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This year, the UK television program Panaroma released an expose on the comedian, activist and lifestyle guru Russel Brand. Brand is a British star but also someone whose celebrity has crossed international lines; he has appeared in several Hollywood movies, been interviewed frequently on many of the biggest news channels in the world and will probably be […]
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On December 21, 1919, the US military ship the USAT Buford set sail for the new nation formed in revolution the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On board were two hundred forty nine anarchists, syndicalists and other so-called undesirable aliens, including anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. The Buford had a history as a troop carrier; it had carried US troops to the Caribbean and to the Philippines during and not long after the Spanish-American war. This mass deportation was part of a decades long campaign by the US government and the business interests it serves to destroy the revolutionary labor movement in the United States.
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“Palestinians are the only people in the world who have to prove they’re dead.” – Dr. Mads Gilbert + What Americans are witnessing in Gaza is a reiteration of our own history in real-time: Dispossess indigenous people, violently crush their resistance, blame any retaliatory “massacres” as an excuse to use overwhelming military power to wipe […]
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Image by Ömer Yıldız.
When Cyprus was illegally invaded by the Turkish Armed Forces in the summer of 1974, the international community took notice. Condemnations were issued. There were reports about the Cypriots who were killed, the women raped, the families separated, those who went missing (many still unaccounted for), the displaced refugees. We would only later come to find out the true depth of the atrocities committed or hear about the mass graves into which Cypriot bodies were indiscriminately tossed to quickly dispose evidence of the massacres.
But if you are reading this, you likely don’t know much about Cyprus, you may have not even heard the country’s name, let alone understand much about its past. If so, you are in a solid majority. In fact, I wrote this piece to explain why Cyprus and its history is unfamiliar to many and how this relates to what’s unfolding in Palestine and Israel right now.
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Image by Mohammed Ibrahim.
The genocide in Palestine is the atrocity of the 21st century and if there are history books we will remember where we were, what we were doing, and who we were with. Many people don’t realize it yet, but they will, and it will be too late and the wrong lessons will be learned. But if you’re on the left you at least have the ability to see this atrocity in real time.
The left saw this coming. This is not the time or place to ask about the left. This is a serious moment that should be left to serious people. At this point I will admit that I am not one of those people. So addressing this question of the left is a nod to our only and final hope. It feels ridiculous to talk about the left at this time but I won’t pretend to understand anything else or even be interested in understanding anything else. At this point the left will save us or no one will.
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“I say that between colonization and civilization, there is an infinite distance.” – Aimé Césaire + Israeli historian Ilan Pappé: “They [Hamas] warned Israel: we will not sit idle as long as the political prisoners are not going to be released…we will do all we can to abduct Israeli soldiers and citizens so we have […]
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There are people who have made a career off Palestine, off essentially metabolizing our pain and our resistance, appointing themselves as pseudo-spokespeople or intellectual historians of this moment, who have been shown to be fundamentally unqualified to do so, essentially that they’re cowards. To avoid giving specific examples, I’ll say that I’ve found refuge in my comrades in PYM, and in those who’ve shown principled, unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people. This is a clarifying moment, because, if this has not been enough for you to adopt solidarity with Palestinians, nothing ever was going to be.
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Shrouded bodies of bombing victims in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza. Image: AJA, Egypt.
On Friday, Gaza went dark. The lights were shot out. The internet unplugged. The phone lines down. The power shut off. Gaza was alone under bombardment, some of the heaviest of the war so far. Killing 25 journalists and some of their families simply wasn’t enough. The word of how brutal conditions there are, how many women and children are being slaughtered and starved, was still leaking out, making half the world sick to its stomach. Gaza had to be cut off. Under a physical embargo for more than a decade, the IDF has now placed Gaza under an information blockade. Missiles, tanks and commandos coming in, but no words or images getting out. The only illumination is Gaza burning.
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“Is fascism merely a dictatorial force in the service of capitalism? That may not be all it is, but that certainly is an important part of fascism‘s raison d’etre, the function Hitler himself kept referring to when he talked about saving the industrialists and bankers from Bolshevism.” – Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds. The question […]
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As Israel once again “mows the grass” in Gaza, leaders of Western countries have taken an unprecedented step. During previous atrocities like Operations Cast Lead (2008-09) and Protective Edge (2014), the Prime Minister of the UK, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, and so on, typically issued mundane statements: that both sides—the Israeli […]
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Image by Markus Spiske.
Not long ago I was asked to speak about “minority” rights and basic income at a symposium in Barcelona leading up to the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among the human rights professionals, who were also speaking, the gagged elephant in the room was ginormous because it is, in fact, immeasurable: the crime of ecocide—the result, in particular, of capitalism, imperialism, and neoliberalism—which is also universal because it affects everyone and everything that is alive now and also future generations. Well, it may be universal but it also affects some much more than others. The left criticizes its causes but without sufficiently considering the consequences or alternatives.
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In the ensuing interview Jim Heddle references a “nuclear revival,” a phenomenon which has also recently been occurring in different mediums. Christopher Nolan’s all-star epic Oppenheimer dramatizes the creation of the atomic bomb and the fallout from it. Steve James’ A Compassionate Spy chronicles espionage conducted by the Manhattan Project’s youngest physicist at Los Alamos. Oliver Stone’s documentary Nuclear Now argues in favor of nuclear energy as a supposed solution to the climate emergency. Janice Haaken’s new film Atomic Bamboozle: The False Promise of a Nuclear Renaissance looks at the downside of this supposed nuclear energy revival. Irene Lusztig’s doc Richland, like Joshua Frank’s book Atomic Days, The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, both chronicle the U.S.’s largest plutonium production site, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state.
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Shaken America Syndrome. Image: JSC and AI Art Generator.
In 2002, Robert Roberson raced his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki, to a hospital emergency room in the east Texas town of Palestine. Nikki was limp, her skin blue. Roberson told the emergency room doctors and nurses that the two had been sleeping when he awoke and found Nikki on the floor, having fallen off the bed. The child was unresponsive. Nikki Curtis never regained consciousness and died a few days later.
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Image by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona.
Conditions for working people continue to get worse. The right to strike, or to join a union, is denied by increasing numbers of the world’s governments. The 2023 Global Rights Index report issued by the International Trade Union Confederation makes for grim reading, as has consistently been the case for the decade that the ITUC has issued its yearly reports.
Once again, there is no country on Earth that fully protects workers’ rights, the Global Rights Index report informs us. Nothing new here, as this was the case in the 2022 report, and all the reports before that. Neoliberalism does not have a human face.
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The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, intended to consume at least 85 acres of forest adjacent to Atlanta’s Black working-class neighborhoods, is more accurately called Cop City. Slated to be one of the largest militarized police training centers in the nation, Cop City is owned by the nonprofit Atlanta Police Foundation, which, by paying $10 […]
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Susie Day.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Image by Harold Mendoza.
A spate of articles on gerontocracy have emerged over the last few months, spawned by recent events like Trump’s particularly unhinged campaign trail comments, 81-year-old Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell freezing mid-speech multiple times, and the 90-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, being hospitalized and publicly exhibiting confusion and a “rapidly deteriorating” memory. Feinstein’s extended absence earlier this year delayed numerous judicial confirmations—she missed over fifty votes during her ten-week vacancy. A Pentagon-funded study released in April this year identified dementia among high-level US officials as a national security threat.
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“Just as in the 1930s,” Shawn Fain reminded his fellow auto workers, “we’re living in a time of stunning inequality throughout our society.” Back then, in those 1930s, UAW members began a generation-long struggle that put a significant dent in that “stunning inequality.” By the early 1960s, auto worker struggles and sacrifices had helped give birth — in the United States — to a mass middle class. A majority of a major nation’s households, after paying for life’s most basic necessities, actually had money left over. More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sam Pizzigati.
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One of the most notable changes in modern times is the rapid urbanization of our planet, which began in the 19th century. While in 1950, 29 percent of the global population lived in cities, that figure is estimated now at around 50 percent, and by 2030 it will reach 61 percent. It is estimated that, More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Cesar Chelala.
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During the Cold War, assassinations most foul were entertained as necessary measures to advance the set cause. In Latin America, military regimes were keenly sponsored as reliably brutal antidotes to the Marxist tic, or at the very least the tic in waiting. Any government deemed by Washington to be remotely progressive would become ripe targets More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.
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Image: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
On 5 September, the US state of Georgia made public an indictment under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act against 61 activists involved in the Stop Cop City movement. The indictment alleges a “criminal conspiracy” among people who have distributed flyers, coordinated a bail fund, and participated in protests to prevent the construction of a militarized police training facility in the middle of a public forest in Atlanta. The charges explicitly name solidarity, protest, and mutual aid as activities that “intimidate” law enforcement and other citizens.
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James N. Wallace – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress
The 50th anniversary of the first 9/11 — the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government headed by Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende — is this month. Chilean working people made enormous advances during the first year of the Allende government, formally a multiparty coalition known as Popular Unity, before Chilean capitalists, U.S. corporate interests firmly backed by the Nixon administration and right-wing elements in both countries were able to regroup and begin a heavy-handed sabotage campaign waged with increasing vehemence. In this excerpt from What Do We Need Bosses For?: Toward Economic Democracy, some of those first-year successes are recounted but the bourgeois forces are already beginning their efforts to obstruct and ultimately reverse all advancement.
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The various pipe dreams of the United States are major obstacles to dealing rationally with the strategic triangle. The U.S. belief in huge defense budgets; modernization of strategic forces; military bases and facilities the world over; and the illusion of an anti-missile shield have overwhelmed the task of compromise and negotiation that is essential. Inter-service rivalries and military-industrial triumphs represent additional obstacles. The mainstream media, particularly the New York Times and the Washington Post provide ample cheerleading for the weapons industry. Senator Bernie Sanders’ efforts to reduce defense spending this year engendered little debate and failed by a vote of 88-11. As Walt Kelly’s Pogo said: “We’ve met the enemy and he is us.” More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Melvin Goodman.
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The richest among us have always loved to claim they have more talent — more smarts — than the rest of us. They can do things the rest of us can’t. They fully deserve, in other words, the grand fortunes they’re so busily amassing. Those of us who worry about the inequality those grand fortunes create have never swallowed this deservedness claim. We’ve spent massive amounts of our time demonstrating how grand fortunes reflect all sorts of dynamics — from exploiting workers and shortchanging consumers to monopolizing markets and paying off politicos — that have nothing to do with talent and brilliance. More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sam Pizzigati.
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Image by Juice.
One very dangerous new norm that all humans should be worrying about is who most benefits and accumulates most power in this death-dealing system, or who can be held largely responsible for the plight the world’s in. Let’s start with the richest man, Elon Musk. Asked last year if he has more influence than the American government, he complacently replied, “In some ways”. Ronan Farrow describes how “Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him”. For example, he “seeded so much of the country with … [Tesla’s] proprietary charging stations”, that he pushed the Biden Administration into pushing his electric cars and now, “His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies”.
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On the first day of August, Ta’Kiya Young turned 21. She’d been struggling since her mother’s premature death, but she’d recently found a new place to live and was eager to explore a career as a social worker. To celebrate her birthday, she took her two sons, 3-year-old Ja’Kenli and 6-year-old Ja’Kobie, to the Ohio […]
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Image by Joe Piette.
Richard Hooker has worked at the United Parcel Service (UPS) for over twenty years and after long, sweltering shifts spent at the warehouse, sweat burning his eyes, his limbs feeling like they’ve been filled with concrete, he would just sit in his car, unable to drive home.
“You’re physically drained, you’re mentally drained from moving packages all day, non-stop,” he explained, “And you need to take a nap cause you’re too scared you’ll fall asleep when driving home.”
Hooker, now a union leader for Teamsters Local 623 which represents over 5,000 workers at both facilities in Philadelphia, is part of a broader Teamsters campaign to address many of the lingering issues impacting workers at the company, from conditions inside the warehouses and trucks to pay for part-time employees and drivers.
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Image by Yuan Rong Gong.
We’re over three months out from the official end of the COVID state of emergency, declared in the US on May 11, yet its tremendous social upheaval is only beginning to manifest. It will take us many years to reckon with COVID’s full toll, but its malign effects are already evident. My generation, adrift well before the pandemic, finds itself more unmoored than ever. Preexisting mental health, debt, and underemployment crises have all worsened. The brunt of long COVID, an inflation crisis, astronomical rents, and the turbulence of readjusting to office life after years of fear and social isolation all conspire to render life nearly unbearable for millions of members of my cohort, the millennials.
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As an academic – a political scientist specifically – the conferences I attend usually pass unnoticed by the general public. This is with good reason, as they are short, highly specialized affairs. Occasionally, though, the world of academics collides with that outside the university. This is exactly what is happening this week in Los Angeles, More
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This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Peter LaVenia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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In Palestine – a country whose existence goes unrecognized by most of the West – Palestinians are arrested, humiliated, beaten, killed by Israeli military or settlers every day, if not every hour. What began in 1948 as the Nakba has taken on force, ramped up control, occupied every aspect of Palestinian life. And, given Israel’s […]
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Image courtesy of the US EPA.
Standing on a ridge overlooking the expansive Berkeley Pit, a pungent smell emanates from the murky waters below, leaving a slight burn in my nostrils. This is Butte, nestled in a valley that straddles the Continental Divide, high up in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana. A little over a hundred years ago, Butte was a boomtown, ruled by copper and raging with prosperity. Industrious miners from Ireland to China ventured to this remote place to strike it rich or at least make a decent living. In its heyday, Butte was a bastion of socialist politics. International Workers of the World (IWW) was active in the early 1900s and, along with other labor factions, fought the monopolies of Butte’s three Copper Kings; Marcus Daly, William A. Clark, and F. Augustus Heinze. It was a tough, violent era, and miners were known to let off steam in local gambling dens, brothels, and bars. A historical plaque in town sums Butte’s past well: “She was a bold, unashamed, rootin’, tootin’, hell roarin’ camp in days gone by, and she still drinks her liquor straight.”
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