“We are living through an inverted revolution. The political heirs of Lenin and Gramsci are leading a right-wing transformation from the White House rather than a left-wing one from the streets.1 It is not the campus Marxists, but the thought leaders of the nativist right, who turned out to be the real followers of the great…
Category: tyranny
David Brooks: “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.”
“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement.”
Jiří Juhász: ‘“Losers” in History: Charles Tilly and the Fates of the Defeated in Revolutionary Change’
“In examining the experiences of the “losers” in revolutionary change, Charles Tilly’s work provides a critical lens for understanding the dynamics of resistance and counter-revolution. Whether in the context of the Vendée, the Arab Spring, or the 1989 revolutions, the losers often sought to preserve aspects of the old order. “
Patrick Kingsley: “Revolutions Swept the Middle East in 2011. Will Syria’s End Differently?”
“Mr. al-Assad’s stunning fall finally allows Syrians to feel the joy that their counterparts experienced more than a decade ago in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen — the four Arab countries where dictators were toppled far more quickly. Yet while those four states provided a template for revolutionary success, their trajectories since the Arab Spring…
Carlo Greppi: “Happy Birthday, Toussaint Louverture”
The French Revolution, “confronted with the colonial question,” had to “confront itself,” and “the principles from which it had sprung,” Aimé Césaire writes. It hesitated, wavered, and ended up engulfing itself. But it also learned, thanks to the determination of Toussaint Louverture and his slave army, that freedom is not a force you can stop…
“Former Proud Boy Says Group Prepared for ‘All-Out Revolution’ on Jan. 6”
‘The Proud Boys would have to take the lead in galvanizing other Trump supporters who came to Washington into realizing an “all-out revolution.”’
Deion Scott Hawkins: “Not all insurrections are equal – for enslaved Americans, it was the only option.”
“In my view, rebellions of the enslaved can aptly be classified as insurrections. From the early 1600s, historians estimate that there were around 250 insurrections in America that involved 10 or more enslaved people using violence to fight for equal rights.”
Amir Ahmadi Arian: “Without them: In Iran, a revolution of the mind has already taken place”
“How can you tell if a society is in a revolutionary state? I wonder if you ever can. Everyone who remembers the 1979 revolution will tell you that up to the very last day, most people were living their lives as if nothing was happening. Iran today is not different. Intense, bloody clashes between protestors…
Basil Adra: “A day of civil disobedience in Shuafat Refugee Camp”
“Days into a near-total lockdown imposed by Israel, Palestinian residents of the East Jerusalem camp staged a mass strike and protest, only to be attacked by security forces.”
David Hamblin: “We Are All Spartacus”
“Why has the story of Spartacus become important to leftists over the years? Because Spartacus showed what it would take for people to liberate themselves from violent systems of oppression.”