- No upcoming events available
« August 2026 »
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|
| | | | | | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | | | | | |
|
"Introduction to the Johnson-Forest Tendency
and the Background to Facing Reality"
Loren Goldner, Break Their Haughty Power
[Loren Goldner notes: The following text was written as a preface to a German translation of the 2002 text (cf. below)
to situate the background of the book Facing Reality and to present a short history of the Johnson-Forest
Tendency for the German context where it, as well as James, Dunayevskaya and Lee, are largely unknown.
It should therefore be understood as "Johnson-Forest For Beginners". I thank 6-7 friends and comrades who vetted the rough
draft for factual errors and omissions. Comment and critique are invited.]
While C.L.R. James (“Johnson”) (1901-1989) has become an academic fashion in the U.S. in the past 15 years (1), and is widely known in Britain and in the Caribbean, his name evokes little recognition in most of continental Europe except perhaps as the author of the classic history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins (1938).
Raya Dunayevskaya (“Forest”) (1910-1987), intimately associated with James from ca. 1940 until 1955, is still less known, aside from translations of her books Marxism and Freedom, Philosophy and Revolution, and Rosa Luxemburg.
Least known of all is Grace Lee Boggs, (1915- ), a Chinese-American woman who was the third founder and theoretician of what came to be known as the “Johnson-Forest tendency” of the Workers’ Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party in the U.S., a tendency whose influence has rippled far beyond its original small forces within two American Trotskyist groups before, during and after World War II.
Iraq Power Handover 'A Fraud'
Robert Fisk
[Transcript of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast with reporter Tony Jones, ABC]
TONY JONES: [...] The June 30th deadline now looks like it's going to be
postponed.
What will be the consequences if it is?
ROBERT FISK: Nothing. The handover is basically a fraud.
The governing council, which is appointed by the Americans, and which is the
Iraqi Government at the moment would merely be handing over to another group
of American-picked Iraqis.
They're not democratically elected, the new institution, whatever it is. We don't even know what it's going to be.
"The Metamorphosis of Telos:
A Splintered Journal Pokes Into Its Own Contradictions"
Danny Postel, In These Times (April 24-30, 1991)
Why would a journal that has described itself as "the philosophical conscience of the American left" and "a journal of radical thought" invite a senior contributing editor of The World & I — a publication of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times corporation—into its editorial circle? The journal is Telos, and its new comrade is Paul Gottfried, a self-described "reactionary" who has also written for such publications as Policy Review, the official magazine of the Heritage Foundation. Why would someone with Gottfried's politics be interested in a journal like Telos?
CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?
Common Dreams
NEW YORK - April 15 — As the casualties mount in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, Qatar-based Al Jazeera has been one of the only news networks broadcasting from the inside, relaying images of destruction and civilian victims-- including women and children. But when CNN anchor Daryn Kagan interviewed the network's editor-in-chief, Ahmed Al-Sheik, on Monday (4/12/04)-- a rare opportunity to get independent information about events in Fallujah-- she used the occasion to badger Al-Sheik about whether the civilian deaths were really "the story" in Fallujah.
Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics
Alan Wolfe, Chronicle of Higher Education
To understand what is distinctive about today's Republican Party, you first need to know about an obscure and very conservative German political philosopher. His name, however, is not Leo Strauss, who has been widely cited as the intellectual guru of the Bush administration. It belongs, instead, to a lesser known, but in many ways more important, thinker named Carl Schmitt.
Evil Does Often Triumph
John Chuckman
It did appear that that mountainous bulk of murder and corruption, Ariel Sharon, was about to leave politics. Much as with Al Capone, authorities only caught up with him through a trail of crooked money.
But we have heard less of his retirement lately and rather more about his plan to leave Gaza. Apparently, after killing hundreds of its occupants, including scores of innocent bystanders as Israeli helicopters fired missiles into city streets, Sharon thinks he'll get some good press about leaving Gaza.
Of course, what Sharon truly is leaving is an impossible situation. Gaza is a small, fenced-in enclave of nearly a million Palestinians where only the most mentally unbalanced Israeli settlers insist on living a life of guard towers, razor wire, patrols, and spies. Sharon's army is tired of protecting a few machinegun-toting fanatics, not to mention the small fortune it can save by ending the protection.
hydrarchist writes:
"The State of Copyright Activism"
Siva Vaidhyanathan
One of the great hopes I had while I researched and wrote Copyrights and Copywrongs (New York: New York University Press, 2001), a cultural history of American copyright, during the late 1990s was that copyright debates might puncture the bubble of public consciousness and become important global policy questions. My wish has come true.
Since 1998 questions about whether the United States has constructed an equitable or effective copyright system frequently appear on the pages of daily newspapers. Activist movements for both stronger and looser copyright systems have grown in volume and furor. And the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in early 2003 that the foundations of American copyright, as expressed in the Constitution, are barely relevant in an age in which both media companies and clever consumers enjoy unprecedented power over the use of works.
Flying Squads and the Crisis of Workers' Self-Organization
Alex Levant
On September 7, 2000, over 100 people from the Somali community and union
supporters visited an immigration office in Toronto in defence of four families
facing deportation and waiting for decisions on their appeals to stay on
humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Although they were confident that their appeals would be successful, they feared that they would be deported before a decision was made (a common practice for Immigration Canada). At the families'request, an action was called to secure a commitment from the authorities that this would not happen.
"The Bridge"
Stan Goff
WARNING: This commentary may cause anxiety.
The United States government has initiated a chain reaction that it
can no longer control. The stalled vengeance assault on Fallujah is
merely a symptom. So is the uprising triggered by the US closure of
a Shia newspaper in Sadr City, Baghdad, followed by gunning down the
demonstrators who protested (Ah, yes, we don’t even hear about that
when they talk about the latest demon, Muqtada al-Sadr… Memory is so
short.).
"What's Next in Iraq?"
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali is a veteran political activist since the 1960s, and a filmmaker,
novelist and author. His most recent books include The Clash of
Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq. Tariq
spoke
to Socialist Worker's Eric Ruder about the aims of the U.S. occupation and
the growing Iraqi resistance.
Q: What are the motives for the U.S. occupation? The Bush administration,
of
course, claims that it has removed an evil dictator and is promoting
democracy and freedom.
Tariq Ali: I don't think that very many people outside the U.S. believe
this. Even in countries that have troops there, the population is against
the war and occupation.
|
|
