Three years after the floodwaters of the Hurricane Katrina subsided, the people of New Orleans voters are plagued by barriers to voting, misinformation and disenfranchisement .

After reading an article in the NY Times and subsequent googling, I discovered a proliferation of local org

When we present revolutionary ideas, is it just the content that matters, or the form, as well? If the form matters, should it reflect popular styles, or should we constantly push boundaries?

Blue Vinyl (2002) http://www.bluevinyl.org/ , by Judith Helfand and Daniel B.

This is an article I wrote for a local Bronx freebie paper, the Norwood News.

Role of Private Equity Worries Tenant Advocates

In the last two installments of Mp3 Spotlight we have looked at the work of individual musicians who have put their creative energies towards building social movements.

Thousands of Koreans have been protesting the importation U.S. beef by gathering in vigils almost every night for the last two months.

I’ve been compiling a list of various extralegal activities one can get away with in the United States if his/her skin lacks melanin.(I think maybe I should maybe shift to things that whites cannot

When I joined Solidarity, the first thing everyone asked was “what brought you here?” “How did you become a radical?” This question is crucial for activists because it’s part of the overall

The name Ashok Kumar rings a few bells: the field hockey star who helped win the 1974 World Cup? The famous Bollywood star who played the main character of India’s first soap opera? The jazz aficionado who, since 1997, has served in the British Parliament? Well – that last one is getting warmer, at least.

[A Talk by Tim Schermerhorn at the Black Workers Caucus in the Black Workers Track of the 2008 Labor Notes Conference, where a Black Workers Network was formed.]

To have a real chance of making real fightback strategies, we must have at least a fundamental understanding of the forces arrayed against us, and how they operate. An essential component of this process is demystifying words such as neoliberalism. One of the reasons for this encrypted terminology is to send a message to common people, working people, to tell us that we can’t understand the players and plans that affect our lives. They are a large hostile sign on a closed door that says, you can’t even understand the discussion, much less act or organize in your own interest. And while we can’t completely analyze a political or economic ‘school’ in a short discussion, we can distill its fundamentals, and know how it moves.

Cornelius Cardew lived a singular life in modern music. He helped give birth to electronic music in the 1950’s, connected the U.S. and European musical avant-gardes, and pushed the limits of improvised music with groups such as AMM. From the mid 1950’s through the early 1970’s Cardew burned like a comet, redefining experimental music and earning legend status. But when his commitment to Marxist politics intensified he left it all behind to create “people’s liberation music”.

Electronic Music and Minimalism

For our purposes here we will look at ‘both sides’ of Cardew’s life and music, although it is unwise to compartmentalize such a complex human being. Cardew followed a boyhood passion for classical music all the way to the Royal Academy of Music. But it was his gig after graduation that put him in a nexus of ground breaking music. At the age of 22 Cardew traveled to Germany to work as the assistant to composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen was opening up a new world of music making machinery, electronically generated sounds, and compositions that made full use of these developments. Their close creative relationship lasted for three years.

While there are people who pursue powerful positions in society or in a group in order to dominate others, there are also those who identify themselves with dominant groups or the ideology of the group and submit themselves to the opinions of strong authority figures. One of the characteristics of them is to show a “blind faith” toward their “ingroup” to which they belong and hostility toward “outgroups.” Besides, they seldom show sympathy (or often show hostility) toward minorities who occupy weaker positions in social structure, whether in terms of ethnicity or in such criteria as gender, sexuality, occupation, nationality, opinions, and wealth.

Last night, Barack Obama's presidential campaign achieved the number of Democratic delegates needed to win the nomination at the Party's convention in Denver this August. Hillary Clinton just pledged to end her sleazy, racist campaign with an endorsement of Barack on June 6. It's an important time for revolutionaries to reflect on the meaning, opportunities and challenges of this presidential election season. I wrote previously about the election, in January. Since then, some things have changed, and others remain very much the same. Certainly, I did not expect the momentum behind Obama to develop in the way that it has.

COMMENTS ON FRSO, WHICH WAY IS LEFT?

[This contribution was originally presented to a November 18, 2007 joint meeting of Solidarity, Freedom Road Socialist Organization/OSCL and an independent study group of activists interested in revolutionary organization]

After an 87-day strike that started in the depths of a snowy and blistery winter and ended in late spring, the UAW workers at five American Axle plants in Michigan and New York voted to accept a deeply concessionary contract and return to work. Wages will be reduced by $5-7 an hour along with freezing pensions, outlawing the right to strike during the life of the contract under any circumstance, and gutting the old contract. Why did the strikers, after shutting down more than 30 GM assembly plants, and an untold number of parts plants, vote to go back to work? Why give up at the 15-yard line?

The following appeared in the Solidarity discussion bulletin after a Solidarity National Committee discussion of 'Which Way is Left?' [WWIL] and a joint meeting in NYC between Solidarity, Freedom Road Socialist Organization/Organización Socialista del Camino para la Libertad [FRSO or FRSO/OSCL], and the New York Study Group - a discussion of radical community activists in the city who are interested in revolutionary organization.

I had a “romantic” dream about Detroit when driving to the city for my summer job last year. If anyone has been in Detroit, he or she would know that there are many abandoned buildings. Abandoned, of course, does not mean devoid of “legal” and “private” owners. Nevertheless, what if we socialists, workers, and homeless people were to physically occupy abandoned buildings and use them as our offices, homes, and conference places, and eventually make the city into a “socialist city”?

The recent Solidarity front page on the cyclone in Southeast Asia (borrowed from International Viewpoint) is in line with my own reflections on the politics of aid in the wake of 'natural' disasters.

The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice – I had no alternative. – Paul Robeson

Atlanta lost another piece of its cultural and political history sometime this winter when the “Wall of Respect” mural on Auburn Avenue was literally whitewashed. This came to my attention in mid-December; it could have been gone before then. A little over a year ago, I researched the Wall of Respect, and other political murals in Atlanta, during my last semester at Georgia State University. I’ve been meaning to write something to memorialize this artwork, and its destruction, since noticing it was gone. Yesterday, the Sweet Auburn Festival (you have no idea how much Shea butter can be sold on one street unless you’ve been) reminded me I needed to do so. I want to start with a short survey of some ideas about art under capitalism, and the role of art in social movements and revolution.

Art and Capitalism

Art is not mere paint on a canvas. Like all forms of culture, visual art is a product of its time, and reflects the contradiction and social conflict of that time. But this goes beyond the artist’s choice of subject matter, symbolism, or visual style. The artist is a worker, and like all workers under capitalism, she is forced to sell her labor to survive – as the language of “the starving artist” and “selling out” suggest. Art, therefore, also represents several social relationships: the producer, the owner of the work, and the consumer. In societies without rigid class hierarchies, each of these roles was fulfilled collectively: art as a social product, to be controlled and enjoyed communally.

I want to kick off this ongoing series on the webzine with a look at a seminal political artist. Christy Moore is a powerful vocalist, song interpreter, and a passionately political person and performer. To many he may be simply a folksinger, but Christy Moore is a voice for the voiceless.

At long last, Atlanta Jobs with Justice has released their excellent study and plan for regional transit centered on the needs of riders and workers. You can download the report from Atlanta JwJ's website or download it directly here. The study is the project of years of research and organizing with the Transit Riders Union - a group of transit-dependent riders and disabled riders - and workers in our transit system, MARTA, who are represented by Amalgamated Transit Union 732. This is in our corner of the ring.

“Radical Blogging Is The Main Trend In Our World Today”

Let’s focus on two trends in radical blogs, both based on Marxism. One is the emergence of a web of prolific Maoist/Marxist-Leninist blogs in the United States. The other is the world of Marxist blogs emanating from English-speaking western Europe. I will start this entry with a look at the Maoist-inspired blogs.

(The arduous pace of the school, and it's work and social demands, means that I have not been able to keep up with my journal on a daily basis. Thus, I apologize for the partial summaries below; some of the fun, wacky, informal conversations are also left out, as I had to reconstruct some days from my notes. - John)

I will attempt to write daily notes on the 3-week Global Justice School (Amsterdam, NE March 28-April 19) organized by the International Institute for Research and Education. I miss my comrades – and the start of the baseball season! – but it is a great experience being here.

I didn't want all the burgeoning Solidarity bloggers or our loyal fans to miss the Carnival of Socialism up at stroppyblog. The previous Carnival was here--definitely worth a look. You should also note that there is an upcoming Carnival of Socialism to which you can and should submit your best work! Do so at Practically Insurgent.

The “crisis of the Left” is usually referred to the disarray of movements, its weakened political and social power, the effects of demise of bureaucratic “really existing socialism”, and the neoliberal offensive. It remains our responsibility to seriously interrogate these conditions, study our world, and chart strategies for a new socialist project.

I'm trying to figure out whether I think Elliot Spitzer actually did anything that we should call "corrupt."  I'm sure he broke his marital vows, quite repeatedly it seems, and I get what the folks are saying that Silda shouldn't have stood by her man, literally, and looked crushed - she should have issued a statement dumping his ass.  Then, at the same time, I feel like that kind of decision is between her and her God and her shrink and so forth and giving a feminist seal of disapproval to her actions seems kind of weird to me.  Of course it seems even weirder that I should be in a position to comment on feminist seals of disapproval, so I might as well just work my way out of this particular thread.

Heavy storms and tornadoes ripped through downtown Atlanta and surrounding neighborhoods of Cabbagetown, East Atlanta, and Vine City last weekend. Media coverage following the storm conformed to the usual clichés: the twisters “sounded like freight trains” and their aftermath resembled a “war zone.” I can’t totally discredit either of these. I do live across the street from a freight line, wasn’t right across the street from the tornados, but I’m not too concerned with what they sounded like anyway. I did check out the damage afterwards and I am concerned with war zones. Like most USonians, have never experienced a war zone, but I’m not sure if the two realities match up exactly…

Has anyone noticed how Obama and Clinton have been rushing to outdo each other in "rejecting and denouncing" controversial figures associated with their campaigns?  First it was Obama, with Farrakhan.  I was disappointed to see Obama "reject and denounce" Farrakhan himself - rather than rejecting and denouncing his anti-Semitic statements, which are worthy of being rejected.  But I figured it was par for the course.  Farrakhan has always been a lightning rod of presidential politics; Obama was really just distancing himself (again) from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.  Then there was Samantha Power, who is an annoying apostle of human rights liberalism, I believe, and I wasn't sad to see her go.  Then there was Geraldine Ferraro, on the Clinton side, who doesn't seem to have aged gracefully, making remarks which might have had some core sense to them but were expressed in basically openly racist terms.

Friday it was announced that New York State government’s bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will bail out Wall Street big-shot bankers at Bear Stearns. Perhaps fittingly, Lee Bollinger, the Columbia University President who’s behind one of the biggest land-grabs in the city, is on the Board of Directors of this bank.

Indian shipyard workers accuse their employer of human trafficking and forced labor; Guest Worker organizing continues in Mississippi and Louisiana
by Robert Caldwell & Damien Ramos

A lot of my friends have recently had or are about to have babies. It’s been something of a learning experience for me, in some very practical ways.

For example, I learned all about competing sleep theories from a friend with a bedtime-adverse 20-month-old. She and her husband spent considerable time developing a method that is a middle ground between letting the child cry indefinitely and rocking him to sleep every time he wakes up (which is every 2 hours). Other things I learned are that new cribs cost about $600, and that babies actually don’t get woken up by noise at all. So, contrary to popular convention, it doesn’t make you a bad parent to blast P Diddy while your newborn is sleeping.

Susan Faludi, author of Backlash and Stiffed, has with her latest offering, The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9-11 America, drawn upon her previous insights into the causes and consequences of the anti-feminist backlash of the last three decades and applied them to period following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Confession: I am a major Law & Order (L&O) junkie. I just can’t get enough of new episodes and reruns (including episodes I have seen at least a dozen time) of the original L&O. L&O Criminal Intent comes in a close second (although I have never gotten the hang of L&O Special Victims Unit). As a friend and comrade who shares my obsession put it, “It’s got cops and lawyers — what more can you ask from a mainstream TV show?”

Book Review: Laura Pulido’s Environmentalism and Economic Justice: Two Chicano Struggles in the Southwest.

“Subaltern” groups, according to Pulido, are those which are subordinated socially, politically, culturally, and institutionally as well as economically. For example, Mexican agricultural workers occupy the lowest position within the division of the labor, lack political rights and legal protections, and face language barriers.

Book Review: David Naguib Pellow’s Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago.

Pellow’s Garbage Wars examines the history of the environmental struggles over the means and locations of the disposal of solid waste in Chicago and discusses the problems of “environmental racism.”

The genuises at The Onion understand well Freud's discovery of how jokes reveal a side of truth and reality that we, for one reason or another, are unwilling to admit to ourselves up front. Thus the recent article "GM Introduces New 2008 Line Of Layoffs."

Mike Huckabee is not going to be the Republican presidential nominee.  Though he’s still in the race, Republican insiders have started endorsing John McCain by the droves.  This includes many Republican leaders who don’t like McCain much (criticizing his “liberal” stances on immigration, tax cuts, and campaign finance), and some who have a lot of affinities with Huckabee’s base, such as Oliver North.  Pundits who have been very critical of McCain, such as Rush Limbaugh, have been asked to tone it down in the name of party unity.

Hey Lovers and Fighters –

Continuing my tendency to tail respond to the writing of the fine folks over at FRSO/OSCL, some of this is influenced by a west coast Freedom Road comrade, Claire. You can read her article from last year here. Another Oakland (Solidarity) comrade made me promise I’d write some stuff on love and sex and relationships if she reposted something of hers from a few years ago on polyamory. So: here you go, sister!

*Title taken from James Baldwin essay by that title (1984)

By the time I graduated high school, I saw that the rural area of Pennsylvania I grew up as the epitome of racism…and homophobia. Not much room for liberal “we-love-diversity”. I left there hating the whole area: it was dead, backward, close-minded, bigoted and all that. Arriving in New York for college, I thought I was in heaven, a far as “lets-all-get-along” diversity goes. That lasted about one subway ride, and I soon realized that New York is at least as harsh on people of color as my high school was, but in different ways and with lot more power to beat people down. By the end of college I was thoroughly disgusted with the white people of gentrified New York that didn’t have much in common with the working-class and poor rural white folks I grew up around. I moved to Harlem and, like my parents did back home, started getting involved in some of the community groups.

Looking backward: The following piece is from almost five years ago, and my own views continue to evolve. Sometimes I feel like they devolve. However, I think that the subject is worth Left discussion and commentary, because, as my friend A. says, why don't lefties fucking GET personal politics? We can rag on "social conservatives", but often our own views come off as some kind of queasily tolerant personal-as-political Not In My Back Yard. So I am posting this, and will rebut it in the comments, and hope other people will chime in, too.

From Jan. 11 through Jan. 13 Solidarity held a socialist feminist retreat that brought together a multi-generational group of 60 activists to discuss work, gender and heteronormativity. There were lots of great discussions, both organized and informal.

What does it mean to read with a child? How, as materialists, do we talk with our kids?

Lucy

Monday evening I called to chat with my friend, "Alice", who works at a university hospital, and asked how she celebrated the holiday:

Alice: "uh, by working."

Kate G: "Working? Seriously? They don't give you the day off?"

Hello out there in internet land!

Some of you may have noticed that we're knee deep in the so-called "political season." Yes, that's right, that’s when us ordinary folks are invited into debates about the issues of the day. Does this mean Warren Buffet’s attempts to stabilize the bond market house of cards? The US Navy’s clumsy attempt to manufacture a threat from Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz (through which almost all the world’s petroleum reaches market? Nope, it’s a presidential election year, and the main item on the menu is Change^TM. Eager consumers of Change^TM should be thrilled to learn it’s available in both Regular and Diet versions. Which version of Change^TM do you like best? Check it out:

Patriarchy has existed for thousands of years, but the process of separation between public and private spheres in capitalism imposed new kinds of gender roles between husbands and wives in Western Europe by the middle of the 19th century: While a husband became the sole breadwinner in the public sphere, his wife took the task of the reproduction process in the private sphere. These separate roles became more rigidly reinforced by the ideology of the “cult of domesticity,” which was advocated by eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau and subsequently by nineteenth-century literary writers like Sarah Ellis.

For the last two days, I’ve been attending the SANPAD poverty conference here in Durban. It’s an interesting collection of socialist and other radical intellectuals and more traditional NGO and government types. The first day of the conference was interrupted by protests of dozens of ‘poors’ demanding to be able to confront the deputy mayor, one of the conference’s opening speakers over issues of 1) closure of the Durban port to individual fisherman, 2)police harassment of street vendors 3) sanitation, electricity and water in the informal settlements.