Don’t turn homophobia into Islamophobia
rs21 members feel both deep sorrow and anger at the murder of 50 people at an LGBT club in Orlando. We send our love and solidarity to everyone affected. Here we reproduce the response of Nicole Colson, writing in American Socialist Worker. Vigils are planned around Britain this evening: we hope to have a report […]
The Rise of Donald Trump, ‘Anti-Politics’ and the Left
Bill Crane argues that while Trump is a clear threat, this must be understood within the history of American politics. Donald Trump’s race for President of the United States has shocked the mainstream political establishment. Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul most famous as a TV star with his successful long-running reality series The Apprentice, […]
US elections: “This is going to go down as a pivotal election American history”
With only days to go before the penultimate primary elections in the US, Amy Gilligan spoke to California based journalist, writer and activist Adam Hudson How do you think that Sanders will do this week in the California primary? Sanders has a decent shot of winning California, but it’s still up in the air. His […]
Long read: The Sanders Campaign – Could the Democratic Party split?
Shawn Whitney, Canadian writer, filmmaker, and socialist, continues our discussion of the US elections. He argues that Marxists should be playing an active role in Sanders’ campaign because of its potential to raise the general level of class-conciousness. Read previous contributions to the debate here. Presidential primary season is drawing to a close in the United […]
US elections: “Bernie has suddenly given all of us a national stage”
Continuing our series of interviews with socialists in the US discussing the upcoming elections, we spoke to Nivedita Majumdar, Sanders supporter and secretary of the Professional Staff Congress, the faculty and Staff union of the City University of New York. This interview represents her personal views. Where now for the Sander’s campaign – will it […]
US elections: Charlie Post on Sanders, Clinton, and the tasks of American socialists
Charlie Post, a long-time US socialist and active in his faculty union at the City University of New York, talks to rs21 about Sanders, the dangers of ‘lesser-evilism’, and the post-election challenges for American socialists. Also check out responses from Elizabeth Schulte and Alan Maass.
US elections: “Where the choice is between the greater evil and the lesser evil, you still get evil”
The primary races for presidential nominations in the US elections are now reaching their closing stages. That Bernie Sanders’ campaign has survived to such a late stage, and gained significant support has been a surprise to many. To understand what impact the primary race has had on American politics so far, and what we might […]
Academisation and the Chicago teachers’ strikes
It is really important and positive that the National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference was so determined to strike against the Tories’ plans to force all schools to become academies and break up national pay and conditions for teachers. It is even better that the NUT aims to coordinate with other unions, including the junior […]
Review: Making a Murderer – the stain of blood marks the white exterior.
Seb Cooke reviews the popular Netflix series, which raises questions that are uncomfortable for those in power and a call to arms for those who are not.
From Slaveholders to Sanders: A Brief History of the US Democratic Party, for British Readers
American socialist Bill Crane provides a brief history of the Democratic Party from its inception to the present, and asks how revolutionaries might relate to the movement behind presidential nominee Bernie Sanders. The US Democratic Party is the oldest surviving modern political party.[1] In its longer than two centuries’ history, it has survived multiple political crises, […]
Tarantino, Clinton and the “N” word
Lets talk, says Caliban’s Revenge I don’t like the way Tarantino puts the “N” word in the mouths of his white characters. I don’t like it because it seems to me to spring from both a patronising attribution of racism to working class “street” whites as a signifier of ‘realness’ (the hipster cousin of realism), and […]
American protests challenge anti-migrant racism
Many politicians have been using the attacks in Paris to whip up prejudice against migrants – in Europe and also the US. But there have also been protests in America calling for solidarity with refugees, report Lauren Nickell, Sofia Arias and Akunna Eneh. This article originally appeared in the American newspaper Socialist Worker. Defying a tide of […]
TTIP: capitalism on steroids
Mathilde Dahl is an activist in Students Against TTIP. Here she explains what TTIP is, why we should be worried about it, and how we can stop it. A new set of corporate power grabs are in preparation. These deals are negotiated in secrecy, wrapped up as trade agreements and sold to us with the promise of economic […]
The GOP train wreck
Lance Selfa, a member of the International Socialist Organization in the US and author of The Democrats: A Critical History, discusses how it came to be that the Republicans, US capital’s preferred political vehicle, is synonymous with government dysfunction and clownish celebrities. Observers of the US political system today could be forgiven for asking themselves just […]
Radicalising the rank and file
The following comments are extracted from a very lengthy and detailed discussion which rs21 members Anindya Bhattacharyya and a Unite rep recently conducted with the US Marxist labour historian Kim Moody. A former member of Students for a Democratic Society and the US International Socialists, Moody served on the editorial board of the journal he […]
Climate change: it’s going to take a revolution
Watch rs21’s video on why the obstacles to solving the problem of climate breakdown are intrinsic to our capitalist system.
Migration in the age of Imperialism’s four horsemen: part 3
For over three decades neoliberalism has run rampant at the expense of the working class and poorest of the world. But such a dismal interpretation of the world just will not do. The point is to change it. This requires us honestly to recognise the scale of the crisis while identifying those symptoms of resistance […]
Why Russia backs Assad: a view from Russia’s anti-imperialist left
The editors of the Russian socialist website openleft.ru analyse why Russia is now openly moving troops into Syria to support the Assad regime. A whole range of evidence [also here] indicates that Russia is activating its military aid for the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad up to the point of direct involvement of Russian troops in the […]
The Syrian Revolution and the crisis of the anti-war movement
Suddenly, everyone is talking about Syria. Saturday’s demonstration will be in solidarity with all refugees, but a Syrian refugee is one of the key organisers. Campaigners from the Syria Solidarity Movement UK and Stop the War Coalition are among those involved in the planning, along with many other organisations. Everyone should welcome this commitment to […]
Celebrations on the streets of Tehran
Hanif Leylabi analyses what the nuclear deal means for politics inside Iran. After two years of nuclear negotiations, the US, European powers, Russia, China and Iran have finally reached an agreement. At the heart of the agreement lies a trade-off between limits on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the abolition of sanctions. Key points […]
The shape of Baltimore’s segregation
In an article from the Chicago-based red wedge website, Alexander Billet sees racism and capitalism combine in Baltimore’s history When it was announced some months ago that the city of Baltimore would start cutting off the water of poor residents, the comparison became inevitable: Baltimore is the next Detroit. It was, and is, still a prescient […]
Five reasons why Hillary Clinton won’t be good for women
With the launch of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid last Sunday, Estelle Cooch argues that Hillary’s “feminist family values” will not lead to a breakthrough for the vast majority of women. Standing on a pavement in a generic looking suburb of America, Hillary Clinton launched her candidacy for the 2016 US presidency. “Americans have fought their way […]
Ferguson Spring
Shanice McBean discusses how the protests in Ferguson have been driven by the racism and injustice that permeates everyday life for black people in the USA. This article originally appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of the rs21 magazine. “Because of the way this society is organized, because of the violence that exists on the […]
The new grand alliance in the Middle East
Nancy Lindisfarne and Jonathan Neale explain the changing international alliances in Middle Eastern politics, and how this is connected to rising Islamophobia in Europe. This was originally published as part of a series on Feminism and Islamophobia on their website. In most of Europe and North America now there is only one acceptable form of racism: […]
Review: Safe Space
Colin Wilson is full of praise for a recent book on LGBT history, but highlights a broader political problem. Safe Space: Gay Neighbourhood History and the Politics of Violence Christina B. Hanhardt Duke University Press, £17.99 Safe Space charts the history since the 1960s of community organising in three neighbourhoods identified with LGBT people: the […]
The toxic hate behind the Chapel Hill murders
Nicole Colson looks at the background of bigotry behind the killing of three Muslims. This article was originally posted on the US website socialistworker.org. On the evening of 10 February, Craig Stephen Hicks murdered three of his neighbours in Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Yusor’s sister, Razan Mohammad […]
The roots of American racism 4: state racism and the new black resistance
In the last of four articles, Bill Crane looks at “colourblind” racism and mass incarceration since the Civil Rights movement – and how they have contributed to the police racism and violence that has sparked the current protest movement. So far this series has described how racism has existed as part of the United States from its […]
Ferguson solidarity protests across the US: Photos and videos
After the decision not to indite Darren Wilson, people across the US people have taken to the streets to demand justice for Michael Brown. Join the protest tonight in London, 7pm, outside the US Embassy, organised by London Black Revolutionaries, NUS Black Students campaign, BARAC and Defend the Right to Protest. Washington DC: The protest […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Mobilise or organise
This year’s Historical Materialism conference included four[1] very useful sessions reflecting on the North American Labour movement. In the first of three articles, Unite activist Ian Allinson reports on discussions about alternative organising strategies. Workers in the North America face similar challenges to us in the UK, but generally worse: low and declining union density; […]
A deal to save the planet – or to wreck it?
Jonathan Neale is the international coordinator of the Campaign against Climate Change and the editor of the One Million Climate Jobs report. He has written this article on the Campaign website analysing what the deal means for all of us. Obama of the United States and Xi of China have signed a bilateral climate agreement. Much of the […]