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Political Education

Abolition School Taps The ‘Radical potential’ Of Political Education

Political education plays a critical role in movements for social justice by helping to guide strategy and direction. Philadelphia’s W.E.B. Movement School for Abolition and Reconstruction, better known as Abolition School, tackles this informative work by training next generation leftist organizers. Launched in 2023 and named after civil rights leader, historian, and writer W.E.B. Du Bois, the organization offers a foundational, community-based abolitionist curriculum to new and existing community organizers. Broadly, Abolition School’s programming is designed to support those already involved in movement work and locals engaged in political struggles across the city by deepening their understanding of key abolitionist texts.

‘Why Don’t You Criticize Iran??’

Any time things heat up with an empire-targeted government I always get people demanding to know why I’m not critical of that government. “Why don’t you criticize Iran? You spend all your time criticizing the west and Israel; you’re a hypocrite if you don’t criticize Iran.” It flabbergasts them that I’m not saying harsh things about the latest Official Bad Guy of the Day. Everyone on TV is criticizing Iran. Both mainstream political parties are criticizing Iran. Their favorite mainstream political podcasters and online pundits are criticizing Iran. So why isn’t Caitlin Johnstone criticizing Iran? There must be something nefarious and treasonous about her.

To Get On Offense, Offer Workers Many Ways In

To fight back against authoritarianism and the billionaire takeover, the labor movement must get on offense. We must have our own agenda, set by rank-and-file members, rooted in the issues that members care most about—issues that unite us and build power. Maybe our agenda includes a starting wage of no less than $30 an hour, expanding workers’ rights, and building union membership to a supermajority in our bargaining units. We can be fighting for a lot of things. But to fight for any of them, we need enough involved union members, armed with political education and trained on organizing skills, to increase our fighting capacity.

Political Education In Latin American Social Movements

Across a vast Latin American landscape, the imperialist project of past and present runs up against a plurality of organized resistance. Be they extractive mining conglomerates and the dams they need built, corporate agribusiness and its endless expansion of the agricultural frontier, or the financial capital behind it all, the incursions of capital into Latin America – with the collaboration of corrupt local elites – are almost always met by an extraordinary diversity of worker-, student-, peasant-, Indigenous-, Black-, LGBTQIAPN+- and women-led movements defending their lived, lands, waters, territories, peoples, histories, and horizons.

Freedom Summer 2024, The Struggle For Black Rights Continues

On July 29, 2022 the U.S. government initiated violent military-style assaults on seven offices and homes of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and Uhuru Movement in two cities and states – St. Louis, Missouri and St. Petersburg, Florida. Nine months later three members of the Uhuru Movement, African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela and Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, two white leaders of the Party’s solidarity front, were indicted under charges of being Russian agents.  This is one way the colonial government is attempting to stifle any criticism of the U.S. for its ongoing mistreatment of African people within this country.

Learning From Lenin Today

Not long after I joined the socialist movement as a student at the Polytechnic of Ibadan in 1980, I was introduced to Marxist literature at the Progressive and Socialist Bookshop which was the sole depot of many left-wing publishers from UK, USSR and China that included Zed Books. By the time I entered university as a mature student, I had already worked as a full-time revolutionary assisting Ola Oni, a foremost Marxist revolutionary and scholar at the University of Ibadan where he lectured. He also owned the bookshop. My generation were inspired by the history of Russia, the only country that achieved a successful socialist revolution in October 1917.

The Pedagogy Of Power

I am standing in a classroom in a maximum security prison. It is the first class of the semester. I am facing 20 students. They have spent years, sometimes decades, incarcerated. They come from some of the poorest cities and communities in the country. Most of them are people of color. During the next four months they will study political philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Niccolò Machiavelli, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and John Locke, those often dismissed as anachronistic by the cultural left. It is not that the criticisms leveled against these philosophers are incorrect. They were blinded by their prejudices, as we are blinded by our prejudices. They had a habit of elevating their own cultures above others.

Learning From Chile: Navigating Complexities Of Political Crises

Twenty years of grassroots organizing by Black and Latinx community organizations, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and the broad Left propelled CTU organizer Brandon Johnson to victory in the April 2023 Chicago mayoral race. Similarly, across the country, progressive and left organizations are focusing on electoral politics as a central arena of struggle. These campaigns are part of a larger motion—a new generation of social movements, union organizing, and Black-led uprisings against racist state violence—provoked by intertwined political, economic, social, and ecological crises in the US and globally. Yet our movements and campaigns lack political cohesion.

The Limits Of ‘Lived Experience’

Online, the “left” continues to find itself in a never ending series of bad faith arguments around self-determination. Many terms/frameworks that may have had a subversive character within their original context when first articulated, have now been incorporated and distorted by liberalism encouraging radical individualism and anti-materialism. More and more, analyses that are dependent upon identity and “lived experience” are propped up, ultimately resulting in ad hominems, mud-slinging, intellectual dishonesty, and the inevitable tried-and-true anti-communism. Anti-communist rhetoric from self-identifying socialists/communists is not new, but the relatively recent trend of rejecting revolutionary theory in favor of “lived experience” shows a lack in our processes for political education.

Organizer Do’s And Dont’s- 101

My license to speak about this comes from the fact I’ve been involved in organizing work since 1979 when I joined the Pan-Africanist Secretariat (Brother Oba T’Shaka for those that know) at 17 years old.  In 1984, I heard Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) speak and I joined the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).  I’ve been an organizer/member of the A-APRP ever since.  That means decades of working with people, all types of people.  I’ve worked in organizing efforts in Africa.  In Europe.  In the Caribbean. 

Florestan Fernandes National School Celebrates 15th Anniversary

A space built by the working class, brick by brick, in order to make political education possible for peoples’ organizations across the world. This was the proposal with which the Florestan Fernandes National School (ENFF), located in Guararema, in the rural area of São Paulo state, was founded on 15 years ago. It was inaugurated on January 23, 2005 and baptized in homage to the Brazilian sociologist and politician Florestan Fernandes.

Why We Need Resistance Studies

For starters, we are going to need a great deal of nonviolent resistance to cope with the coming climate warming crisis. Our political system and our public institutions are ill-equipped to make the kind of revolutionary changes to the economic system we are going to need to respond to the climate catastrophe. The public institutions we need to help with this have been underfunded for decades; tax avoidance, along with the under-taxing of corporations and the wealthy, has left politicians with insufficient resources to undertake the necessary measures.

AfGJ Reviews Year’s “Best” Albums For Activists

It’s that time of year when we look back on the old year while entering the new.  On the music front, there were many releases in 2017 to pique the interest of the socially and politically conscious. With the plethora of best album lists coming out right now, the Alliance for Global Justice has given me the thumbs up to put out our own. I hope this little guide will give you some good material to explore. This is rather long, so no need to read it all as one big piece. Glance it over and if you see something that catches your eye,check out the review, and then give the album a listen and see if you agree! Enjoy – and Happy New Year! You can support these artists best by buying your own copies of their music.

Will USian PseudoLeft Evolve True Revolutionary Consciousness?

Exemplifying how Capitalism's momentum invariably thrusts it toward fascism, Mainstream Media was headed in that direction even under the independent ownership that characterized most USian newspapers and broadcast outlets during the years of my later teens and earlier manhood, 1956 through about 1980 or thereabouts. While the only meaningful difference between local Capitalists and their global counterparts has never been more than the geographical limits of their greed, the socioeconomic interactions characteristic of local ownership exercised enough moral restraint on publishers that in most instances, mass media did not metastasize into its present-day malignancy until the news monopolies took over.

Seven Steps To Becoming A Citizen Activist

When meeting with a public official you must explain the problem you want addressed and what you want that person to do. It should not be so general a request that the politician can nod and say he or she supports your goal and will work toward it. That is fine but not enough! Make your ask for something specific and measurable. For instance, ask the politician to hold a press conference, issue a statement, hold a public hearing, be the main sponsor on a piece of legislation or work with you to write that legislation. All of these options must be tied to a specific time line. And one that is not so distant that it can be postponed indefinitely. Present the problem and your request on no more than 2 pages, which should include your contact information. When you leave it with them ask for a specific date when they can get back to you. This is the first step in gaining momentum for making greater changes. Demonstrate that by working with you, they can taste their own success. If you can only meet with the public official’s staff, meet with that person and follow the same routine. However, also ask for confirmation that the politician has personally received your request.
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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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