Archives: Online Posts
Let a Thousand Fiefdoms Bloom
Chris Smaje’s new book has received glowing reviews from ecosocialists. But scratch beneath the surface, and you will find a disturbing vision of the future defined by exploitation, domination, and patriarchy.
Irreducibly Multiple
Mattie Armstrong-Price reflects on the meaning of last night’s election returns in the United States and its meaning for the American left going forward.
The Political Ecology of Pandemics
Michael Friedman on the political ecology of emerging diseases and pandemics. Pandemics won’t be solved by conservation alone.
Materializing Race
Jack Norton and David Stein respond to John Clegg and Adaner Usmani’s argument that mass incarceration isn’t about racism. Norton and Stein demonstrate that Clegg and Usmani are both conceptually misguided and empirically wrong.
Competing with Nature: COVID-19 as a Capitalist Virus
Rob Wallace speaks about the global capitalist roots of the current pandemic, the likelihood of future pandemics, and the types of organized resistance necessary to prevent them.
The Exception as the Rule
Lina Nasr El Hag and Olena Lyubchenko argue that ongoing organizing in the face of COVID-19 reveals how class struggles in Toronto are inseparable from fights waged on feminist, antiracist, and other fronts, all in the name of reclaiming life over profits.
Beyond Borders
Is postcolonial nationalism a liberatory force because it’s postcolonial, or a reactionary force because it’s nationalism? Nandita Sharma speaks to Spectre editor Zachary Levenson about this question in relation to her new book, Home Rule.
Unfixing South Asian Identity
Drawing upon autobiographical reflections, JS Titus explores the class stratification of South Asians in the United Kingdom. Titus argues that class and oppression, rather than idealized identities, must be the basis of forging solidarity today.
Fighting for Black Lives at School
Ashley Smith interviewed Black Lives Matter activist and educator Jesse Hagopian about the struggle for Black Lives at school, the uprising for racial justice, the role of unions in that struggle, and the looming workers’ fight against austerity in cities and states across the country.
Yih and Kulldorff’s “Radical” Covid Strategy
Epidemiologist Michael Friedman responds to two Harvard researchers who called for socialists to oppose lockdowns in the name of workers’ lives. But their argument, Friedman insists, puts us all at risk—above all, workers.