Alyssa Battistoni - Picking Winners

Although more people are paying attention to the COP process than ever before, there has also been a striking decline in public confidence. The years since 2015 have seen serious challenges to international action of many kinds. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement prompted subsequent acts of defiance from the likes of Bolsonaro, Modi and Putin, while the gilets jaunes protests against Emmanuel Macron’s gas tax prompted new anxieties about the backlash to climate policy. At the same time, rising tensions between the US and China have contributed to pessimism about the prospects for global agreement. The ‘Climate Behemoth’ a reactionary alliance between right-wing populism and national fossil capital, schematized by Geoff Mann and Joel Wainwright has gained popularity, countering the bid for planetary sovereignty they see represented in the COP process. Pledges aside, carbon emissions continue more or less unabated.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/picking-winners

Д. Скородумов - Последняя битва за похищенное будущее

Вследствие «оптимизации» учебного процесса в Голдсмитском колледже Лондонского университета в 2016/2017 учебном году Марк Фишер перестал вести курс, посвященный исследованию визуальной культуры современности. Эту потерю Фишер обратил себе на пользу он начал новый экспериментальный курс лекций, в котором попытался ответить на вопрос, интересовавший его уже долгое время: как можно себе представить посткапиталистическое желание? Курс должен был состоять из пятнадцати занятий, в ходе которых планировалось досконально разобрать проблему посткапиталистического желания, затронув как теоретические проблемы влечения к смерти и формирования классового сознания, так и конкретные исторические ситуации – этапы становления капиталистического реализма и борьбы с ним.

http://www.intelros.ru/pdf/NZ/2021_138/15.pdf

F. Perlman, R. Gregoire - Worker-Student Action Committees: France, May '68

Excellent history, evaluation and critique, from two militants who were there. Includes a wealth of graphics and reprinted material from the events themselves.

Andrew Feenberg, Jim Freedman - When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French May Events of 1968

More than a history, this book is a passionate reliving of the French May Events of 1968. The authors, ardent participants in the movement in Paris, documented the unfolding events as they pelted the police and ran from the tear gas grenades. Their account is imbued with the impassioned efforts of the students to ignite political awareness throughout society. Feenberg and Freedman select documents, graffiti, brochures, and posters from the movement and use them as testaments to a very different and exciting time. Their commentary, informed by the subsequent development of French culture and politics, offers useful background information and historical context for what may be the last great revolutionary challenge to the capitalist system.

Aaron Regunberg - Chevron’s Intimidation Campaign

The oil company hopes that the imprisonment of Steven Donziger has a chilling effect on environmental litigation. But it might have galvanized a new generation to take on the fossil fuel industry.

One night in early 2020, Steven Donziger called into a meeting of first-year law students from his house arrest. We were organizing against the legal industry’s role in the climate crisis we had recently held a series of demonstrations targeting recruitment events for firms representing Big Oil and were familiar with Donziger’s work representing indigenous Ecuadorians in the largest lawsuit ever won against a fossil fuel company. Still, we were not prepared for the full weight of his story, or what it said about the legal system we would soon be joining.

Between 1964 and 1992, Chevron (then Texaco) illegally dumped 16 billion gallons of toxic waste in Ecuador’s rainforest, a disaster later nicknamed the Amazon Chernobyl that contaminated rivers and groundwater, destroyed forests and farms, and set off waves of cancer and birth defects in communities across an area of ancestral indigenous land the size of Rhode Island. Impoverished victims of corporate malfeasance rarely have the resources to challenge their tormentors in court. But in 1993, indigenous and campesino activists fighting to support “Los Afectados,” the name used for those affected by the public health crises that Chevron’s pollution created, asked a young lawyer named Steven Donziger to help them take legal action.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/chevrons-intimidation-campaign

Can Democrats Win Back the Working Class?

Political scientist Katie Rader unpacks a new Jacobin/YouGov new study on working-class voters’ preferences and discusses what it will take for Democrats and progressives to win a working-class constituency.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EdF6grjLncU

Hal Draper - Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

Volume I of Hal Draper’s definitive and masterful study of Marx’s political thought, which focuses on Marx’s attitude toward democracy, the state, intellectuals as revolutionaries, and much, much more.

This series, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, represents an exhaustive and definitive treatment of Marx’s political theory, policy, and practice. Marx and Engels paid continuing attention to a host of problems of revolution, in addition to constructing their “grand theory.” All these political and social analyses are brought together in these volumes, as the author draws not only on the original writings of Marx and Engels but also on the sources that they used in formulating their ideas and the many commentaries on their published work.

Draper’s series is a massive and immensely valuable scholarly undertaking. The bibliography alone will stand as a rich resource for years to come. Yet despite the scholarly treatment, the writing is direct, forceful, and unpedantic throughout, and will appeal to the beginning student as much as the advanced reader.

Hal Draper - Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution Vol. II

This is the second installment of Hal Draper’s incomparable treatment of Marx’s political theory, policy, and practice. In forceful and readable language, Draper ranges through the development of the thought of Marx and Engels on the role of classes in society. This series, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, represents an exhaustive and definitive treatment of Marx’s political theory, policy, and practice. Marx and Engels paid continuing attention to a host of problems of revolution, in addition to constructing their “grand theory.” All these political and social analyses are brought together in these volumes, as the author draws not only on the original writings of Marx and Engels but also on the sources that they used in formulating their ideas and the many commentaries on their published work. Draper’s series is a massive and immensely valuable scholarly undertaking. The bibliography alone will stand as a rich resource for years to come. Yet despite the scholarly treatment, the writing is direct, forceful, and unpedantic throughout, and will appeal to the beginning student as much as the advanced reader.

US Labor On Strike: An Interview with Jonah Furman

Jonah Furman talks Striketober, the US labor movement, and the future of neoliberalism in this in-depth interview

Jonah Furman is an organizer and labor journalist at Labor Notes. His coverage of the ongoing US labor strikes has elevated workers' voices and demands, as well as provided critical insight into today's labor movement. In addition to his reporting, Jonah Furman also publishes a weekly substack called Who Gets the Bird? where he provides a detailed breakdown of key developments in organized labor across the United States.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/5219-us-labor-on-strike-an-interview-with-jonah-furman

Hal Draper - Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution Vol. III

In this third volume of his definitive study of Karl Marx's political thought, Hal Draper examines how Marx, and Marxism, have dealt with the issue of dictatorship in relation to the revolutionary use of force and repression, particularly as this debate has centered on the use of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat." Writing with his usual wit and perception, Draper strips away the layers of misinterpretation and misinformation that have accumulated over the years to show what Marx and Engels themselves really meant by the term.

Ирина Суслова - Продавцы дипломов, противники парниковой теории и волонтеры

Кто в Госдуме будет заниматься наукой и образованием в ближайшие 5 лет

https://doxajournal.ru/uni/duma_edu

Steve Wright - The Weight of the Printed Word: Text, Context and Militancy in Operaismo

In The Weight of the Printed Word, Steve Wright explores the creation and use of documents as a key dimension in the activities of the Italian workerists during the 1960s and 1970s. From leaflets and newspapers to books, internal documents and workers’ enquiries; the operaisti deployed a wide variety of printed materials in their efforts to organise amongst new subjectivities of mass rebellion. As Wright demonstrates, the practice of working with print was a central part of what it meant to be a workerist or autonomist militant during these years: one that throws light both on the meaning of political engagement, as well as the challenges posed by the use of technologies of communication and by emergent social subjects.

Hal Draper - Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution Vol. IV

Much of Karl Marx's most important work came out of his critique of other thinkers, including many socialists who differed significantly in their conceptions of socialism. The fourth volume in Hal Draper's series looks at these critiques to illuminate what Marx's socialism was, as well as what it was not. Some of these debates are well-known elements in Marx's work, such as his writings on the anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin. Others are less familiar, such as the writings on "Bismarckian socialism" and "Boulangism," but promise to become better known and understood with Draper's exposition. He also discusses the more general ideological tendencies of "utopian" and "sentimental" socialisms, which took various forms and were ingredients in many different socialist movements.