“…a woman in Gaza, her family had been bombed out of their home. But she was determined to make bread and she had found a hot plate. She was making these breads. She said you could get killed going to the bakery, you can’t go to the bakery. They’re bombing the bakeries. So I’m doing this. Her kids are in the street, sitting under a tarpaulin. And she’s making bread. That’s a form of heroism, you know?
…I asked them, “Do you ever feel like you should leave?” They replied, ‘We stay here. We’re not leaving. This is our home.’ That’s a form of resistance.” | more…
At the end of the postscript, Marini again emphasises the central concept of his work, namely that “dependent economy – and therefore the super-exploitation of labour – appears as a necessary condition of world capitalism” and that therefore “capitalist production, by developing labour’s productive powers, does not eliminate but rather accentuates the greater exploitation of the worker”… | more…
‘The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis’ provides the historical insight that I associate with the best accounts of this kind: motives are complex, power a critical variable, timing an unpredictable factor, and rational argument not necessarily a winning strategy… | more…
Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left…These days, the Stone’s ‘Hidden History,’ while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism. | more…
Protests against enclosure began as far back as 1450, when “tens of thousands of English peasants fought, and thousands died, to halt the spread of capitalist farming that was destroying their way of life.” | more…
The “what” of this program is socialist and the “how” is revolutionary, arguing for the elevation of working people as a new ruling class dedicated to the end of exploitation, expropriation, special oppressions, environmental degradation, and work itself… | more…
I was asked to write this essay in response to the plea for grief and recognition of Palestinian traumas in the pages of this magazine, beautifully written by the Palestinian journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish, who is now being personally targeted by the Israeli government, along with his family. I admittedly tremble at the responsibility involved in that request… | more…
….devised two centuries before Marx’s concept of communism as “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs,” Winstanley’s ideas bore significant resemblances to the latter’s ideas, although Marx could not have known of Winstanley as the Diggers’ ideas were ruthlessly stamped out and were only re-discovered late in the 19th century… | more…