“They are all implicated”: An Interview with Joey Ayoub on the Beirut Explosion

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On August 4th, an explosion of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate at the port of Beirut, Lebanon, left more than 170 dead, thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands homeless. “This was criminal incompetence, and they . . .

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A statement from left-wing collective Ta’amim al-Masaref in Lebanon: ‘It is time for rage’

The August 4 blast is an immediate and irreversible ramification of the ruling class’ deliberate dispensability of the masses. The capitalist, neoliberal system was built at our expense, and always – without exception – seeks to serve the interests of the ruling class.

Protest Vote or Independent Political Action?

A bumper sticker displayed with increasing resonance these days reads: “2020, any responsible adult.” This is undoubtedly the mood of Democratic Party voters as was made abundantly clear by the abrupt collapse of the Sanders momentum.

No Justice, No Peace! Raising the Social Cost through Direct Action!

Growing numbers of individuals and growing social movements that have broken with the ideology that there is no alternative to neoliberalism (TINA) and acting on the belief that there is a liberatory alternative to racial capitalism is central to raising the social cost.

Police Reform: An Oxymoron

Many urban police departments can be characterized as regressive groups. These groups exhibit a number of dysfunctional characteristics to include group narcissism and shadow projection, psychic numbing, stifling dissent, and obedience to authority.

The Seeds of Revolution Have Sprouted: What is Now to be Done?

Turning points in history are very rare. We are now living in the midst of one, with the two months of virtually continuous protests against police abuse, the criminal injustice system, and for a human society that have swept the U.S. as well other parts of the world since the police murder of George Floyd on May 25.

A Life in the Shadow of the Bomb

I am a child of the atomic age. The atomic bomb, that is, the threat of nuclear war and mass destruction, has been in my consciousness—sometimes in the background but frequently in the foreground—nearly all of my life.

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.

The Obliteration of Hiroshima

The moral case against the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Greece: Five Years After the Syriza Government and the Referendum

The wave of hope that emerged during those years was defeated by the retreat of workers’ struggle after the incredible climax of 2010-15 and the defeat of the left within the Syriza party by the coalition of forces united under the banner of staying in the Eurozone at any cost.

Why Leftists In Most States Should Vote Green

My late comrade and esteemed New Politics editorial board member Joanne Landy steadfastly insisted she’d never vote for a Democratic Party candidate, preferring a protest vote for the Green Party. “But I’ll never join that party,” she insisted.

Statement on My Being Shot by Federal Troops

Since June, I’ve been attending peaceful protests in Portland neighborhoods in support of Black Lives Matter. I have gone with family and friends. I am a 52-year-old mother. I am a history professor. I was protesting peacefully. So why did federal troops shoot me in the head Monday night?

Yesterday’s Man Is Today’s Candidate for President

“Throughout his entire political career, Biden had cultivated and depended upon financial and corporate donors, raising money from Wall Street, big tech, and fossil fuels.” Dan La Botz reviews Branko Marcetic, Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden.

Trump Speak and its Discontents

Trump understands that to be an effective boss requires not only authority but respect for authority, and to instill such respect it is necessary to speak to working people in an obsequious and patronizing way to make it easier for them to accept the reality of what is required by the law of profit.

Race, Class, and Crisis in Higher Education

Higher education is structurally racist in large part because the working class needs it but does not have access to it, nor do they have the social support to succeed once they are there.

Portland Protests: A Chronology of Police Repression

Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ICE, and possibly other federal agencies are deployed in Portland as this article is being written. They are assisting the Portland Police Bureau to brutally squash the rebellion against business as usual.

The Debate in the Left on the Elections in the United States

The far left joined the progressives in supporting Senator Bernie Sanders, a liberal in the New Deal mold who ran as a “socialist” against the “billionaire class.” But since Sanders dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden, many on the far left have felt they have no candidate.

Imagining a Socialist Presidential Candidate Winning the African American Vote

If the activists that Bernie Sanders inspired are to continue to consider winning the presidency as a pivotal condition for transforming democratic power and the state, that achievement entails winning the African American vote in the Democratic primary.

The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below

The Online Summer Institute titled “The Syrian Revolution: A History from Below” is a webinar series about grassroots politics, class struggles, and state violence in Syria since the 1970s up until the present.

Herman Benson (1915-2020): No Socialism Without Democracy

Herman Benson, veteran socialist activist and fighter for rank-and-file democracy in the labour movement, died on 2 July, aged 104. Herman was the second-to-last survivor, at least to my knowledge, of the “first generation” of “third camp” socialists.

Lessons From Gezi Park

The experience of the 2013 Turkish uprising in Gezi Park opened possibilities for the rise of new Left in Turkey and offers lessons for the U.S. in the midst of its own anti-racists uprising