The American Jesus

                                     N.B. the misspelling of Christmas...

Dorothy Day

                                                                     St. Dorothy

Support the troops

                                Active duty military have a right to refuse to kill.

Marx and Mill

A consistent, bright line distinction between Leftists and Liberals is in their respective attitudes to war. Leftists abhor war, seeing it as an unnecessary EVIL and an opportunity for the ruling classes to further enrich themselves at the expense of the other 99%. Liberals, on the other hand, can't get enough of it. They see the military as a mechanism for the social advancement of oppressed minorities (willing to kill or maim other oppressed minorities). The Liberal utopia is not "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" but a rainbow coalition of war-mongering, wage-slaving, consumer capitalists. We should never forget that John Stuart Mill spent his working life in the service of the British East India Company, with its racist-imperialist missionizing and private militias.

Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges on the ruling elite's war on truth: in Black Agenda Report.

Edward Snowden on the Dangers of Silicon Valley Censorship

Vietnam: A Crisis of Conscience (April 4, 1967)

                                                 MLK at Riverside Church.

 

Observe Armistice Day

                               Reclaim it.

More about the "Two-Party System"

 The U.S. is at war (either directly or through proxies) in parts of Africa and the Middle East and has been for decades. You might think that would be an issue in the Presidential election--but it is not. 

And that, to my mind, is absolutely inexcusable.

Anyone who can look the other way while bombs are being dropped is a morally defective human being. Period.

The "Two-Party System"

 

Is That Really Too Much To Ask?

 

Liam Mellows

 

Israelis Bulldoze the remains of a Paelstinian child's home

 

A Conversation with Cornel West

 

Worth Repeating

 

The A-Bomb and the Pacific War - Part Two

 

Read it here.

 

 

The A-Bomb and the Pacific War - Part One

From the History News Network.

Trump Dog-Whistles the Fascists

Read all about it.

The Dems Back Netanyahu's Plan To Annex The West Bank

That includes Nancy, Chuck, and old Joe Biden. Do not turn a blind eye to their criminality.

Refuse Fascism!

It's Kafka's World, We Just Live In It

A brief homily:

Because we cannot have honest conversations about race in this country, the Left (such as it is) cannot break out of the cycle of political self-defeat. On the one hand, white Liberals tender contrition and guilt to people of color and stifle free speech in the hope that doing so will make everything better (that's one of the main reasons that they despise Trump: it's not his policies--Biden has supported similar ones--it's the fact that he has no filter). That is what has become of the "New Left."

On the other hand, people of color are often unwilling to acknowledge their own complicity in their oppression (Cornel West is a noteworthy exception, but there are others). The military has long been a "workfare" program for people of color to improve their socio-economic prospects--BUT IT'S A TRAP. Once you are sufficiently invested in the system, they can get you to lie, kill, and die for it. International solidarity is what is needed--one of the hallmarks of the "Old Left." But so long as the white supremacist capitalists can get well-meaning Liberals to believe that Stalin discredited the Old Left (instead of simply discrediting himself), the co-opting and killings will go on and on, here, there, everywhere.

The cop who murdered George Floyd in cold blood and broad daylight should be prosecuted like any other common criminal. But if he is prosecuted, and if he is convicted (most probably of a lesser offense than the one he actually committed), it will only be a bone tossed in the direction of racial justice. The criminal justice system itself is rotten with racism (I should know, I spent a decade discovering just how deep the rot goes) and we are long past the point of ameliorative tinkering. Neo-liberal capitalism and its various mechanisms of enforcement (the militarized police force is just one example) need to be dismantled and, for that, we will need all hands on deck--regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, etc.

The idea that if we can just get a Democrat in the White House then all will be well is delusional fantasy. As a scholar of religion, I study the ways in which religious institutions capitalize on the wishful thinking of their constituencies and encourage people to act against their own best interests. But the fact is, political institutions are no different. Liberals who smile indulgently at talk of Divine miracles become fervent believers whenever the Democratic Party dangles its latest savior in front of them.

All of which reminds me (as if I needed more reminders) that it's Kafka's world, we just live in it.

Neolibs = Neocons

Cornel West Speaks The Truth

About the U.S. police state, 2020.

And The List Goes On And On And On...

George Floyd should still be alive.

Tony McDade should still be alive.

Breona Taylor should still be alive.

Michael Brown should still be alive.

Eric Garner should still be alive.

Sandra Bland should still be alive.

Philando Castile should still be alive.

Memorial Day

The U.S. military and white supremacy.

Contact JVP

Jewish Voice for Peace.

Full Speed Ahead On The Good Ship Titanic

Ticked Off Vic: A Message to the Government

Medicare For All?

There is only one thing that stands between the American people and M4A and many other so-called "luxuries" that the citizens of other countries take for granted as basic necessities of life: the military-industrial-complex. If a pandemic doesn't wake up the proletariat, nothing will.

The Romance Of American Communism

Most American Communists never set foot in party headquarters, nor laid eyes on a Central Committee member, nor were privy to internal party policy-making sessions. But every rank-and-filer knew that party unionists were crucial to the rise of industrial labor in this country; that it was mainly party lawyers who defended blacks in the Deep South; that party organizers lived, worked, and sometimes died with miners in Appalachia, farm workers in California, steel workers in Pittsburgh.

~ Vivian Gornick

International Communist Anthem: The Internationale

Organize Or Starve!

All Along The Watchtower

Ending All War -- with Martin Sheen

Bodies Upon The Gears

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

~ Mario Savio

(See more here: https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2014/12/01/mario-savios-bodies-upon-the-gears-speech-50-years-later).

Karl Kautsky Redux

About Kautsky.

Foundations of Christianity (1908).

CPUSA: The "Old Left" Rising

JOIN HERE.

Read!

Joe Blow

Remain Calm

Red-Baiting

Will this still work in 2020? You cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Or can you?

U.S. Out Of Afghanistan, NOW!

Long past due, make it true.

Lumumba

Read all about it!

Gramsci On Cultural Hegemony

State Of The Union

For those who missed it last night.

The Western Punditocracy's Erdogan Obession

The President of Turkey behaves as if he is the leader of an independent, sovereign, nation-state--a fact that alternately baffles and infuriates the Western punditocracy. Here a Guardian columnist offers either some grudging admiration or damnation with faint praise.

There are plenty of grounds upon which to criticize Erdogan, but conducting himself as the head of an independent sovereign nation-state is not one of them.

Karl Marx To The Rescue

Grow up and read Marx. Or, read Marx and grow up.

Centering Palestine

Bombshell!

More Iranian blood on British (and American) hands.

Paul Robeson, Communist

Singing the Star Spangled banner.

Dr. King's Socialism

Fight amnesia.

Wag The Dog, Donald Trump Impeachment Edition

He confessed to his own criminality in advance.

Deja Vu