February 20, 2024
Holt-Giménez: “We already produce one and one-half times more than enough food to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet… People go hungry not because there’s not enough food; they go hungry because they can’t afford food…”
February 20, 2024
No consumer, farmer, or activist participates in the food system without also participating in capitalism. To Eric Holt-Giménez, the director of Food First, this is a basic truth that’s too often overlooked in the struggle to change our broken food system. In his new book, A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism, Holt-Giménez delineates the basic truths of capitalism and how they are connected to the history of our food system. Part history book, part practical guide, the book links many of the injustices associated with food to other inequities, arguing that capitalism fuels and is fueled by oppression. If we better understand “the rudiments of how capitalism operates,” he explains, ‘we can better grasp why our food system is the way it is, and how we can change it
February 20, 2024
Don’t expect a whole lot of taste when you sit down to a plateful of commodities. That might be a fitting but unintended lesson for foodies who work through the new book by Eric Holt-Giménez. A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism will reward a careful reader with lots of insights—but it won’t do much for the taste buds. While A Foodie’s Guide is lacking in recipes or menu ideas, it shines in helping us to understand the struggles of the men and women who work in the farms and packing plants...
February 20, 2024
Gerald Horne, author of Confronting Black Jacobins and the forthcoming The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, talks with Andrew Batcher, organizer of DC Anti-fascist Coalition, about rise of the far-right across the United States and the painful aftermath of Charlottesville, via Ashlee Bank‘s “Race in America,” on RT.
February 20, 2024
Helena Sheehan, author of "The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left," talks to Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network about her book and about Syriza’s embrace of the austerity measures it once promised to stand against, and the current situation in Greece. Note: this interview consists of three parts.
February 20, 2024
Fred Magdoff, author, with Chris Williams, of Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation, talks with Brian Becker on “Loud and Clear,” via Sputnik Radio. Listen, below, or at Sputnik News
February 20, 2024
Society and nature are weighty topics. Ian Angus confronts them with force in A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism. ¶ We read of the related work of 19th century natural and social scientists, from Charles Darwin, Justus von Liebig and Karl Schorlemmer to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Their revolutionary critiques blend with those of Earth System scientists of the 21st century, from Paul J. Crutzen to John R. McNeill and Will Steffen. ¶ I read Angus’ informative and provocative book as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria pounded Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Climate chaos is here. Blame fossil-fuel-driven imperatives of capitalism to grow endlessly...
February 20, 2024
E-Verify is back on the political agenda. ¶ For years, politicians have wanted to force all of the country’s 7.7 million private employers to check new hires against this online system–which compares employees’ documents with government databases in order to catch immigrants without work authorization–but so far, the efforts to impose a universal E-Verify requirement have failed. Now the idea has been given new life by a tentative agreement that President Trump and Democratic leaders made on September 13 to promote legislation protecting the immigrants previously covered by President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)...
February 20, 2024
“What’s behind the recent rise in wages for undocumented workers?” David L. Wilson asks. “It could be immigrants’ rights activism.” Wilson, with Jane Guskin, is author of the 2nd edition of "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers"...
February 20, 2024
Vladimir Lenin was the pivotal figure of the 20th century. His life and work dramatically pose the central dilemma of that century (and of our own): Should humanity progress by reforming bourgeois society along liberal social democratic lines, or should it move forward by overthrowing capitalism and establishing an entirely different social and economic system? Lenin’s life also suggests that social revolution remains a practical possibility even when historical circumstances seemingly render it unlikely....
