw America's Political Map
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Breakaway movements large and small are rising up across the US. Activists of various stripes want to form new states, even new nations. According to Kauffman, the American Empire is dying, in this investigation into modern-day secession.
California Is Not Dreaming
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Discussion of March 4, 2010 Day of Action in California.
Calling Bono
Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist ... in Graves and Prisons
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Palestinians have been engaging in nonviolence for decades. The reality is that nonviolence is only as powerful as its visibility to the world.
Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Engler documents the fact that the essence of Canadian policy has always been support for the establishment and continued dominance of an expansionist Zionist state in the territories that now comprise Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Canadian Media in Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How so-called "business journalism" is often biased and tends to give readers a distorted picture of the news.
Canadian Mining Corporation Receives Permits in Mexican Indigenous Territory
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Canadian mining companies have found a way to expand their operations in Mexico. Recently the Mexican government awarded 22 permits to British Columbia-based First Majestic Silver to mine for silver in the western region of the country.
The Canadian War on Queers
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
From the 1950s to the late 1990s, agents of the Canadian state spied on, interrogated, and harassed gays and lesbians in a series of so-called national security campaigns. This book traces this history, revealing acts of state repression and forms of social resistance.
Capitalism is a Waste of Time
Godwin, Malthus & the Ideology of #No Alternative#
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The #no alternative# of permanent scarcity is both the all too familiar essence of our daily politics as well as the ideology at the heart of the discipline of economics, defined in the most widely used economics textbook of the 20th century as #the study of how men and society choose to employ scarce resources#
Capital's War on the People
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Instead of calling the recent G-20’s brutal austerity declaration (issued at the conclusion of its annual summit in Toronto) an orchestrated declaration of class war on the people, many progressive/Keynesian economists and other liberal commentators simply call it “bad policy.” While it is true that, as these commentators point out, the Hooverian message of the declaration is bound to worsen the recession, it is nonetheless not a matter of “bad” policy; it is a matter of class policy.
Capital's War on the People
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is time to change the parameters of the debate, from “when or by how much social spending should be cut?” to “why should the people pay for something they are not responsible for?”
Cars and Class
"A Reckless, Blood-Thirsty, Villainous Lot ... "
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Making life difficult for cars could be, in fact, described as a form of class war, but one that works in the long-term interests of the poor and working class.
A Case of Decency Deficit
Eden's Photoshoot
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
According to the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence, taking humiliating trophy pictures of Palestinian prisoners are such a "widespread phenomenon" that taking them constitutes "a norm." Why so? Because it is the "necessary result of a long term military control of a civilian population."
Celebrating the Past -- the Legacy of the Free Speech Movement
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A commemoration of the 45th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement took place at the University of California at Berkeley last December 2nd. As the years fly by anniversaries become more significant as the students who participated exit the stage of life. The usual 10-year anniversary is now shortened to five years. Just recently the FSM gang that met for a potluck dinner decided to celebrate each year!
A Chinese Alternative? Interpreting the Chinese New Left Politically
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In China, the terms #left# and #right# or #radical# and #conservative# produce somewhat different associations in the popular mind than what we are used to in the West. While in most capitalist countries #left# and #right# are understood largely in economic terms, in China these concepts tend to be deeply entangled within a framework defined by the state, the Communist Party, and nationalism. As a result, Chinese political debates have tended to presume a rigid dichotomy between #left-wing# state socialism and #right-wing# capitalist liberal democracy.
Chronicle of a Labor Victory
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Most union members see nothing but hugging and kissing between their leaders and their bosses on a daily basis. It takes a different kind of union to break with this culture, which has become second-nature to U.S. unions and is arguably the main reason for their current weakness. Leonard Riley’s longshore workers union in Charleston, South Carolina is a different kind of union, however, and On the Global Waterfront by Suzan Erem and Paul Durrenberger tells their gripping story.
CIA Experiments in Torture
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Over the last year there have been an increasing number of accounts suggesting that, along with the CIA#s #enhanced interrogation# torture program, there was a related program experimenting with and researching the application of the torture.
The Class War at Home
The Rich Getting Richer
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
There is a class war – the war of the rich on the poor and the middle class – and the rich are winning.
Climate Crisis Hits Pakistani Women
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Pakistan is among the countries that will be hit hardest in the near future by effects of climate change, even though it contributes only a fraction to global warming. The country is witnessing severe pressures on natural resources and environment. This warning has recently come from the mouth of Pakistan’s prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani, who alarmed the countrymen by disclosing that Pakistan is the 12th most vulnerable country in the world to environmental degradation.
Coal's Ruptured Landscape
Navigating the Ruins of Appalachia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is more apparent now than ever before that coal mining, especially mountain top removal, is unethical and inhumane. It displays stark irresponsibility in land stewardship as well as depraved practices within a diverse region. It#s time to shake off the flawed belief that we are reliant upon coal and other fossil fuels.
The Collapse of Western Morality
The Indispensable People?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Moral degradation is reaching new lows.
Connexions Archive Case Statement
In search of a new home for the Connexions Archive
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Working together to secure a future for the past
Connexions Archive Information Sheet
Working together to secure a future for the past
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Looking for new space for the Connexions Archive and those who work on it.
Connexions Calendar Expired Events 2010
Resource Type: Website
First Published: 2010
Consumer Hell
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The problem with gross domestic product is that there are no deductions involved: all economic activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to, not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure as beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.
Contemporary anarchism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Contemporary anarchism has some important differences, but also a great deal of continuity, with historical anarchism. Where it focuses on building an alternative in the “interstices” of capitalism, it accommodates to, rather than challenges, capitalism; and where it fetishizes street tactics, it generates more press than tangible success in either building the struggle or in challenging the state.
The Copyright Police
First They Came for the Hip Hop Sites ...
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Understand this: the seizure of websites without due process, corporate interests lobbying and then writing laws that allow them to be the police and t personally enforce, the battle over net neutrality is all about concentrating power in the hands of a few. This is about controlling the flow of information and being a gate keeper in the communications arena. Its the first step in moving a democracy toward a dictatorship.
Corporate Watch - Tracking Corporate Complicity in the Occupation of Palestine
Resource Type: Website
First Published: 2010
A blog to track companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of and apartheid policies in Palestine. In addition to research blogs, the site also includes all Corporate Watch's recent articles on Israel/Palestine.
Could a 'mini-paper' nip at the heels of mainstream press?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A mini-paper would be incredibly inexpensive to publish. There would be no requirement for newsprint, a huge printing plant or large delivery system.
The Cover-Ups That Exploded
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Covering Pakistan: How Journalists and Experts Reproduce Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It appears irrelevant to many policymakers, journalists, and people in the US generally that Pakistan has, for example, peasants, unions, working-class politics, LGBTQ organizations, feminist groups—that, in short, the overriding ethic of Pakistani democracy and resistance movements is secular.
The CPCCA should be reconfigured to combat racism against all peoples
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Confronted with evidence of a decline in anti-Semitism, Irwin Cotler creatively claims that it is anti-Semitic to accuse Israel of apartheid. Since this accusation seems to be growing and is being promoted by campaigns on Canadian campuses, Cotler then has "evidence" of anti-Semitism.
Creation of Sustainable Free Media Would Be Huge Breakthrough
Part 4 of The Crisis in Canadian Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Independent media organizations would approach news differently compared to the coverage provided by corporate-owned media.
The Crimewave That Shames The World
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It's one of the last great taboos: the murder of at least 20,000 women a year in the name of 'honour'.
Criminalizing First-Graders
Arrested and Handcuffed for Tantrums
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
All across the nation, schools have adopted draconian #zero-tolerance policies that treat children like criminals and turn schools into prison-like environments.
The Crisis and the Potential
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A veritable civil [war] erupted in the past year among several of America’s leading unions. At a time when over eight million jobs were disappearing, unemployment reaching highs unseen for nearly three decades, home defaults and foreclosures hitting all-time records with no end in sight, and labor’s major legislative goals being cut to pieces, some of the country’s biggest, most aggressive unions went to war — not against capital or Congress, but against one another.
Crisis in the US
Social and Economic Effects, Restructuring and Methods of Adapting
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The cause of the crisis in the US must be found in the context of the world capitalist economy and not credited to internal causes. These internal causes of course exist but in fact only shape the way this crisis is expressed.
Cuba's Prisoner Release
Surprise! Mainstream Media Omits Context and Key Facts
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Double standards and hypocrisy abound in American media coverage of Cuba's recent prisoner release. For example, the U.S. government holds more political prisoners on Cuban soil than the Cuban government does.
The Cuts and the Fightback
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The accelerated privatzation taking place at the University of California is transforming the institution. For faculty, students and workers the changes are devastating. Programs and services are cut, student fees are raised over and over again, workers face both furloughs and layoffs while the faculty’s shared governance shrinks.
Dancing with Dynamite
Social Movements and States in Latin America
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
The complex ways in which grassroots movements work for, with, against, and independently of national governments in Latin America.
The Danger of SB1070
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The recent passage of SB 1070 in Arizona must be a wakeup call not only for those of us of Latino heritage, but for all progressives who cherish freedom and justice. A draconian law [partially blocked by a court injunction] that basically legalizes racial profiling, it compels the law enforcement officers in the state of Arizona to stop and question any person that they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally.
The Dead End of Climate Justice
How NGO Bureaucrats and Greenwashed Corporations are Turning Nature Into Investment Capital
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The notion of climate debt, highlighted as the principle avenue of struggle for the climate justice movement, poses some large problems. Contemporary demands for reparations justified by the notion of climate debt open a dangerous door to increased green capitalist investment in the Global South. Everything from energy to agriculture, from cleaning products to electronics, and especially everything within the biosphere, is being incorporated into this regime of climate markets. One can only imagine the immense possibilities for speculation and financialization in these markets as the green bubble continues to grow.
Death in the Desert
Migrants Risk Everything to Cross the Border
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This is a NAFTA border. Money moves freely, people with money do too, but the poor are pushed into a dangerous cycle of crossing the desert.
The Death of NUMMI
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
During the 1980-82 recession, U.S. automobile corporations were closing factories, reflecting growing international competition and overproduction. One of the plants closed was a large General Motors facility in the city of Fremont, California, part of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Death of the university?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As universities have turned into businesses, so students have turned into consumers. There is, however, a fundamental difference between being a student and being a consumer. Education is not a product but a relationship and a process. Once students become consumers, their whole relationship to education changes. They come to look upon ideas, not as ways of understanding the world, but as possessions that they can trade for a better job or greater social prestige.
Debate with the International Socialist Organization Continued
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
From a libertarian socialist point of view, the “self-emancipation of the working class” can’t happen unless the working class builds organized mass movements that they control, such as labor organizations. This is the fundamental basis of syndicalism as a revolutionary strategy.
The Decline And Fall Of The American Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.
Defending Palestinian solidarity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Electronic Intifada, the online publication about Palestine, finds itself at the centre of a storm as a pro-Israel group applies pressure to have a grant from a Dutch foundation withdrawn. This assault is part of a well-coordinated, escalating Israeli government-endorsed effort to vilify individuals and cripple organisations that criticise Israel's human rights record and call for it to respect Palestinian rights and international law.
The Demise of Andy Stern and the Question of Unions in Contemporary Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A meaningful advance of workers’ struggles means bringing into existence class-wide organizations. Where those with such a perspective find themselves, by hook or by crook, in trade unions, the issue is to broaden struggles to include the unemployed wherever possible.
Democracy Seized -- and Lost
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Reconstruction was among the messiest, most complex periods in U.S. history, and certainly one of the most emotionally exhausting to revisit. Accounts of the period resonate with hope of almost millenarian proportions and are tainted by tragedy — not the kind of tragedy that brings release, but the kind that leaves one sick with incredulity.
Der Zor Diary: A Pilgrimage To The Killing Fields of the Armenian Genocide
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Der Zor desert -- the most infamous of the killings fields in the premeditated extermination of the Armenian people carried out by the Turkish government beginning in 1915.
Dershowitz to the Rescue?
The Israeli Spin-Machine in Overdrive
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
According to Israel's apologists, only Israelis have a right to defend themselves. Palestinians do not have this right, nor does anyone else who is attempting to assist the Palestinians.
Disenfranchisement as Political Repression
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the U.S., if you#re caught boosting cars, robbing liquor stores, or attempting to escape reality by injecting heroin into your veins, you not only go to jail, but you lose your right to vote. And you don#t just lose it for the time you#re incarcerated; it#s still gone when you get out.
'Diversity of tactics' as a justification for violent tactics - a debate, part 1
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Dividing the Races to Benefit the Rich
Prison Populism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Race baiting broadcast agitators like Beck and Rush Limbaugh have their audiences believing the factually flawed foolishness that the reason they are falling behind economically is because the federal government is fawning over blacks lavishing them with unearned benefits. The reason for the loss of jobs, homes and dreams of comfortable futures driving white working class (and middle class) ire is not benefits to blacks but naked greed on Wall Street and in the suites of mega-corporations that triggered America's economic collapse.
Do Workers Lose Their Rights?
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Gertrude Ezorsky's Freedom in the Workplace? is a unique and highly useful book. Unique, because it combines sophisticated philosophical analysis with compelling examples from the lives of low-wage workers and an Appendix on 20th century U.S. labor law — all in a text of 77 easy-to-read pages! — and highly useful, because it refutes a central myth about capitalism.
Don't Mourn, Balkanize
Essays After Yugoslavia
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Don't Mourn, Balkanize! is the first radical account of Yugoslav history after Yugoslavia, surveying this complex history with imagination and insight. Grubacic's book provides essential information and perspective for all those interested in the recent history of this part of the world.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2010-2011
Capital devours lives, labor, land; masses seek paths to freedom
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A revolutionary organization can no longer allow any separation between theory and practice, philosophy and revolution, workers and intellectuals, "inside" and "outside."
Earth into Property
Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A broad exploration of the colonial roots of global capitalism and the worldwide quest of Indigenous people for liberation through decolonization.
Part Two of The Bowl with One Spoon.
Eat Pray Love Strike
The Law of the Bargaining Table
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We admire underdogs, yet we do not rejoice when underdogs go on strike against corporate fat cats. We admire hard-workers, yet we do not embrace those who are, arguably, the hardest-workers among us#the stoop laborers who pick our lettuce and strawberries.
1810, 1910, 2010 and Mexican Labor
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the midst of a deep depression, an ongoing crisis of legitimacy and a brutal internal war amongst the different fractions of the drug cartel/state complex, Mexico is celebrating its two great revolutions, the Revolution of Independence (1810) and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920).
Elixer
A History of Water and Humankind
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A cultural history of water.
The End of Capitalism?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
For all those who wish to see a different world, this moment is dripping with opportunity because the old order is crumbling before our eyes.
The End of (Military) History?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it#s this: victory is a chimera. Counting on today#s enemy to yield in the face of superior force makes about as much sense as buying lottery tickets to pay the mortgage: you better be really lucky.
The Enigma of Capital And the Crisis of Capitalism
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
European Social failure?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The sixth European Social Forum in Istanbul left something to be desired
Every Woman for Herself
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Factory Girls shows the reader what it’s like to live inside the largest human migration in history. It feels, apparently, pretty lonely. Leslie Chang’s subjects are the young women who’ve left tiny farms throughout China for a chance at making money in the big city. Their lesson and mantra is that each person can depend only on herself. “The easiest thing in the world was to lose touch with someone,” Chang notes.
Eyes With Legs
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the last decade, 11 journalists have been murdered by Israeli forces, including Cevdet Kiliclar, a Turkish who was shot in the head, last week, as he photographed Israeli commandos attacking peace activists on the Freedom Flotilla. The U.S. never condemns these crimes because it#s Israel#s biggest supporter, and also because it does the same.
Fabricating Terror
The Portland "Bomb" Plot
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Why does the FBI orchestrate fake terror plots? Could it be that the US government needs terrorist events in order to completely destroy the US Constitution?
The FDA and Frankenfoods
Will the Agency Protect Consumers or the Profits of a Few Corporations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent enforcement letters warning food makers that they cannot label their products as free of genetically modified or genetically engineered ingredients.
The Fear Factor
Stephen Harper’s “Tough on Crime” Agenda
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This study analyses the financial and human costs of the Harper government's tough on crime agenda and concludes it is wrong-headed, expensive, and counter-productive. In fact, it will likely lead to more crime and a bigger deficit.
Feminism's Global Contradictions
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is clear that the most significant factor now shaping women’s lives and status worldwide is globalization. What isn’t clear, however, is whether globalization is affecting women positively or negatively.
Fifth Socialist International -- Time for definitions
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Although in the past every international socialist organisation was founded amidst great debates and ideological confrontations, the motley crew of factions which all over the world today call themselves #left# shows an unprecedented degree of ideological confusion and political diversity. It will be a difficult job to bring them together, to give them structure and a route map.
Fighters with Disabilities
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
At least since the mid-20th century, writers in the United States have publicly debated the place of politics in fiction. Plenty of great authors, Flannery O’Connor among them, warned against saddling fiction with political intent. That some renowned writers have produced work that reveals human truths that belie their detestable politics — Jorge Luis Borges and Ezra Pound are two examples — might support O’Connor’s point.
Fighting Fires & Breaking Barriers
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Having a young daughter and working in the building trades, I am always scanning cultural representations of construction and skilled trades work to see if there are women. Whether Sesame Street or Wendy on “Bob The Builder,” women — in cartoon form at least — are partially visible in the presence of tools and heavy machinery.
The Fire This Time: Burning Bridges
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Some activists hold back from condemning tactics that are politically stupid and destructive, like the recent Ottawa arson attack by an anarchist group, because of a commitment to the doctrine of a 'diversity of tactics'. However, the original idea behind a diversity of tactics, that is, a variety of approaches to organizing for change, has been appropriated by activists devoted to property destruction as a media spectacle, who feel that they should be exempted from criticism by other activists, no matter how much their tactics serve to undermine the building of a broad-based movement against capitalism.
First a Hand on Your Crotch, Next a Boot in Your Face
False Choices and Airport Security
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Since 9/11, we have given up many of our rights and our government has condoned practices like torture, legalized assassination, kidnapping, indefinite detention without access to council or trial – all in the name of keeping us 'safe' and 'free'. We have adopted practices and behaviors that we used to abhor in other nations and regimes. These practices, as demonstrated by the TSA, have nothing to do with keeping us safe or free – quite the opposite.
Five Reasons To Plant Trees Now
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
To some people, planting a tree is the epitome of the environmental cliche. Planting a tree seems so simple, so easy, so... low-technology. In the midst of the economic upheaval we are experiencing now, in the face of massive challenges such as peak oil and climate change, why should we plant trees?
Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Floodlines is a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, Floodlines tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history.
The Flotilla In The Israeli Press
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An analysis of Israeli media propaganda in the wake of Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
For Israel, A Reckoning
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The farce of the climate change summit in Copenhagen affirmed a world war waged by the rich against most of humanity. It also illuminated a resistance growing perhaps as never before: an internationalism linking justice for the planet earth with universal human rights, and criminal justice for those who invade and dispossess with impunity.
Forging Change, Breaking Chains
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Remembering and forgetting are not only things that people do; they are things that are done to them. In our time, the Black freedom movement of the mid-20th century is now both well remembered and selectively forgotten.
Framing the Sixties
Corporate Media Shadows and the 1960s
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What Really Happened to the 1960s is a look at the role the media played in the presentation and interpretation of the struggles of the 1960s. Simultaneously, it is a consideration of the meaning of democracy in a society where the media is owned by corporations and elites who consider democracy antithetic to their hegemony.
From Apartheid South Africa to Palestine
"To Exist is to Resist"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The growing support for Palestinian liberation via BDS reminds of small but sure steps towards the full-fledged anti-apartheid sports, cultural, academic and economic boycotts catalyzed by Brutus against racist South African Olympics teams more than forty years ago. Today, these are just the first nails we’re hammering into the coffin of Zionist domination – in solidarity with a people who have every reason to fight back with tools that we in South Africa proudly sharpened: non-violently but with formidable force.
From Ecological Disaster to Constitutional Crisis
The Long Struggle Over the Xingú Dams Comes to a Climax at Belo Monte
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The master plan for damming the Amazon river system, which includes Belo Monte and the Xingú dams, was originally created in the 1970s by the military dictatorship then in power. It essentially treats the Amazon as a reservoir of natural resources to be extracted without regard for the destruction of its riverine and forest environment or the displacement and pauperization of its indigenous and local Brazilian inhabitants.
From Here to There: The Staughton Lynd Reader
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
From Iron Mines to Iron Bars
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Exploring some of the consequences of the long-term decline in union membership and the significant shift in membership towards public sector workers.
From Klinghoffer to the Gaza Flotilla
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Under the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process. The treaty necessarily adopts a strict approach. One cannot attack a ship and then claim self-defense if the people on board resist the unlawful use of violence. In other words, according to international law, the actions of the Israeli military were beyond the law and those involved should be treated no differently than, say, the Somali pirates who are also in the habit of boarding ships by force.
From one apartheid state to another: Israel's secret military alliance with apartheid South Africa
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel regarded the relationship as based on more than just convenience, but on a common position as colonial oppressor, under pressure from national liberation movements. The two countries shared #unshakeable foundations of#common hatred of injustice and#refusal to submit to it.# The #injustice# each refused to submit to was ending apartheid (South Africa) and reversing the Nakbah (Israel), in both cases the subordination of indigenous people to the interests of settlers from Europe.
From Reconstruction to Capitalist Crisis
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The outcome of the Civil War registered the defeat of the Army of the Confederate states, the defeat of the army of the slaveholders, and a victory for the army of the owners of the railroads and big industrial enterprises committed to free, or wage labor. The political party of the big property holders, the Republican party, was supported by the mass of small farmers, urban workers, small business owners and the abolitionist movement.
From Wikileaks to TSA
Anti-Empire Report
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We have to remind the American people of what they once knew but seem to have forgotten: that they don't want BIG government, or SMALL government; they don't want MORE government, or LESS government; they want government ON THEIR SIDE.
Funding for Non-profit Media or Public Interest Activities
Part 7 of 7 - Canada's Media in Crisis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A group that launches, or even refocuses, an independent news media project - or raises money for just about any public-interest activity - will probably have success in fundraising if it does the proper research and targets a unique audience. It will need to demonstrate that it offers an important public service, such as providing in-depth coverage of local political, economic, and social issues not covered adequately by other media.
The futility of activism using violence as catharsis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The anarchist practitioners of violence are fundamentally elitist. They do violence because it makes them feel good, and they don't care about the fact that it undermines the real work for social change that movement activists are doing.
The Future of Palestine
Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Israel lobby is effectively helping Israel commit national suicide. Israel, is turning itself into an apartheid state, which, as Ehud Olmert has pointed out, is not sustainable in the modern era.
Gasland
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination.
Gates of Delusion: Media Distortions and REAL Climate Scandals
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Climate-related storms in a teacup have been appearing in the corporate media almost on a daily basis. This nonsense is distracting attention from a mountain of evidence that human-induced climate change is accelerating and poses a deadly threat to civilisation.
Gay Marriage: End of the World?
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Gaza Freedom March Blocked
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Fourteen hundred international activists mobilized in Cairo, Egypt in late December for a Gaza Freedom March (GFM) to break the siege imposed by the U.S., Israeli and Egyptian governments. The marchers were blocked and attacked by Egyptian police and military forces; there can be no doubt that the authorization for these assaults and the orders to block the march from reaching Gaza came directly from the U.S. administration.
Gaza Occupation And Siege Are Illegal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the objective of the blockade is to weaken the Gaza economy and undermine support for Hamas. That is a political, not a military, objective, and it is impermissible under international law to target innocent civilians to achieve nonmilitary goals. Actions taken to enforce an illegal siege cannot themselves be legal. Israel's blockade violates the human rights of Gaza Palestinians and must be brought to an end.
Gazan Youth's Manifesto for Change
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!
Genealogies of the Uprisings
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An interview with Adolph Gilly. Gilly is a longtime activist and prominent historian of the Mexican Revolution.
German Auto Workers in the Crisis
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
German auto workers, unlike their U.S. brothers and sisters, were somewhat sheltered from the economic crisis in 2009. Given that it was an election year, the government passed a law last March that supplemented their wages when they worked a “short” week. Between what they were paid by their employer and the government supplement, they earned 65-90% of their usual wage. The government also had a version of “cash for clunkers” so some auto plants were at full production.
A Ginger Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Grassroots campaigns could break Britain#s corrupt political system.
Global BDS Against Israel Is Working
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel's ruling elite is increasingly concerned about the international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions, but they are unwilling to address the human rights abuses that brought the movement into existence.
Global Capitalism in Crisis
Karl Marx and the Decay of the Profit System
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Global Directory of Palestine Activist and Related Organizations
Resource Type: Database
First Published: 2010
A listing of organizations working on Palestinian justice issues.
The Global War on Tribes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The point is not that all tribal peoples pose an egalitarian alternative to neoliberal capitalism. Some (such as Indigenous peoples) certainly do have strong egalitarian principles, but many other tribal peoples -- such as in the new conflict zones -- certainly do not (particularly toward women). The salient point is not that all tribal cultures are paradise, but that they are not capitalist, and neoliberal capitalism cannot stand anything other than Total Control.
Globalizing the Culture Wars
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Uganda, like many countries in Africa and around the world, adheres to long-standing heterosexual and patriarchal traditions as to what is acceptable sexual behavior. In the West, such traditions are shared by a dwindling minority. The bourgeois capitalist marketplace has reconfigured that which is morally acceptable. Sexual practices among adults are areas of personal erotic experience, protected private activities.
God and His Demons
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Parenti examines the dark side of religion, the many evils committed in the name of godly virtue throughout history. This is not a blanket condemnation of all believers. The focus is on the threat posed by fundamentalists and theocratic reactionaries.
Goldstone Report Dramatized
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Grassroots media relations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A media relations guide for organizers and activists.
The Greeks Get It
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Here#s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare#the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
The Growing Boycott of Israel
A Force for Good
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
To join the boycott is good the world#s future in general. It is certainly good for the Palestinians, and yes, it is good for the Jews too.
Guatemala Coup Fails
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
While the coup in Honduras was successful, in Guatemala an attempted “cold” coup unraveled. Rodrigo Rosenberg was murdered on May 10, 2009; the following day the media ran a video filmed shortly before his death. In it Rosenberg stated that if he were killed, President Alvaro Colom and his wife were responsible.
Haiti, Imperialist Disaster
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The pictures and news reports tell the stories of Haiti’s physical destruction, the agony and heartbreak, the heroism of rescue efforts — and the filthy business of “missionary” child-snatchers — reporting the unfathomable scale of the reconstruction that may take decades.
Haiti - The Broken Wing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The courage and compassion of thousands of people willing to enter a chaotic disaster zone threatened with aftershocks are very real. Compassion arises out of a recognition that 'their' suffering is no different to 'my' suffering. Joining compassion with reason means asking why over 80 per cent of Haiti's population of 10 million people live in abject poverty. Why less than 45 per cent of all Haitians have access to potable water. Why the life expectancy rate in Haiti is only 53 years. Why seventy-six per cent of Haiti's children under the age of five are underweight, or suffer from stunted growth, with 63 per cent of Haitians undernourished.
Hard Core Green
How to Kick Corporate Butt
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Two uncompromised green activists and writers completely focused on winning, and utterly void of bullshit.
Helping the occupation bloom: An open letter to Cargoflora
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Flowers from illegally occupied Palestinian land are being shipped to Europe.
The Heresy Of The Greeks Offers Hope
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Greece is a microcosm of a modern class war rarely reported as such.
The Historical Moment That Produced Us
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As we emerge, hopefully, from this dismal period of rollback, we recall Rosa Luxemburg's remark, shortly before her murder in 1919: "The revolution says: I was, I am, I shall be!" We assert the ongoing reality of communism, "the real movement developing before our eyes," as Marx put it in the Manifesto. Like Hegel's "knights of history," we locate our identities not in any immediacy but in the emerging new universal that must be the cutting edge of the next global offensive.
History's Mad Hatters
The Strange Career of Tea Party Populism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Tea Party anger reaches far beyond the ranks of the modest Tea Party movement. It resonates with other Americans who understandably feel that political and economic elites, serving themselves at the expense of everyone else, have failed Americans. The big question is just exactly how (or even if) that private and personal rage gets transformed into moral and political outrage.
Holocaust survivor - why I support Palestinian rights
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
For me, the Israeli government#s actions toward the Palestinians awaken horrific memories of my family#s experiences under Hitlerism: the inhuman walls, the check points, the daily humiliations, killings, diseases, the systematic deprivation. There#s no escaping the fact that Israel has occupied the entire country of Palestine, and taken most of the land, while the Palestinians have been expelled, walled off, and deprived of human rights and human dignity.
Homeless and Hungry at College
Falling Through the Safety Net
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
With students and their family members losing jobs as tuition increases escalate and social services are cut, more and more students are falling through the tattered social safety net.
Honoring Helen Thomas
A Great Journalist, Traduced By Hacks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Helen Thomas was done in because she embarrassed the group of lap dogs who call themselves White House reporters.
Hospital pays compensation over 'racism' death
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Harinder Veriah's death helped to expose an ugly truth in Hong Kong: that racism is a serious problem. A report "Hong Kong's big dirty little secret" acknowledged that racism was so ingrained that derogatory terms for ethnic minorities such as gwei lo ("ghost people") for whites and hak gwai or ("black ghost") for blacks were barely noticed.
Hot Wet Holiday Sex
From Wikileaky Condoms to Yucky Zuckerburg
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Whatever your preferences, do go on some kind of holiday sex adventure. Try not to hurt anyone, including yourself, and whatever your pleasure, enjoy it and infuse it with a sense of *sacred* solstice power, a promise to resist the deadly status quo of depression, perma-war and power-grabs, and a passionate commitment to love.
How Alternative Media Provide The Crucial Critique Of The Mainstream
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The closeness of the mainstream to dominant economic, cultural and ideological forces means that the mainstream largely functions to promote the interests of the military/industrial/political complex. Yet within advanced capitalist economies, the contradictions and complexities of corporate media have provided certain spaces for progressive journalism.
How Canada's Christian right was built
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The religous right is organizing hard, and effectively, to get their hands on the levers of power.
How Race Fuels Rightist Agenda
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Nearly 50 years after the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights, the conservative movement is mobilizing its electoral base by using the wedge issues of race and racism. The principal targets are not new — African Americans and “illegal immigrants” from Mexico.
How the 'black bloc' protected the G20
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The black-clad mob in Toronto has left a lot of people not only in the general public but in the wider nonviolent social/global justice movements in Canada feeling disgusted, demoralized and dispirited. Just the result you want if your goal is to marginalize and stifle dissent. The blocistes, in other words, are the most effective tool on the ground for silencing the valid concerns of the broad social movements.
How to Become a Real Muslim
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
When I was growing up in the 1980s the concept of a #radical# in a Muslim context meant someone who was a militant secularist, someone who challenged not just racism but the power of the mosques too. Someone like me. Today, of course, it means almost the opposite # a #radical# is a religious fundamentalist.
How to End the Tea Party (and Scare Obama at the Same Time)
A Black / Brown Coalition
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One of the reasons the left doesn#t do better is because it tends to view the right's transgressions as a moral issue rather than as a pragmatic problem as, for example, a baseball coach would do if the Tea Party were the other team. In fact, calling someone a racist is not a particularly useful political move whereas figuring out why they#re getting to first base all the time, and you#re not, is. The right keeps it simple. It speaks plain talk, not bland abstractions devised by some third rate branding coach. There is hardly anyone in the country who doesn#t know the right opposes gay marriage, abortion and illegal immigration. Now try describing three primary goals of liberals or the left and you see the problem.
How to Light a Prairie Fire
The Spell Can be Broken
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If there's one thing I think many people need to understand, it is this: sustained mass movements rarely happen unless many of the participants believe they might win.
How to Write about Haiti
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How to make sure that you stick to the tried and proven cliches.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010): In Lieu of Flowers, Organize
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Where other leftish icons have spent these decades gnashing their teeth, lecturing and bemoaning how awful everything that happens up above has been (as if most folks born down below didn't already know that by the time we were eight), Howard answered the call, again and again, to help us do something about it. He walked out to the picket lines every time he was called - by neighborhood organizers fighting against his university's real estate grabs, by striking workers that cleaned and fed the students and professors, by almost anyone who organized and fought that asked, and often before they asked, for his support.
Hypocrisy Reigns
Don't Forsake the Struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
When Israel labels as "terrorists" the ship passengers who offered some resistance to the Israeli invaders, who points out that the passengers who resisted the 9-11 highjackers on the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania are called "heroes"?
I was wrong on veganism
Traditional livestock production makes ecological sense
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An environmental reporter reviews the environmental impacts of meat production in the developed world. He finds that First World meat production is incredibly wasteful but that this is not a requirement of livestock rearing so much as an entrenched practice, and offers suggestions for greening the industry.
Iceberg Economies and Shadow Selves
Further Adventures in the Territories of Hope
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Capitalism is only kept going by this army of anti-capitalists, who constantly exert their powers to clean up after it, and at least partially compensate for its destructiveness. Behind the system we all know, in other words, is a shadow system of kindness, the other invisible hand. Much of its work now lies in simply undoing the depredations of the official system.
Idiot Bosses and Valiant Women
Labor and Capital in Actual Practice
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
No matter what the enterprise, most employees know who the hard workers are, even though it#s not their job to know. They know who hustles, pitches in and lends a hand, who goofs off and avoids work, and who strives to keep the operation going by performing those thankless little tasks that don#t necessarily get noticed by management.
Ill Fares The Land
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
In and Out of Crisis
The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Political economists Albo, Gindin and Panitch lay bare the roots of the crisis, which they locate in the dynamic expansion of capital on a global scale over the last quarter century – and in the inner logic of capitalism itself.
In the Aftermath of the G20: Reflections on Strategy, Tactics and Militancy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The tactics of the Black Bloc make it clear that, for them, it is more important to smash windows than to try and march with thousands of workers and engage them in arguments about how to move struggles forward or that the problem is capitalism. How radical is it to trash a few windows? For us, radical is about workers gaining confidence and consciousness to fight back, not just at work, but in solidarity with others. Radical is about developing a sense of mass power, organising based on moving others into struggle, winning others to challenge the power in their workplace or community collectively, beyond the individualization of our society. Radical is about going to the roots of the system - not trashing its symbols.
In the Crossfire
Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
This book is the story of those other movements and revolts in Vietnam, caught in the crossfire between the French and the Stalinists, told by one of the few survivors.
Independent media advocates must develop creative news sites
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We should be able to come up with two or three practical models that can be used to set up sustainable news and information production and delivery systems.
Information Terrorists?
The Vile Campaign Against Julian Assange and Wikileaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
WikiLeaks is under concerted attack from the US government. Also under attack by the US government is the whole idea of freedom of thought and of information. It needs to be clearly understood that the attacks on WikiLeaks by the US government could as easily be used against news organizations and political organizations.
Insisting on Humanity
The Plight of the Palestinians
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is important that we preserve the distinction between the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian people, who have held on to their rights for so many years, and unleashed two of the greatest expressions of people's power and resolve: the First Uprising of 1987 and al-Aqsa Intifada of 2000. A whole population taking on the self-celebrated "greatest army in the Middle East" is hardly "powerless". The Palestinian people have printed themselves on the practical discourse of this conflict, and they have proved themselves to be powerful players in determining their own fate.
Insouciant Americans
Blinding Hypocrisy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Hypocrisy in America is now so commonplace it is no longer noticed.
Inspired by Injustice: Scottsboro in History
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
“In many respects this is an archival project,” writes James A. Miller, Chair of the American Studies Department at George Washington University, at the end of his introduction to Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial.
Is Israel an Apartheid State?
Rhetoric or Reality? Summary of a Legal Study by the Human Sciences Research council of South Africa
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Do Israel's practices in occupied Palestinian territory, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, amount to the crimes of colonialism and apartheid under international law?
Is this what a police state looks like?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The corporate security state is not static - it will keep filling more and more space to the extent that they are allowed to by civil society. The police actions in Toronto are one of those key moments, one that we will look back on as a time when the authoritarian governments we now endure tested our resolve. They know exactly what they are doing. There was no spontaneous 'over-reaction.' There were no cops 'out of control' - the obvious fact is they were always in control. The decision to allow the Black Bloc to do its destructive work without any intervention at all was strategic. They were assisted in their work by the Black Bloc, some of them agents provocatuers, all of them enemies of social change.
Islamophobia Sets the Terms
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Dutch government didn’t fall in February over involvement in Afghanistan, the unstable governing coalition stumbled over it. But the Islamophobic right wing might be the beneficiary.
Israel and apartheid: A fair comparison?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The comparison between Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and to apartheid is a legitimate part of that debate and this is an analogy frequently used by Israelis and also by South Africans.
Israel is an apartheid state and that is why they are losing legitimacy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel is losing legitimacy in the world because of what their government is doing to the Palestinians, not because of anti-semitism.
Israel Is Now a Lunatic State
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What happened with the Gaza flotilla was not an accident. You have to remember that the Israeli cabinet met for fully a week. All the cabinet ministers discussed and deliberated how they would handle the flotilla. At the end of the day, they decided on a nighttime armed commando raid on a humanitarian convoy. Israel is now a lunatic state. It's a lunatic state with between two and three hundred nuclear devices. It is threatening war daily against Iran and against Hezbollah in Lebanon. We have to ask ourselves a simple, basic, fundamental question: can a lunatic state like Israel be trusted with two to three hundred nuclear devices when it is now threatening its neighbors Iran and Lebanon with an attack?
Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The implication, that Iran must be stopped because it would proliferate to neighbors, may come back to haunt pro-Israeli propagandists, given Tel Aviv#s own secret role in attempting to proliferate nukes to South Africa.
Israel Targets Ha'aretz
"A Shin Bet State"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel uses police state tactics to crush journalists who expose crimes committed by the military.
Israeli journalist Anat Kam under secret house arrest since December
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An Israeli journalist has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive, classified military documents which suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Police Impunity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israeli police expect, and usually receive, impunity for using violence against Palestinians.
Israeli Soldiers Sexually Abuse Palestinian Children
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel's Apartheid
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Blacks in South Africa never faced a 20-foot wall dividing their communities. Palestinians' land is still being seized, their orchards bulldozed.
Israel's Attack on Us All
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If we needed any evidence of the degree to which Western TV journalists are simply stenographers to power, the BBC, CNN and others are amply proving it. Mark Regev, Israel#s propagandist-in-chief, has the airwaves largely to himself. The passengers on the ships, meanwhile, have been kidnapped by Israel and are unable to provide an alternative version of events. We can guess they will remain in enforced silence until Israel is sure it has set the news agenda.
Israel's 'mad dog' diplomacy doesn't make it more secure
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel is feeling cornered on every front it considers important # and like Dayan#s #mad dog#, it is likely to strike out in unpredictable ways. These trends are likely only to deepen in the coming months and years. The mad dog is baring his teeth, and it is high time the international community decided how to deal with him.
Israel's new 'attack on freedom of speech'
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a 'McCarthyite' campaign against human-rights groups.
Israel's New Strategy: "Sabotage" And "Attack" The Global Justice Movement
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Reut's analysis vindicates the effectiveness of the Boycot Divestment Sanctions strategy. As Israeli elites increasingly fear for the long-term prospects of the Zionist project they are likely to be more ruthless, unscrupulous and desperate than ever.
Israel's vivid act of piracy may yet turn the tide of global opinion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the summer of 1947 a steamer named the Exodus set out from France to run the British blockade of Palestine. The British authorities boarded and seized the ship, and killed three passengers who tried to fight the British attackers. The British succeeded in preventing the ship from landing, but the event helped to turn world public opinion against the British. Israel's attack on the Gaza aid convoy may prove to have the same result.
It's Not Piracy!
The International Law Framework
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The crimes that Israel committed during its assault on the vessels and civilian passengers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla fall firmly within the category of #high crimes.# The assault, rather than an act of piracy, must be defined as a #crime against the peace# and a #crime against humanity# as Israel subjected #part of the high seas to its sovereignty# in a murderous attack on unarmed civilian vessels. The severity of these crimes is magnified precisely because the criminal actor is not an individual but a highly militarized state.
James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Journalism and 'the words of power'
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
More and more today, we journalists have become prisoners of the language of power.
Journalists assaulted and censored
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Palestinian journalists are under attack from Israeli forces and are also subjected to raids and arrests as a result of political rivalry between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, report the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom (MADA) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Meanwhile, Israel continues to target and detain scores of Palestinians involved in protests against the separation barrier in the West Bank with freedom of movement and expression violations, reports Human Rights Watch.
Julian Assange: Wanted by the Empire, Dead or Alive
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The American airwaves quiver with the screams of parlor assassins howling for Julian Assange's head.
Jurassic Ballot
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This country is being run for the benefit of alien life forms. They’ve invaded; they’ve infiltrated; they’ve conquered; and a lot of the most powerful people on Earth do their bidding.
Just because they hunt witches doesn't mean we have
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Big Brother defence of WikiLeaks is that if everyone had a camera upon them, society would be a better place. This is a view that fails to distinguish between the need to control those who possess power, and the need to prevent those who possess power from controlling us.
Justice for All: the Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt
A Report by the Solidarity Center
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A report on recent workers' struggles in Egypt, against falling wages, oppressive working conditions, and violations of workers' rights, in the face of an authoritarian and repressive government.
Kashmir: A Brief Background
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Kashmir was divided between India and the newly created Pakistani state in the chaotic division of the Indian subcontinent in 1947-48, with little reference to the wishes of Kashmir’s people. The larger part is occupied by India, with a volatile “Line of Control” separating it from the Pakistan-administered zone. The formal name of Indian-occupied Kashmir is Jammu and Kashmir; the Pakistan-controlled region is known as the Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) and Azad Kashmir. The territory’s largest city is Srinagar.
Kashmir: A Time for Freedom
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
“Freedom” represents many things across rural and urban spaces in India-ruled Kashmir. These divergent meanings are steadfastly united on one point: freedom always signifies an end to India’s authoritarian governance.
Keeping the Record Straight: About Noam Chomsky's Trip to the Middle East in May 2010
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Kidnapping Of Haiti
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Not for tourists is the US building its fifth-biggest embassy. Oil was found in Haiti's waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington's "rollback" plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela's abundant petroleum reserves, and sabotage of the growing regional co-operation.
Know-Nothings of 2010
The New War of the Christian Crusaders
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Over the last four centuries, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and many others have been targets of religious persecution, often the victims of imprisonments, hangings, lynchings and other acts of violence.
The Koch Empire and Americans for Prosperity
More Tentacles Surface at Rightwing Front Group
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Tracking to funding of extremist right-wing groups.
Edmond Kovacs, 1924-2010
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
I first met Edmond Kovacs in the fall of 1961. I was then 19 and he 37. He was teaching a class for the Los Angeles chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance, the youth group of the Socialist Workers Party. He was the SWP’s Southern California Chairman, introduced under his party name, Theodore Edwards. Most of us in those days had nommes de guerre, fake names that we rather optimistically hoped the FBI wouldn’t figure out. It was only years later that I got in the habit of calling him Edmond.
Labor at War or in the Tank?
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Steve Early is one of a small handful of extraordinarily keen-eyed observers who see things from within the shrinking world of U.S. organized labor — and who hold nothing back from readers.
Land of Impunity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If the police can get away with killing Ian Tomlinson, there's no justice in Britain.
Berta Langston, 1926-2010
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Berta Langston (1926-2010), a founder and member of Solidarity, died of lung cancer at age 84 in Norwalk, Connecticut on June 23. Born Berta Green on the Lower East Side of New York City, she was one of four sisters. She joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the mid-1940s and throughout nearly four decades of activity she was widely esteemed on the Left as one of the party’s most devoted and capable militants, a person who could work with sundry individuals to develop coalitions and political defense committees of national and international import. From time to time she used the party name “Berta Graham,” and she received a Marxist education at the “Trotsky School” at Mountain Spring Camp in New Jersey. During the mid-1960s she served briefly on the SWP National Committee.
Legal Lessons From the Green Scare
When the Constitution is No Obstacle to the FBI
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Green Scare prosecutors and their coordinators in Washington are willing to destroy individual lives to score political points, and to trample their own rules in the process.
Lena Horne & Her Times
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If there were any doubt that the blues could be elegant, Lena Mary Calhoun Horne Hayton (as she signed her name) dispelled it. At age 26, she sang the title song to the film “Stormy Weather” and her sultry, silky voice branded the tune as hers forever.
Lessons From Arizona
Direct Action Organizing From 1999 to Now
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What we saw in Arizona over the summer showed a new model of organizing, wherein cooperation between people who are dedicated to different tactics as well as space for accountability within the struggle takes centre stage.
Lessons from the Tekel strikes: class solidarity and ethnic (in)difference
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A worker puts it: “There are no differences between Kurds, Alevis, Sunnis and Turks. We have no party.”
Let’s Talk About Another Burning Color: Black Flame vs. Red Fire Extinguisher?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Class struggle anarchists are not the only revolutionary forces on the left, and are not the only libertarian left revolutionary forces. In my opinion, anarchists can learn a lot from some marxists.
Letter to Readers
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We are writing you this letter to invite you to support the effort to preserve and renovate the Leon Trotsky Museum (IDA-MCLTAC) in Mexico City as we mark the 70th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Trotsky Museum, and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute on the Right of Asylum.
Letters to My Torturer
Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
In these letters, Asadi confronts the man who tortured him while he was held prisoner in Iran.
Liberating Thought: Toward an Independent Mass Media
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Prospects for democracy are dependent upon the growth of an independent media with wide exposure in the general population comparable to that of the corporate press.
The Limits of State Intervention
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Nation, as befits the preeminent journal of left-liberal opinion, has run a series of articles by Robert Pollin and by James K. Galbraith that have sparked great attention. These, as well as numerous other arguments in a similar vein, mount a spirited defense of job generation through deficit spending as effective counter-cyclical measures.
Abbey Lincoln and Freedom Now
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Abbey Lincoln — singer, composer, actor — left us on August 14 at age 80. A prolific and multidimensional artist (born Anna Marie Wooldridge), she took her performing name in the 1950s by combining “Westminister Abbey” and “Abraham Lincoln.” Composer and percussionist Max Roach, her partner in life — they were married from 1962-1970 — and in music and in political action, died on August 16, 2007.
Live Working or Die Fighting
How the Working Class Went Global
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Mason realtes a series of struggles for worker and human rights over the past two hundred years and compares them to current struggles.
Lock 'Em Up
The Prison State
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Without a doubt, most of those enmeshed in the (in)justice system are not dangers to society and would not have been in it at all in a society that wasn#t so racist and so shot through with every kind of social and economic inequality. Unfortunately, whatever the reasons why so many men and women have been denied their freedom, once the numbers began to rise dramatically, constituencies came into being#lawyers, police, probation officers, prison guards and staff, drug and alcohol rehabilitation counselors, sex offender counselors, vendors of all sorts, clerks and other clerical support staff, court officers, judges, community service employers#that have a strong stake in milking the new cash cow.
The Long War at Staley
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Staley recounts the epic struggle of workers in a corn-processing plant in Decatur, Illinois in the 1990s and provides insight into how a pivotal struggle ended in defeat. That ending was not inevitable.
Looking for Trouble
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Why are we still prospecting for oil when we can#t afford to use existing reserves?
Loren Goldner speaks on the current capitalist crisis
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
Writer and activist Loren Goldner contextualizes the current economic crisis and class struggles in a theory of capitalist development.
Lost Liberties in the Age of Obama
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
When World War II broke out on September l, l939 the poet W.H. Auden sat in a bar on 42nd Street and penned a poem using that fateful date for its title. He reflected that the past ten years had been “a low dishonest decade.” And so has our last ten.
Louisianans, Oil & Petro-Addiction
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Deepwater Horizon oil horror has again focused the nation on South Louisiana. For the second time in less than five years, we are on the front pages of America’s newspapers. Again, this region is being misunderstood. Easy explanations miss the reasons why this area is so vulnerable, and why we in Louisiana are paying for the American economy’s dependence upon petroleum.
Making Sense of This Economic Crisis
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
While it now is generally agreed that the main source of the 2008 financial implosion was the accumulation of too much toxic debt, there is little agreement on the factors that precipitated the buildup of all that unsustainable debt. Whereas neoclassical/neoliberal economists blame the “irrational behavior of the agents” (both lenders and borrowers), Keynesian economists blame financial deregulation and insufficient public policy.
Martin Kramer, Harvard and the Eugenics of Zion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
At Herzliya the cream of the Zionist security elite gather to raise the alarm about Arab births and hear scholarly analyses of family size and fertility rates among Jews and Arabs as 'existential' threats to the State. Meanwhile, in the Israeli Knesset there are elaborate debates on how to define who is a Jew and who is not - along with legislating what extra privileges should be allocated to the former and denied to the latter. It would be hard to imagine another modern country where such discussions are part of the intellectual mainstream, rather than isolated in the more shadowy fringes of racist right-wing politics. Similar attitudes are expressed in the Zionist Diaspora, where bemoaning Jewish assimilation, promoting Jewish childbearing and financing Aliya to strengthen Israel#s Jewish demography are common themes. Early eugenicists (and their successors) once warned against 'miscegenation' and 'mongrelization' as a danger to the White Aryan Race. Today, Jewish charities like the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation announce their prime mission as education against 'intermarriage.'
Marx at the Margins
On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Marx’s critique of capital was far broader than is usually supposed. To be sure, he concentrated on the labor-capital relation within Western Europe and North America. But at the same time, he expended considerable time and energy on the analysis of non-Western societies, as well as race, ethnicity, and nationalism.
A Marxist History of the World Part 1: The Hominid Revolution
The Hominid Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the first of a regular series, Neil Faulkner charts the evolutionary development of modern day humans from primitive apes to socially co-operative human beings.
A Marxist History of the World part 10: Men of Iron
Men of Iron
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The constant rise and fall of Bronze age societies was a product of their wasteful, crisis ridden nature. But in the barbarian periphery around 1300 BCE an industrial revolution had begun that was to transform the world.
A Marxist History of the World Part 11: Western Asia: the Persian Empire
Western Asia: the Persian Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the centuries following 1000 BCE when the scale of civilisation and empire exploded as the productivity of iron tools boosted the surpluses available to Iron Age empire-builders.
A Marxist History of the World part 12: India: the Mauryan Empire
India: the Mauryan Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the growth of the Mauryan Empire which at its zenith encompassed almost the whole of what is today India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
A Marxist History of the World part 13: China: the Ch’in Empire
China: the Ch’in Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the origins of the Ch'in Empire - short-lived, created by conquest and terror and characterised by extreme centralisation, military-style exploitation, and murderous repression.
A Marxist History of the World part 14: The Greek Democratic Revolution
The Greek Democratic Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the radical participatory democracy which began in Athens between 510 and 506 BCE and spread to virtually every city-state in the Aegean.
A Marxist History of the World part 15: The Macedonian Empire
The Macedonian Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the defeat of the democratic empire centred around Athens in a protracted counter-revolution led by Greek aristocrats, Macedonian kings, and Roman viceroys.
A Marxist History of the World part 16: Roman Military Imperialism
Roman Military Imperialism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Rome represented a unique fusion of Greek-style citizenship with Macedonian-style militarism. The result was the most dynamic imperialist state in the ancient world.
A Marxist History of the World part 17: The Roman Revolution
The Roman Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at the Roman Revolution - a complex, distorted, century-long process of class struggle.
A Marxist History of the World part 18: The Crisis of Late Antiquity
The Crisis of Late Antiquity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner explains how the Roman Empire entered its terminal crisis as its military imperialism came up against geographical, economic, and sociological barriers to expansion.
A Marxist History of the World part 19: Mother-goddesses and power-deities
Mother-goddesses and power-deities
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner looks at how the growth of private property altered the position of women - from occupying a central role in society to suffering what Engels called ‘the world historic defeat of the female sex’.
A Marxist History of the World Part 2: The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution
The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the second of his regular series Neil Faulkner reveals the incredible innovation and adaptability of our ancient ancestors, their unique combination of language and imagination and how cultures formed to fit the different environments in which early societies lived and worked.
A Marxist History of the World part 20: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner examines how the three great monotheistic religions produced by the contradictions of the ancient world owed their extraordinary power to their origins in the myths and rituals of the oppressed.
A Marxist History of the World part 21: Huns, Goths, and Romans
Huns, Goths, and Romans
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner charts the transformation of the Huns from tribal nomads into continent-straddling militarists.
A Marxist History of the World part 22: Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines
Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This week Neil Faulkner describes the rise and explosive spread of the third great monotheistic religion, where compassion, charity, and protection became moral imperatives - Islam.
A Marxist History of the World part 23: The Abbasid Revolution
The Abbasid Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Islam created a single overarching allegiance throughout the Arab-ruled world yet the Middle East came to be a divided region of weak and unpopular states. Neil Faulkner looks at the conflicts that lay behind this process.
A Marxist History of the World part 24: Hindus, Buddhists, and the Gupta Empire
Hindus, Buddhists, and the Gupta Empire
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
More than half a millennium separated the fall of India’s Mauryan Empire in the late 3rd century BCE (before the common era) from the rise of the Gupta Empire in the early 4th century CE (common era). Economic and social change during the interval altered the foundations of imperialism.
A Marxist History of the World part 25: Chinese History’s Revolving Door
Chinese History’s Revolving Door
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Neil Faulkner examines China's imperial history, where for two millennia political revolution did not lead to social transformation, but simply to the replacement of one dynasty by another.
A Marxist History of the World Part 3: The Neolithic Revolution
The Neolithic Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In part three of Neil Faulkner's Marxist history series he reveals how the advent of farming lead to primitive communistic societies who through land depletion and scarcity of resources would be forced into global war.
A Marxist History of the World Part 4: The origins of War and Religion
The origins of War and Religion
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This week Neil Faulkner looks at the origins of War and Religion in the Early Neolithic world.
A Marxist History of the World part 5: The Rise of the Specialists
The Rise of the Specialists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Early Neolithic economy was doomed by insoluble contradictions. Technique was primitive and wasteful. Society lacked reserves against natural disaster and hard times. Virgin land ran out as old fields were exhausted and populations grew.
A Marxist History of the World part 6: The First Ruling Class
The First Ruling Class
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This week Neil Faulkner looks at the rise of the first ruling classes as the surplus created through the increasing productivity of human labour allowed a section of society to live without producing.
A Marxist History of the World part 7: The Spread of Civilisation
The Spread of Civilisation
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This week Neil Faulkner looks at the spread and development of ancient city civilisations around the world, each governed by a new ruling class of priests, city-governors and war-leaders.
A Marxist History of the World part 8: Crisis in the Bronze Age
Crisis in the Bronze Age
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Why did Bronze Age empires rise and fall amid crisis and war? And why did this contradictory social form simply replicate itself over long periods of time? Neil Faulkner looks at the evidence.
A Marxist History of the World part 9: How History Happens
How History Happens
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The complex societies that emerged from the division of society into classes also created societies that were wasteful, violent, stagnant and crisis prone. Understanding why is the key to how history happens argues Neil Faulkner.
Mass Murder at Colfax, The Bloody Death of Reconstruction
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On April 13, 1873, white supremacists laid siege to a Black Republican stronghold in rural north Louisiana, brutally slaying freedmen and altering the course of the United States. The Colfax massacre happened at the courthouse of newly created Grant Parish, located in a town named after Vice President Schuyler Colfax. Colfax is situated in cotton country along the Red River.
The Massacre and the Cover-Up
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Without much stronger international pressure than the international community has applied to date, there is every reason to expect Israeli massacres to steadily become more severe, their PR rationales more outlandish. Mild diplomatic rebukes will not sway them. Unless serious costs are imposed for such crimes, much worse is yet to come.
May Day & SDS & SNCC Jubilee
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Class consciousness is the knowledge that emancipation is ours. Class struggle is the fight for it, the fight to be a class, and then the fight to abolish the class system. It is not economistic; it is historical. It was concrete not abstract. It was expressed in real voices, voices of the past and voices of the present. The skill is in the listening.
Meat: A Benign Extravagance
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
An exploration of the difficult environmental and ethical issues that surround the human consumption of animal flesh.
The Media and the Far Right
Showcasing the Crude, the Violent and the Aberrant
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The right-moving trend of the mainstream media, absurdly deemed liberal by successfully intimidating corporatists and ideological aggressors, continues year after year.
A Memory Of Howard
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A recollection of the late Howard Zinn.
Merchants of Doubt
How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010 Published: 2012
Investigative reportage on how private interests and lobbies in America use hired gun scientists to spread doubt and misinformation. The media's binary understanding of balanced repoting has given these individuals a soapbox and allowed the public to believe there are divisions in the mainstream scientific opinion on global warming where none exist.
Mexican Women -- Then and Now
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Araceli's gnarled hands knead the corn dough in a smoke-filled lean-to next to her kitchen, as the 5 a.m. sunlight begins to squint through the slats. She will make about 48 pounds of tortillas, as she does every day. By noon they’ll be on the table in houses all over the 500-inhabitant town she has lived in her whole life, half-way between Mexico City and Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico.
Mexico 2010: The Spreading Crisis
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On July 4, in an atmosphere of widespread insecurity, unabated violence, and an uncertain allocation of authority and impunity,* Mexico held local elections in 15 of its 32 states.
Mexico's Crisis in Context
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In this article I offer an historical context for understanding Mexico’s current economic, political, and human crisis triggered by 28 years of neoliberal economic policies. Neoliberal governments have privatized most sectors of the economy and reduced the Mexican state’s role to one of being a repressive apparatus. NAFTA and related neoliberal policies have left the economy without a dynamic internal market for local products and with a socio-economic inequality that is one of the most extreme in the world.
Microsoft, piracy, and independent media in Kyrgyzstan
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Selective enforcement of alleged software infringement is being used with some frequency in the former Soviet republics as cover to harass independent media. Local law enforcement officials have been given broad powers, in the name of fighting piracy, to raid premises and seize hardware. For the most part, Western companies and governments have encouraged this broadening of powers.
Miners Protest Brutal Beatings
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Five thousand members of the Mexican Miners and Metal Workers Union and their families and other unions and social movements marched five kilometers May 24 to protest the brutal police beating of more than 20 union leaders and activists. The march ended at the port which serves the local steel mills in Lázaro Cárdenas, a steel mill city in the state of Michoacan, blocking it for two hours or more.
Mining Peru
Canada's New Territory?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In Peru, 40 percent of conflicts involving local communities are over mining. The majority of the mining sector in Peru is owned by Canadian corporations.
Mitziton: A community in Chiapas resisting the government road
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Moffatt, Gary
Connexipedia Article
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Canadian anarchist and activist.
Moffatt, Gary (Italian text)
Connexipedia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Gary Archibald Moffat era un attivista Canadese specializzato nella costruzione di movimenti radicali ai fini di cambiamenti sociali e politici.
Mohammed Khatib, coordinator of West Bank Coordination Committee arrested
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Khatib#s arrest today is the most severe escalation in a recent wave of repression again the Palestinian popular struggle and its leadership. Khatib is the 35th resident of Bil#in to be arrested on suspicions related to anti-Wall protest since June 23rd, 2009. The recent wave of arrests is largely an assault on the members of the Popular Committees # the leadership of the popular struggle # who are then charged with incitement when arrested.
The Money Gusher
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The oil industry#s decommissioning costs will dwarf those of nuclear power. The money being made now should be put aside to meet them.
The Monster
How a Gang of Predatory Lenders and Wall Street Bankers Fleeced America -- and Spawned a Global Crisis
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Hudson explains the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage business by chronicling the rise and fall of two corporate empires: Ameriquest and Lehman Brothers, who did more than any other institutions to create the feeding frenzy that flooded the U.S. with high-risk, high-profit home mortgage loans.
Morality Policing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The police treat protests and festivals as a threat to their power.
Mossad Operation Threatened Against Reporter
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An Israeli journalist who went into hiding after writing a series of reports showing lawbreaking approved by Israeli army commanders faces a lengthy jail term for espionage if caught, as Israeli security services warned at the weekend they would #remove the gloves# to track him down.
Mountain Justice
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
In recent years, local people fighting against Mountaintop Removal's destruction of their homes in West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia have invited volunteers from outside Appalachia's coalfields to help them bring national attention to this shameful practice, and abolish it. This on-the-ground, insider report of a grassroots effort to end mountaintop removal in Appalachia is a fascinating account of why building solidarity across geographic, age, class, and philosophical lines in such struggles is so important but so hard.
The myth of Israeli morality
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel has consistently reacted with repression or even extreme violence to cultural and political manifestations of Palestinian identity.
The Myth of Muslim Conquest
Less Threatening Than Imagined
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It#s easy to mistake the high visibility of Islam in the West for a massive return to piety in Muslim communities. But for the last 20 years religious observance has stagnated, even slightly waned.
Myths of the Exile and Return
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
So where did “the Jewish people” come from anyway? Was there an Exodus from Egypt, an Empire of David and Solomon, an Exile ending in a triumphant Return to Zion? Does any of it matter and if so, why?
The National Security State Cops a Feel
Taking Off the Gloves (Then Everything Else)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It’s finally coming into focus, and it’s not even a difficult equation to grasp. It goes like this: take a country in the grips of an expanding national security state and sooner or later your “safety” will mean your humiliation, your degradation. And by the way, it will mean the degradation of your country, too.
Net freedom 'at stake' on WikiLeaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Internet service providers are cutting access to the whistleblower site, raising broader concerns about online freedom.
A New Age Of People Power: Lessons From The Dongria Kondh
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
With greater power to build alliances across boundaries, the Davids of the world are having more success throwing off the Goliaths.
New Hogtown Press
Connexipedia Article
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
New Hogtown Press was a Canadian left-wing publisher active during the 1970s and 1980s.
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Argues that Jim Crow and legal racial segregation have been replaced by mass race-based incarceration as a system of social control.
The New Jim Crow: A talk
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Nothing short of a broad-based social movement can address this problem. Such a movement has to be multi-racial: Latinos and women, especially women of color, are the fastest growing segment of the prison population. If we don't create care and compassion across racial lines, then, even if this system collapses, we will recreate it in another form.
The New McCarthyism In Israel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a #McCarthyite# campaign against human-rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel#s attack on Gaza a year ago, critics say.
The New Sexual Radicalism
Socialist Feminist Questions About Queer Activism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What are the social origins of queer? Does this current have a vision # whether implicit or explicit # of sexual liberation, and if so, what is it? What is its relationship to such emancipatory projects as feminism, antiracism, global justice and socialism?
The New Sexual Radicalism
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
From its beginning in the 1990s in the United States, a “queer” activist current has gradually spread to other countries, including in recent years in Western Europe. In decades when the prevailing trend in LGBT movements has been to orient to legal reforms by parliamentary means, queer activism has constituted a third wave of sexual radicalism, emphasizing visibility, difference, direct action, refusal to assimilate to the dominant culture, and the fluidity and diversity of sexual desire.
A New Type of Political Organization?
The Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Next Mexican Revolution
Don't Look Now, But It's Already Started
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If this is to be the year of the next Mexican revolution, the time to move is now.
The 1960 Sit-ins in Context
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We think of the Sit-In Movement as beginning on February 1, 1960, fifty years ago. In the minds of many this was the initiating event that led to many subsequent developments in the broader civil rights movement, indeed as a turning point in Black, and more generally, U.S. history. But the sit-ins, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s had their origins in vast social changes that began long before.
The 1960 Sit-ins in Context
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Civil Rights Movement that we associate with the 1960s was the culmination of a vast set of social and economic changes. The tradition of Black struggle itself, going back to the very beginnings of slavery in the New World, was also part of the context for the new movement.
No longer a real newspaper, new Globe betrays Canadians
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The new tarted-up, glossy, colour Globe and Mail is many things, but it is not a real “news paper.”
No News is Not Good News
Cops Taping Protesters & Journalists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If cops photograph and videotape protesters and journalists, it's news if it happens in China, but when it happens in the U.S., as it routinely does, the media are silent.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
In the near future there will be no politics but green politics…
The No-Nonsense Guide to Religion
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Symon Hill's No-Nonsense Guide to Religion tries to explain what religion means, how we relate to it, how it was created and how it affects us culturally, politically and spiritually today.
No surrender in Greece
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A member of International Workers Left (DEA), reports from Athens on the May 20 general strike and workers# growing radicalization.
Noam Chomsky: Moral & Social Thinker
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Noam Chomsky is a powerhouse of insightful thought – this book attests to that. So analyzing or even summarizing Anthony Arnove’s The Essential Chomsky is no simple task. A moderately lengthy and notably chronological collection of texts plucked from Chomsky’s enormous output, The Essential Chomsky leaps from linguistics to Palestine to libertarian socialism and back to linguistics again. Given the political nature of Against the Current, we will focus on Chomsky’s views on political philosophy, morality, U.S. foreign and domestic policy, and propaganda, ending with thoughts on the editing. But first, a few introductory remarks on the man himself.
Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light)
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
In Chile's Atacama Desert, astronomers search the sky and explore the origins of the universe. Nearby, a group of women sift through the sand searching for body parts of loved ones murdered and dumped in the desert by the Pinochet dictatorship.
Not Another Disaster Movie
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Whose will is it that keeps us going the way we are? The will of capital, albeit a capital that’s been refurbished for our modern times. That will cloaks itself in the garb of progress, science and technology. At the same time, it justifies itself by the invocation, in the developed countries and those (like China) on the fast track to development, of an apparently all but incontrovertible need to maintain “our way of life.” That way of life threatens to fairly quickly become a threat to the possibility of life in any form that we would want to be part of.
Not Bad Policy, But Class Policy
Holes in the Keynesian Against G20 Austerity Plan
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Liberal critics of the vicious austerity policies passionately argue against such policies as #bad,# #misguided,# or #unwise# as if the governments that make such policies do not know what they are doing. Accordingly, these critics offer all kinds of elegant Keynesian arguments in favor of stimulus deficit spending that could lead to improved economic conditions, increased tax revenues, and decreased debt and deficit. What these critics tend to overlook, however, is the fact that the governments that impose austerity policies are serving as bailiffs or debt-collecting agencies on behalf of their corporate/financial masters.
Nuclear Deceit: The Times and Iran
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Is the Times engaged in reporting or propaganda in its coverage of Iran's nuclear program?
Oaxaca: Autonomy Under Seige
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On April 27, 2010, the Mexican state of Oaxaca again garnered international attention as a humanitarian aid and solidarity caravan comprised of national and international activists heading to the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala was ambushed by state-backed paramilitaries, resulting in the deaths of two activists, leaving several wounded, and others disappeared for days.
Obama and the Boy in the Metal Box
The Incarceration of John Walker Lindh
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Clemency for John Walker Lindh would open up to public scrutiny an outrageous injustice that high officials in the Bush administration deliberately perpetrated on an American citizen after the 9/11 attacks. It would expose how they covered up their illegalities by betraying the legal professionalism of the Justice Department and by imprisoning their victim behind prison walls for half his life.
The Obama Syndrome
Surrender at Home, War Abroad
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A merciless dissection of Obama’s overseas escalation and domestic retreat.
Obama's Imperial Continuity
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Despite the rhetoric of hope and promises of “change we can believe in” that ushered him into the White House, Barack Obama has offered anything but a marked shift in the fundamental course of U.S. foreign policy. The change Obama has brought — to the relief of U.S. and global elites — is away from the George W. Bush-era fantasy that U.S. military firepower and ideological muscle could unilaterally dominate the globe. But his underlying policy goals are very much in continuity not only with Bush but with a century of his predecessors.
Obama's Liberty Problem
Why Indefinite Detention By Executive Order Should Scare the Hell Out of People
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The proposal to create a special new legal system by Executive Order will threaten the liberty of every single US citizen who is not in Guantanamo because it will damage the due process guarantees which have built up over the years to protect each one of us.
Obama's Reform, Recovery Stalled
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Reform agenda of president Obama and the Democrats, such as it was, is exhausted. Two failing wars, a fragile and almost jobless economic recovery teetering on the cusp of a double-dip Great Recession, and an all-out rightwing racial, economic and political offensive have defined the ground for the November midterm election and the period to follow.
Obama's RTTT vs. Teacher Unions
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The 165 Washington, DC public school teachers terminated for poor evaluations on July 23 may be the first victims of the Obama reform agenda. The teachers were fired because of low scores on the DC school system’s new evaluation procedure — one which ties teacher evaluations to student scores on standardized tests.
October 7: Defend Education!
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Students, faculty and campus workers across the United States will kick off the 2010-2011 school year with an October 7 national day of action to defend public education. This day of action will attempt to pick up from where last year’s movement to defend public education left off. March 4 represented the broadest point of last year’s organizing, with strikes, major rallies and marches, and smaller local speak-outs taking place throughout California, across the country, and to some extent around the world.
Ohio Socialist Runs for U.S. Senate
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
I’m running as the Ohio Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate because I believe that the severity of the crisis, and the depth of dissatisfaction and discontent in our society, obligate socialists to put forward our alternative and to organize to achieve it. We on the left need to present the vision of a democratic socialist society, a society which can only be achieved through building a mass social movement and a radically different sort of political organization.
On Cowardice and Violence
Reflections by a Former US Marine on the Mavi Marmara
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day.
On the Legacy of Che Guevara
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Peter Drucker's letter (ATC 144) commenting on Kit Wainer's review of Besancenot and Löwy's new biography of Che (ATC 143) rehearses many of Besancenot and Löwy's arguments that Che's Marxism was some sort of alternative to Stalinism. I, for one, am no longer convinced by these claims.
Once a Jolly Hangman
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
When this book was first published in Asia in July 2010, UK journalist Alan Shadrake was arrested and tried, then sentenced to jail—for daring to put the Singapore justice system in the dock. This revised and updated edition covers Shadrake’s arrest, and his ongoing campaign against the death penalty.
Open Letter to German Left Party (Die Linke)
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The state of Israel does not deserve prizes for its occupation, racist separation and its war crimes. Only international policy which emphasises to Israel that violations of international law are not tolerated will succeed in promoting a just peace for all residents of this land.
The Opposites Game
All the Strangeness of Our American World in One Article
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The surpassing strangeness of the American way of war in distant lands.
Organizing with Love: Lessons from the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights Campaign
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Great organizing campaigns are like great love affairs. You begin to see life through a different lens. You change in unexpected ways. You lose sleep, but you also feel boundless energy. You develop new relationships and new interests. Your skin becomes more open to the world around you. Life feels different, and it’s almost like you’ve been reborn. And, most importantly, you begin to feel things that you previously couldn’t have even imagined are possible.
The Origin of America’s Intellectual Vacuum
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A profile of Chandler Davis, a blacklisted mathematician who served six months in jail for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Orwell in the Maze of Memory
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On 23 June 1937, George Orwell and his wife Eileen boarded a train in the Barcelona station, destination Portbou.
The Other World Is Here
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
You see what you’re looking for. Most of us are constantly urged to see the world as, at best, a competitive place and, at worst, a constant war of each against each, and you can see just that without even bothering to look too hard. But that’s not all you can see.
Our Promiscuous Prehistory
A Review of Sex at Dawn
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Most otherwise topnotch evolutionary psychologists, primatologists and anthropologists come up with flip, vague or convoluted ways to explain away unpopular evidence. They seem to be trying to squeeze the square peg of monogamy into the round hole of humanity. Ryan and Jethá have chosen a more well-rounded term to characterize the essence of human sexuality as practiced by our prehistoric progenitors: promiscuity.
Out Lickspittle Press
Doorkeepers to the House of Lies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Today no one believes that our country’s success depends on an informed public and a free press. America’s success depends on its financial and military hegemony over the world. Any information inconsistent with the indispensable people’s god-given right to dominate the world must be suppressed and the messenger discredited and destroyed.
Out of Sight, Out of Trouble
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The UK could tap into vast renewable resources, without any of the aggro caused by existing wind farms.
Out of the Frame
The Struggle for Academic Freedom in Israel
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Links Pappé's personal struggle against Israeli McCarthyism with a broader struggle for human and political rights of which "academic freedom" is merely one aspect.
Pakistan on the Brink? The Real Threat from Within
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The American antiwar movement must understand that what is unfolding in Pakistan bears no resemblance to the “failed-state” proclamations of establishment hacks the world over. The danger is not at all that the country will fall to the Pakistani Taliban, drowned in a tidal wave of instability said to be cascading eastwards from Afghanistan. While sham elections in Afghanistan have hopefully helped clarify the venal, corrupt character of NATO’s efforts there, at times an unhealthy haziness still afflicts the Left’s thinking on Pakistan.
Pakistan Women's Voices
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An interview with Bushra Khaliq. Bushra Khaliq is general secretary of the Women Workers Help Line (www.wwhl.org.pk) and a member of Labour Party Pakistan.
Palestine: Israeli Love Song
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010
A video response to Israeli propaganda and PR efforts.
Palestinian Economic Boycott Hits Israeli Settlers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israeli settlers are beginning to feel the bite of an economic boycott campaign launched by the Palestinian Authority (PA) against goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements dotting the occupied West Bank.
A Paradise Built in Hell
The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
The most startling thing about disasters, according to Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides.
Parecon & Participatory Society
An Interview with Michael Albert
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Participatory Economics, or parecon for short, is a vision for how to conduct economics in a classless manner. It delivers to workers and consumers self managed say over their economic lives, a condition of solidarity with others, equitable incomes for their labors, diverse opportunities and options, and ecological balance.
PayPal admits US pressure over WikiLeaks account freeze
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
PayPal today admitted it suspended payments to WikiLeaks after an intervention from the US State Department.
Peace, Freedom and McCarthyism
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The title of this volume is a bit misleading. It has hardly anything to do with the ideological substance of U.S. anticommunism in its encounter with the African-American freedom movement.
Pedophiles and Popes: Doing the Vatican Shuffle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Church leaders seem to forget that pedophilia is a felony crime and that, as citizens of a secular state, priests are subject to its laws just like the rest of us. Clerical authorities repeatedly have made themselves accessories to the crime, playing an active role in obstructing justice, arguing that criminal investigations of #church affairs# violates the free practice of religion #- as if raping little children were a holy sacrament.
The People v. the Bankers
Greece Today, US Tomorrow
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Greek "bailout" is actually a bailout of the international banks.
Permanent Autonomous Zone
A Conversation With Zine Writers Erick Lyle and Jeff Miller
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What if our lives were filled with moments of liberation from the everyday? Is it possible to carve out spaces that challenge the dominant logic of the market, where we can pursue meaningful work and actualize our dreams?
The Persecution of Pfc. Bardley Manning
The Leaker as American Hero
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If Manning did what he is suspected of doing, he should be honoured as an American hero for exposing war crimes.
PFC Bradley Manning, Patriot
Why Manning was Within His Rights to Give Secrets to Wikileaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune
Resource Type: Film/Video
First Published: 2010 Published: 2011
A documentary film on the life and times of folk singer-songwriter Phil Ochs.
A Poetics of Resistance
The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Movement
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Combining narrative history, literary criticism, ethnography, and media analysis, A Poetics of Resistance provides a refreshing take on Mexico's Zapatista movement by examining the means, meanings, and mythos behind the Zapatista image.
The Poisoned Pill of Obama's War
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Obama administration looked into the abyss of endless war in Afghanistan, considered all its options, pondered the consequences — and jumped. This is a war without honor, or purpose, or hope.
The Political Slaughterhouse
Statism's Death Knell for Liberty and Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The issue of government coercion has been taken off the radar screen of politically correct thought. The more government power has grown, the more unfashionable it becomes to discuss or recognize government abuses- as if it were bad form to count the dead brought about by government interventions.
The Polluters
The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Provides an account of the American chemical industry and its effect on the environment.
The Poor Must Die
Anglo-American Political Philosophy 101
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
For more than 30 years, the world-dominating Anglo-American alliance has been under the sway of factions which, for all their internal squabbling and hair-splitting, are strongly united in their steadfast, unshakeable adherence to the perpetuation -- and expansion -- of elite power and privilege. They have shown themselves willing -- eager -- to degrade their own societies (and destroy many others) in the service of this brutal, barbaric, inhuman faith. The poor have no place in this system.
Post-Katrina New Orleans: A Third Reconstruction?
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
When Union Army troops under the command of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler entered and occupied New Orleans in April of 1862, so began the first Reconstruction of the city and the state of Louisiana. The rise and then the defeat of the historic democratic struggle known as the first Reconstruction — discussed in the accompanying sidebar [as well as reviews by Robert Caldwell and Jim Toweill elsewhere in this issue] — sets the context in which we find today’s New Orleans, four years after the levee collapse.
Predicting Torture
The PATRIOT Act, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Bradley Manning is charged with leaking classified documents to Wikileaks and faces a court martial. The conditions of his confinement are extreme, and amount to torture.
Presenting Insurgent Notes
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We take our Marx and Engels seriously. Recent history, beginning perhaps (in the US) with the UPS strike of 1997 and the 'battle of Seattle' in 1999, now quickened by the abject financial and ideological meltdown (Fall 2008) of the three decades of the stifling 'neo-liberal' era, has favored a certain revival of the radical critique of capitalism, by which we understand first and foremost the work of Karl Marx.
"Theory must seek its practice," Marx wrote long ago, but "practice must also seek its theory", and such theoretical ferment expresses the rising tide, in fits and starts reaching back to the 1990's, of an accelerating global reaction to the ravages of the 'neo-liberal', 'Washington consensus' phase of capitalism, after the rollback of what we might consider he last (l968-1977) offensive of the world working class.
Presidential Assassinations Of US Citizens
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.
Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack on the Gaza Peace Flotilla - Part 1
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
We are trained to react to violent acts, not on the basis of their objective legality and human cost, but on the basis of the perceived legitimacy of the people committing the act. Violence committed by authority figures will tend to be viewed as legitimate and well-intentioned. Violence committed by non-state actors or #rogue states# resisting the state will tend to be seen as illegitimate and malevolent.
Proposal for a Participatory Socialist International
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A statement endorsing the idea of a new International.
Protesters in Eastern India Battle Against Mining Giant Arcelor Mittal
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the rural, tribal lands of Eastern India, protesters are going head-to-head with world steel giant Arcelor Mittal. "We may give away our lives, but we will not part with an inch of our ancestral land," the villagers cry. "The forest, rivers and land are ours. We don't want factories, steel or iron. Arcelor Mittal Go Back."
Public Disinterest: Information Commons Dismantled
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Seventy-five years after the Federal Radio Commission declared there was no room on the public airwaves for “propaganda stations” and denied a license renewal to a station that attacked Jews and law enforcement agencies, the airwaves are filled with both propaganda and venom. Today the airwaves, stripped of commons rules, feed hatred.
Public Education in California--What's After March 4?
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On March fourth, we marched forth. Hundreds of marches, rallies and direct actions in defense of public education took place on March 4 across California. Now what?
Put the Palestinians On A Diet
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel has been forced to reveal what Palestinians and other observers on the ground have known for a long time: that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”.
Put the Palestinians on a Diet
Media Bury Documents Revealing Israel's Deliberate Policy of Near-Starvation for Gaza
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel has been forced to reveal what Palestinians and other observers on the ground have known for a long time: that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”.
Questions for a New Movement
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Public universities in California during Fall 2009 saw the eruption of a movement to defend public education — and more broadly, public services and goods — from an onslaught of cuts and fee hikes in the wake of the 2008-09 economic downturn and federal and state budget cuts.
Race and Class: Blacks Still Taking the Hit
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It took ten months before the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) stood up and challenged President Barack Obama. In a surprise move, 10 CBC leaders refused to participate in a key House financial committee vote in December until some more relief is provided to Black businesses.
Race & Class: Obama & the Politics of Protest
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Consider the following contradiction of modern African-American politics: We have the first African-American president (he checked “Black” on the new census form) offering hope to millions of working-class Blacks. Yet we see a drawdown of protest politics by longtime civil rights leaders, even though the “Great Recession” is causing the greatest harm Black communities have seen in decades.
Race & Class: Obama Forgets Black Community
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What I found most striking about President Barack Obama’s first “State of the Union” address before Congress on January 27 was what he didn’t say. In his 70-minute speech on the economy as the first president of the United States of African heritage, I expected that Obama would highlight the special impact of the recession on Blacks.
Race and Class: What About the Working Poor?
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One striking feature of political debate in the country today is that — while every commentator, pundit and political observer talks about and focuses on the concerns of the super-rich and the middle class — few ever talk about the plight of the disadvantaged, those on food stamps and welfare and particularly the working poor.
Race and Class: What About the Working Poor?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One striking feature of political debate in the country today is that — while every commentator, pundit and political observer talks about and focuses on the concerns of the super-rich and the middle class — few ever talk about the plight of the disadvantaged, those on food stamps and welfare and particularly the working poor.
Racism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
An overview of racism
Racist Universities?
New Rules Favor Former IDF Soldiers
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Measures designed to benefit Jewish school-leavers applying for places in Israeli higher education at the cost of their Arab counterparts have been criticised by lawyers and human rights groups.
The Railroading of Tonya Craft
A New Wave of Prosecutorial Hysteria
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As we have seen countless times before, the media always is ready to run over the cliff with the prosecutors, and no matter how many times the prosecution is discredited, there always is another reporter ready to serve as a PR mouthpiece for a dishonest state official. And it always will be that way, for like the Bourbons, the media learn nothing, and they forget nothing.
Rainbow Pie
A Redneck Memoir
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A fascinating and extremely readable account of a life now vanished, destroyed by the insatiable appetite of capital.
Rampant Racism in the Criminal Justice System
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.
The Rawick File: How Do People Revolt?
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
George Rawick (1929-1990) was a powerful socialist scholar in the C.L.R. James tradition, sometimes an equally powerful mentor for young radicals, and also a tortured soul. He is largely forgotten today, because he did not write easily or found a “school” with his methods — or even get along with his friends and allies very well.
The Real Merchants of Death
The Global Arms Trade
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The global arms trade is a $60 billion yearly business, of which the U.S. controls nearly 40 percent, and a political and economic juggernaut that defends its turf with the ferocity of a junkyard dog.
The Real Motive Behind the Gaza Flotilla Attack
Sabotaging Peace
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel's leadership is committed to "a dynamic state bent upon expansion". The greatest threat to continued expansion is the threat of peace. Whenever Israel's leadership is faced with the threat of peace, it initiates violence designed to stop it.
Rebutting Israel's "We don't kill civilians on purpose" argument
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The difference between intentional and accidental killing is only relevant when the aim of the violence is a just one. Accidentally killing civilians in the course of using violence to stop oppression is one thing. Doing it in the course of using violence to oppress people is a very different thing. In the case of Israeli violence, the question is not whether Israel intentionally kills civilians. The question is: What is the purpose of Israel's violence?
Recollections of Harry Press
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Harry Press, a veteran of the U.S. Trotskyist movement and the American Socialist current, died this year at age 94. In recent years he was a loyal reader and made several very generous donations to this magazine. These recollections of Harry Press were told to Carl Finamore for Against the Current.
Reflections on October 7th
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Students, workers, teachers, parents and faculty throughout the country participated in the October 7th National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. As part of a growing movement, activists from 25 different states were involved.
Rejoinder to Criticism of Chomsky: Asset or Liability?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One can learn much more about Chomsky’s actual views from the real Chomsky than from reading about some imaginary Chomsky which some critics have manufactured.
Remembering Barbara Zeluck
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Remembering Barbara Zeluck
Remote-Controlled Killing
The Spot-and-Shoot Game
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Israeli military is increasingly using remote-controlled weapons to kill Palestinians. Israel's remotely controlled weapons systems are in high demand from repressive regimes and the burgeoning homeland security industries around the globe.
Reply to A Reviewer
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
My old friend Paul Buhle has developed a neat general formula for reviewing the books he is out of sympathy with. Paul begins by making laudatory comments and concludes by expressing overwhelmingly negative judgments. But he has gone too far in his review of my The Rousing of the Scottish Working Class by falsely accusing me of using “a club to beat [E.P.] Thompson.”
A Report on Recent Struggles in Greece
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In periods of crisis, such as the current period of overaccumulation crisis, capitalists use the politics of #public debt# in order to devise new ways to intensify exploitation. In contrast with capitalist upturns when the private debt is increased, downturns are characterized by the increase of the #public debt#.
Republic of Dunces
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
For its entire 142-year history, the University of California has served the state’s wealthiest businessmen well as a taxpayer-funded R&D facility. Its graduates have gone out into the world to serve as their mining engineers, attorneys, inventors, weapons designers, and business associates.
Resistance with the Scent of a Woman
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
“They're afraid of us because we’re not afraid. They think, act, and are going backwards as they stay behind their military armor. They see us laughing, struggling, loving, playing as they watch us from behind their military armor.”
Resisting Agent Orange
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Following an early April round of visits in private residences and care facilities with children suffering from a range of debilitating birth anomalies, classified by the Vietnamese government as “victims of agent orange,” a delegation of six American veterans sponsored by Veterans for Peace (VFP) was received in Hanoi by Nguyen Tan Dung, the Prime Minister of Vietnam.
Response
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Oldtimers, across geographical space and chronological time, tend to swat at each other, responding to insults both real and imagined, long past and present. I know that in my family, Ma and Pa did it with increasing vigor over the years. Probably not all of the swatting within the greatly diminished U.S., UK or any other Left can be attributed to political disappointment.
The Return of Debtors' Prisons
Reservations for the Poor
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Nearly a quarter of the people spending time behind bars on Riker’s Island in 2008 - one in four inmates - were there because they didn’t have the money to pay bail on a misdemeanor charge. These unfortunate souls may have been presumed innocent of the criminal charges by the judge, but they were nonetheless jailed for being poor.
Revered Rabbi Preaches Slaughter Of Gentile Babies
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Rabbis who are among the leading idelogues of the growing fascist movement in Israel say that violence against non-Jews, including the killing of babies, is justied by religious law. According to Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira and Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, Jewish law permits the killing of non-Jews in a wide variety of circumstances. In a recent boo, they say #There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us".
Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance
The Power of Story
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Rise of the Left Party: Germany's Election and Beyond
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On September 27, 2009 the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered its worst electoral defeat since 1945. After four years of governing as a junior partner in a “Grand Coalition” with the right-of-center Christian Democrats (CDU), the SPD garnered only 23% of the vote (down from 33% in 2005) and now appears to be a shadow of the party that had taken the reins of government in 1998.
The Road from Copenhagen
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The handwriting about the long-anticipated Copenhagen climate change conference has been on the wall for months, and its message is not promising for our human civilization or the thousands of species we may take down with us. By the time of that frantic final day of backroom arm-twisting, blackmail and president Obama's lead-balloon speech, it no longer really mattered whether the conference's failure would be openly admitted, or thinly disguised behind a “political framework statement” without serious mechanisms for implementation, measurement or enforcement.
Lester Rodney: The Long Ball Hitter
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
I am writing this piece after reading the New York Times obituary of Lester Rodney, where both the role of the Daily Worker and Lester’s role as its sports writer were given their due credit in the fight to integrate major league baseball. Irwin Silber’s book Press Box Red has previously told Lester’s story in depth, and Dave Zirin’s recent articles round out his significance to sports in a more contemporary fashion.
The Root of the Mid-East Conflict and the Reason Our Government Supports Israel's Government
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How should decent people respond to the Middle-East conflict? We should support equality, not Zionist ethnic cleansing. Equality is the way to make a better world for ordinary people from Watertown to Ramallah to Tel Aviv, and it is the only way to end racist ideologies such as anti-Semitism and Zionism.
Rosa Luxemburg and the Global Violence of Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital
New Perspectives on Capitalist Development and American Hegemony
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
From a Luxemburgian perspective post-war capitalism developed in two phases, each of which was possible because class-struggles and international conflicts had opened non-capitalist environments for capitalist penetration. The first phase gave rise to consumer capitalism and neo-colonialism; the second was characterized by accumulation by dispossession that rolled back welfare states in the North and developmental states in the South, while also integrating formerly state-socialist countries, notably China, into the capitalist world-system.
Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution in the Twenty-first Century
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform and Revolution, written at a high point of socialist struggle, contains invaluable lessons for today's new generation of activists as they confront the political and organizational challenges of the day.
The Saga of Stella D'oro, Inspiration and Lessons
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The powerful labor struggle at the Bronx-based Stella D’oro Biscuit Co. recently came to an abrupt end after 14 long, hard months. The 136 workers at the plant, all members of Local 50 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers (BCTGM) International Union, withstood 11 months on the picket line before winning a court order in July that returned them to work under the terms of their previous contract. But the workers and their supporters were unable to prevent the factory’s closure.
The Save Public Education Fightback
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Coalition of University Employees (CUE) represents workers on ten University of California campuses and one national laboratory. We have been involved in bargaining statewide for the last two years, with no end in sight. For several years our members had not received raises. Additionally there had been hundreds of layoffs on campuses and at the Office of the President.
Scottish Workers in History
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
So much has happened to the world’s working class in the last 30 years that we oldtimers may, perhaps, be forgiven for losing focus on the deeper histories of industrial life and struggle. Thanks to the publish-or-perish academic reality, ever more studies in social history actually appear, but fewer treat the labor movement as an important part of that history. Working people are more often seen as victims, too often self-victimized in myriad ways.
The Secret Secret
Of Wikileaks and Literacy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Only those with proper clearances can participate in discussions that affect significant aspects of our lives. Certain technological achievements, our collective ethical decisions (torture, secret prisons, air strikes, etc.), our collective behavior towards other nations and peoples (foreign policy discussions) and more are often obscured by state secrecy. Like the medieval clergy, those holding classified clearances are the sole legitimate interpreters of the 'really important' knowledge. In effect, they are a caste that guides our political and technological cosmologies.
The Secrets in Israel's Archives
Evidence of Ethnic Cleansing Kept Under Lock and Key
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israel has extended the time limit for releasing documents in its archives to 70 years, to prevent disclosure of evidence of widespread ethnic cleansing. The state#s chief archivist says many of the documents #are not fit for public viewing# and raise doubts about Israel#s #adherence to international law#, while the government warns that greater transparency will #damage foreign relations#.
The Semantics of Terrorism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A mental construct has been created in which the State of Israel is an entity that is under constant attack. By terrorists. Who, irrefutably, must be eradicated. Their actions are somewhat irrelevant. Whether they are school children, passing through checkpoints, or citizens from other countries bringing medicine and food to Gaza, Israel will garner an astonishing degree of unconditional national and international support for harming them if they call them terrorists.
A serious newspaper should not confuse Jews and Zionists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On the eve of the 62th anniversary of Israel, it is important to remember that it was the Zionist minority of Palestine's inhabitants that issued the unilateral declaration of independence. Israel is a Zionist state, not a Jewish one, another important distinction to make in future articles on this burning subject.
Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can't Recover Anytime Soon
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
There is a larger disease in the international economic system, a disease that cannot be cured by politicians who swear allegiance to this deteriorating system and to the wealthy elite who benefit from it.
Sex & Iran's Upstoppable Resistance
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Since Iran's presidential “election” in June 2009 and the protests that followed, the world has caught a partial, albeit highly mediated, glimpse inside that country and its politically active citizenry. The state, frequently misrepresented as a monolith and in neoconservative circles tarred as “Islamo-fascist,” is now more accurately understood as a diverse and fractured set of actors. The reform movement that had ushered in President Khatami suffered defeat by the hardliners with Ahmadenijad’s 2005 election, and hailed by many as dead, has come back to life. To many, it appears unstoppable.
Sex at Dawn
The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Ryan and Jethá contend that humans evolved in egalitarian groups that shared food, child care, and, often, sexual partners. Weaving together evidence from anthropology, archaeology, primatology, anatomy, and psychosexuality, the authors argue that monogamy is by no means part of human nature.
Sharia Law in Britain – A Threat to One Law for All and Equal Rights
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
One Law for All says that Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are in violation of UK law, public policy and human rights.
Shock and Au-sterity
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Scared to death that all the lights were about to go out after pulling the plug on Lehman Brothers, the bourgeoisie rolled up its sleeves, girded its loins, crossed its fingers, and reached deeper than deep for that thing of all things, that relation of all relations that is the life of all lives for the bourgeoisie—OPM, other people’s money.
Shooting Back
Young Palestinians With Cameras
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
For the past three years, Btselem, the Israeli human rights NGO, has provided cameras and training to young Palestinians as part of its camera distribution project, to collect video evidence of abuses and misconduct by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Shot in the Back
Did the IDF Execute Mavi Marmara Victims?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the Israeli commando assault on the Gaza aid flotilla, if victims were shot in the back or in the back of the head, then one is left really with only two possible conclusions: either the shooters, who were the Israeli commandos (according to Israel, no Israeli soldiers were themselves shot, plus all the recovered bullets were 9 mm, the type of shells in the Israeli weapons, making it clear who had the guns), fired at people who were fleeing from them, or alternatively they shot people from the front, and later executed them with shots to the back of the head, which is maybe even worse (certainly a war crime).
Silent Coup
How the CIA is Welcoming Itself Back Onto American University Campuses
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Small country, big struggle
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Swaziland suffers a repressive and corrupt regime.
SNCC at 50
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is vitally important not just for learning and understanding the past but, more importantly, for imagining and working for a more righteous future.
SNCC: Same Lesson, 50 Years On
Power Yields Nothing Without Demand
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The SNCC lesson is that power yields nothing without demand and the guts to back it up.
SNCC's 50-Year Legacy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Celebrating SNCC's legacy.
So Different Yet So Familiar
Book Review by William Bowles
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A fascinating and extremely readable account of a life now vanished, destroyed by the insatiable appetite of capital and told with acid wit and great style making it enjoyable to relish the language but not too much, it's not a travelog but a rare account of life that most of us are barely aware exists.
The Socialist Alternative
Real Human Development
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Lebowitz takes the reader through an examination of the workings of capitalism and the problems of not only a transition to socialism, but ultimately to a society that represents freedom from class exploitation.
Solidarity Alliance: A Call to Action
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A historic alliance was born at UC Berkeley on August 28, 2009. Lyn Hejinian, Professor of English and a member of SAVE, a newly formed faculty group, had issued an invitation to student groups and the union coalition to come together and share our plans to fight the cuts.
Sources - Portal para Periodistas y Escritores
Sources Select Resources Encyclopedia
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Sources es un portal de información para periodistas, escritores independientes, editores, autores e investigadores, especialmente si están enfocados en recursos humanos: expertos y portavoces quienes están preparados para responder preguntas de los reporteros, o se disponen a ser entrevistados en los medios de comunicación.
The State as Protection Racket
Chapters in the History of Daylight Robbery
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The debate about the current global economic "crisis" is obscenely counterintuitive and illogical to the point of incoherence. Who is willing to #follow the money"? This dictum appears utterly forgotten, despite recurring astronomic fraud perpetrated by US corporations.
State Lawlessness on the Rampage
The Menu for 2011
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths.
Strong Meat
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The meat-producing system Simon Fairlie advocates differs sharply from the one now practised in the rich world: low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale. But if we were to adopt it, we could eat meat, milk and eggs (albeit much less) with a clean conscience.
Summit Protests Are Obsolete
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
I can understand why a lot of folks went to the G20 protests, sincerely wanting to stand up and be counted against savage global capitalism and its consequences. The problem is, almost nobody who didn't participate, especially those who only heard of the protests through the media, has any idea what the protests were about, or why the protesters were there.
The Sun Behind The Clouds Gives A Voice To Tibetan Dissidents
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam's The Sun Behind the Clouds is the latest offering in a long line of documentaries about Tibet. The distinctiveness of this edition derives from its willingness to portray the internal debates of the Tibetan movement and in the movie#s attempts to give voice to Tibetans living in Tibet. These features moved the film from a typical propaganda piece about the oppression faced under the brutal grip of the People#s Republic of China (PRC) to a serious examination of resistance strategies in Tibet and in its influential Diaspora.
SUPA - Student Union for Peace Action
Connexipedia Article
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A Canadian student organization active from 1964 to 1967.
The Tactical Utility of Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
What place does violence have in the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system? What place does it have in any struggle? Is the current definition of violence as accepted by the ruling regime and the loyal opposition relevant or realistic?
Tailoring to Needs: Garment Worker Struggles in Bangladesh
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The class struggle in Bangladesh is fought at a consistently high level and concentrated in the ready made garment (RMG) sector, the country’s dominant industry. Mainly unmediated by trade unions, struggles frequently assume an explosive character.
Take Back The Land, Give Root To Democracy
Book Review by Alex Knight
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In many ways, Take Back the Land is a direct heir of the bottom-up, Black self-empowerment, civil disobedient, movement-building tradition, and is one of the most inspiring examples of a group renewing and developing that tradition today.
Take Israel To International Criminal Court
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is imperative that the international community view the Israeli response to the Goldstone report as a blatant attempt to whitewash its crimes in Gaza, and refer the matter to the ICC without further delay. To do otherwise will only continue to encourage Israeli intransigence.
Taking Back Homes From The Banks: Exercising The Human Right To Housing
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Most people recognize that international human rights guarantee all humans a right
to housing. With the millions of homeless living in our communities and the millions of empty foreclosed houses all across our communities, groups have decided to put them together. Organizations across the US are engaging in #housing liberation# and #housing defense# to exercise their human rights to housing.
Taking on the Religious Right
A review of God and His Demons
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Michael Parenti confronts the dangers of religious fundamentalism.
A Tale of Two Social Forums
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
From June 22-26, 2010, fifteen thousand social movement activists gathered in Detroit, Michigan for the second United States Social Forum (USSF). Less than two months later, about half that number met at the other end of the continent in Asunción, Paraguay for the 4th Americas Social Forum (ASF).
The Teabagger Anti-Socialist Purity Pledge
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Teachers, Parents, Community Together
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
interview with Joshua Pechthalt. ATC interviewed Joshua Pechthalt, an activist who is Vice President of the United Teachers Los Angeles/American Federation of Teachers and President of AFT Local 1021. He also sits on the Executive Boards of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the California State Federation of Labor.
Tear Down the Dam; Restore the Commons
Temacapulin Fights for Its Survival
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Over 47,000 large dams around the world have displaced some 40,000,000 people. The World Bank has invested more than $60 billion in 600 dams.
The Techno-Fantasies of Evo Morales
The Consequences of Modernization
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
There are two different Evo Morales: the one who makes international eco-proclamations and the one, at home, who is pushing dams, uranium excavation, cell towers, and mega-highways.
Temping Down Labor Rights: The Manpowerization of Mexico
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The continuing erosion of labour rights and labour standards in Mexico.
Terror As It Was and Is
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Despite the centrality today of “terrorism” as a political phenomenon, justifying a re-ordering of global power relations as well as the suppression of dissent and civil liberties domestically, it is in fact a far older phenomenon, as Nivedita Majumdar’s wonderful anthology of writing on the subject reminds us. The work excerpted in The Other Side of Terror includes fiction, poetry, and essays on the subject of terrorism by South Asians over the course of more than a century.
Texas Tough
The Rise of America#s Prison Empire
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A history of imprisonment, race, and politics from slavery to the present, with an emphasis on Texas, the most locked-down state in the USA.
These astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As I see in threads on my articles, the online sabotaging of intelligent debate seems organised. We must fight to save this precious gift.
They're Recharging Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
To end the occupation, cripple Israeli banks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The international banking sanctions campaign in New York against apartheid South Africa during the 1980s is regarded as the most effective strategy in bringing about a nonviolent end to the country's apartheid system. If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel's violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict.
Top Ten Reasons East Jerusalem does not belong to Jewish-Israelis
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Toronto Before the G20: A History of Violence
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The notion that Toronto is “a city with little history of violent protests” is laughable. Newspapers across North America have spent more than a century reporting on eruptions of violence and protest in Toronto’s past.
Torturing the Rule of Law at Obama's Gitmo
Obama Bravely Takes on a Tortured Child Soldier
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Give our government credit for breaking new ground: no nation has tried a child soldier for war crimes since World War II, and the decision to prosecute Khadr has drawn protests from UNICEF, headed by a former U.S. national security adviser, as well as every major human-rights group.
The Town That Food Saved
How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
An account of how cooperative agricultural enterprises are revitalizing the economy of a town in Vermont.
A Tribute To American People's Historian - Howard Zinn
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
With the death of Howard Zinn there is no doubt that the anti-war and peace movement in the USA has lost one of its best activists and an honest historian.
The Trickledown Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The first step towards re-imagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination#an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future.
Trotsky, Guest of the Revolution
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
“Infamous and impotent handful of vile assassins and traitors!” “raging dogs that must be brought down with no pity!” These were some of the words that Andrei Vyshinsky, the Soviet Prosecutor General, pronounced on August 24 1936, against four founding members of the Bolshevik Party, among them Zinoviev and Kamenev.
The Trouble With Billionaires
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
The Truth Behind The Israeli Propaganda
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The amazing thing in all this is that so many Western journalists # and I'm including the BBC's pusillanimous coverage of the Gaza aid ships # are writing like Israeli journalists, while many Israeli journalists are writing about the killings with the courage that Western journalists should demonstrate.
Truth in Chains
The Arrest of Julian Assange
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Tell a truth that discomforts power, that challenges its domination over our lives, our discourse, our very thoughts, and you will be destroyed. No institution, public or private, will stand with you; the most powerful entities, public and private, will be arrayed against you, backed up by overwhelming violent force. This is where we are now. This is what we are now.
The Truth Will Always Win
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
TSA's Gestapo Empire
A Greater Threat Than the Terrorists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is a far greater threat to the lives and freedom of Americans than the 'terrorists' it claims to be protecting them from.
Turning Estates into Villages
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
How good planning can make us slimmer, fitter, safer and less lonely.
The Tyranny of False Consciousness
Know-Nothings of 2010, Part Two
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Today#s nativists are beset by the crisis of capitalist globalization and its accompanying waves of forced migration. Sadly, nativists refuse to acknowledge the relationship between capitalism and migration. Instead, they seek to resolve the mounting social crisis by returning the country to a fantasy way-of-life that never existed, a white Protestant homeland. Rightwing ideological hacks promote this fictitious solution, setting the stage for a far deeper neo-fascist, racist (and anti-Muslim) upsurge.
Undisputed Success
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
March 4th was an undisputed success in California. Students, workers, teachers, parents and UC faculty found a way to participate. The major demonstration in San Francisco of 10,000, and other demonstrations in Sacramento and Oakland and in Southern California brought people together from different sectors, K-12, community colleges, state universities and university of California campuses. The California Teachers Association, representing most of the K-12 teachers, initiated rallies and picket lines across the state involving their teachers and students. The California Federation of Teachers reported that events happened at all the state universities except Chico which travelled to join the Sacramento rally.
The Unfolding Epic Recession
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Department of Labor’s June 4 release of May 2010 U.S. employment numbers sent shock waves through the business community, erasing all doubt that U.S. economic recovery — much touted by business press and government policymakers in recent months — may not actually occur.
Universal Cure
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Here#s a simple means of transforming the UK#s universities, schools and society.
The Unpersuadables
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In fighting for science, we subscribe to a comforting illusion: that people can be swayed by the facts.
Upper Big Branch Mine and the Race to the Bottom
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Without union representation, workers are afraid to report unsafe conditions because they will be fired. Without union representation to pressure coal companies, politicians, and federal regulators, the American coal industry is in a race to the bottom as it enforces third world labor standards and economic and safety conditions on its workers.
US Government Systematically Spying on Citizens
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The US government has been systematically violating the privacy rights of U.S. citizens.
The US Government's Frontal Assault on Freedom
Hillary the Identity Thief
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The leaked Wikileaks documents show that the last thing the US government wants anywhere is a government that is accountable to its own citizens instead of to the US government.
U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy Wikileaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
This document is a classifed (SECRET/NOFORN) 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks. ``The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out''. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses ``trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers'', the report recommends ``The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistlblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site''.
US Navy Veterans Continue to Seek Justice for Israeli Attack
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On June 8, 1967, while sailing in international waters, the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked by air and naval forces of the state of Israel. Of the Liberty's crew of 294, more than half were killed or wounded. More than 40 years later, survivors are still seeking justice.
U.S. Social Forum in Detroit
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
2010 is a year of one, two, many Social Forums around the world, including the second U.S. Social Forum. The first USSF, attended by more than 12,000, was held three years ago in Atlanta. It featured an opening march that wove through the city streets, stopping for rallies at important sites of social struggle, including Grady Hospital, where activists from AFSCME Local 1644, explained their opposition to the privatization of the city’s largest public hospital. The Forum, the result of two years of planning by a National Planning Committee, included plenaries each evening and 800 workshops.
The U.S. Social Forum in Detroit
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Under the threefold heading “Another World is Possible/ Another U.S. is Necessary/ Another Detroit is Happening,” the 2010 U.S. Social Forum (USSF) convened in Detroit June 22-26 for a celebration of resistance and strategic thinking to advance our struggles for justice globally and at home.
U.S. Socialists and the Mexican Revolution
Against The Current vol. 149
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Eugene Victor Debs was America’s most impressive Socialist figure: founder of the American Railway Union and of the Industrial Workers of the World, a founder of the Socialist Party and its repeated candidate for president. He was jailed for his role in the Pullman strike in 1894 and for his opposition to World War I in 1918, and he strongly defended the Russian Soviet Revolution. If any person would stand for revolutionary socialism in the United States, surely it would be Debs.
US tax-exempt donations fund Israeli settlements
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Millions of tax-exempt dollars from the US are being funneled towards Israel's illegal settlement building in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in flagrant violation of international law.
Vancouverites Stage Picket Against Israeli Shipping Company
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Dozens of activists set up an information picket at Deltaport on August 24, designed to slow the transport of containers belonging to the Israeli shipping company Zim.
Veiled Values
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
It is important to defend liberal social values, the secular society and the heritage of the Enlightenment. But we cannot do so by promoting illiberal policies.
Venezuela: Voices on the Struggle
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In mid-June 2010, we caught up with three revolutionary socialist activists, Gonzalo Gómez, Stalin Pérez Borges, and Luis Primo in Caracas, Venezuela to discuss their views on the contradictions and prospects of the Bolivarian process.
Veolia's dirty business: The Tovlan landfill
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Ever since the first Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in 2005, French multinational Veolia has been on campaigners' list of boycott targets. Corporate Watch has investigated the impact of Veolia#s Tovlan landfill on occupied land.
The Verso Book of Dissent
From Spartacus to the Shoe-Thrower of Bagdad
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
An anthology presenting voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos.
The Victory for Workers' Rights in Honduras
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Progressive followers of politics in Honduras have had little to celebrate recently. The June 28, 2009 coup that toppled president Mel Zelaya — a democratically elected reformer, though never the radical populist depicted by the mainstream media — was a terrible blow to democracy, echoing the worst chapters of Central America’s dark history.
A Vision from the Heartland
Socialism for the 21st Century
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
La Botz argues that to solve the problems of our economy and the environment, and to end America‘s wars abroad, we must begin to create a socialist society. A socialist society is one where the working people collectively own and democratically plan and manage the major industries and enterprises. I call for the abolition of the corporations and of capitalism in order to create a society of plenty for all. I believe that such a society can only be created by building a powerful movement for democracy and for working class power.
Visioning a World Without Capitalism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
As leftists we have something infinitely more precious to win from our rich history than sentimentality and sectarianism, as we struggle to renovate the revolutionary tradition in the twenty-first century.
¡Viva la Revolución!
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Mexican revolution, which began in 1910 and ended in 1940, transformed Mexico. During the course of those 30 years, tens of thousands of men and women fought in battles in many regions of the country to end the Porfirian dictatorship and to determine the course and goals of the revolution that had overthrown it. In a nation of 15 million, a shocking one million were killed while two million migrated to the United States to escape the violence (many of them subsequently returning), a movement which established the paths of future migrations.
¡Viva la Revolución! Part 2
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
While the most violent stage of the Mexican Revolution was over by 1920, the country faced a series of new crises in the 1930s. The era opened in 1928 with the assassination of former President Álvaro Obregón, killed by a Catholic militant opposed to the secularizing Revolution in the formerly officially Catholic country.
Waging the War on Slavery
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The settlement of Lawrence in the territory of Kansas, summer of 1856: Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers are trying to colonize the territory. The former want a slave-soil, the latter a free-soil state. Armed pro-slavery gangs from Missouri are harassing and attacking the free-soil settlers. The U.S. government and U.S. Army are pro-slavery.
War is a Lie
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those wars that have been most widely defended as just and good. This is a handbook of sorts, a manual to be used in debunking future lies before future wars have a chance to begin.
A War on Wikileaks?
Unhinged at the US State Department and Pentagon
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If the state fails to make any sense - not surprising - it is because it is has no intention of doing so. The state is appealing to something more visceral with all of this posturing: fear. It wants to strike fear into the minds and bodies of people working with Wikileaks, or anyone else doing such work, and anyone contemplating leaking any classified records. Fear is its greatest weapon of psychological destruction, with proven success at home. The outcome the state hopes for is greater self-censorship and greater self-monitoring.
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Washington's Magical Realism
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A coup becomes a coup — for U.S. magical realists — when Washington defines it as such. On March 10, 1952 Cuban General Fulgencio Batista grabbed power and sought to legitimize his coup by holding fake elections. Magically, the coup makers won; Washington recognized Batista.
Washington's Post-Cold War Coup
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The pretext for removing Honduran President Manuel Zelaya — that holding a civic consultation to replace the Constitution of 1982 was his power grab, enabling him to run for a second term — doesn’t hold water. Such a document could only have come into effect well after his term of office ended.
Watching the Pentagon Channel
The New Socialist Realism
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The oddest aspect of the Pentagon Channel is how completely they shield their audience#potential soldiers, current soldiers and former soldiers#from what they are defending, which is to say: capitalism.
We are the Student Movement?
Remembering the Rise and Fall of the Canadian Union of Students 1965-1969
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A Welcome Prison Victory at Youngstown
Hunger Strike on Death Row
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Three death-sentenced men were on hunger strike in Ohio State Penitentiary on January 3 to win the same rights as others on death row in the state.
The Welsh Revolution
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Why are radical politics electable in Wales but not in England?
What Bhopal Started
From Union Carbide to Exxon to BP
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power. The ongoing BP spill in the Mexican Gulf -- with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 80,000 barrels per day -- tops off a quarter of a century where corporations could (and have) done anything in the pursuit of profit, at any human cost.
What is education for?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
There is a fundamental difference between being a student and being a consumer. Education is not a product but a relationship and a process, a relationship between student and lecturer, and process by which knowledge transforms the individual. When someone buys a car or a hamburger, he or she is purchasing a pre-packaged, readymade commodity to satisfy a specific need. Education is about creating critical thinkers whose skill is precisely the ability to challenge ideas that are pre-packaged or readymade or designed to satisfy such a need.
What isn't wrong with Sharia law?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
To safeguard our rights there must be one law for all and no religious courts.
What Really Happened to the 1960s
How Mass Media Culture Failed American Democracy
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A historical overview, critical analysis, and appraisal of the 1960s. Drawing upon historical and media studies, theories of capitalism and democracy, and in-depth study of the era's social movements, Morgan provides an extremely comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the events and aftermath of the 1960s.
What the Media Does Not Say About the Anti-Iran Leaks
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The media is interested in one and only one subject: advancing the anti-Iran narrative that is advocated by the neoconservatives, the War Party, and the Israel lobby.
What Would it Mean to Win?
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
Where is the movement today? Where is it going? Are we winning? The authors of the essays in this volume pose these and other momentous questions.
What's in a name? In a racist society, everything
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In our society refusal to contemplate a relationship with a person from another ethnic or religious background is described and denounced as racism or bigotry. In Israel it is protected by law.
When Drones Come Home to Roost
Monsters, Human and Mechanical
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The use of remote-controlled killing machines by the United States guarantees that in the future these same technologies will be used to strike targets in the U.S.
Where Is Venezuela Going?
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Steve Ellner's latest book, Rethinking Venezuelan Politics, is an important contribution to our understanding of Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. It brings a deeply historical perspective to the topic, something almost universally lacking in the growing number of short-sighted texts on the country’s politics. It also offers the opportunity for a discussion of the complexities of the “Bolivarian process” as it unfolds.
Wherein We Meet Genial Radicals by the Shores of Lake Champlain
The New Secessionists
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Secession is the next radical idea poised to enter mainstream discourse#or at least the realm of the conceivable. You can#t bloat a modest republic into a crapulent empire without sparking one hell of a centrifugal reaction. The prospect of breaking away from a union degenerating into imperial putrefaction will only grow in appeal as we go marching with our Patriot Acts and National Security Strategies through Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and all the frightful signposts on our road to nowhere.
While Everyone Else Went to College, I Went to Jail
A Conversation With Saad Nabeel
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Who is Afraid of a Real Inquiry?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If a real Commission of Inquiry had been set up into the Free Gaza Flotilla attack (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed.
Who's Dysfunctional Now?
Against The Current vol. 146
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The good news is that the Republicans and the Tea Party movement not only lost the health insurance reform vote, but made such a obscene spectacle of themselves that everyone now knows who and what they really are. The bad news is that the Democrats now take credit for passing “health care reform” when in fact they’ve gutted it — hiding who and what they really are.
Why Boycott Aroma?
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010 Published: 2011
Our boycott call is part of a larger movement by Palestinian civil society to find non-violent means to end the occupation and apartheid.
Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic Intifada
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
NGO Monitor has launched a campaign targeting a Dutch foundation's financial support to The Electronic Intifada, accusing the publication among other things of "anti-Semitism." NGO Monitor is an extreme right-wing group with close ties to the Israeli government, military, and West Bank settlers,
Why the French Hate Chomsky
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Chomsky's criticism is laden with facts, a substance that seems to elicit ennui among contemporary French thinkers. No doubt the importance of the essay in the French educational system has bred a world of 'philosophers' whose skill at manipulating fact-free ideas was the guarantee of a distinguished career. If the social object is to entertain, then the French school reaches its goal -- mystification is often far more entertaining than straightforward descriptions of reality. On the other hand, if the object is to help readers reach their own understanding of reality, especially political reality, then their first need is to be provided with the basic relevant facts, which most people do not have time to ascertain through their own research. Thus Chomsky is useful to citizens by providing them with the raw material to develop their own ideas in a way that the purveyors of ready-made but flimsily supported ideas are not.
Why the Swedish Left Lost
An Analysis of the Electoral Fiasco and Lessons for the Democrats
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Analysts and political leaders on the left focus on how the right wing#s lies go unfiltered by the establishment mass media. The media bias theory has some plausibility but the limit to the media-bias argument is that the extremist Sweden Democrats largely faced a media blackout but still managed to be one of the biggest winners in the electoral system.
Why There Are No 'Israelis' in the Jewish State
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A group of Jews and Arabs are fighting in the Israeli courts to be recognised as #Israelis#, a nationality currently denied them, in a case that officials fear may threaten the country#s self-declared status as a Jewish state.
Why They Call It King Coal
A Killer Industry Continues to Call the Shots
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Political corruption first puts coal workers at risk of death, trapped by circumstances: either work underground for King Coal and risk your life, go fight our wars in the US military and risk your life, or work for the government defending King Coal and its prerogatives. For working class West Virginians, that's the economy in a nutshell, accompanied by plaintive Civil War violins.
Why we walked out
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Students across the US are protesting a public relations campaign that brings soldiers from the Israeli army to speak on campuses. These tours are an attempt to justify recent war crimes committed by the army.
Why Wikileaks is Good for Democracy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The US has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of documents as secrets. Wikileaks and other media which report these so called secrets will embarrass people yes. Wikileaks and other media will make leaders uncomfortable yes. But embarrassment and discomfort are small prices to pay for a healthier democracy. Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust.
Widerspruch gegen linkes Lavieren
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Israelische Linke rufen in offenem Brief an die Linkspartei zu Dialog über Nahostkonflikt auf
In einem Offenen Brief an die LINKE haben über 100 linke Israelis ihre Erwartungen an eine solidarische Politik der deutschen Linkspartei deutlich gemacht und Kritik an Teilen der Partei geäußert, die die israelische Politik im Nahen Osten unterstützen.
The Wikileaks Afghan War Diary
Reason for Celebration, Cause for Concern
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The release of Wikileaks acquired records from U.S. forces in Afghanistan is an event of major significance which in some ways deserves to be celebrated by those opposed to the war in Afghanistan, but there are also some serious problems with the records and with the way Wikileaks released them.
Wikileaks and the Free Press
Exposing the Futility of US Foreign Policy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Wikileaks published documents from sources US journalists should have cultivated instead of behaving like White House stenographers. Exceptions like Seymour Hersh and Dana Priest only dramatize the point: the fourth estate has become an arm of national security policy.
Wikileaks and the New Global Order
America's Wake-Up Call
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The impression of a world running out of American control has become a theme touching all our lives over the past decade. The US invented and exported financial deregulation, promising it to be the epitome of the new capitalism that was going to offer the world economic salvation. The result is a banking crisis that now threatens to topple the very governments in Europe who are Washington’s closest allies.
Wikileaks and the Truth of the Af-Pak War
Against The Current vol. 148
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the aftermath of the much-discussed leak of the Afghan war documents, few aspects of the Af-Pak imbroglio have been as scrutinized as the supposed duplicity of the Pakistani security establishment. The New York Times editorial board, for example, promptly declared that of all of the revelations, the reports detailing the “cynical collusion between Pakistan’s military intelligence service and the Taliban” were the “most alarming.” (This, too, from a paper that had been privy to the leaked material for some time before the database went public).
WikiLeaks continues exposure of predatory US foreign policy
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In the face of an unprecedented campaign of US harassment and intimidation, the Internet-based WikiLeaks group is continuing its efforts to expose the predatory role of American foreign policy around the world, releasing secret diplomatic documents every day.
WikiLeaks Copycat Reveals Indonesia's Bloody Secrets
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
On Friday, December 10th IndoLeaks, Indonesia’s very own version of WikiLeaks, went live. Over the following weeks the site has posted some sensitive documents including a conversation between former President Suharto and former US President Gerald Ford as well as four autopsy reports of the victims of the infamous 1965 coup attempt.
Wikileaks Exposes Complicity of the Press
Documents Show NYT and Washington Post Shilling for US Government on Iran Missile "Threat"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defense policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has instead produced a spate of stories buttressing anti-Iran hysteria.
Wikileaks is Good for America
Get Over It!
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Julian Assange and Bradley Manning did not create the mess we now find ourselves in. But what they have had the courage to do may just eventually let enough sunshine in for change to happen.
Wikileaks - The Smear and the Denial
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The Internet has revealed a chasm separating the corporate media from readers and viewers. Previously, the divide was hidden by the simple fact that journalists monopolised the means of mass communication. Dissent was restricted to a few lonely lines on the letter’s page, if that.
Wild West Journalism
Outlaws, Cowpokes and a Eunuched Press
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Journalism is not dead nor is anthropology. Both are undergoing seismic transformations while under attack from a neoliberal culture that devalues the public and disparages the truth.
Wildcat Strikes in China
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Wimps Can't Win
The Sissy Left
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
When did we on the left forget how to fight back in dark alleys?
Women Take On the Orthodox
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Increasing religious domination by the Orthodox is increasing conflict within Israeli and tension between American Jews and Israel.
The Women Who Gave Us Christmas
Exposing America's Greatest Crime
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In 1834, African American and white men and women members of William Lloyd Garrison’s newly formed Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society saw Christmas as an opportunity to expose a hypocritical republic that proclaimed liberty yet held millions of African men, women and children captive as slaves. Women assumed the lead, boldly defying a society that denied them a public voice or political opinions. To finance the abolition cause, these women organized Christmas bazaars that sold donated gifts, and trumpeted anti-slavery messages.
Working in Nonprofit Organizations
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
If people want to work in jobs that provide some satisfaction and flexibility, nonprofits jobs can be good for a while. They’re also a way to learn some skills. But don’t have illusions about nonprofit organizations. A job in a nonprofit organization is still a job. A nonprofit job is not a good way to make a contribution to revolutionary change and it’s often not a very good contribution even to smaller scale reformist change.
The World: A Beginner's Guide
Resource Type: Book
First Published: 2010
A comparative/historical sociological review of the world.
World Cup Woes for South Africa
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The overspending, crony capitalism and increased poverty the majority of South Africans now suffer are taking the fun out of the beautiful game, soccer. According to leading researcher Udesh Pillay of the SA Human Sciences Research Council, in 2005 one in three South Africans hoped to personally benefit from the World Cup, but this fell to one in five in 2009, and 1 in 100 today.
World War II and Ethnic Conflict in LA
Against The Current vol. 144
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
In The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles, Scott Kurashige provides new insights into the struggle for racial equality in Los Angeles by focusing on collaboration, and competition, between African-American and Japanese American residents of the city.
Worse Than North Korea
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
The reality is that we are dealing with a pariah state, no better at this point in its respect for international law and basic human rights (where non-Israelis are concerned), than North Korea. And maybe worse. At least the North Koreans fired their weapon at a South Korean military vessel. The Israeli Defense Force attacked a vessel filled with civilian peace activists, including elderly Holocaust survivors, members of foreign parliaments, and young children.
The Year America Dissolved
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
A vision of collapse.
A Year of Banking Bailout
Against The Current vol. 145
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Welcome to what to what I call the Second Great Bank Depression. Why that name? Because this period of economic chaos, loss, and global financial destruction was manufactured by the men who shaped the banking sector.
You Are What You Think
Markos Moulitsas' "American Taliban"
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
America#s main international enemy#Islamic radicalism#favors theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, reviles homosexuality, subverts science and education, and reveres force over diplomacy. Markos Moulitsas shows how the American right shares those very same traits. He argues that our domestic jihadists are a greater threat to American democracy than any Islamic terrorist.
Barbara Zeluck, 1923-2010
Against The Current vol. 147
Resource Type: Article
First Published: 2010
Our comrade Barbara Zeluck died at her home June 5, 2010 in New York City.

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