Reading between the lines is a skill we all need. Justice, freedom, equality and other fine ideals are invoked daily, but what do they really mean? In the abstract, it is impossible to say, for it is only when they are used in concrete contexts that we can get some meaningful handle on them…. | more…

But there exists a different narrative, or at least there did in the 1930s, before it was buried under an avalanche of patriotic American propaganda and liberal historiography. According to this alternative understanding, the US was falling victim to fascism already in the 1920s — though a different sort of fascism than in Europe… | more…

“Kohei Saito’s book Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism is based on extensive and ­painstaking research. As well as Marx’s published works, Saito makes use of notebooks that Marx kept on science and agriculture and that have only recently been made available. He argues that ecological questions were central to Marx’s worldview and defends a version of ecosocialism based on the notion of metabolism, and using the Marxist tools of value theory, contradiction and alienation…. | more…

Why are US health-care costs far higher than elsewhere in the world? And why, if so much more is spent, are such critical outcomes as rates of infant and maternal mortality, life expectancy and treatments for serious diseases not significantly better – and often markedly worse – than in other economically comparable countries?… | more…

Political scientist, author, and activist, Marta Harnecker devoted her life to collaborating in building radical democracy in Latin American communities where people have, for generations, experienced crushing poverty and a near complete loss of control over their lives. In South America and the Caribbean, but especially in Cuba and Venezuela, Harnecker has worked directly with disenfranchised workers and peasants. In this latest work, Harnecker, with Spanish economist José Bartolomé, shares some of her wisdom on how this is being done, and how communities everywhere can gain empowerment. | more…

Born into a typical all-American and socially conservative family of Irish Catholic origin, it’s fair to say that Helena Sheehan’s eventual immersion in left politics would probably have come as much of a shock to her as it did to her immediate family… | more…

Gerald Horne’s Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music examines the economic, social, and political forces that shaped this music into a phenomenal U.S.—and Black American—contribution to global arts and culture. Horne assembles a galvanic story depicting what may have been the era’s most virulent economic—and racist—exploitation, as jazz musicians battled organized crime, the Ku Klux Klan, and other variously malignant forces dominating the nightclub scene where jazz became known… | more…

WILPERT: Joining me now to discuss the causes, consequences, and solutions to African Swine Fever is Rob Wallace….
WALLACE: Hello. I would say it was a pleasure to be here, but I think when Real News’s audience sees me, they know that some terrible disease has happened out there somewhere….” | more…

There are more than twenty-five comprehensive biographies of Marx, but none of them consider his life and work in equal, corresponding measure. This biography, planned for three volumes, aims to include what most biographies have reduced to mere background: the contemporary conflicts, struggles, and disputes that engaged Marx at the time of his writings, alongside his complex relationships with a varied assortment of friends and opponents…. | more…

Brandon Sankara, co-founder of the South L.A. nonprofit Wisdom From The Field and host of KPFK’s Freedom Now, talks to prolific author and historian, Gerald Horne, about the recent elections in South Africa, drawing on Horne’s recently released White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela,/em>. They also discuss Gerald Horne’s latest book, soon to be published, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music. | more…

Michael D. Yates, author of several books including his recent Can the Working Class Change the World?, talks to Eric Draister, host of CounterPunch Radio, about who’s working class, how we have already changed the world, and how we need to keep changing it… | more…

Gerald Horne, acclaimed historian and author of numerous books, including his forthcoming, Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music, talks with Brian Becker, host of Loud & Clear on Sputnik International | more…

In The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, Gerald Horne weaves together a century of events and processes to demonstrate the depth to which colonial systems of slavery and settler colonialism, which significantly accelerated in the seventeenth century, influenced the foundation of the United States…. | more…