While Gramsci died as a victim of fascism in 1937, in his life there was no trace of pessimism, if not the famous “pessimism of the intellect.” For Gramsci, it was worth imagining the worst possible situation, from time to time, “in order to be able to marshal all one’s reserves of will and optimism, to be able to overcome the obstacle.”

Thanks to careful reading of Marx’s Notebooks, Saito brilliantly shows how Marx abandoned the idea that agricultural productivity could increase indefinitely under socialism until, in 1865-1868, he came to the opposite conclusion that only socialism could stop the absurd and destructive capitalist tendency to unlimited growth.

The rhetoric of the Democratic “progressives” only gives cover to the ongoing criminality of the U.S. state and its commitment to permanent war – with congressional approval.

In the cynical spectacle that is called politics in the United States, the latest insult to the intelligence of the people is the Democrats who are posturing as anti-war champions in reaction to the Trump Administration’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the possibility of further attacks on Iran. 

The assassination by the United States of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, near Baghdad’s airport will ignite widespread retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets from Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq. It will activate Iranian-backed militias and insurgents in Lebanon and Syria and throughout the Middle East. The existing mayhem, violence, failed states and war, the result of nearly two decades of U.S. blunders and miscalculations in the region, will become an even wider and more dangerous conflagration. The consequences are ominous. Not only will the U.S. swiftly find itself under siege in Iraq and perhaps driven out of the country—there is only a paltry force of 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, all U.S. citizens in Iraq have been told to leave the country “immediately” and the embassy and consular services have been closed—but the situation could also draw us into a war directly with Iran. The American Empire, it seems, will die not with a whimper but a bang.

Growing up in the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s, the kind of uniforms I see in New York were reserved for schools in my community that had religious affiliations. Even the staid, but slowly changing 1950s would never have had any hint of the loss of individualism that comes from wearing school uniforms.

Good investigative journalism doesn’t only reveal hidden mechanisms of our time;  it also exposes those who refuse to confront the mechanisms. Remember when the late Bruce Dixon courageously and cogently called Bernie Sanders “a sheep dog candidate”? Remember when Eva Bertlett, Vanessa Beeley and others truly stood with Syrian people in opposing the western intervention?  I do. Those who could not face the reality came up with all sorts of profanities and ill conceived theories to demonize the messengers.

Cochabamba, Bolivia — Known as Bolivia’s Chapare region, the Tropico of Cochabamba is a sanctuary for elected President Evo Morales’ most dedicated base of support. Since the November 10 coup, it has effectively become a self-governing territory where the military junta is absent.

The stamina of the people has prevented the victory that the U.S.-backed coup regime expected in Bolivia. Resistance to the coup has been successful via three strategies –road blockades, nonviolent protests of thousands that gathered force rather than diminishing in the face of massacres, and intensely collective decision-making.