The Working Class Reality of Abortion in the USA
The United States supreme court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade on 24 June 2022. This comes almost 50 years after the initial 1973 ruling that legalised abortion in the US on the grounds of the right to privacy to make medical decisions. This decision has stripped away any legal protection of those seeking or […]
The Stock Market Is a Game That’s Rigged
In the last week of January something peculiar happened. The press was alight with reports of ‘meme stocks’ and the stock market being ‘broken’ by an internet forum. Gamestop is a gaming retail store that has been struggling since digital game sales now dominate the gaming market. During 2020, as Covid-19 ravaged the economy, things […]
Attempted Coup or a Farce?
Here we present an article on the intrusion into the Capitol Building in Washington. It was first published on the Red Flag website. “Today” in the first sentence was 6 January. Far right protesters today entered the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, to support Donald Trump’s failed attempt to cling to a second presidential term […]
Review: Feels Good Man
A review of Feels Good Man, a documentary film directed by Arthur Jones. It was while skulking on the internet around 2008 that I first saw the image of Pepe the frog with his “feels good man” speech bubble. I thought to myself, ha, cool, this looks fun – what’s the story behind this? I […]
Black communism in the Great Depression
Angelo Herndon joined the Communist Party in 1930 in the depths of the Depression and Jim Crow segregation. The Black son of a coalminer, he had left home at 13 to work in the coalmines of Kentucky. Four years later, he was a Communist union organiser. After organising a desegregated protest against unemployment, he was […]
Marching for Black Lives
Yesterday upward of 10,000 people marched down Queen street in solidarity with the rebellions sweeping the United States in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. The immense power of the unleashing of centuries of trauma has spread rapidly across cities all over the United States, and now […]
Thank you, rioters
Once again, Black America has surged to the front lines of the global struggle. This year, the United States has stood out primarily as a leading centre of right-wing lunacy, political breakdown and murderous incompetence in the pandemic. Now, it is showing the world something else: the potential for sudden eruptions of mass resistance that […]
Pandemic, the Left, and Workers’ Power
In the face of the economic and public health crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the US left oscillates between mutual aid efforts and parliamentary impotence. We need to take part in workers’ struggles today and prepare for the coming upsurge. There are over 140,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the US, but the actual […]
Indigenous Sovereignty and Socialism
A review of Valerie Lannon and Jesse McLaren, Indigenous Sovereignty and Socialism (Toronto: Resistance Press, 2018). The epic struggle of Wet’suwet’en against the state and Coastal Gaslink playing out currently gives this title a special relevance. The Canadian state, like the New Zealand, has a wholly undeserved reputation for liberality and ‘generosity’ when it comes […]
Trump and the Alt Right
Why should we be concerned about yet another rightwing American president or pay attention to the ravings of disgruntled keyboard warriors? Trump is an orange ball of arrogance and the alt-right thrives on outrage. But they are worth watching because both are products of a crisis in neoliberal ideology. The mainstream media in New Zealand, […]
