Poetry for Action
Spark Through the Dark by Ricardito Ramos The broken rose can shatter foes Torn pedals are rough to oppose scarred and almost froze Poverty makes it hard to grow […]
Fighting Fascism, Fighting Capitalism
by Jeff Monson Growing up in rural Minnesota and later in the suburbs of Seattle, my only experience with fascists and skinheads was watching the movie American History X or reading the history of the Nazis and the atrocities committed during the Second World War. For the most part I was unaware fascism really even [...]
Ten Years of UN Military Occupation of Haiti: Background and Current Effects
by Kiki Makandal, One Struggle (NY) and the Batay Ouvriye Solidarity Network To understand the impact of nine years of UN military occupation on the lives of workers in Haiti, one really has to go back to the original push for neoliberal reform in Haiti since the early 1970s, because this most recent intervention and [...]
The Limits of Non Profits
Aspirations for society-changing careers frequently take form at nonprofits*. This is partly because they provide jobs; nearly 7% of them in the United States, and partly because they appear to involve less cynical compliance with the status quo than so-called “corporate” jobs. Despite your analysis of capitalism and ways to move beyond it (or reforming [...]
Congo: They Play Workers Like Football
An Interview with Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha is an Associate Professor at California State University, Northridge who joined the Religious Studies Department in 2003. Dr. Nkulu-N’Sengha teaches courses in African religions, Americans’ religious diversity, and comparative religion. The interview was conducted by Marlon Stern (artist and activist in the Los Angeles area, who also transcribed [...]
A Garment Worker in Bangladesh Speaks Out
by Stephanie McMillan Mina* was 15 years old last year when she started working at Pretty Group, a garment factory in Gazipur, a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh. She spoke of her situation: “We suffer a lot because they don’t give us enough salary. I receive 5000 taka (less than $65) per month. They don’t pay [...]
Beyond Identity, Toward Emancipation
by Vincent Kelley January 2014 Radical sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein recently observed that “[t]he biggest internal debate absorbing the world left for at least the last seventy-five years has been whether identity is a left concept and therefore a left concern”.[i] While this debate has been ongoing, proponents of identity politics and their detractors often fall [...]