Clik here to view.
Outraged by White Rural Rage
I don’t like to slam books, especially those ahead of mine on the best seller list. It might seem like petty jealousy. But one recent release, White Rural Rage by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Will Be the Village Voice of the 21st Century?
Review of The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture by Tricia Romano (PublicAffairs, 2024) When Village Voice columnist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seeking Fantasies Across The Sea
A young boy, no more than sixteen, steers a battered trawler boat with an unyielding focus on the darkness ahead. Between the congestion of bodies on board, a pregnant woman passes in and out of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Exurbia Now: A Liberal Dissects MAGA Pathology
I think this is a book of some merit although I disagree with plenty of its content. I first learned of it a few months ago watching a Youtube clip of a friendly interview with the author conducted on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Book Review: ‘Power Lines—Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement’
A familiar scene played out in the city council chambers of Richmond, California on May 22, 2024. For the last 20 years, since members of the anti-Chevron Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) first got...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Capitalism Really Works
Vulture Capitalism is, at one level, a really good read, for the scandals that it brings together in one volume—like the Boeing 737 MAX debacle, where the pursuit of profits, lack of regulation, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A History of Class-Struggle Anarchism
Zoe Baker’s book Means and Ends is a comprehensive look at the revolutionary class-struggle anarchist movement as it existed and developed in the period from the International Workingmen’s Association...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We Can’t Win the School Culture Wars
Review of The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual by Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider (The New Press, 2024) There’s a charter school in my Massachusetts town that markets...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Dreamer
In the recent publication of the decennial Sight & Sound Top 250 Greatest Films of All Time list, two African films were placed within the top 100. Ousmane Sembéne’s La Noire De/Black Girl landed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Anti-Extractivism of Mdou Moctar
“Dear African leaders, hear my burning question / Why does your ear only heed France and America?” begins the opening title track of Mdou Moctar’s new, internationally acclaimed album, Funeral for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Story Within a Story: the Making and Unmaking of Ethiopia’s Imperial Messiah
Tom Gardner’s The Abiy Project transcends a mere examination of Abiy Ahmed’s influence over Ethiopia and his future ambitions, nor is it confined to critiquing his misguided “messianic mission”....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cultivating Combative Feminist Strength
Alessandra Chricosta is a small woman with an easy smile who practices martial arts and embraces philosophy as a way of life. She is Italian by birth, but circumstances led her to spend a decade in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Most Toxic Place in America
It may seem odd to say it during this Trumpian era of extreme political polarization, but there is one area where Republicans and Democrats share a remarkably similar policy perspective.That common...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Biography Opens a Portal Into the Life and Work of Audre Lorde
In Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, Alexis Pauline Gumbs offers an erudite, meticulously researched biography of the legendary Black lesbian feminist poet that simultaneously...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Truth about Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers
Author Zeke Hernandez’s new book is The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2024: $30.00). The author, an immigrant born in Uruguay, lived...
View ArticleClik here to view.
U.S. Labor’s Self-Destructive International Crusade Against “Red” Unions
After unions won historic gains for working people in the strike wave that followed the end of World War II, corporations like General Electric and Westinghouse sought to weaken the labor movement. By...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Invisible Rulers: An Establishment Liberal Reads Chomsky, Fights Taibbi and...
Until recently, Renee DiResta–author of the book under review–was the research manager at Stanford University’s Internet Observatory. She has served as a consultant to social media platforms about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Family Planning
Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Careby M.E. O’BrienPluto Press, 2023, 304 pp. Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Bold Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Lifeby Kristen R....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Whither White Poverty
I joined the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) in 2018 on the fiftieth anniversary of Dr King’s assassination. Rev. Dr. William Barber II, who Cornell West has described as “the closest thing we have to Dr....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy
Henry A. Giroux and Anthony R. DiMaggio (2024) Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy, Bloomsbury, London and New York: Bloomsbury. This is an important book for a pivotal time....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Justice Not Evictions
We Live HereDetroit Eviction Defense and the Battle for Housing Justiceby Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi KramerSeven Stories Press, 2024, 238 pages, $16.95 paperback; ebook $10. WILSON AND KRAMER’s graphic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Errol Morris’s Reminder of Trump’s Sadistic Border Policy
The new documentary by Errol Morris called Separated, which is considered a likely Academy Awards contender for Best Documentary, was made with the plan to share it with the public before the election....
View ArticleClik here to view.
In the Shadow of King Coal
Writer and director Elaine McMillion Sheldon begins her latest documentary, King Coal, with a funeral rite. A multigenerational, multiracial procession of people in black clothing walks slowly up a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Planned Economy with No Central Planning Authority
In Democratic Economic Planning, Robin Hahnel says that his “most important contribution is” having “explained concretely how to reconcile comprehensive democratic planning” with worker autonomy and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review — Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global...
Jeff Schuhrke begins his new book, Blue Collar Empire, with a powerful story: how the CIA, operating through the offices of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME),...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Time To Expropriate the Rich!
Review of Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They do with Their Money and Why You Should Hate Them Even More by Rob Larson (Haymarket, 2024). In Rob Larson’s new book...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World...
Recently, at a hostel in Cochabamba, Bolivia, I launched into a tirade about the lack of any significant social services or safety net in my home country of the United States, services that countless...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The United Nations: Problems by Design, Reform by Demand
Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied, Richard Falk, and former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and UN...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Aftertaste of the Ocean
In 2018, Senegalese philosopher and economist Felwine Sarr, along with French art historian Bénédicte Savoy, were commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron for two meetings in Paris with S.E.M Auguste...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Telecom Customer Service Reps Got Better Connected Via Their Union
American politicians love to pose as defenders of factory workers threatened by globalization, corporate restructuring, and overseas outsourcing. But their campaign spiels rarely mention other jobs at...
View Article