February 20, 2024
“It’s the best program we have probably adopted in this country, certainly beloved by many people. But I wanted to say this to our audience, that — much of our audience is younger than I am — this is going to sound, on its face, boring, but this is one of the most important shows that we’ve done for you.”
February 20, 2024
On this recent spot on “Cosmonaut,” Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual Marquina discuss communes in both urban and rural settings, and their role in the transition to socialism, the questions around oil and the economy, the economic problems of the revolution, the shadows of bureaucratization, the differences between the cities and the countryside and possible way forward for the revolution.
February 20, 2024
“Marx, Dead and Alive” packs an extraordinary amount into its 184 pages, both historical detail and in contemporizing Marx with multifarious global contexts and examples…. it would make an excellent introduction for someone just starting to grasp Marx and wanting clear definitions of alienation, capital, class, commodity fetishism, value and wage labour – amongst other key concepts….
February 20, 2024
It is well-established that African-Americans have sought allies abroad as a way to weaken opposition at home. Often, scholars have tackled this important topic as it manifested during the Cold War. The work at hand emulates previous scholarship in detailing this trend during the antebellum and early postbellum era…
February 20, 2024
The economic expansion just prior to the pandemic seemed to justify optimism about inequality. But Covid-19 showed just how little grounds there were for optimism. The pandemic demonstrated how poorly prepared for such a crisis a society could be that fails to provide universal, high-quality health care to a significant proportion of its population, as the case and death rates in the United States have demonstrated…
February 20, 2024
The ongoing debate about reviving the U.S. labor movement tries to grapple with the devastating decline in the union membership rate from one-third of the workforce in the 1950s to less than 11% today. In this discussion, occasionally a book comes along that is a great combination of labor history, thoughtful analysis of union organizing, and suggestions for ways forward. Shaun Richman’s “Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century” is such a book.
February 20, 2024
Anti-American, anti-Jim Crow sentiment and against the white supremacist domination project were already present on the island well before the revolution….generating a revolt that was not only against foreign domination, but against a deeply racist domination that tried to impose the same ‘Jim Crow’ system on Cuba, trying to transform a society with racism into a racist society according to the model of white supremacy…
February 20, 2024
“In short, the principle is that journalistic organizations will be paid in advance, and what they produce primarily with public monies will be instantly put in the public domain and made available to all for free. The best check on abuses will be popular voting to determine the recipients. The process will be overseen by the U.S. Postal Service, with elections taking place online and with print ballots available at or through the Postal Service. This is a renewal of the Postal Service’s historic mission of sustaining independent and competitive journalism…”
February 20, 2024
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked a bizarre question at President Joe Biden’s November 3 press briefing. The president seemed to misunderstand the question, which referred to potential settlements of a lawsuit stemming from the Trump administration’s notorious 2017–18 family separation policy. Biden bungled his response, apparently calling reports about the settlement “garbage.” Not surprisingly, the media ran with the story of Biden’s blunder. Doocy’s question, on the other hand, was mostly ignored or played down….
February 20, 2024
By the time of the POWs release and repatriation in early 1973, the war between the walls of Hoa Lo (the prison near Hanoi) was more than that between prisoners and their guards. The tensions between the officers and the enlisted men, universal in military organisations, had hardened into class lines…
