Place: North America
From the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to Black Lives Matter

On SNCC’s 60th Anniversary

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee began as an organization of students from black colleges in the South to integrate lunch counters that refused service to blacks. The tactic they used was the nonviolent direct action sit-in. What began . . .

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Syndicalism’s Legacy and Left Labor Strategy Today

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, dissident revolutionaries built a rival tradition—the syndicalist movement.

Take My Benefits—Please!

Employment-based Health Care Has Become an Anchor Around the Neck of the U.S. Working Class

At the June 2019 House Ways and Means Committee Hearing on Medicare for All, Texas Republican Kevin Murphy lamented, “That great health care plan that your union negotiated for you? It’s gone. Banned under Medicare for All.”
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Are You a Settler?

Settler-colonialism, Capitalism and Marxism on Turtle Island

The politics of solidarity on display during the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline have raised the issue of Indigenous liberation more and more sharply to people on the left.

Civic Resistance to Japanese Militarism

Japan’s 5.26 trillion-yen fiscal 2019 defense budget set a new record for the fifth straight year, as the country continued to beef up its armed forces while keeping a wary eye fixed on North Korea and China. The . . .

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The Puerto Rican Summer

The summer of 2019 will go down as a major moment in Puerto Rico’s history. Between July 10 and 25, street protests—unprecedented in their intensity, persistence, diversity, and size—led to an unprecedented result: The Island’s highest government official . . .

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The Sandy Next Time

As the water rose 
to occupy Wall Street, 
ten thousand helicopters 
flew massed dollars out 
lest all that cabbage salt to slaw 
and the balance of payments 
blow out to sea. 
 
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Doug Henwood Has It Wrong This Time

Doug Henwood, who often has so many intelligent and useful things to say about economics and politics, has it wrong this time. A few days ago on his Facebook page he commented on an article that I had written about . . .

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The Boeing and Volkswagen Debacles

Ruling Class Errors and Working Class Imperatives

The Boeing Company, a huge global, high tech aerospace corporation has stumbled badly with enormous adverse financial consequences. The Boeing Max 8 tragedy and other corporate tech blunders should encourage us, especially those of us in the labor movement, to . . .

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The Socialist Position on the Latest U.S. Attack on Iran: The Assassination of Suleimani

President Donald Trump has virtually declared war on Iran with the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in an airstrike near Baghdad International Airport. The assassination of Suleimani will very likely lead to war, . . .

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How General Strike Rhetoric Became A City-Wide Reality

A review of Radical Seattle: The General Strike of 1919 by Cal Winslow (Monthly Review Press, 2020).

Trump’s Reckless Assassination of Iranian General Is an Act of War

The Middle East and the world woke up on the morning of Friday, January 3 to the shocking news that U.S. missiles had struck the Baghdad Airport, in a targeted assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani.
Donald Trump’s cold-blooded assassination is . . .

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Writing an Obituary for Neocons

The New York Times obituary of neocon historian Gertrude Himmelfarb shows why  neoconservatives remain a potent political force in U.S. politics: many liberals can’t imagine a socialist challenge to capitalism that doesn’t apologize for authoritarianism.
The NYT’s sentimental gloss of Himmelfarb’s . . .

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Taking Stock, Settling Accounts: Coming to Terms with Stalinism

I have written at some length about my experience as a member of Workers World Party, which I left due to the organization’s flawed political practice. What I’ve said less about is my psychological and ideological state during this time. . . .

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Beyond Impeachment: Challenges Facing the U.S. Left in 2020

While the effort of House Democrats to impeach Trump has not undermined his hold on power, the real test lies in taking the battle against him beyond the confines of the impeachment process.

A Juarez Refugee Christmas

As temperatures dip near or below freezing, scores of Mexican refugees huddle in their makeshift tents of layered plastic sheeting at the foot of the Santa Fe Bridge that connects Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, with El Paso, Texas. Many small children . . .

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On Student Peer-to-Peer Economic Power

You can’t get the right answers if you don’t ask the right questions.
“What are the jobs of the future?” is the wrong question to ask about both work and education. It presumes a capitalist class determining the structure of employment . . .

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A Brief Introduction to the Saga of the Labor Movement for Emerging Militants

This piece is the text of a talk given to the DSA Lower Manhattan Branch’s Political Education Working Group on December 4, 2019, serving as introduction to “Bernie and Labor” part of its series “Why Bernie?”

Rank-and-File Journalist Wins Presidency of NewsGuild/CWA in Re-Run Election

After a much contested election process, the largest union of journalists in North America has chosen a 32-year old reporter at the Los Angeles Times to be its new leader, in the U.S. and Canada.
Jon Schleuss helped win union recognition and a . . .

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They Killed Frank Ordoñez

On Thursday, December 5th 2019, Frank Ordoñez, 27, a UPS driver and father of two, was killed in a shootout between police and suspects fleeing the scene of a robbery.

Call for Solidarity with Uprisings in the Middle East & North Africa

This is a critical moment in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2019, uprisings have emerged in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. All have opposed authoritarianism, neoliberalism, poverty, corruption, religious fundamentalism and sectarianism. Women have been active participants . . .

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