An attempt to understand the economic war being waged alongside the military conflict in Ukraine, the resulting disruption of energy markets, and their place in the broader social and ecological crises shaking capital.
Author: Scott McLemee
Michael Hirsch: In Memoriam
The cause of socialist democracy lost a giant last week with the death of Michael Hirsch, a comrade with family roots in the Jewish working class of New York City as well as in the global youth radicalization of the 1960s.
When Push Came to Shove
New Politics editorial board member Michael Hirsch (1945-2021) was a young radical when he came into contact with the journal’s founding editors, Phyllis and Julius Jacobson. The first of his many articles for it appeared in Spring 1970.
Immigrants’ Rights Struggle: A Socialist Priority
In his primer on the DSA convention, Andrew Sernatinger incorrectly states: “A priority campaign over immigration received overwhelming support from delegates [at the last convention, two years ago] but never materialized.”
Why Have the Republicans Gone Off the Deep End? Is it All Because of Trump?
The social and economic crisis of capitalism has radicalized sections of the middle class. It has also driven sections of smaller corporate capital in a more desperate right wing direction.
DSA Convention Primer: 2021 Edition
It should be a major red flag that the number of proposals has sunk compared to previous years, especially when we weight them by the size of the organization. A small minority of proposals are coming from rank-and-file members.
Refusal Music
The fact of apocalypse is now undeniable. In this context, music that seizes the madness is more prescient than it has been for some time.
Fighting the Far Right in the Biden Era: Discussion on Sunday, Jan. 24
New Politics is co-sponsoring an online discussion of how the Left can organize to fight the Far Right under the incoming Biden administration, scheduled for Sunday, January 24th at 2:00 pm ET/ 11 am PT.
In Defense of Kshama Sawant
The attempt to remove Kshama Sawant from her seat on Seattle’s City Council through a recall petition is a blatant attack on the democratic rights of constituents — and on the emergence of a new socialist left as a current in American politics.
The US Election and the Perils of Lesser Evilism
If we, on the left, push to channel our forces and our support into the Biden campaign, we simultaneously end up narrowing the horizons of the future; that is to say, we end up closing the space in which new forms of campaigning and political mobilizations can be created.
QAnon and On and On
Let me venture a prediction about next week that also applies to the months and years to follow: At no point will Donald J. Trump order the arrest of an elitist network of cannibalistic pedophile Satanists. Not one!
Anti-Racism and Class Struggle
Making anti-racism front and center within a strategy of class-based resistance corresponds to the realities of the societies we live in and to the particular features of the present period.
Covid-19 and Resistance in Brazil: Life-Making, Memory, and Challenges in Seeding an Alternative Future
Capitalism is a death-making system. The pandemic reveals a chain of solidarity among essential life-making workers all across the world.
Karl Marx: Promethean Visionary?
“This small book is a very useful account of how Marx came to develop his materialist conception of history.” Michael Löwy reviews Eric Rahim, “A Promethean Vision: The Formation of Karl Marx’s Worldview” (Glasgow: Praxis Press, 2020).
Domestic Politics: Home Improvement Can’t Repair America’s Pandemic Crisis
The digital documentation of DIY domesticity has become a nearly-compulsory social act, a demonstration of how well we are “hanging in there” or “making the best of it”—both exceedingly popular hashtags right now.
Pacifism by Every Other Name: The Political Ethic of the Anti-Racist Movement Against Systemic Violence
A genuine pacifist movement is a movement against systems of violence, and in that sense the on-going wave of anti-racist movements are decidedly pacifist—even including instances where protesters engage in looting, burning, and tactical violence.
Where Do We Stand? Reasons for Optimism
In 2008-9 a common slogan was “The banks got bailed out. We got sold out!” This populist attitude has persisted since then and re-emerged even more strongly in this Crisis.
Reimagining the Frontline from Heaven’s Edge
“I hated unions,” says Sathya Vani, now Joint-President of Sri Lanka’s Domestic Workers’ Union (DWU). “My parents were part of a union, who did nothing for them. So for a long time I avoided trade unions.”
Vani’s parents . . .
Are We “All in This Together”?
The coronavirus crisis has provoked different reactions. Many have responded with compassion, kindness, and solidarity. Some have used it as another opportunity for money gouging, scams, and rip offs. Collective human warmth and love has battled cold individual selfishness and . . .
Neither Washington nor Beijing – A backgrounder
The western mainstream media tends to depict the situation of HK merely in a one dimensional manner, presenting Hong Kong a victim of Beijing’s tyranny while the US and the UK as supporters of Hong Kong’s autonomy and democracy. On . . .
Welcome to the Occupation
[reprinted by permission from Inside Higher Ed]
“Bill O’Reilly has connected the dots to identify me as being behind the occupation,” said Frances Fox Piven. “I’m sorry to say that’s not true.”
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