Unity & Struggle

#Gender & Sexuality

Queer Liberation and the Pakistani State

September 16, 2009July 6, 2020

This summer, Pakistan’s supreme court ruled that hijras, a name for South Asia’s historic transgender community, will be registered by the state, ostensibly to provide social services and prevent police brutality.

This article from The Guardian written by Basim Usmani indicates that, though the ruling has been lauded by official media and Pakistan’s middle classes, both the motivations and the effects of the ruling are less than liberating for queer people in Pakistan.

3 Comments

#Gender & Sexuality #Imperialism

A Queer Imperialism?

September 15, 2009October 19, 2018

You only have to go back to the justification of the occupation of Afghanistan as a “war for women” to know that one way imperialism justifies itself is through its supposedly progressive credentials. But this could also be said for white supremacy. The new racism, whether by the ruling class or its populist variants, presents

3 Comments

#Unions & Workplace Struggles

Struggles from Detroit

September 13, 2009October 27, 2018

by Will It is tough watching Detroit go through this. But anyone familiar with the state of the Midwest, the rustbelt, with majority Black cities, knows that the recent budget and social crisis has been in the making since the early 1970s. Some historical accounts like Thomas Surgue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis and

5 Comments

Photo by Toa Heftiba, Goodfreephotos.com

#Unions & Workplace Struggles

Students as Positive Proletarian Actors from Advance the Struggle

September 12, 2009October 27, 2018

Here is an article originally from the blog, Advance the Struggle. The author, Esteban, raises important questions considering the size of the student population in the United States, the role students have played in radicalizing movements, and how they can think about themselves in terms of their own emancipatory capabilities. This is especially pertinent when

12 Comments

#Organization, Strategy & Tactics

Balance Sheet on Obama and the Left

September 11, 2009October 24, 2018

It’s 8 months into the Obama administration and approaching two years since the national debate began about Obama and the left. The images and feeling of election night, being on the street when thousands of young people spontaneously came out, are now only a powerful memory of the deep desires and frustrations of a new

6 Comments

#Organization, Strategy & Tactics

On Direct Democracy

May 6, 2009October 24, 2018

Democracy has two contradictory meanings today: the justification of existing and aspiring states and ruling classes versus a tradition of revolutionary popular liberation. The extension of this second tradition is the future of the world in which we live. This vision of self-governance has always been held in contempt by elites everywhere who mask themselves

comment

#Imperialism

On the Origins of Anti-Asian Racism and How We Have Fought Back

May 4, 2009October 27, 2018

by Jomo, Mamos, and Will In the United States, racist views of Asian-Americans are promiscuous and self-contradictory. On the one hand, we are told that we are model minorities, hard working citizens living out the classic American story of immigration and upward mobility. On the other hand, we are painted as perpetual foreigners, never quite

6 Comments

#Imperialism

Purging the University

May 4, 2009October 27, 2018

There has been a long history of repression by the U.S. government, college administrations and faculty against the Palestinian struggle and Arab organizers. In the 1960s the Palestinian issue arrived on the radar of the state when it became a source of solidarity for internationally-minded people in the United States and around the world. The

comment

#Imperialism

The Trouble with Irshad Manji

May 4, 2009October 27, 2018

Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam, has taken official society by storm with her attacks on the culture and politics of the Muslim and Arab world. As a South Asian lesbian who grew up alienated attending a Muslim school in Canada, she represents a multicultural voice in solidarity with the great liberal values

comment

#Unions & Workplace Struggles

American Labor: New Beginning

April 27, 2009October 27, 2018

There is much we can be and do on a local, national, and even international scale. We will never find out what that may be, far less carry out, unless everyday people seek to become politically organized in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods. There will never be any progress unless we begin here. This can’t be

4 Comments

Marx Syllabus

Patriarchy on the Left

Morbid Symptoms

Queer Liberation and the Pakistani State

A Queer Imperialism?

Struggles from Detroit

Students as Positive Proletarian Actors from Advance the Struggle

Balance Sheet on Obama and the Left

On Direct Democracy

On the Origins of Anti-Asian Racism and How We Have Fought Back

Purging the University

The Trouble with Irshad Manji

American Labor: New Beginning