History properly and deeply understood is profoundly dangerous to authority. Consistent with Santayana’s oft-quoted remark that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” it warns us about past mistakes. National leaders’ remarkably recurrent faith in splendid little wars that will be concluded quickly with little human cost is one among many examples.

It raises alarms and teaches lessons about the folly of imperial and environmental overreach and the related terrible consequences of the excessive concentration of wealth and power. It counsels us not to repeat past crimes (not merely mistakes) like slavery, colonialism, genocide, and fascism. It catalogues, frames, and explains horrors that should never be allowed to recur. It tells remarkable and inspiring stories of poplar resistance, rebellion, and revolution – of people making history from the bottom up, with radical and egalitarian ideals and movements ruling classes and “power elites” natural want consigned to “the memory hole” (Orwell’s phrase). It is full of lessons about how ruling classes and power elites rule and how ordinary people and activists have confounded masters. More

A few days ago, the carbon dioxide readings at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawai’I cracked 410 parts per million, an all-time record and a frightening one. On Earth Day, climate marches took place in cities across the world. Trump’s policies didn’t drive the spiking CO2 levels, but they did propel tens of thousands onto the streets for a few hours of fun. Where were those people during eight years of Barack Obama, an oil and gas man of some distinction. Where were they during eight years of Bill Clinton, one of the greatest environmental con men of our time?

Has Trump finally shattered our illusions, so that we can see clearly the forces—economic, political and technological—that are plunging the planet toward a man-made heat death? He is, in fact, a kind of clarifying agent for the real state of things? More

The 2016 Democratic primary gives us a way of assessing the potential for organizing among white workers. This may sound surprising since the corporate media created a narrative about how white workers supported Trump in the general election. But clear-eyed observers such as Konstantin Kilibarda and Daria Roithmayr, Mike Davis, Bill Fletcher, Jeffrey St.Clair and Jake Johnston have countered that story.

It was the Democrats that abandoned the working class with Trump merely holding on to the Romney electorate as Clinton underperformed Obama in almost every demographic including white workers. The corporate story about white workers in the general election obscures a far more important story for activists and organizers. In order to reverse the drift toward war and corporate rule, we will have to launch bold and aggressive campaigns that replace the discredited corporate forms of identity politics and meritocratic thinking typical of the Democrats. More