Contributions by:
Aidan J. Beatty
In 1965 a coup d’état took place in Indonesia. The left-leaning government of President Soekarno (var. Sukarno) was replaced by a military regime headed by General Suharto. Soekarno’s presidency had balanced itself on the so-called Nasakom, the attempted harmonisation of three major forces in Indonesian life: Nasionalisme (Nationalism), Agama (Religion) and Komunisme (Communism). The Communist…
Read Full Article...In Hail, Caesar! the Coen Brother’s recent paean to 1950s Hollywood, there is a curiously political scene in a later part of the film: Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) a popular cinematic heartthrob is kidnapped by a group of disgruntled (and secretly communist) screenwriters. Having hidden him in a well-appointed beach-front property, the kidnappers add insult…
Read Full Article...Alexander Gallas. The Thatcherite Offensive: A Neo-Poulantzasian Analysis (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016) Nicos Poulantzas is a thinker awaiting a revival of interest. A theorist of states, classes, and the dynamics of fascism and authoritarianism, his work has some obvious relevance for contemporary political problems. Born in Greece in 1936, he relocated to Germany and then…
Read Full Article...Asad Haider. Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump. London: Verso Lenin famously said that “imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism”. But then Lenin never saw Facebook. Social media invites its users to treat all previously intimate and private connections with other human beings as moments for profit-making; all our…
Read Full Article...The Provisional IRA appear now like an almost incomprehensible manifestation from another time. Their militaristic ideology hardly aligns with the current avatars of the Anglophone Left – not the pacific grandfatherliness of Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders, much less the multicultural intersectionality of AOC or Ilhan Omar. The Provos’ use of violence against civilians has…
Read Full Article...The period from 1878 to about 1882 is usually known as “The Land War” in Irish history. Under the guidance of the recently released Fenian prisoner, Michael Davitt, Irish tenant farmers took on their landlords. For the more moderate, the goal was to secure the “Three Fs” – Fair Rent, Free Sale and Fixity of Tenure. At its…
Read Full Article...One of the more annoying products of the four Trump years has been a certain genre of very lamentable journalism in which legacy media platforms seek to understand, and come to terms, and even empathize, with Trump’s supporters. Often appearing in high-end outlets like the New York Times, these articles – such as an egregious…
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