Clik here to view.
On Missing Dr. Strangelove
Bosley Crowther, chief film critic for the New York Times, didn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Strangelove at the time of its release in January 1964. Stanley Kubrick’s dark antiwar satire was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radical Eco-Activists Have Made it into Mainstream Fiction. Is Reality Next?
It’s hard to think of something more wholesome than gardening. But the New Zealand gardening collective at the heart of Birnam Wood, a new political thriller by the Booker Prize-winning author Eleanor...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Radical Harry Belafonte
From the struggle for civil rights to opposing apartheid in South Africa and the war against Cuba, Harry Belafonte was a fighter for justice both at home and abroad. Harry Belafonte, the pioneering...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Women Athletes and Macho Men. Who Should Teach Whom?
In the recent women’s college basketball tournament a fascinating conundrum arose. On the one hand the quality of play further opened many eyes, including my own, regarding the continued accelerated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Entertainment or Propaganda? Washington’s Insidious Grip on the Arts
An evil dictator is on the brink of making a nuclear bomb at a secret facility carved deep inside the Zagros mountains. With no option, the American military deploys jets and, against all odds,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We’ll Never Live in a World Without Tina Turner
Tina Turner didn’t just pull off the greatest comeback in music history — she invented the whole concept of the comeback as we know it. She became a solo superstar when she was 44. Things like that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Uncovering Ireland’s Communist History
When I speak of scientific socialism I speak in terms of bringing about a revolution, bringing about the workers’ republic which Connolly spoke to us about. A workers’ republic to us means one thing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Radical Politics of Enter Shikari
On April 21, English rock band Enter Shikari released their seventh studio album, A Kiss for the Whole World. It debuted at number one on the U.K. Album Charts. For the lads from St. Albans in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Illinois to Tennessee, Drag Performers are Resisting Anti-Trans Legislation
More than a thousand Chicagoans of all ages, genders and sexualities packed tightly into the Metro for its sold-out “Chicago Loves Drag!” show on April 14. The balconies overflowed with people dressed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Listening With Love: Father/Daughter Talks Across the Political Divide
This is my first Father’ Day without a father. My dad passed away about a month ago and, through tears, I’m reflecting on all he taught me. My dad was a Republican and my mother a Democrat. It’s a rare...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Burn the Barbies, Pause the Pink
A few months ago, my two sons, aged 10 and 15, told me they were excited to see the new Barbie film. I was surprised. They are not interested in dolls, and, in spite of Barbie being the top-selling...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I Will Rise and I Will Return: The Lucidity of Sinéad O’Connor
You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common-sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Other Sinead O’Connor
Tragically, Sinead O’Connor is dead at 56. Many of the obituaries of Irish protest singer have been oddly thin, and have ignored key moments in her life. One was her contretemps with Israeli extremist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Taylor Swift Exploitation Machine
She doesn’t love you, she doesn’t care for you, and she doesn’t know you. But does her team pretend to, confecting an image of faux empathy and interest, sorting out the wheat from the chaff. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sorry, but Barbie Is Still a Problem
When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a Barbie — a blonde, blue-eyed doll who I played with for years before I ever met a blond, blue-eyed person. My doll set the standard for beauty — one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meet The Left Youtubers Blowing Up the Alt-Right Pipeline
If you are worried about whether the kids are alright, you should be. The Right has inundated social media with accessible misinformation, to put it charitably — and social media is exactly where teens...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Star Trek Gave Us a Utopian Vision of an Egalitarian, Postcapitalist Future
It’s the year 2364 and a tatty old space shuttle containing former Wall Street capitalist Ralph Offenhouse, who was cryogenically frozen in 1994, has just been discovered floating through space by a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Barbie’: Marxism for Gen Z
‘Barbie stages in Barbieland the equivalent of the Protestant Reformation’ I finally got what director Greta Gerwig was up to in her movie Barbie, which features Margot Robbie as the adult doll Barbie....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rich Men Versus the Rest of Us
American conservatism has always been excellent at storytelling. Convincing people to back regressive policies isn’t easy and therefore stories generating fear and resentment in particular work quite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Oliver Anthony’s Divisive Song Claiming Solidarity With Workers Only Benefits...
‘Don’t mourn: organise” were the last words of the great union songwriter Joe Hill, framed on a murder charge and executed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November 1915. A reminder to activists that the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bread and Circuses: Musk, Zuckerberg and the Art of Distraction
‘Panem et circenses’, said the Romans – ‘Bread and circuses’. This maxim served the Romans well. In times of crisis and whenever they needed a distraction from military defeats or political infighting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rich Men North of Richmond
Rich Men North Of Richmond is the title of the hugely popular Oliver Anthony folk/country song that has incredibly rocketed to number one in the U.S. despite Anthony being publicly largely unknown...
View ArticleClik here to view.
College Athletes Are Being Exploited. It’s Time to Unionize.
he view of college athletes as unpaid workers is gaining currency among the public. Of course, it’s one thing to have an analysis of how universities exploit their students—it’s another to know what to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Taylor Swift and the End of the Hollywood Writers Strike – a Tale of Two...
This fall, I’ve been starting my sociology classes by asking my students to share some uplifting news they’ve come across. On Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, they were abuzz about Taylor Swift’s appearance at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Intro to Participatory Economics
A cute cartoon giving a short introduction to Participatory Economics. The creator apologies for the spelling errors.
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Rebel to Retail − Inside Bob Marley’s Posthumous Musical and...
The long-awaited Bob Marley biopic “One Love” will highlight important moments in the musician’s life – his adolescence in Trench Town, his spiritual growth, the attempt on his life. But as a music...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pro-Israel Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Spends $7m to Use Super Bowl as...
Super Bowl LVII in 2023 was the most-watched US telecast in history, and with well over 100 million people expected to tune in on Feb. 11, Super Bowl Sunday will provide one of the biggest platforms on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
From Salt River to the Sea
As the fans streaming toward Athlone Stadium in Cape Town were greeted by vendors selling Palestinian flags, it became clear the match about to take place would be as noteworthy as it was unusual: the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Models and Bottles” Clubs’ Extravagance and Exploitation
Much of the discussion of the massive economic inequality that characterizes American society in the twenty-first century stays in the realm of abstract, bloodless statistics. We don’t often get much...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Hollow Myths Of A ‘Maverick’ Empire
As the US geopolitical project stumbles, and the idea of ‘benevolent statecraft’ is revealed as a sham, so too its ideological apparatus starts to wane. Hollywood, for years a supporter of the imperial...
View Article