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Were Bakunin and Marx So Different? Mark Leier on Against the Grain

Why didn’t Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin get along? What accounts for the conflict between the two thinkers that led to the momentous breakup of the First International in 1872? Mark Leier discusses and compares the backgrounds and ideas of Bakunin and Marx; he argues that they were more similar than most believe. He also examines the temperaments of the two men for clues into why they disliked and distrusted each so much.

Listen HERE

Buy Divide and Conquer or Divide and Subdivide? How Not to Refight the First International

Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society- Out Now!

"“Practical Utopia immediately struck me because it is written by a leftist who is interested in the people winning and defeating oppression. The book is an excellent jumping off point for debates on the framework to look at actually existing capitalism, strategy for change, and what we need to do about moving forward. It speaks to many of the questions faced by grassroots activists who want to get beyond demanding change but who, instead, want to create a dynamic movement that can bring a just world into existence. As someone who comes out of a different part of the Left than does Michael Albert, I was nevertheless excited by the challenges he threw in front of the readers of this book. Many a discussion will be sparked by the arguments of this work.”
—Bill Fletcher Jr., author of “They’re Bankrupting Us!” And 20 Other Myths about Unions

Buy Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society

If You're Going To San Francisco Be Sure to Disregard All That Happened There

"...Similarly, and perhaps of even greater historical significance, were the social movements and organizations that flourished at precisely the same time, in the same place. Musical breakthroughs in the Bay Area were to a large extent made possible by the enthusiastic appreciation of audiences among whom were many people engaged directly or indirectly in opposition to the Vietnam War, support of Black Liberation and advancing the struggle of the United Farmworkers. Not only were thousands of young people mobilized along these battlelines, locally, but organizations such as the Black Panther Party, were gaining international notoriety at the very moment the hype and hoopla surrounding Monterey Pop reached its peak...."—Mat Callahan, The California Historical Society

Read more
Buy The Explosion of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance and Social Revolution in San Francisco, 1965–1975

Patty Hearst & the Twinkie Murders in the LA Review of Books

Simulation Liberation Army

...Patty Hearst & the Twinkie Murders: A Tale of Two Trials, by Paul Krassner, a satirist whose first-person account is all the more insightful for being untethered from the objective of being “definitive.”...

...Krassner founded and edited The Realist magazine, a haven for “Free Thought, Criticism and Satire,” which features interviews with and contributions by famous novelists, comedians, and thinkers of the day. Imagine if John Oliver, The Intercept, and Eric Andre rolled themselves into one muckraking avenger: that’s Krassner... —M.W. Lipschitz, Los Angeles Review of Books

Upcoming Events

Thursday, Jul 13

Elizabeth Hand (Fire.) & John Crowley (Totalitopia) @ Readercon in Quincy, MA

Friday, Jul 14

PM Press @ Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, IL

Monday, Jul 17

Jacinta Bunnell (Big Gay Alphabet Coloring Book) DIY Workshops @ Hudson, NY

Tuesday, Jul 18

Juliana “Jewels” Smith ((H)afrocentric Comics) @ San Diego Public Library

Wednesday, Jul 19

Ward Churchill (Wielding Words like Weapons) @ Atlanta, GA

Thursday, Jul 20

PM Press @ 3rd Annual World-Ecology Research Network Conference in Binghamton, NY

Thursday, Jul 20

Peter Kuper (The System, WW3 Illustrated) @ San Diego Comic Con in San Diego, CA

Juliana “Jewels” Smith ((H)afrocentric Comics) @ San Diego Comic Con in San Diego, CA

Latest Blog Entries

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The Fortress World of Capitalism vs. the Beautiful Possibilities of Cooperation Cynthia Kaufman
Our beloved world is entering an increasingly unstable period, full of dangers and also full of possibilities. In many countries, old political parties are crumbling faster and anyone thought imaginable. Old geopolitical alliances have come ung...

Between Capital and Volk Gabriel Kuhn
Germany's AfD poses as a defender of the "common man," but seeks to impose an authoritarian form of neoliberalism.

Spitboy Rule Author, Michelle Cruz Gonzales Featured in Green Day Produced Documentary Michelle Cruz Gonzales
I was interviewed for Turn it Around: Story of East Bay Punk in 2014. I never worried that the movie wouldn’t see the light of day because if there’s someone you can have faith in, it’s the director, Corbett Redford, but I did wo...

Another Sun Is Possible: Solstice Reflections John P. Clark
The Solstice is about the power of nature, and focuses specifically on the power of the Sun, the major source of life on Earth, and on the relationship between this Great Source and all the changes and cycles of life on the planet.

"Rad Women Worldwide" - by Kate Schatz, illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl JJ Amaworo Wilson
I'm reading Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History with my 8-year-old son, who won it in a raffle. It's awesome.

Is Zionism Antisemitic? Leon Rosselson
In the current furore over supposed antisemitism in the Labour Party and the suspension of Ken Livingstone for asserting that Hitler supported Zionism, the crux of the problem seems to have been somewhat obscured.

Oppressor and Oppressed Nations: Sketching a Taxonomy of Imperialism Gabriel Kuhn
If we want to combat imperialism – which is necessary to combat capitalism – we need to have an understanding of what it looks like, how it functions, and where we need to hit it.

CLIMATE STRATEGY WEBINARS Steven
CLIMATE STRATEGY WEBINARS:How Can We Realize the Paris Climate Protection Targets in the Trump Era? Climate Insurgency. Public Trust. Just Transition.

Lessons from the School of Radical Change: Notes of a Slow Learner John P. Clark
In this expanded version of a presentation at a PM Press authors session at the Left Forum, I try to summarize some of the lessons I’ve learned about radical change over the past fifty years.

Getting on with the Game Gabriel Kuhn
A review of Jonathan Matthew Smucker's "Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals".

Activists in the Philippines and the Mindanao Crisis Gabriel Kuhn
The Philippine Local Autonomous Network (LAN) wants to provide support for people displaced due to the armed conflict in the country’s south.

Fuck History: Are Greek Anarchists Leading the Way? Gabriel Kuhn
A review of Nicholas Apoifis's "Anarchy in Athens: An Ethnography of Militancy, Emotions and Violence".

The way to defend free speech is to exercise it Noel Ignatiev
The Constitution, the Bible, and a 44 caliber revolver

Hooray, hooray, the first of May j. stephanie pasvankias
Originally published in Historical Journalism Journal by Phil Hedges Phil Hedges is a trade union organiser and an alumnus of the International Labour and Trade Union Studies Masters (MA ILTUS) at Ruskin College, Oxford. This essay is dedicated ...

Venezuelan Enantiadromia: A Sequel Clifton Ross
Venezuela a yin-yang in motion and it's not so obvious what's white and what's black as forces transform and realign.

Remembering Gustav Landauer Gabriel Kuhn
The Gustav Landauer monument in Munich will be reerected in June 2017, while a new initiative demands another in Berlin.

No Sanctuary for Palestinian Scholarship Diana Block
At a March 2017 conference of the National Association of Ethnic Studies held at San Francisco State University (SFSU), President Leslie Wong boasted about the University’s role as a sanctuary campus. He referenced SFSU’s prou...

"Talking about the way the masses are smeared... who owns history...and New Democracy" with John King j. stephanie pasvankias
This insightful interview by Marianne Peyronnet of New Noise magazine puts my new novel The Liberal Politics Of Adolf Hitler into the context of the British vote to leave the European Union, and how it relates to the ongoing distortions surroundin...

Communism for Kids Prompts Right-Wing Media Frenzy Gabriel Kuhn
The recently released book “Communism for Kids” has become the target of an alt-right online campaign.

Here there is no why: on re-reading Primo Levi JJ Amaworo Wilson
Desperate times call for great books. Primo Levi, a Jewish prisoner arriving at Auschwitz, is thirsty. He reaches to break off an icicle with which to sate his thirst and a guard snatches it away. Levi asks, “Warum?” (Why?) The guard...

Wienke Zitzlaff Obituary Andre Moncourt
Last May i published here what would prove to be the last interview given by RAF co-founder Ulrike Meinhof's sister Wienke Zitzlaff. Wienke died at the age of 85 on Saturday, March 4, 2017. I publish below an obituary written by former...

Prospects for Social Democracy in the US: Insights From a Syndicalist in Sweden j. stephanie pasvankias
Originally posted on Truhtout By Enrique Guerrero-López and Adam Weaver April 10th, 2017 In the era of Trump, there's a clear and growing interest in socialism, especially among young people. The first measurable shift began to peek over ...

Review of "We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States" JJ Amaworo Wilson
“Communities are saying to the government and corporations, “We’re no longer willing to be fracked, poisoned and polluted.” They are mobilizing against a system of law that empowers corporations over communities …...

U.S. Army Tries to Suspend Disbelief During Ninth Circuit Oral Arguments in Case Challenging Its Domestic Spying Kris Hermes
The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments last Friday in Panagacos v. Towery, the most important case of the US military spying on political activists in decades. The lawsuit brought by seven activists in 2010 challenges a sweeping surveillance and ...

ACTIVISTS, ORGANIZERS, AND AMIN HUSAIN ON HOW WE HANDLE TRUMP Susie Day
The only good thing Donald Trump has done is to galvanize millions of people into political outrage. For months we've gone to dozens of marches and rallies. Of course, this isn't enough, but what more to do? Then I happened on a Facebook post...

Antiwar Activists Challenge Army's Domestic Spying Apparatus in Ninth Circuit Kris Hermes
With the militarization of police on the rise, the necessarily stark line between the military and domestic law enforcement is becoming increasingly blurred. And it’s not entirely surprising—given ongoing revelations around mass su...

"The End of Imagination" by Arundhati Roy JJ Amaworo Wilson
"Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease." (Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination)Arundhati Roy is a superhero. She wears a sari instead of a cape. She has written one novel - The God of Small Things - and it won the Booker Prize. She...

HIPPIED0M AND THE NEW SOCIETY Peter Marshall
Neo-Hippies’ are back, it seems, in fashion. But I suspect many are like ‘neo-capitalists’ with little conscience.

Federal Judge Approves Landmark Settlement, But Is It Enough To Curb NYPD Spying Kris Hermes
As the nation gears up for further legal battles surrounding President Trump’s second Muslim travel ban, on Monday a federal judge in New York City approved a long-awaited settlement stemming from widespread New York Police Department spying...

Let's get our Strike on 3/8: International Women's Day j. stephanie pasvankias
In honor of Women's History Month, International Women's Day, and the Day Without a Woman/General Strike on March 8th, 2017, we've put together a selection of our favorite titles that can offer a historical topography of what has led to this mo...

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