Against the Current

The Ragged Edge of Freedom: Race, Capitalism and Class Struggle in Slavery’s Borderland By Matthew E. Stanley New York: Monthly Review Press, 2026, 469 pages, $35. TO APPRECIATE THIS wonderful and hefty volume fully, or perhaps with a combination of appreciation and dread, it might help to have lived within or near the geographic zone… Continue reading Race and Class in the United States: Coal Miner Communities

Europe is in the middle of a heatwave, which is reflected in this satellite image showing daytime land surface temperatures. The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission on Tuesday 26 May. European Space Agency CC BY-SA 3.0 IN LESS THAN two months, Europe has been hit by three heatwaves that are exceptional in… Continue reading Heatwaves: anger and sadness. And hope, despite everything

THE SUPREME COURT ruled on June 30 that President Trump could not end birthright citizenship by Executive Order. In practical terms, the Court upheld the plain language of the 14th Amendment that children born in the United States are and remain U.S. citizens at birth, While the vote was 6 to 3, Vice President JD… Continue reading Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship — for now

By the time Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre was released in October 2025, Giuffre’s story and the larger story of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes were well known. The book was published a few months after her untimely death by suicide in April 2025. The book was… Continue reading Survival and Tragedy

Palestinians from Tantura are expelled to Jordan, June 1948. Benno Rothenberg/ Meitar Collection/National Library of Israel/The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection/CC BY 4.0 MUCH ATTENTION AND controversy has surrounded the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and its exhibit “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.” Indeed, there was a veritable tsunami of criticism before… Continue reading The Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Nakba exhibit can serve as a site for solidarity

Antifascism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the 1960s by Julia Alekseyeva University of California Press, 2025. 270 pages. $29.95 paperback. THIS EXUBERANT BOOK reveals, or in a favorite word of film critic and historian Julia Alekseyeva, “unveils,” the deep connections among three seemingly disparate times and places of radical documentary filmmaking. The scenes range… Continue reading The Cultural Vanguard Is Antifascist

Furious Minds: The Making of the Maga New Right By Laura K. Field Princeton University Press, 2025, 432 pages, $35 hardcover. “Usually, intellectual movements precede the use of political ones, but in the case of Trump’s camp followers they are reverse engineering an intellectual doctrine to match Trump’s basic instincts.” (Jacob Heilbrunn, New York Review… Continue reading The Making of a Menace

In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: Activism and the Struggle of Academic Freedom Edited by Michael Atzmon, John Cheney-Lippold, Gary D. Krenz, Melanie S. Tanielian Michigan Publishing: Disobedience Press, 2026, 198 pages, $24.95 paperback. AMID MOUNTING AUTHORITARIANISM on U.S. college campuses in the last few years, lessons from America’s history of anti-left, anti-socialist state… Continue reading Remembering a Resister

The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America By Mark Whitaker 448 pages, Simon & Shuster, May 2025, $31 hardcover. i?The Last Year of Malcolm X and edited other speeches and writings of Malcolm X for the party’s publishing house Pathfinder Press. I knew George and we had many discussions… Continue reading Malcolm as Revolutionary and Icon

Teamster Rank and File Power, Bureaucracy and Rebellion at Work By Samuel R. Friedman First edition: Columbia University Press, 1982. New edition: Routledge, 2026, 314 pages, $61.99 paperback. DID YOU KNOW that in the 1950s and 1960s, members of Local 208 of the Teamsters union in Los Angeles won substantial power on the job, and… Continue reading The Rise and Fate of a Movement

The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism By Sue Coe and Stephen F. Eisenman OR Books, 2025, 180 pages, $23 paperback. WITH MY OWN youth rapidly fading, I am not the target audience for Sue Coe and Stephen F. Eisenman’s The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide to American Fascism. Still, the title conjured up images… Continue reading Fighting Fascism: An Unequal Guide

Across the United States tent encampments set up by students in solidarity with the victims of Israeli bombing in Gaza were forcibly destroyed. “Campus free speech” is a cynical right-wing mantra while imposing political repression and intimidation. JIM WEST THE MOST RECENT assault on U.S. higher education did not begin with Trump’s second inauguration in… Continue reading Past to Present and Possible Futures(1)

ABRA QUINN WAS a lifelong socialist; she was involved in organizing social movements from anti-apartheid and Central America solidarity to the antiwar movement. She died in her home in San Leandro, California, in October 2025, after a recurrence of endometrial cancer. She is deeply missed. One of Abra’s legacies as a socialist is her unique… Continue reading Abra Quinn (1966-2025)

SINCE DONALD TRUMP returned to office, a series of shocking far-right disasters have snowballed. These include open violations of international law under the banner of “anti-drug” operations, a “decapitation strike” to intervene in Venezuela and arrest President Maduro, along with threats to seize Greenland, and launching his “excursion” in Iran. His pursuit of racist policies… Continue reading U.S. vs. China Hegemony in Taiwan

Mireille Fanon-Mendès France of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and former UN expert (standing), speaking at the March 29 antifascist plenary. To her left is Fernanda Melcciona (deputy, MES/PSOL) and to her right is a representative from Colombia’s Pacto Historico. WHAT DOES THE succession of serious events that have been constantly shattering the balance of international… Continue reading Anti-racism, Feminism, Fascism and Civil Rights

Strait of Hormuz: Nice oil shipping lane there. A real pity if something would happen to it… PERHAPS DONALD TRUMP was misunderstood: He always promised that the war with Iran would end in “Unconditional Surrender,” but didn’t mention that it would be by him. But seriously, Trump and some of his advisers are furious with… Continue reading Trump-Netanyahu Debacle

America at 250: Our rights and our lives are on the line! THE UNITED STATES of America marks its 250th anniversary in July 2026 with its multiple divided legacies. As we know, the country was founded in the perpetuation of racial slavery, in genocide of the Indigenous nations, in ambitions of vast colonial dominion —… Continue reading Toward Liberation or Ruin?

The Building Relations with Cuban Labor delegation brought medical supplies collected by Not Just Tourists. I VISITED CUBA over the 2026 May Day week with a delegation from Building Relations with Cuban Labor. The effects of the 65+ year U.S. embargo and recent blockade of oil were everywhere to be seen. The airport was practically… Continue reading Visiting Cuba 2026 — A Critical Point