In August 2014 unarmed 18 year old black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in the St Louis suburb of Ferguson. Brown was shot six times including twice to the head, despite having… Continue Reading
“The people who delivered [Obama] a second term…are those who were least likely to have benefited from his first”.1 Journalist Gary Younge’s comment on the re-election of Barack Obama in the United States sums up the contradiction at the heart… Continue Reading
“Change we can believe in”.1 We all remember the hope-laden slogans of the brilliantly executed Obama 2008 presidential campaign. This was much less a promise of change than a return to “normality” after the deviant years of the Bush-Cheney regime.… Continue Reading
In November 2008, after Barack Obama had won in the presidential election in the US, Slavoj Žižek wrote one of his very best pieces: “The reason Obama’s victory generated such enthusiasm is not only that, against all odds, it really… Continue Reading
The Occupy movement that began in New York in September 2011 and has spread with remarkable speed across the country represents a massive shift in the politics of the United States.1 A year ago the seemingly inexorable rise of the… Continue Reading
Two years after his election Barack Obama presides over an increasingly divided nation, in both economic and political terms. His failure to deliver on the promise of real change has seen him punished in the midterm elections for Congress and… Continue Reading
When they tie the can To a union man Sit down! Sit down! When they smile and say “No raise in pay” Sit down! Sit down! When the boss won’t talk Don’t take a walk Sit down! Sit down!1 The… Continue Reading
The Obama presidency is in a quagmire. The tremendous promise encapsulated in the campaign slogan “Change we can believe in” and the enormous expectations of reform after the Bush years have not been realised. Energy has given way to hesitancy… Continue Reading
The first 100 days of the Obama administration have made clear that the tremendous expectations driving last year’s dramatic election are already coming into conflict with the realities of US capitalism in crisis. The desire for change on the part… Continue Reading
There was a great strike wave in the US in the aftermath of the First World War. It was beaten back with the decisive defeat of a rank and file driven campaign to organise the steel industry.1 Brutal repression was… Continue Reading