“Capitalism turns art into product, which is put on the shelf with other products…As soon as capitalism enters the equation, there’s no caring about the artistic properties that jazz as a music makes available…”–Julian Priester, trombonist | more…
“We’re making headway on global poverty,” trills billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates. “Decline of Global Extreme Poverty Continues,” reports the World Bank. “How did the global poverty rate halve in 20 years?” inquires The Economist. Seth Donnelly answers: “It didn’t!”… | more…
Too many socialists, even among those who like to see themselves as revolutionary Marxists, have been sadly late in discovering and understanding the ecological analysis of capitalism’s irreparable metabolic rift … | more…
Sheehan’s autobiography is an important book, not just for documenting her times and the very interesting circles she moved in but in allowing the reader to explore in some depth a crucial question for us all: how do I know my current belief system is right? | more…
On August 5, former President Obama released a powerful statement in response to the latest gun massacres in Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton that left scores dead and wounded—including children… | more…
Why write an autobiography? Who do I think I am? Why should anybody be more interested in my life than anyone else’s life? … I’m not a celebrity. I haven’t starred in Oscar-winning movies getting reviews of mesmerising performances…. ¶ I’ve lived a life that was not headline-making, but not totally obscure either, as an activist, academic and author…” | more…
“I grew up in Jim Crow St. Louis with working class parents with roots in Mississippi. From an early age I recall a guitar in our house, that our father would pluck from time to time. Undoubtedly, my younger brother Marvin Horne—who has played with such giants as percussionists, Chico Hamilton and Elvin Jones, and as part of Aretha Franklin’s band just before she expired—was influenced to pick up this instrument because of its ubiquitous presence in our small house….” | more…
The supposed social media disinformation campaign that helped sway American voters was carried out by a private company based in St. Petersburg, Internet Research Agency (IRA), whose connection to the Russian government has never been established and probably never will…. | more…
Starting with Adam Smith and David Ricardo two central questions have dominated the history of economic thought: Does capitalism, as a social economic system, provide social harmony? And, is capitalism inherently stable? Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, the two most preeminent Marxian economists in America during the second half of the twentieth century, played a vital role in the debates surrounding these two questions in the 1960s…. | more…
On July 5, prolific author Gerald Horne appeared at Sankofa Video, Books & Cafe in Washington, DC to discuss two of his latest books, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music and White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela | more…
Even the debate on reparations for slavery and colonialism is framed in terms of correcting past wrongs, excluding any notion that imperialist plunder of nature and living labour continues apace in the modern ‘post-colonial’ world…. | more…
Last June, in a Town Meeting hosted by CCTV, via the Center for Media & Democracy, Fred spoke about what a just and ecologically sustainable society might look like–and if the current economic system can’t respond, what are the strategies to advance our struggle? | more…
For most of history, there was no ‘Germany’ as such – just a ragbag of German-speaking states. In 1871, most of them unified into the German Empire (Austria stayed outside, together with Switzerland, where German is but one of the languages spoken). ¶ Germany came late to the capitalist table, and flexed its muscles in the early 20th century with the aim of becoming a major imperialist power. … | more…