Category Archives: justice

“Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics” by Stephen Greenblatt (2018)

Posted on August 2, 2018 by

“We learn not simply what Trump tells us about Shakespeare but what Shakespeare tells us about Trump. Illuminating scene after scene, Greenblatt is especially fine on the mechanisms of tyranny.”

Posted in Blog, justice, power, revolt, theatre, tyranny, violence

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Todd Gitlin: “The Missing Music of the Left “

Posted on June 1, 2018 by

‘If there are to be global goals, goals that cross boundaries to inspire the multitudes, where might they be found? … So should idealists across borders persist in seeking the universalist grail—the moral equivalent of “The Internationale”? Some settle for anti-fascism; others strive to resurrect the lost traditions of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism; a few scavenge among the ruins of communism. Nearly three decades after the collapse of the communist phantasm, the left has still not recovered its voice, let alone composed a melody you can’t get out of your head.’

Posted in crisis, defeat, freedom, justice, melancholy, Nota Bene, revolt, the Left, tragic politics

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Jamil Khader: “Liberal Politics and the Challenge of White Supremacy: Anti-anti-Eurocentrism and the Question of Identity Politics”

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

‘Liberal and leftist commentators thus need to draw the ultimate radical conclusion from this anti-anti-Eurocentric position: The struggle for racial justice must be grounded in a dialectical materialist understanding of “the gap” between the particular and the universal which, according to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, not only destabilizes identity from within, but also serves as the foundation for a true universality. Žižek’s crucial point here is that identities should be taken up on the promise of actualizing this immanent universal dimension that was opened up precisely through the brutal history of genocide, slavery, colonialism, internment, etc.’

Posted in freedom, justice, Nota Bene, revolution, rights, Žižek

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Branko Marcetic: “Between Montgomery and Gaza”

Posted on May 26, 2018 by

“Mainstream columnists’ justification of Israeli violence against Palestinian protesters sounds a lot like condemnations of black civil rights activists five decades ago.”

Posted in In The News, justice, resistance, rights, violence

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“Is Revolution Brewing in Iran?”

Posted on May 22, 2018 by

“While women and youth have been at the helm of the everyday form of resistance, it is their collective efforts with the labor movement, the teacher’s union, the farmers, the impoverished, the environmentalists, the families of the victims of the 1988 massacre, and many other oppressed sectors of the society that have now created a clear path to real and popular revolution in Iran.”

Posted in gender, In The News, justice, resistance, revolution

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Davide Grasso: “Democratic confederalism in Rojava: Has revolution eliminated the state?”

Posted on May 11, 2018 by

“The Kurdish movement challenges the state at a conceptual level before the historical: the notion of the state appears here in relation to a way of organising the institutions rather than to the very existence of the institutions; it’s above all a way of thinking of its function.”

Posted in autonomy, democracy, founding, governance, justice, law, Nota Bene, revolt

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Todd Gitlin: “1968: Year of Counter-Revolution”

Posted on May 10, 2018 by

“The left was wildly guilty of misrecognition. Although most on the radical left thrilled to the prospect of some kind of revolution, … the main story line was far closer to the opposite—a thrust toward retrogression that continues, though not on a straight line, into the present emergency. … The main new storyline was backlash.”

Posted in crisis, defeat, justice, Nota Bene, resistance, revolution, the Left

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Tithi Bhattacharya: “Women are leading the wave of strikes in America”

Posted on April 10, 2018 by

“These strikes are for wages and benefits, but they arise from a social landscape scoured by gender and racial inequalities.”

Posted in democracy, disobedience, gender, justice, Nota Bene, resistance

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“From #MeToo to #WeStrike”

Posted on March 8, 2018 by

“What can the #MeToo movement learn from Latin American feminists? How can a global perspective help develop new insights into forms of violence and create a politics that challenges the fundamental basis of gender inequality?”

Posted in autonomy, fraternity, gender, justice, Nota Bene, power, resistance, rights, tyranny

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“Kurdish women’s movement makes a historic call to women across the world”

Posted on March 6, 2018 by

“From the mountains of Kurdistan, in the lands where society developed with the leadership of women, we salute you with our great freedom, passion, ambition, and unbreakable struggle. From Rojava’s neighborhoods to South America’s forests, from Europe’s streets to Africa’s plains, from the Middle East’s valleys to North America’s plazas, from Asia’s mountains to Australia’s plateaus; with our love which knows no borders and with our most revolutionary feelings, we embrace all women who intensify the struggle for freedom and equality.”

Posted in fraternity, gender, In The News, justice, power, resistance, revolution, tyranny