Online Features
Puerto Rico Faces Crises: COVID, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Drought
The United States has suffered 135,000 deaths from COVID-19 and has tens of millions of unemployed and both crises continue now into the fifth month, but nowhere has the economic crisis been greater than in the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico.
Poland Chooses between Two Right-Wing Politicians
On Sunday there will be a second round of a presidential election in Poland that may affect not only the politics in Poland but also other regions of Europe. Poles are choosing between two right-wing politicians. What is the cause of this situation and what role does the left play in all of it?
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.
Austerity’s Future: Higher Education and COVID-19
The process of neoliberal reforms has been well-established long before COVID-19 hit the nation. The global pandemic has only further entrenched this model, and countless thousands of staff in smaller colleges throughout the U.S. will now suffer its ramifications.
The Whitney Took Down My Mural
They never asked us to paint on the plywood barrier built to protect the building during the recent protests. But for a few nights we painted. Mine was a mural about police brutality toward protestors. Now the Whitney has taken them all down.
The Border’s COVID-19 Pandemic: Crisis Upon Crisis
Ciudad Juarez has a long history of crises—foreign invasions, revolutions, economic recessions tied to the United States, the 9-11 border constriction and transnational gangland wars. Now it grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Green Recovery and the Fight Ahead to Avoid a Return to Business-as-Usual
As lockdowns ease, we must restart our presence on the streets, solidifying movements like Extinction Rebellion, and we must not allow the Neoliberal elites and their alt-right allies to coopt the conversation around the economic recovery.
On the Attack on Robert Cuffy at the Mass March to Defund the NYPD
While leading Monday June 29th’s Mass March to Defund the NYPD & Abolish the Police, Robert Cuffy was filming the march when he was blindsided and tackled by an unidentified man who then slammed Robert into another car, dislocating his shoulder. Police released the attacker without charges.
Mexican President AMLO to Visit Trump, both Hope for a Boost Amid Crises
Failing at home, Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) will visit U.S. President Donald Trump this week to celebrate the new North American trade pact. Each hopes to get a political boost from the visit. That seems unlikely, especially for AMLO.
The Movement for Black Lives Is Different This Time
Late May and early June saw the biggest wave of mass rebellion in the United States since the 1960s. Protests erupted in every major city and in all fifty states, demanding an end to racist police brutality. The character of these uprisings has been less like protests and more like rebellions.
Defend the Hong Kong Democracy Movement!
In an act of retribution to the Hong Kong movement beginning last year, which has seen prolonged street clashes between the police and protestors, China has decided to unilaterally impose new national security laws to Hong Kong.
A Review of Claudia Rankine’s ‘Citizen, An American Lyric’
Claudia Rankine’s provocative and polyphonic work, Citizen: An American Lyric, has spurred much-needed conversations around race and racism. In the wake of the recent protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, this book finds itself all the more relevant and also unnervingly prescient.
Another Martyr and a Call for Mass Rallies to Inspire the CT Legislature
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, are names made famous in their martyrdom, blacks killed this year by police. Another name should be added, a young black man named Mubarak Soulemane. The 19-year-old was shot dead in West Haven, Connecticut on January 15 by a state trooper.
Rethinking Socialism From Below in the Age of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter
Conventional assessments of what constitutes socialism and socialism from below in the U.S. in this historical moment need to begin with participatory observation of how in fact socialism is being conceived of, thought of, debated, and most importantly practiced by a new, radicalized generation.
Protests Against Racism; LBGTQ Pride; Continuing Crisis; Trump’s Decline
Throughout June hundreds of thousands of Americans in hundreds of cities and towns protested the killing of George Floyd who had been murdered by police in Minneapolis. But there were also LGBTQ Pride Marches in support of the protests against racism.
Adjudicating the Chomsky-Greenwald Dispute on Lesser-Evil Voting
It’s an election year, so we leftists have a sworn duty to reignite, for the 10,000th time, the debate about “lesser-evil voting.” In accord with my self-identification as #1 Fan of the Great Man, I want to defend the Chomskyan point of view.
Socialists and the Uprising Against Racism – Sunday, July 5, 4-6 PM (EDT)
The mass protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis constitute the biggest popular uprising in the US since the 1960s. Join us for a discussion of the opportunities and challenges that exist for making socialist politics relevant to the new rebellion against racism.
Building the Party Through Struggle: A Response to French and Gong
A new working-class party will be built primarily through mass struggles like the current uprising and the strikes and workplace demonstrations that took place amidst the pandemic, and through running candidates locally on independent ballot lines.
Punched in the Face: Minneapolis Labor and the Fight for #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd
While much of the labor movement in Minneapolis has embedded itself in the city’s struggle against police brutality, union leadership at the national level has shied away from demands that it clean house.
Trump Rallies for Reopening as Biden Strengthens His Position
Donald Trump held his first campaign rally in months on June 20 in an indoor arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma where speaking to a smaller than expected crowd of only 13,000 he minimized the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic still spreading across the country and failed to address the police racism and violence that have led to protests by hundreds of thousands.
Belgium’s Colonial Crimes in the Congo: A Duty to Remember
Thanks to the Black Lives Matter mobilizations against racism in general, and racism against black people in particular, becoming an international phenomenon more and more people are seeking to know the truth about the dark past of the colonial powers and the continuation of neo-colonialism up to the present times.
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