“Down with White Leadership!!”: Racial Capitalism, “Race Men,” and the Wages of Political Blackness
In late 1913, several well-heeled African Americans, mostly businessmen, in New York City founded the United Civic League (UCL) to promote the “interest and welfare of the Negro voter by organizing and solidifying said voters into a body without party designation.”[1] Civic leaders, like Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, deemed it…
Read MoreIntroduction to Martin Heidegger’s “The German Student as Worker” and “The German University”*
Under the Third Reich, the true meaning of the pseudo-revolutionary concept of Arbeit was best demonstrated by Heidegger. Taking his cue from Ernst Jünger, Heidegger exalted work “existentially.” He demanded that his students surrender their academic insularity for the more demanding and risky life of Arbeitsdienst or “labor service.” Emblematic of these developments was the unspeakable motto that greeted prisoners…
Read MoreEnvironmental Degradation and Forced Displacement in Africa
The polycrisis is a convenient global buzzword today that perfectly describes the complex, cumulative and unprecedented effects of multiple, disparate, and overlapping global crises which threaten human ability to cope, adapt, and survive.[1] The Covid-19 pandemic, climate crises creating wildfires, floods, and extreme weather events, burgeoning inflation and economic recession, multiple migration crises and fatalities, the war in…
Read MoreA New Wealth Tax? Or Strengthen the Tried-and-True One We Already Have?
Senator Elizabeth Warren has offered up a proposal for wealth taxation – three percent per year on fortunes over a billion, two percent on fifty million and up, with in-kind equivalents for the owners of private companies, so that Bloomberg and the Kochs would simply hand over shares in their firms which the government would…
Read MoreThe German Student as Worker: Matriculation Ceremony Speech November 25th, 1933
Translated by Christian Struck, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University German students and teachers! Dear guests! Matriculation is the act by which students join the ranks of the academic community of the university. Thereby, the student becomes an “academic citizen.” He* acquires rights, including the following: to enroll in lectures, after payment of the…
Read MoreWhy Liberal Democracy is a Threat to Nigeria’s Stability
In 2015, Nigeria, a country of about 190 million, spent $625 million to conduct federal and local elections. By comparison, India, with a population of 1.2 billion, spent $600 million on its 2015 election, according to figures released by the Electoral Commission of India (ECI).[1] In 2019, the election budget of Nigeria’s Independent Electoral Commission…
Read MoreThe German University
(Two addresses delivered at summer courses for Foreign Students at the University of Freiburg, August 15-16, 1934) Translated by Christian Struck, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University You would like to know what the German university is. Above all, you want to learn how the German university is today. The best way to answer these questions…
Read MoreSudan’s Wars of Identity: The Creeping Quest For A New Sudan
Overview of the Conflict The war that erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023, in the capital Khartoum, has spread to various parts of the country, particularly the Western region of Darfur. It is causing great suffering, destruction, and death. Thousands of people have been killed. Millions have been uprooted from their homes as internally…
Read MoreBrexit For Americans: A Left Brexiteer Perspective
I find to my bemusement that many Americans seem to have strong views on Brexit, which most of them seem to oppose. What was an American friend imagining when he told me, on the day the outcome of the Brexit referendum became known, that I must be proud to be Scottish because a majority of…
Read MoreThe Alt-Left and Ukraine
In the period following the invasion of Ukraine, I began monitoring the interventions of what I’m calling the Alt-Left, having been especially struck by the behavior of The Nation, a periodical with which I’d been associated for many years. This account proceeds with some quotations from The Nation, DSA, and several well-known Left intellectuals, along with…
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