Tag: United States
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Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence
By Maurizio Valsania from Università di Torino, originally published on September 12th, 2025 at theconversation.com under CC BY-ND 4.0 The day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University, commentators repeated a familiar refrain: “This isn’t who we are as Americans.” Others similarly weighed in. Whoopi Goldberg on…
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Abolishing the United States’ empire of policing
As US imperialists succeeded in policing experiments on the other side of the world in the early 20th century, irrational hysteria gripped domestic elites that were threatened by a boiling US labor movement. Their fears of a militant left-wing insurrection were widespread, and in response, they sought support from the coercive state by applying repatriated…
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See something, say something? The science of speaking out
Tattling, whistleblowing, snitching, call it what you will: Patrick Bergemann has spent the past 15 years studying the many ways that people tell on one another, examining everything from Afghan villagers’ reports of illegal Taliban activity to informers’ charges of treason in 17th century Russia. In a recent article in the Annual Review of Sociology,…
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How Philly anarcho-punks blended music, noise and social justice in the 1990s and 2000s
Written by Edward Avery-Natale of Mercer County Community College for theconversation.com, published September 22nd, 2025 under CC BY-ND 4.0 While New York City is commonly considered the birthplace of American punk rock, just 100 miles south of the famous CBGB club where the Ramones and other early punk bands got their start is Philadelphia, which…
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The Militia and the Mole
Posing as an ideological compatriot, Williams had penetrated the top ranks of two of the most prominent right-wing militias in the country. He’d slept in the home of the man who claims to be the new head of the Oath Keepers, rifling through his files in the middle of the night.
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What would a general strike in the US actually look like?
Calling for general strikes is a staple of the radical toolkit. (I’ve made questionable efforts to call two or three myself over the past half-century.) But why has the idea of such mass actions suddenly appeared on the lips of such a wide range of people? There are three principal reasons:
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How to Organize Against Authoritarian Creep(s)
Simply, we can’t do the same things as before because what we’ve done wasn’t enough. Living in these “interesting” times, it bears remembering that in crisis there is also opportunity. We find ourselves in a closing space — our inclusive civil society under attack. There is an element of claustrophobia bearing down upon those of…
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How Unions Can Fight Back Against Deportations
The battle won’t be fought only in the courts. “We need to expand our base beyond the already converted,” Goodner says. “We need to go and talk to people, including Trump supporters, and win them over one by one, the same way organizers do when they organize a union. So we have a plan to…
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In Fighting Fascism, We Must Choose Our Battles Wisely
Since being sworn in, Trump acted on many of his statements immediately and signed a flurry of executive orders redefining birthright citizenship and gender as well as reversing climate regulations, among other terrible things. These issues alone paint just a portion of the picture of what’s coming to those of us who plan to fight back.
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A Return to Leftist Self-Defense
These kinds of threats were nothing new. Historically, wherever working-class social movements grow, fascists see them as distinct threats both because of their politics and the marginalized communities they represent. To guard against this, self-defense projects—organized efforts where people from these communities are trained, and often armed—are formed to ward off these outside threats.
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