A Letter from the Editors: Election and Widening War

— The Editors

In mid-September 2024, the National Arab American convention held an election strategy session to discuss what Arab-Americans should do about the 2024 election in light of Israel's war in Gaza. https://jimwestphoto.com

WITH WAR AND genocide spreading from Palestine to Lebanon and Iran, with southern states inundated by the biggest climate-change flood disaster in U.S. history, and people’s general insecurity about their own and the country’s future, the United States lurches toward what’s called “the most consequential election in our lifetime” that may in the end resolve little or nothing....

Colonial Myth, Reality & Modernity

— Robert Connell

Born in Blackness:
Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World,
1471 to the Second World War
By Howard W. French
W.W. Norton (Liveright), 544 pages, 2021 hardback, 2024, paperback $19.95.

HOWARD W. FRENCH’S Born in Blackness provides a sprawling, 500-page account of the fateful engagement between Europe and “Sub-Saharan”(1) Africa, laying out the argument that their twinned and tragic history set the foundations for the modern age. (3)

French constructs the main narrative arc of the story by recounting a broad sample of the historical scholarship on this multifaceted subject, threaded through with the experiences and insights of his own travels across the Atlantic World, often personally visiting the sites most prominently featured in the book....

From ATC authors and friends

Harris, Trump, or Neither? Arab & Muslim Voters’ Anger Grows

— Malik Miah

At the ADC convention, a major question was what position to take to the 2024 election in light of Israel's war in Gaza. https://jimwestphoto.com

AMONG THE MOST significant political developments in the 2024 presidential election is that Arab, Palestinian and Muslim communities are rejecting the party of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for their support of genocide in Gaza, Palestine, and Lebanon....

Marx Redux

— Scott McLemee

Scott McLemee interviews Paul Reitter, translator of a new English edition of Marx’s Capital.

IN EARLY 1845, a young and precariously employed holder of a Ph.D. in philosophy named Karl Marx signed a contract with a German publisher for a book, in two volumes, on political economy. He had already filled notebooks with extracts from his studies in the field, and at the time likely felt like he was already reasonably far along on the project. But his publisher canceled the contract two years later, in part on the grounds that Marx rejected the suggestion to write with an eye to avoid provoking the authorities....

Free Khalida Jarrar, End the Global Prison-Industrial Genocide

— Palestinian Feminist Collective

The Palestinian Feminist Collective demands the immediate and unconditional freedom of Palestinian political prisoner, feminist activist and scholar, and revolutionary leader, Khalida Jarrar, who teaches us that “hope in prison is like a flower that grows out of stone.”

Jarrar has been held in captivity by the settler-state for more than six years over the course of five imprisonments and is currently held captive in zionist dungeons without charge since December 26, 2023. She now faces her greatest challenge: the brutal conditions of solitary confinement. On August 12, 2024, the colonial zionist prison authorities transferred her from Damon Prison in occupied Haifa to Neve Tirza prison in occupied al-Ramlah, where she is enduring inhumane conditions in complete isolation....

For a Bit of Air, Khalida Jarrar, Palestinian Lawmaker Lies Down on the Floor

— Gideon Levy

AT THE END of 2023 Palestinian lawyer and activist Khalida Jarrar was arrested by the Israeli police and jailed without charges. Placed in administrative detention, she has had the charges renewed for another six months. Given her health problems, her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, is concerned about her well being.

The Palestinian Feminist Movement is campaigning to have the charges against her dismissed. This story, by Gideon Levy, is from the August 30, 2024 edition of Haaretz.--The ATC editors....

Joe Sacco: Comics for Palestine

— Hank Kennedy

War on Gaza, 2nd installment

AFTER ISRAEL’s RECENT assault on Gaza began, Joe Sacco (a “moral draughtsman” in the words of Christopher Hitchens) was compelled to speak out against Israel’s war. At the Comics Journal, Sacco contributed The War on Gaza from January to July. Sacco’s bravery should serve as an example for other cartoonists to follow. Introducing the series, Comics Journal publisher Gary Groth said “It is surely....

Recovering Eugene Pottier: The “Internationale” and its Communard Lyricist

— Paul Buhle

Beyond the Internationale:
Revolutionary Writings by Eugene Pottier, Communard
Edited and Translated by Loren Kruger
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Company, 2023,
150pp. $17 paperback.

BACK IN MY days of teaching U.S. history, I would pull out a tape recording made by an ancient friend, an erstwhile Trotskyist living out his last years outside Seattle, his singing in Yiddish with a piano accompaniment....

A Marxist Case for Voting for Kamala Harris

— Cliff Conner

THIS OPINION PIECE by Cliff Conner is an additional contribution to the discussion in ATC 232, where we have published three statements by Dan La Botz, Howie Hawkins, and Kit Wainer on the strategic choices facing the progressive and socialist left in the November presidential election. We will be continuing to cover the dysfunction and potential crisis of legitimacy in the U.S. political system.

The Struggle Over the Power Vacuum Continues in Bangladesh

— Badrul Alam

Students launched the "Bangla Blockade" with a one-point demand to scrap all discriminatory quotas for public service while maintaining minimum quotas for marginalised people. Rayhan9d BY CC4.0

ON AUGUST 5, AT 2:30 pm, Sheikh Hasina resigned from her post as prime minister and fled with some of her Special Security Forces by helicopter to India. She is now in Delhi, and some reports indicate that she wants to go to London for political asylum, but Britain is refusing her entry because of her human rights violations....

The Beginning of the End of China’s Rise?

— Federico Fuentes interviews Au Loong-Yu

An Interview with Au Loong-Yu, Part II

Lunchtime in Guangzhou, China.

AU LOONG-YU IS A long-time Hong Kong labour rights and political activist. Author of China’s Rise: Strength and Fragility and Hong Kong in Revolt: The Protest Movement and the Future of China, Au now lives in exile. Speaking with Federico Fuentes for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Au discusses the factors that fueled China’s phenomenal economic rise, how they have begun to exhaust themselves, and the significance of the White Paper movement, which he argues heralds a new period in Chinese politics.

This is the second interview in a two-part series. The first interview covered the nature of China’s state,...

Recalling the ITU: A Militant & Democratic Union

— Linda Kerth

Notice the dial on the top right on the TTS. This was critical in justifying each line of type. Southwest Museum of Engineering, Communications and Computation, https://www.smecc.org/teletypes_in_typesetting.htm.

IN 1962, AS a young and rather aimless woman, I was hired by the Oakland Tribune to learn typesetting on the TTS — TeleTypeSetting machine — which attached a misbegotten contraption to a keyboard that punched holes into a sturdy ribbon. The ribbon was later fed into a similar misbegotten contraption on a Linotype, where it was set into actual type. That poor baby did not live long.

I thought it would be “exciting” to work in a newspaper. And indeed it was. I don’t recall what I earned in former jobs as a typist, but I can tell you I earned a lot more as a printer!...

Solidarity & Unity Vs. Far-Right Violence

Anti*Capitalist Resistance statement on far-right violence sweeping Britain and Northern Ireland in August 2024

1. The tragic murder of three young children by a 17-year old in Southport in July 2024 has been manipulated by opportunistic fascist forces to organise a series of riots across England. They have kick started a response from across the organised workers’ movement and threatened Muslim communities....

Judicial Harassment Vs. Toomaj Salehi Continues

Toomaj Salehi (Photo by Hosseinronaghi / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED)

ALTHOUGH THIS JUNE the Iranian Supreme Court overturned the death sentence for dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi (33), rather than freeing him they sent his case back to a lower court.

Sentenced to death on April 24 for his participation in the “Woman Life Freedom” demonstrations, he has been severely tortured. Suffering from fractures in his hands and legs as well as an eye injury, Salehi is in solitary....

The Crisis is Permanent: Middle East and North Africa After 2011

— Gilbert Achcar

Arab Spring Movements Graph: Wikipedia

THIS TEXT IS an edited transcript from the author’s podcast. Gilbert Achcar is the author of several of books on the Middle East and North Africa, including The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2013) and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016 ). His most recent book is The New Cold War. The United States, Russia, and China from Kosovo to Ukraine (Haymarket Books, 2023). Here is where you can follow his columns and other podcasts....

Ukraine: A People's Peace, Not an Imperial Peace

The house is burning. Textile: Oksana Briukhovetska

Joint declaration by ecosocialist, anarchist, feminist, environmental organisations, and groups in solidarity with the Ukrainian resistance and for a self-determined social and ecological reconstruction of Ukraine.

This declaration has been launched jointly by Sotsialnyi Rukh (Social Movement) in Ukraine, Posle Media Collective in Russia, Bewegung für den Sozialismus / Mouvement pour le Socialisme and solidaritéS – mouvement anticapitaliste, féministe, écosocialiste in Switzerland, emanzipation – Zeitschrift für ökosozialistische Strategie (DE, AT, CH), 4 June 2024....

"Resistance Work" of Women Workers

— Catherine Samary

‘Travailleuses de la résistance.
Les classes populaires ukrainiennes face à la guerre

By Daria Saburova, 2024.
Available from the publisher's website.

Daria Saburova

DARIA SABUROVA HAS written a fascinating three-month wartime field study of the Ukrainian mining town of Krivih Rih (which happens to be the home town of president Zelensky). It focuses on the voluntary “resistance work” of working-class women in this town. (For now, Resistant Work’ of Women Workers. The Ukrainian working classes in the face of war is in French only.)....

New Campus Wars, 2024: A View from Ohio State

— Harvey J. Graff

OSU President Walter “Ted” Carter, also known as “Top Gun” from his career as a naval aerial gunner.

OFTEN FORGOTTEN TODAY is that the massive anti-war protests of 1968-70 grew from foundations of more than a decade. Today’s actions began almost spontaneously with some pre-pandemic roots in Black Lives Matter and Diversity-Equity-and-Inclusion movement.

An appearance of a new anti-Gaza War and innocent Palestinian lives movement is just emerging with a “campus encampment movement” in the wake of Columbia’s violent New York City. Arrests in total have passed 3200....

G7: Suspend Ukrainian Debt Payments -- Or Not

— Eric Toussaint

Why is the G7 discussing Ukraine’s debt?

For more than a year, the leaders of the main powers allied against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine have been debating at the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States), but they have been unable to reach agreement on how to finance the war and the reconstruction of Ukraine.

It should be noted that as part of the sanctions imposed by NATO members, the Russian Federation’s financial assets in Western...

Abortion Rights After Dobbs: The State of the Struggle

— Johanna Brenner

It’s been two and a half years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade. The dystopian landscape that many activists feared has indeed materialized with 14 states banning abortion, while seven more have severely restricted the procedure – for example, banning abortions after six weeks or 15 weeks -- in ways that would have been illegal under the Roe v. Wade decision in effect from 1973-2022....

See all the articles by ATC authors and friends not printed in ATC.