“Obamacare: Grumbling is not enough” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on November 26, 2013. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.
It is amazing how fast momentum can shift in politics. And it usually happens for reasons that could not have been predicted.
Case in point: only a month ago, the reckless shutdown of the federal government left its engineers — the tea party and the Republican Party — weakened, and the president and Democrats energized and with the wind at their back.
“Shutdown: New phase in a very American coup” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on October 11, 2013. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.
They didn’t wear jackboots, but the shutdown of government by an extremist faction of the Republican Party can only be described as a new phase in a very American coup. The barbarians of the far right are at the gates. Our democracy, I would say with no hint of dramatization, is under siege.
The immediate trigger of this assault was this faction’s out-of-control obsession to defund the Affordable Care Act.
“Detroit: Through the lens of class and race” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on September 23, 2013. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.
“Labor in the white skin cannot emancipate itself when in the black skin it is branded.” – Capital, Vol. 1, Karl Marx
Much has been written about the trauma that Detroit is going through. And much of the commentary places the blame for this crisis in one of two places.
“Ingredients for a movement that can transform our country” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on June 28, 2013. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.
I have written before that the people’s movement that is now emerging doesn’t yet possess the transformative power of the movement of the 1930s. That movement set in motion an era of broad, deep-going, democratic, anti-corporate restructuring of our political and economic institutions – and also changed the thinking of tens of milliions.
“Obama and the right’s “brave new world” first appeared on PeoplesWorld.org on May 23, 2013. Read it on PeoplesWorld.org.
Political pundits seem to agree that the past couple of weeks haven’t been kind to the Obama administration. First, the controversy around the administration’s handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi resurfaced. Then the story broke that the IRS has allegedly been targeting tea party organizations applying for special tax exempt status. And finally an uproar greeted the Justice Department’s sweeping subpoena of Associated Press journalists’ phone records.
I'm a long-time socialist and activist, but new to the blogging world, to which I aim to bring a different perspective on politics, sports, culture, and Marxism. I also teach online classes, but leave plenty of time for swimming, hiking, ESPN, music, reading, drinking good beer, and, not least, my family and friends. I wish I could play basketball, but my knees ruled out that possibility long ago. I was the national chairperson of the Communist Party, USA from 2000 until 2014. While I grew up in Maine and currently live in New York City, my politically formative years were spent in Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. I graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia (where I played basketball) and received my MA in economics from the University of Connecticut.
