September 25th, 2021
Paul Mason’s Socialist Humanist Manifesto
Public intellectuals of the Left usually expend their time and energy on anti-imperialism, anti-militarism, anti-racism, and less frequently, anti-capitalism. They often see their role, in the muckraker tradition, as one of “exposing” the system.
June 09th, 2021
Remembering the Arab Spring… or Arabic as the Language of 21st Century Revolution
After a long peregrination through the postal services of several authoritarian regimes, a physical copy of the Arabic translation of my Marx at the Margins arrived recently in the mail. I was deeply moved by the fact that this had occurred during the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring.
February 20th, 2021
Threat of Civil War at the State Level in the U.S.: Reflections on Trumpism in Michigan
While all eyes were on Washington during Trump’s second acquittal in an impeachment trial, which showed that the Republican Party at a national level is willing to turn a blind eye (at best) to armed coup attempts, even more ominous developments were occurring at the state and regional levels. This can be seen most dramatically […]
February 02nd, 2021
Looking Back at Maoism and the Global Left
As against nearly a century of debates over Stalinism, the international left has never come to terms with Maoism, especially its global impact. Disillusionment with Stalinism is marked by clear, indeed tragic, dates in international politics: the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 that launched World War II, the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the […]
January 28th, 2021
Don’t Forget the Political Earthquake in Georgia
Defeat of the Republicans in the January 5 Georgia senate election at the hands of Blacks and other progressives upends the decades-old Republican “Southern strategy".
November 15th, 2020
U.S. Election Shows Deep Divisions, with Multiple Dangers Ahead Even If Trump Can Be Made to Leave Office
The U.S. election showed deep opposition to Donald Trump and the far-right Republican Party, but far less than polls predicted in terms of the total voting margin for the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris centrist Democratic ticket. While Biden and Harris scored nearly 51% to Trump’s nearly 48%, with a 5 million advantage (77 million total, and […]
October 27th, 2020
Thoughts on the U.S. Elections: Threat of the Far Right
1) How do you judge things in the run-up to the November elections? What is the political scenery like, two weeks before the elections? Now that Trump has sunk deeply in the polls, after a disastrous infection with COVID-19 and an equally disastrous debate performance, the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed, with less fear […]
October 12th, 2020
Indonesia: Mass Strikes Show Intersection of Class, Gender, and Ecology
Over a million people have taken to the streets in Indonesia to protest a neoliberal law that would roll back labor protections, especially for working women, while also opening the road toward greater environmental destruction.
September 16th, 2020
What Is Socialism? Answers from a Humanist, Marxist Point of View
In dialectical thought going back to Socrates, it has often been useful to define something by indicating what it is not, and from there, getting closer to a true definition of the issue at hand. This method of presentation is different, of course, from that in traditional textbook learning, but it is utterly appropriate to the discussion of socialism, a subject both complex in its own right and overlaid with so many conflicting perspectives and interpretations.
July 23rd, 2020
On the Battle of Ideas: Responding to the New World of COVID-19, Economic Crisis, and Anti-Racist Uprisings
This spring, as some countries began to reopen after months of COVID-19 lockdowns, youthful rebellions broke out inside the two most powerful states in the world, the USA and China.
