Adrienne Rich was many things to many people. She was one of the United States’ leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, beginning while she was still in college and continuing until her death in 2012. In her forties, Rich became a lesbian feminist icon, idolized by crowds who flocked to her readings and talks, renowned for her book on motherhood Of Woman Born and her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”
The Paris Commune: an ode to emancipation
2 September, by“We do not pay homage to a man, a hero or a great thinker, but to a crowd of anonymous people whom we refuse to forget.”
Shifting Identities in a Settler Land
15 August, byIn 1880, five years before the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the federal government’s imposition of a head tax on Chinese immigrants, Dukesang Wong (1845-1931) migrated from China to “Gold Mountain,” the term Chinese migrants used to refer to the west coast of the United States and Canada. He landed in Portland and eventually found work building the railway in British Columbia. Later he became a tailor, brought his wife to Canada, and settled his family here.
A Leftist Perspective on China’s Environmental Destruction
15 August, byAs “part of China,” we Hong Kongers have seen how China’s economic growth has contributed to the degradation of its environment. To be fair, Hong Kong’s economic takeoff had already harmed its environment before China took over the city. We witnessed all our beautiful beaches becoming polluted. The relocation of Hong Kong’s factories to Guandong since the 1990s, instead of alleviating pollution, has, ironically, further exacerbated the city’s environmental destruction. For decades thick clouds of smog have hung over us as Guangdong became a great export-processing zone. The sky only became cleaner, again ironically, when the pandemic swept across the nation, shutting down many factories.
Not a Cause for Palestinians Only
22 July, by“The Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary, wherever he is, as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.” — Ghassan Kanafani
When Liberals Fail on Palestine
22 July, byThe title of this book is partly based on a label applied to many progressives in the United States: “Progressive Except for Palestine.” Except for Palestine argues that progressives and liberals who oppose repressive policies on immigration, racial justice, gender equality, endless wars, LGBTQ rights and other human rights issues, must extend these principles and values to the oppression of Palestinians.
Marxisms and Transitions
8 July, byFor a number of reasons I was thrilled when I heard about the impending publication of Transgender Marxism by Pluto Press.
Conceiving Decolonization
8 July, byTHIS IS A powerful and challenging text that poses as many questions as it answers — particularly at the terrible moment of Israel’s May 2021 assault on the all-Aqsa mosque, the pending ethnic cleansing of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, and the latest round of murderous bombing of Gaza.
Zionist Colonization and Its Victim
8 July, byAS PART OF part of their professional training, historians are warned against injecting their personal narrative into their account of events. Rashid Khalidi’s book is a valuable violation of this taboo.
Syria’s Labor Communist Party, a rich political history
3 June, byRateb Shabo, a Syrian leftist political activist, was jailed for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s—including three years in the government’s notorious Tadmur Military Prison—for his membership in the opposition Labor Communist Party. His recent book, The Story of the Labor Communist Party of Syria (1976-1992): A Chapter of the History of the Left in Syria (al-Maraya, 2020), is a must-read window into progressive political resistance to the Assad regime from the 1970s to 1990s.
