‘Washington’s bullets”….Their main purpose, he says, was to “contain the tidal wave that swept from the October Revolution of 1917 and the many waves that whipped around the world to form the anti-colonial movement”…. | more…
As a long-time, consistent analyst of this settler colonialist society, and the writer of books on many disparate topics, Horne is in a position to weigh in with some clear perspective on Israel and Historic Palestine. In an interview with Brian Becker, Horne lay out some of the specific manifestations of a shifting political climate, and argued that if anything, the bombardment of Gaza has severely backfired…. | more…
Up to the release of his updated memoir, Sensing Injustice, and in the midst of many interviews and events, Michael Tigar and Nancy Hollander took the time to have a chat. That is, one legendary lawyer interviewed the other, and in this case, Tigar was full of questions for Hollander.
Tigar’s interview began with the case of Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, one of the far too many detainees tortured, and held for years on end without charges, at Guantanamo Bay. After Slahi’s 14 years of administrative detention, Hollander was one of the very few lawyers who was able to secure a Guantanamo detainee’s
The seeds of today’s turmoil across Israeli cities have been well-documented for many years, actually decades. My longtime friend Atty. Sabri Jiryis wrote a classic in 1966 titled, The Arabs in Israel. One of the first law graduates of the Hebrew University and a prominent Palestinian activist, the first edition of his book was written in Hebrew only to have the Israeli military censor block its publication. | more…
One main thread runs through every aspect of every story: Stories of Black rebellion and resistance. When Horne tells of Texas’ efforts to secede and the impact of the arsons of 1860, allegedly set by slaves, he comments, “Our enemies are the ones who put out the rumor that we’re docile, because they want us to be docile today.” That’s fallacious, he says. “Arsons were one of our favorite tools. Arson, poisonings, insurrections, murders.” And in fact, during the Madison administration, Africans actually joined the British in torching the White House in 1814, sending James and Dolly fleeing. | more…
How and why the U.S. left has tailed the ruling class on such a bedrock matter as conceptualizing white supremacy soars far beyond the confines of this brief response…..What does this mean for today? It means rejecting the new Cold War against Russians and Chinese and, instead, forging alliances with both. It means linking demands for reparations nationally with likeminded struggles in the Caribbean and Africa. It means realizing that the uncanny ability of some on the U.S. left to hand rhetorical weapons to the right to bash the oppressed – from “political correctness” to “cancel culture” – is hardly a coincidence or accident but simply another expression of a “cross-class alliance” that has propped up settler colonialism from its inception….. | more…
“….activists ought to be clear-eyed about the limitations of regulatory interventions. While there is certainly utility in digital media and tech reform, antitrust legislation and similar policy courses are insufficient for large-scale social transformations that characterize Marxist aspirations…” | more…
The Return of Nature is a genealogy of ecological thinking. The word ‘ecology’ was not in common usage until the twentieth century, leading many to consider ecological thinking a fairly recent development. However, in this impressive volume, John Bellamy Foster convincingly identifies a materialist ecological sensibility within works dating back a century prior to ecology’s popularization…” | more…
“Here are a few pieces of advice I got from Michael, that I would have liked to have had earlier in my career: Make sure your case tells a story – a story of your client and a story of the law…Be wary of judicial and prosecutorial ego – but know that there are people with both power and conscience…Trust the capacity of jurors to learn and dispense justice…Decide what you want and ask for it…Don’t mistake lawyering for movement work – but don’t forget about the movement either…Believe that one case at a time can, over time, make a difference…Bring others along on your journey – and remember their contributions to it with graciousness and gratitude…..” | more…
“Richman argues against the usual approach of organisers to ignore the fortunes of ‘at will’ workers because their suffering presents workers with an incentive to join the union and pay their subs…” | more…
“Prashad’s guidebook to US imperialism acts as a springboard for readers for their own journey in understanding imperialism and the role of the US in global politics. Reference is made to economic sabotage in Cuba, Venezuela, and Russia; to trampled revolutions in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Grenada; to hybrid wars, outright killings, and other forms of subversion from Burkina Faso to Greece; Iran to Iraq; from Indonesia to Japan…..” | more…
“…It’s no accident, as historians like to say, that the Founding Father George Washington was a grand real estate speculator, just like the 45th U.S. President…” | more…
Rob Wallace’s timely new book Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19 has officially circumambulated the globe, from Canada and India, to Greece and Italy, to Basque country and onward. | more…