Untitled Playlist

Journalist Abby Martin, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), and CAIR won a major victory for free speech and the right to protest in solidarity with Palestine in a May 24 federal court ruling. A judge ruled that Georgia’s law against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movements was a violation of constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights. PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and host of The Empire Files Abby Martin join the show to discuss what this means for the BDS movement and the state of civil liberties in the US.

The Real Story: BDS And The Battle For Free Speech

July 1, 2021 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Celebrations throughout China and commemorations worldwide are taking place today in recognition of the Party's leadership and its incredible legacy. It's worthwhile for socialists to reflect on this legacy and, in particular, the contemporary state of China's political economy.
On November 9, 2013 Xi Jinping gave a talk at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in which he discussed the characteristic features of China’s economy after more than two decades of “reform and opening.” He recalled that at the 14th National Congress of the CPC, in 1992, the Party had re-dedicated itself to the goal of “establishing a socialist market economy, allowing the market to play a basic role in allocating resources under state macro control.” He went on to assert that, by 2013, a socialist market economy had been “basically established” but also observed that “there are still many problems.” This assessment of the situation, which remains essentially applicable to China today, reflects the complexity of China’s historical path since Liberation in 1949.

Read the full article:
https://liberationschool.org/the-cpc-100-years-on-understanding-chinas-contemporary-political-economy/

Understanding China's contemporary political economy

Marxist ideology is one of the most potent weapons the working and oppressed classes have, a weapon that our class can and has used to not only win reforms but to build revolutionary societies where the people, and not profits, are in control. As the PSL identified at our 3rd Party Congress in 2016, one of our primary tasks is to mend the “break in ideological continuity” that emerged after the overthrow of the Soviet Union by reestablishing “the theory of revolutionary Marxism and the entire vision of workers’ power” as a dominant guiding pole in people’s struggles [1].
To correct for the ideological break, it’s helpful to have a concrete understanding of ideology and the different forms it takes. Although the word ideology is used frequently, it’s commonly used in a pejorative sense to refer to something that’s not factual, that’s unscientific, or that’s devoid of substance. It’s also used by those hostile to socialism to present a distorted view of Marxism. What exactly is ideology? What is the difference between bourgeois and Marxist ideology? What significance does this have for organizing today?
To address these questions and help repair the break in the ideological continuity of revolutionary socialism in U.S. social movements, this article outlines Marx’s understanding of ideology. It traces his historical-materialist approach to investigating the relationship between ideas, material reality, and modes of production through several of his works. This allows us to take in the theory’s nuances about life and consciousness, as well as to draw out examples that are still relevant and applicable today. In particular, we focus on the theory of commodity fetishism and the function of the wage in producing the bourgeois ideological conception of the atomized individual. Proposing a move from “true/false” to “correct/incorrect,” the end of the article returns to the importance of popularizing and promoting Marxist ideology to understand and transform the world today, as revolutionaries have done throughout the socialist struggle to break the chains of exploitation and oppression.

Read the full article:
www.liberationschool.org/what-is-ideology

What is ideology? An introduction to the Marxist theory of ideology

Karl Marx wrote to Lincoln in 1864 that he was sure that the “American anti-slavery war” would initiate a “new era of ascendancy” for the working classes for the “rescue…and reconstruction of a social world”. The Black historian Lerone Bennett, writing 100 years later, called Reconstruction, “the most improbable social revolution in American history”.

Clothed in the rhetoric and incubated within the structure of “American Democracy,” it was nonetheless crushed, drowned in blood, for being far too radical for the actual “American democracy.” While allowing for profit to be made, Reconstruction governments made a claim on the proceeds of commerce for the general welfare. While not shunning wage labor, they demanded fairness in compensation and contracts. Reconstruction demanded the posse and the lynch mob be replaced with juries and the rule of law. This all occurred during a time when the newly minted “great fortunes” brooked no social contract, sought only to degrade labor, and were determined to meet popular discontent with the rope and the gun where the courts or the stuffed ballot box wouldn’t suffice.

The defeat of Reconstruction was the precondition for the ascension of U.S. imperialism. The relevant democratic Reconstruction legislation was seen by elites as “class legislation” and as antithetical to the elites’ needs. The proletarian base of Reconstruction made it into a dangerous potential base for communism, especially as ruling-class fears flared in the wake of the Paris Commune, where the workers of Paris briefly seized power in 1871. The distinguished service of Blacks at all levels of government undermined the gradations of bigotry essential to class construction in the United States.

Read the full article here: https://www.liberationschool.org/reconstruction-in-america/

Toward a third Reconstruction: Lessons from the past for a socialist future

Women’s History Month is a time to recommit ourselves to the unfinished struggle for women’s liberation, and this year it is even more crucial than ever. The conservative leaning Supreme Court is considering gutting or even overturning Roe v. Wade, which would roll back women’s hard-won and fundamental right to abortion. The current attacks on abortion rights are the culmination of decades of reactionary organizing to establish extreme reproductive control by challenging birth control access, criminalizing miscarriage, undoing the right to abortion, and promoting abstinence-only sex (mis)education.

This article offers a Marxist analysis of why abortion rights are in peril today, and how the historical attempt to limit and control reproductive freedom stretches back to the very beginnings of class society. This article was originally published in the Autumn 2019 issue of Breaking the Chains magazine, titled “Not a Moral Issue.”

Read the article here: https://www.liberationschool.org/marxist-analysis-attacks-reproductive-rights/

The root causes of the attacks on reproductive rights: A Marxist analysis

From colonialism to covid, Vietnam has a history of success fighting against deadly diseases.

Vietnam, which shares a border with China and is about 1,200 miles from where the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, has overcome steep odds in the global fight against COVID-19. As of April 6, the Vietnamese government has reported 245 confirmed cases with 95 recoveries and no fatalities.

Vietnam’s success so far is not simply a miracle. It is the result of a heavily planned economy with a socialist government that puts people over profits. The COVID-19 pandemic has ripped open the weak seams of capitalism and laid bare its callousness in the face of human suffering. In a world where capitalism is a morbid plague, Vietnam proves that there is another way.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/why-has-no-one-in-vietnam-died-from-coronavirus/

Why has no one died from the coronavirus in Vietnam?

Class 1 of a 3-part series. There are times when solidarity appears more important than ever. When things are tough, we need comrades who will have our backs. This three-part course examines political solidarity by focusing on comradeship as the relation between those on the same side of a political struggle. Taught by political theorist and organizer Jodi Dean, this course draws on ideas developed in her recent book, Comrade: An essay on political belonging, and discusses what it means to be a comrade, the difference between comrades and allies, the importance of comrades for political struggle, and how to maintain comradeship.

This first class focuses on the differences between allies and comrades, and how we go from the former to the latter. The reading for the class can be found here: https://liberationschool.org/from-allies-to-comrades/

COMRADE: From allies to comrades

The war hawks want you to believe that China is bullying and threatening the United States. Don’t fall for it — the truth is just the opposite. Now more than ever the world needs international cooperation and dialogue, not “great power competition” leading to potentially devastating conflict.

Day in and day out on TV, in newspapers, online and in the halls of Congress, the White House and think tanks, the elite molders of public opinion repeat one message over and over: China is the aggressor on the world stage. 

This is a lie. To reverse the Pentagon’s reckless drive towards potentially catastrophic confrontation, people in this country need to be aware of the true nature of relations between the United States and China. In fact, it is the United States that is engaged in a comprehensive push to encircle and isolate China using military, economic and political aggression.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/why-china-is-not-the-aggressor/

Why China is not the aggressor

What we now know as Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. It was a tradition initiated by former slaves to celebrate emancipation and commemorate those who died for that cause.

These days, Memorial Day is arranged as a day “without politics”—a general patriotic celebration of all soldiers and veterans, regardless of the nature of the wars in which they participated. This is the opposite of how the day emerged, with explicitly partisan motivations, to celebrate those who fought for justice and liberation.

The concept that the population must “remember the sacrifice” of U.S. service members, without a critical reflection on the wars themselves, did not emerge by accident. It came about in the Jim Crow period as the Northern and Southern ruling classes sought to reunite the country around apolitical mourning, which required erasing the “divisive” issues of slavery and Black citizenship. These issues had been at the heart of the struggles of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

To truly honor Memorial Day means putting the politics back in. It means reviving the visions of emancipation and liberation that animated the first Decoration Days. It means celebrating those who have fought for justice, while exposing the cruel manipulation of hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members who have been sent to fight and die in wars for conquest and empire.

Read more: https://www.liberationnews.org/revolutionary-origins-memorial-day-political-hijacking/

Memorial Day's revolutionary origins and its political hijacking

The Party for Socialism and Liberation condemns the vicious killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family and his community. Firing the officers is not enough. Officer Derek Chauvin, and his three police accomplices, must be immediately arrested and charged. Justice can only begin with a  conviction and sentencing of all involved!

Read the full article at: https://www.liberationnews.org/psl-statement-justice-for-george-floyd/

PSL Statement: Justice for George Floyd!

This talk was given by Sheila Xiao on September 14th, 2019.

PSL holds livestreams every week Thursdays. Follow us at
www.facebook.com/pslweb

"What's behind the Hong Kong protests? [2019]"

A profound rebellion against racism has been sweeping the country for a month. Millions have taken to the streets in every part of the country, shaking public opinion. Elite institutions, individuals and corporate brands are scrambling to offer symbolic sacrifices at the altar of racial justice in the hopes they will be spared from the righteous wrath in the streets. 

At the same time the police are wantonly attacking protestors and continuing to murder Black people, making a mockery of all the “official” declarations of “anti-racism.” 

Hidden in just this fact is the most important lesson: The capitalist system grants concessions only in defense of its own stability. None of the grisly facts of racism was unknown or undocumented prior to the assasination of George Floyd. The only thing that has changed is people are willing to burn down buildings and confront the “shoot-to-maim” riot brigades. 

Stability has not been restored. Massive crowds continue to come out into the streets; unions are taking strike action for Black Liberation; and a big cultural moment featured a Black Communist as the hero. 

Various attempts to extinguish the flames of resistance–through force or flattery–have had the opposite effect. For the authorities this begs the question of what will get people out of the streets? Those in the streets meanwhile grapple with what it takes to make substantive changes and what would even constitute “real change.” 

There are many rebellions, fewer revolutions. Rebellions are usually associated with fighting the good fight, revolutions with winning it. We remember many slave rebellions across the Americas, but only one slave revolution. We celebrate the heroism of Nat Turner and Dessalines equally but recognize that their achievements are of different orders. 

Rebellions express the inability of the current system to resolve its own contradictions using the existing political framework. Revolutions resolve those contradictions: a new framework, a new system. 

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/from-rebellion-to-revolution/

From Rebellion to Revolution

The current period is the most favorable for socialists in the United States in decades. Against the backdrop of the Great Recession, waves of activity around the Occupy Movement, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Bernie Sanders campaign have produced a profound radicalization in political attitudes across society. Socialism is viewed favorably by close to half of the population and a substantial section of young people are sympathetic towards communism and Marxism.

The key challenge facing revolutionaries in this moment is how to convert this explosion in pro-socialist consciousness into an organized force in society. While this includes the rapidly-expanding ranks of new cadre who are dedicating their lives to the cause of socialist revolution, a real organized force in society will draw its strength from the tens of millions of people who suffer the profound injustices of the capitalist system and are searching for an alternative. This base, or potential base, for the socialist movement can be found primarily amongst the 140 million poor people in this country.

As communists and other radicals across the country grapple with this question, the concept of dual power has rightfully become a topic of considerable interest and debate. However, the working definition of dual power used by organizations and individuals is often so broad and general that it renders the term practically useless. As such, it is important to disentangle the concepts and history bound up in these discussions in order to think clearly about the way forward for those fighting for revolutionary change.

Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/dual-power-and-revolution/

Dual power, base building, and serving the people in the U.S. Revolutionary Movement

A damning new independent investigation into the police murder of Elijah McClain in Aurora, Colorado has been released, but the only people facing charges so far in this case are the activists who led the movement for justice for Elijah McClain.  

Lillian House joins the show. Lillian and other leaders of a mass movement in the Denver/Aurora Colorado area demanding justice for Elijah McClain was herself arrested in a coordinated police attack on September 17, 2020. She was charged with multiple felonies and is awaiting trial. If convicted, Lillian House could be imprisoned for a half a century.

Their Protest Forced Investigation on Elijah McClain Police Killing; Now They Face Decades in Prison

Socialist news and analysis from the front lines of struggle. Project of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

The root causes of the attacks on reproductive rights: A Marxist analysis

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