Rafael Barrett was born into the Spanish elite, but in the six intense years that he spent in Paraguay, he shed his past to become one of the most notable voices speaking out against the rampant imperialism gripping Latin America. Arriving in a nation constructed upon a foundation of bones following the Triple Alliance War of 1864-1870, Barrett was thrown by chance into the “Paraguayan sorrow” that haunted that landlocked nation in the heart of Latin America. More than half the population had been wiped out in the merciless conflict. A ferocious pattern of capitalist imperialism had taken hold. The apocalyptic war had ended a
Keeping Up the Good Fight is the story of a young man’s political coming of age and his experience as a student activist and scientist incarcerated by two authoritarian regimes in India, half a century apart.
On September 25, 1975, the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi called for a strike to protest the expulsion of Ashoklata Jain, an elected student union member. Three months earlier, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had declared a state of Emergency. It was the second day of the strike and the campus was tense. A black car rolled up near a group of students. A few plainclothes cops got
While Israel’s horrific assaults on the people of Gaza continue, the voices against the U.S. support for the Zionist state grow ever-louder. This spring, the fight spilled onto college campuses. In this month’s “Notes,” MR editors take the long view, starting with the Free Speech Movement over half a century ago. | more…
The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis tells the true tale of a mathematician who found himself taking an involuntary break from chalking equations to sit opposite a row of self-righteous anti-Communist congressmen at the height of the McCarthy era. Courageously asserting the First Amendment to confront a system rapidly descending into fascism, Davis testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He became one of a small number of left wingers who served time for contempt of Congress. | more…
Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by a new more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The onset of the Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population. | more…
Finally, and for the first time, we have full access to a representative collection of Anne Braden’s writings, speeches, and letters, and the full spectrum of their subject matter: from the relationship between race and capitalism, to the role of the South in American society, to the function of anti-communism. | more…
By the time he was 26, Michael Tigar was a legend in legal circles well before he would take on some of the highest-profile cases of his generation. In his first U.S. Supreme Court case—at the age of 28—Tigar won a unanimous victory that freed thousands of Vietnam War resisters from prison. A relentless fighter of injustice—not only as a human rights lawyer, but also as a teacher, scholar, journalist, playwright, and comrade—Tigar has been counsel to Angela Davis, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), the Chicago Eight, and leaders of the Black Panther Party, to name only a few. It is past time that Michael Tigar wrote his memoir. | more…
Karl Marx, in Capital, focused on capital and the capitalist class that is its embodiment. It is the endless accumulation of capital, its causes and consequences that are central to Marx’s analysis. In taking this approach, Marx tended to obscure not only the centrality of capital’s “immanent drive” and “constant tendency” to divide the working class but also the political economy of the working class (“social production controlled by social foresight”). In Between Capitalism and Community, Lebowitz demonstrates that capitalism contains within itself elements of a different society, one of community. If we are to escape the ultimate barbarism portended by the existing crisis of the earth system, the subordination of the system of capitalism by that of community is essential. | more…
World War I, given all the rousing “Over-There” songs and in-the-trenches films it inspired, was, at its outset, surprisingly unpopular with the American public. As opposition increased, Woodrow Wilson’s presidential administration became intent on stifling antiwar dissent. Wilson effectively silenced the National Civil Liberties Bureau, forerunner of the American Civil Liberties Union. Presidential candidate Eugene Debs was jailed, and Deb’s Socialist Party became a prime target of surveillance operations, both covert and overt. Drastic as these measures were, more draconian measures were to come. | more…
These are uncertain times in Latin America. Popular faith in democracy has been shaken; traditional political parties and institutions are stagnating, and there is a growing right-wing extremism overtaking some governments. Yet, in recent years, autonomous social movements have multiplied and thrived. This book presents voices of these movement protagonists themselves, as they describe the major issues, conflicts, and campaigns for social justice in Latin America today. | more…
For a century, the counterrevolutionary reaction to the events of October 1917 has arguably been the most determining ideological factor in Western politics. Today the victory of that counterrevolution is complete, but Western powers still need their inherited antithesis, in changing form, as self-justification. | more…
U.S. immigration has been the subject of furious debates for decades. On one side, politicians and the media talk about aliens and criminals, with calls to “deport them all.” On the other side, some advocates idealize immigrants and gloss over problems associated with immigration. Dialogue becomes possible when we dig deeper and ask tough questions: Why are people in other countries leaving their homes and coming here? What does it mean to be “illegal”? How do immigration raids, prisons, and border walls impact communities? Who suffers and who profits from our current system—and what would happen if we transformed it? | more…
