Trump did us all an enormous favor. His election was such a shock that millions of people went into the street. And to see women in the lead meant a great deal to me as a feminist.
Subjects Archives: Philosophy
Rhetoric, fascism and the planetary
The neoliberal right has succeeded in pushing concentrations of wealth and income to an ever smaller group of tycoons at the top, while the pluralizing Left…has had precarious (and highly variable) success in its efforts to advance the standing of African Americans, Hispanics, women, diverse sexualities, and several religious faiths.… One minority placed in a […]
Marxism, religion and femonationalism
Our very modes of thinking about the social are fragmented, or intersectional…[which is] why intersectionality has become such an important paradigm for feminism. It conceives of different experiences of oppression and exploitation as coming from different and separate systems and tries to recombine the fragments of oppression without denying their singularity. Social Reproduction Feminism seeks […]
Ten problems with anti-Russian obsession
The “scandal” of Russia influencing or at the very least meddling with the 2016 presidential elections, pushing Donald Trump to be our now president, has become something of fact without argument. Through propogated news and social media putting out false truths and allegations taken as facts, makes it hard to know the truth. But there […]
The pitfalls of radical feminism
For many socialist feminists, critiquing liberal feminism is easy. Many of us came to socialism from liberalism and have a clear understanding of its limits and flaws. However, the history and substance of radical feminism is less well known. While the “radical” in radical feminism seems to suggest a politics that socialists would embrace… [it […]
Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Trump, and the state of the union
Over the past few months, as the disturbing prospect of a Trump administration became a disturbing reality, I decided to reach out to Noam Chomsky, the philosopher whose writing, speaking and activism has for more than 50 years provided unparalleled insight and challenges to the American and global political systems. Our conversation, as it appears […]
Wonder Woman is a hero only the military-industrial complex could create
For a while I have been pondering whether to write a review of the newly released “Wonder Woman,” to peel back the layer of comic book fun to reveal below the film’s disturbing and not-so-covert political and militaristic messages. There is usually a noisy crowd who deride any such review with shouts of “Lighten up! […]
John Bellamy Foster interviewed on Law and Disorder radio
Is Trump a neofascist? Thoughtful analysts on the left like Cornell West, Noam Chomsky, and Judith Butler think he is. But mainstream liberal commentators refuse to associate the Trump phenomena with fascism. They call him a right wing populist. What is neofascism? Right wing Populism? Does it really matter what Trump is called? The great […]
What is to constitute the new “yes” is the problem
For Klein, developing a meaningful anti-shock politics involves some combination of what Sanders represented and what Clinton symbolized: Sanders with respect to class and economics, Clinton as far as race and gender, and everything else. Imperialism and war scarcely enter the argument.
Populism and ‘post truth’
Populism has emerged as the latest bad word in the liberal commentary on current politics in the West. The understanding is simple. Populist politicians are supposed to appeal to the ‘people’ and stoke their jealousy against those who are economically, socially and politically successful. Another word used in liberal discourse to identify extreme right wing […]
Slandering Populism
Populism properly understood is about popular and democratic opposition to the rule of the money power—to the reign of concentrated wealth. It emerged from radical farmers’ fight for social and economic justice and democracy against the plutocracy of the nation’s Robber Baron capitalists during the late 19th century. It was a movement of the left.
Reading Marx’s Capital Today: Lessons from Latin America
One hundred and fifty years ago, Karl Marx published his book Capital, an intellectual effort of great breadth, with the aim of revealing the logic of capitalist production and providing workers with theoretical instruments for their liberation. Having discovered the logic of the system, he was able to foresee with great anticipation much of what […]
Mythologies, Guns, Racism and the Death Penalty
This past week, I have read two judicial decisions that – once again – remind me how powerful mythologies are deployed to justify conduct that harms and mutilates human beings. However, in both cases, the majority of judges penetrate the mythology and see the case in human terms. The cases can therefore teach all of […]
The Rift in the Metabolism of Nature and Society
The truth is that the environmental problems and the mounting catastrophes facing humanity have everything to do with economic and environmental injustice and a society that put the accumulation of capital before people and the planet. This is so much the case that we will increasingly see the development of an environmental proletariat where the […]
E.P. Thompson: A Giant Remembered
It is surely difficult now to grasp, for young people in the UK let alone the US and elsewhere, that thirty years or so ago, radical historian-activist Edward Thompson was by opinion polls intermittently the second or third most popular Englishman or Englishwoman, shortly after the Queen Mother. After all, the British establishment, to say […]
