The authors begin their introduction to the book on Memorial Day of 2012, when President Barack Obama declared that: ‘Today begins the fiftieth commemoration of our war in Vietnam’ and thereby prompted nation-wide efforts to explore the record of that conflict… | more…
Chester scrutinizes the very jurists, policymakers, and political thinkers who scholars often credit with defending and advancing the cause of civil liberties during and after World War I. Mainstream scholars tend to portray Warren and President Woodrow Wilson as quintessential Progressives. But Chester’s evidence clearly demonstrates their authoritarian tendencies… | more…
“Sensing Injustice” is a modern history of American legal practice…. | more…
Chester argues that free speech must be defended as an absolute principle, decrying any ‘call to suppress the views of those on the radical right’, repeatedly arguing against ‘no platform’ policies. Certainly, the left should oppose repressive state laws, but mobilising against racists and fascists when they attempt to use public space to propagate their agenda is essential. It is a necessary part of any defence of working-class interests. | more…
Particular battles often have a significance that goes beyond the immediate context, of which even the combatants may not be fully aware at the time… The battle between the Kisan movement and the Modi government falls into the same genre. At the most obvious level, it has been seen as a climbdown by the Modi government in the face of the incredible resoluteness shown by the agitating peasants. At another level, it has also been seen as a setback for neoliberalism… | more…
A moment in which tens of thousands of workers are on strike — at John Deere, at Kellogg’s, at Warrior Met Coal—might seem like a strange time to talk about a “right” to strike. But a legal right to strike must include the right to return to the job when the strike is over — win, lose or draw — and U.S. workers haven’t had that right since corporations and Ronald Reagan’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) conspired to weaponize a long-dormant Supreme Court decision to legalize union-busting…Strikes are contagious. | more…
The short answer is that when the U.S. was involved in Afghanistan, we cut deals with many warlords, shorthand for gangsters, that’s number one. Number two: Afghanistan is quite rich with mineral wealth, which ironically enough, may end up going to the People’s Republic of China, which is quite close to the Pakistanis, which was the major creator and backer of the Taliban, who are now in power. The third point, however, is that the Taliban is going to have a hard way to go…” | more…
‘Radical Seattle’ identifies the IWW as a catalyst for the germination of a class consciousness that encouraged individual laborers to recognize a kinship in their struggle and respond collectively. | more…
It is a promising thing when a book titled Can the Working Class Change the World? feels current amid national and global upheaval, despite having been published two years ago…. | more…
I read this gorgeous, furious book while teaching the first half of the U. S. history survey: 1607–1877….In this book as well as its recent antecedent, ‘The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean,’ Horne turns to examine the earlier foundations of empire and racial capitalism. Unlike much of his other work, these books are primarily secondary-source–driven. But Horne is that historian, as skilled in the pyrotechnics of historiographical revision as he is at archival spelunking. | more…
In a discussion of the new book, “Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts Against Venezuel,” Justin Podur clarifies: What they’re doing in Colombia is what they say is happening in Venezuela…” | more…
Russell provides sound advice for those negotiating about the terms of these defined benefit plans, which still number 50,000 and have 60 million participants among active or retired workers. As he notes, in the current bargaining environment, “participants and their union representatives are more likely to be thinking defensively”… | more…
This thesis was provocative for several reasons, but perhaps most of all because it implied that once the material roots of slavery had been ripped up, the modern world would finally witness the progressive erosion of anti-Black politics and culture… | more…