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Listening with Respect: What Made Studs Terkel a Great Interviewer, via Truthout

Listening with Respect: What Made Studs Terkel a Great Interviewer, via Truthout

February 20, 2024

Recently, Alan Wieder, author of Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation, was interviewed by Mark Karlin, the editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout.org:
“Studs Terkel liked to be amazed. He loved stories that took twists and turns and he loved to be surprised. But he also always surprised us. He had been an actor, both in theater and in radio soap operas. In the latter he always played a gangster who was either dead or in jail by the third episode. He listened because he always believed there could be wisdom in the room and he defined room very broadly. Studs had conversations on the bus, at the corner market, on the street, everywhere. People I interviewed talked about when Studs was engaged it was total.

Got to get on it, NOW: Facing the Anthropocene reviewed by Green Social Thought

February 20, 2024

Ian Angus’ book tries to do three things: (1) establish the reality that we’re in a completely new geologic time period (the Anthropocene), and argues that this means that activities of human beings threaten the continued existence of life on this planet; (2) demonstrate that these changes have been brought about by capitalism, and therefore, cannot be solved by capitalism; and (3) suggest strategies for social change to address these first two issues. Let’s discuss these in order. ¶ Based on scientifically-established evidence, Angus argues ‘Earth has entered a new epoch, is likely to continue changing in unpredictable and dangerous ways.’ What is he talking about?

“Venezuela: Economic war or government errors?” by Marta Harnecker

“Venezuela: Economic war or government errors?” by Marta Harnecker

February 20, 2024

Marta Harnecker, author of A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism, recently wrote a piece for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, which was translated by Rachael Boothroyd of VenezuelaAnalysis
"1. When Chávez triumphed in the presidential elections of 1998, the neoliberal capitalist model was already falling apart. The dilemma was none other than to either reform the neoliberal capitalist model, evidently with changes, and amongst those a greater for concern for social issues, but still orientated towards the same profit seeking motive, or to move forward with the construction of another model...."

“Live issue on the eco-left”: Facing the Anthropocene reviewed by Socialist Resistance

February 20, 2024

This book is the best I have seen, from a Marxist point of view, on the issue of the Anthropocene and its implications for life on this planet. It combines a clear warning of the scale of the crisis we face with a well informed exposition of what the Anthropocene is and why we need to take it seriously. ¶ It is an unequivocal declaration the Anthropocene is here, at that its implications, in terms life on this planet, including our own, are dangerous in the extreme, and that it now determines the framework in which the struggle to save the biosphere of the planet as a habitable space now takes place.

Imperialism in the 21st Century: “novel forms, old problems”: International Socialism review

Imperialism in the 21st Century: “novel forms, old problems”: International Socialism review

February 20, 2024

The significance of John Smith’s book lies in his powerful critique of mainstream economics and official statistics as he attempts a renewal of dependency theory. Mobilising Marxist value theory to this end he argues that the Global South’s formal independence masks an abiding economic and political subordination to the imperialist powers and powerful Northern capitals. The book’s impact is reflected in the critical commentary that it has provoked, including on Michael Roberts’s blog.

Facing the Anthropocene reviewed in Socialism and Democracy

February 20, 2024

This book underscores the depth of the environmental crisis and, with its thorough grounding in the scientific literature, situates the onset of the crisis in geological as well as historical time. These two time-scales now converge, signifying the end of the ecological conditions that allowed the human species to flourish. ¶ Herein lies the drama—and, with it, the challenge—that we are now living....

“Open Veins of the Global South”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Left Voice

“Open Veins of the Global South”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Left Voice

February 20, 2024

Dhaka, April 24, 2013. On that day, the capital of Bangladesh hit the headlines around the world after the collapse of Rana Plaza, a monstrous eight-story building that housed several textile factories, a bank, and a few shops. It was one of the worst disasters ever seen in a workplace, causing the tragic death of 1,133 garment workers and injury of another 2,500. ¶ This crime is the starting point of the recently-published Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, in which John Smith presents the key pillars on which the current world capitalist system rests.

“When memory yields to pride”: The American War in Vietnam reviewed by Counterfire

“When memory yields to pride”: The American War in Vietnam reviewed by Counterfire

February 20, 2024

Professor John Marciano, long-time activist, campaigner and author, has been documenting this assault on the mind for decades. The American War in Vietnam: Crime or Commemoration? is his latest work, a slim but estimable text that offers a wide-ranging history of the war, the lies told then and now to justify and palliate it, and current perceptions of the conflict. ¶ This book truly sets the record straight, and tells the story of Vietnam as it should have been told all along – and should be forevermore.

“Humanity destroys capitalism or capitalism destroys humanity”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Political Economy

“Humanity destroys capitalism or capitalism destroys humanity”: Imperialism in the 21st Century reviewed by Political Economy

February 20, 2024

In 2002 Anne Daly produced a documentary called Race to the Bottom, provoked by a fire that killed fifty-two workers in a garment factory in Bangladesh. John Smith’s book begins with the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, when another garment factory collapsed and 1,131 workers died. Clearly, the race to the bottom continues…. ¶ Along with other examples of intensified exploitation, smartphone manufacture, and coffee-growing, John Smith connects the outsourcing of production to the lowest-wage economies with the nature of capitalism today.

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