Online Features
Biden Will have a Short Honeymoon
The current celebratory mood of the Democrats and the honeymoon with the president is not likely to last long, given both who Biden is and the health and economic challenges that he faces.
Anti-communism with Chinese characteristics
Replacing one capitalist empire with another is futile
Any form of anti-imperialist politics that focuses on nations invariably arrives at pitting one of the faces of capitalism against another, which can only ever reproduce the very system it claims to fight.
Defend Iranian Woman Labor Leader Parvin Mohammadi
On December 21, 2020, the Iranian government sentenced Parvin Mohammadi, in absentia, to a year in prison on charges of “sedition.” She has refused to go to prison, continues to challenge the authorities, and has now gone into hiding.
Biden's Inauguration
Challenge for the Left, Launching a Movement against the Washington Status Quo
As Biden enters office, the left must properly reflect on what has been perhaps the most contemptible administration in US history, to launch a movement of our own against the bipartisan neoliberal and imperialist hegemony.
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.
Towards a Year of Crisis and Uncertainty
Will the left be seen as jeopardizing the desire for a period of stability after the insurrection? Will Black Lives Mater demonstrations seem too extreme? Or might the depth of the crisis combined with pressure from the left push Biden to adopt more far-reaching progressive economic and social policies?
Remembering Martin Luther King’s Last, Most Radical Book
King links race and class as the twin pillars of the capitalist exploitation that is the generator of poverty, economic inequality, spiritual disenchantment, and racial animosity in America and across the world.
Desperado in the White House: Coup Fails, Trump Faces Impeachment
We have to call this a failed coup because the intent was to overturn the election of Joseph Biden by forcing vice-president Mike Pence and the Congress to declare Trump the president. It was an attempt to overthrow the incoming elected government by force.
Letter to Mass Peace Action and Peace Action NY State
Any group or entity that calls itself progressive must stand against oppression everywhere. An apologist for Assad’s genocidal regime and his Russian backers should not be normalized nor considered a valid source of information.
The Invasion of Capitol Hill
Decaying Institutions, Rightwing Insurrection, and the Need for a Mass Movement
The rise of the radical right is based on interrelated but distinct dynamics: market capitalism’s destructiveness; the Left’s failure to respond to market capitalism; and the Right’s ability to sustain the belief that the Left is still a threat.
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.
Is it still fascism if it’s incompetent?
It would be devastatingly stupid, complacent beyond belief, to expect US democracy to remain sufficiently stable in the coming years to deny this incipient fascism more opportunities to congeal, and grow.
Reginald Wilson: A Black American Socialist (1927-2020)
Reginald Wilson, the prominent African American psychologist and educator, civil rights activist and socialist, and a member of the New Politics board, died on December 13, 2020 at the age of 93.
Venezuela
How did Chavismo win 92% of the National Assembly?
The high abstention indicates that the working majority understood the irrelevance of the election. Voting could not have any impact on the disastrous national situation because the parliament had been de facto deprived of all its functions for several years.
Our Most-Viewed Articles of 2020
Here are some of our most-viewed articles from the past year. They don’t represent the full-range of issues covered by New Politics or the full-range of perspectives that you will find on our website and in our pages, but they do give an idea of what was on the minds of our readers.
The empire strikes back: Joe Biden’s plan to restore U.S. hegemony
Biden is proposing to combine Obama’s muscular multilateralism with Trump’s focus on great power rivalry with China and Russia. This augurs not the peace that liberals hoped for, but a dangerous reassertion of U.S. imperial power.
Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution
“With this year’s worldwide renewal of the Black Lives Matter protests, readers could hardly ask for a better time to revisit the Haitian Revolution.” Review of Sudhir Hazareesingh, Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture.
In Appreciation of Leo Panitch
The sudden death our friend and comrade Leo Panitch has led to an extraordinary outpouring of sadness and appreciation across the world. Very few intellectuals on the left have had the intellectual impact on progressive thinkers and activists that Leo has had.
Structures of Fossil Feeling
In this easily accessible, passionately argued intervention, Dawson gives the reader both a valuable primer on contemporary struggles for energy justice and an entry into the theoretical debates whose outcome will inform and guide movement strategy going forward.
Biden’s pick for Secretary of Education: What to expect from Cardona?
We should let Miguel Cardona know we have his back if he defends what schools, teachers, students really need – while we simultaneously prepare for his not doing so.
The Pull of Communist Culture
Martin Comack reviews, The Pull of Politics: Steinbeck, Wright, Hemingway, and the Left in the Late 1930s—Milton Cohen’s account of how the CPUSA attempted to establish relationships with three major American writers.
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