In his book Big Farms Make Big Flu, the evolutionary ecologist Rob Wallace draws a direct link between the growing threat of zoonotic diseases, and the agricultural practices that neoliberalism has encouraged—notably, the expansion and consolidation of agribusinesses, and the vertical integration of different stages of food production. The food we eat is produced by an ever-shrinking number of ever-growing mass-production units, in which vast herds or flocks of hybrid animals are packed into megabarns, forced to mature in a matter of months, and then slaughtered, processed and transported around the world. | more…

As the Greek Parliament approves fresh austerity measures and protests rock Athens and Thessaloniki, author Helena Sheehan arrives on the East Coast, just in time to discuss this explosive situation and her new book, The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left. Over the next two weeks, Sheehan will appear in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, then back to NYC for the Left Forum. Here is a short summary of her tour… | more…

Gerald Horne, historian and author of several books, including Confronting Black Jacobins, Race to Revolution, and the forthcoming The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, talks to RT Moscow about Trump’s hypocrisy vis-à-vis Islam, money, and military arms, and how the president is reaching new lows in mixing business with politics… | more…

Sickened by the contamination of their water, their air, of the Earth itself, more and more people are coming to realize that it is capitalism that is, quite literally, killing them. It is now clearer than ever that capitalism is also degrading the Earth’s ability to support other forms of life. Already, hundreds of millions of people are facing poverty in the midst of untold wealth, perpetual war, growing racism, and gender oppression. The need to organize for social and environmental reforms has never been greater. But crucial as reforms are, they cannot solve our intertwined ecological and social crises. Creating an Ecological Society reveals

Thursday, May 25, 6:30-8:30pm
New York University
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center
53 Washington Square South, Manhattan
Hear Helena Sheehan, author of The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left, talk about her book with Nantina Vgontzas, NYU Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology and AKNY-Greece Solidarity Movement member, Thomas Harrison, Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, and Molly Nolan, NYU History Professor. | more…

York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J
Wednesday, May 24, 2017, 4:00pm – Friday, May 26, 2017, 7:30pm
Hear veteran scores of scholars and activists, including Immanuel Wallerstein, John Bellamy Foster, Leo Panitch, Ursula Huws, Kohei Saito … | more…

Helena Sheehan, Marxist scholar, activist, and author, will soon be leaving Dublin, Ireland for a U.S. book tour of her recently published The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left. Her first appearance will be Thursday, May 25, 6:30pm, NYC, New York University, King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University, 53 Washington Square South, Manhattan | more…

The Haitian Revolution, which ran from 1791-1804 was one of the most important events in modern history. It was the first successful anti-slavery revolution…. I dealt with this glorious moment in human history in my “Revolution in Haiti” based on C.L.R James classic The Black Jacobins…. Now I will deal with the part the Haitian revolution played in not only ending slavery on the island but throughout the americas relying on yet another masterpiece from Gerald Horne, Confronting Black Jacobins, which is both a sequel to The Counter-Revolution of 1776 and a companion to his excellent Negro Comrades of the Crown… | more…

Long-time activist and author Brian Tokar, who, with Fred Magdoff, wrote Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal, just wrote a piece for the May issue of The New York Indypendent:

“Just over a year ago, diplomats from around the world were celebrating the final ratification of the December 2016 Paris Agreement, proclaimed to be the first globally inclusive step toward a meaningful climate solution. The agreement was praised as one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments and as a triumph of his “soft power” approach to world affairs. But even then, long before Donald Trump and his coterie of plutocrats and neofascists

Historian Gerald Horne, author of several books, including Confronting Black Jacobins and Race to Revolution talks with TRNN anchor Paul Jay about Trump’s firing FBI Director James Comey | more…

Henry A. Giroux, professor at the Department of English & Cultural Studies at McMaster University and author of several books, including America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth and America’s Addiction to Terrorism, spoke recently at the McMaster Alumni Association Progam | more…

Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in just five weeks in the spring of 1937. ¶ Then living in Paris, Picasso, fifty-five, was already well-known. Born in Spain in 1881, he went to Paris in 1900; he had visited Spain in 1934 but would never return. ¶ Still, the insurgent Popular Front government appointed him director of the Prado Museum in Madrid, in absentia, and Picasso undertook several projects sympathetic to the Republic and to raise funds on its behalf. The government in turn asked him to produce a mural for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, and he agreed, though progress at first was slow. It was the April 26 attack at Guernica that moved him. He threw himself into the painting and in less than five weeks, astonishingly, had completed Guernica… | more…

August Nimtz’s essay in this book on Marx and Engels, and organization, alone would make it worthwhile. Nimtz shows that though they didn’t write a huge amount about political organization, Marx and Engels showed through their practice and fragmentary comments that they believed, like Lenin after them, that socialists need to get organized in advance of great social struggles if they wanted to transform society. | more…