Mary Nicole Reeves

Protest Photos: Facing the Unblurred Truth

Protest Photos: Facing the Unblurred Truth

In the age of information, progressive social movements rage on. Yet some security-minded activists insist on extreme or onerous measures to ensure privacy, including self-censorship and blurring photos of protesters on social media. This essay, written by a member of Denver Communists in response to an ongoing debate about protest photos, examines the conflict between this kind of so-called security and successful militant struggle.

We Need a Militant Mass Movement for Reproductive Rights

We Need a Militant Mass Movement for Reproductive Rights

The recent attacks on abortion rights in the U.S. prove once again that under capitalism, reproductive rights will never be safe. We need a mass grassroots movement to fight the ruling class and the right wing for abortion rights and bodily autonomy for all — not just a privileged few.

The War on Palestine: A New Political Conjuncture

The War on Palestine: A New Political Conjuncture

Palestinians have been under siege, colonial occupation, expulsion, dispossession, oppression and repression for over 75 years. They have resisted Zionism and imperialism for even longer. Much of this resistance has been nonviolent or at most the hurling of rocks. On...

Palestinian Liberation By Any Means Necessary

Palestinian Liberation By Any Means Necessary

Stop the genocide Israel’s settler-colonial project has again shown its true nature. In retaliation for the new military phase of the Palestinian liberation movement that started on October 7th, the Zionist entity is committing open genocide against Gaza. Israeli...

Protest Photos: Facing the Unblurred Truth

Protest Photos: Facing the Unblurred Truth

Repression has always been a problem for people seeking social change. From direct physical attacks by police and vigilantes to the firing and evicting of union activists, the ruling class doesn’t make it easy to challenge their power. Contemporary methods of...

Five Things to Remember When Israel “Defends Itself”

Five Things to Remember When Israel “Defends Itself”

Whenever the “international community” starts talking about Israel’s right to self-defense, Palestinian civilians head to the bomb shelters. Or they would, if they had any — the Israeli government prevents the Gaza Strip from importing the necessary construction...

The Spectre of Spontaneism

The Spectre of Spontaneism

“We don’t have a mass revolutionary party. If we did, I would join. Once upon a time, a revolutionary vanguard existed. After the defeat of the New Left, the vanguard has to be rebuilt. We need to knit together activists. Without soviets there would have been no...

On the Crisis In Niger

On the Crisis In Niger

The starting point for developing a revolutionary Marxist approach to the Niger crisis begins with the recognition that the right to determine who governs Niger and how it is governed belongs to Nigeriens and them alone.  This is an especially important lesson of the...

Firebrand at the 2023 Socialism Conference

Firebrand at the 2023 Socialism Conference

Forging closer ties and meeting new comrades  In our first appearance as Firebrand, we brought a contingent of ten, five Denver Communists, two Seattle Revolutionary Socialists, one Greensboro Revolutionary Socialist, and two contacts to the 2023 Socialism Conference....

How to Understand and Defeat Fascism

How to Understand and Defeat Fascism

In Indianapolis on Labor Day last September, a group of about thirty neo-Nazis from an organization called Patriot Front marched downtown. Cosplaying in their faux military garb and carrying shields and colonial-themed US flags, this crew of sad grotesques was easily...

Andor and the Politics of Revolution

Andor and the Politics of Revolution

Andor is a breath of fresh air for the Star Wars franchise, and for television in general. A prequel to 2016’s Rogue One, the Disney+ series is unexpectedly one of the most compelling and gripping in memory. Its combination of dark, dystopian mood, wrenching suspense,...

Report Back from the Socialism Conference in Sydney

Report Back from the Socialism Conference in Sydney

Earlier this month, I attended Socialist Alternative’s Socialism conference in Sydney. For readers outside Australia, I’m referring to the Australian Trotskyist organization (which was a cousin of sorts to the ISO in the US before the latter disbanded), and not the...

A Neurodivergent Case for Abolitionism

A Neurodivergent Case for Abolitionism

In the eyes of the capitalist ruling class, workers are deprived of their humanity and are reduced to profit-producing machines. Our basic human needs are locked behind a paywall, leaving us the choices of starving to death or purchasing our right to survive another...

Is the US Still a Settler Colony?

Is the US Still a Settler Colony?

Too often morality is the only guide to politics on the left. Oppression and exploitation are obviously disgusting — however, overcoming them takes analysis and strategy, not just outrage. One example of this is the widespread dismissal of workers in the United States...

Years for the Locust? Part Two: Leninism Deformed

Years for the Locust? Part Two: Leninism Deformed

Continued from Part One After my first experiences with the International Socialist Organization (ISO), what convinced me to join was the sincere belief that my views and actions mattered. After meeting up with some comrades from the organization in early 2011, we...

Years for the Locust? Part One: The Myth of the Microsect

Years for the Locust? Part One: The Myth of the Microsect

Introduction “Trotsky considers the opportunist current and its leaders somewhat as victims of circumstances… There is no doubt that opportunism, like all else in the world has its objective causes in external conditions. But in politics more than anywhere else, to...

In Defense of Revolutionary Organization

In Defense of Revolutionary Organization

What kind of party do we need? Or what kind of party should revolutionary socialists be focused on building? I want to propose some answers to the organizational questions we’re facing. But more than that, I want to invite those who are asking the same questions to...

On Mutual Aid: Limitations, Opportunities, Strategies

On Mutual Aid: Limitations, Opportunities, Strategies

In recent years, mutual aid has overtaken protest as a dominant form of Left political action. When the US government failed to address anything more than the barest of needs during the pandemic, communities organized themselves. After this same government repressed...

Is There a Socialist Mode of Production Separate from Communism?

Is There a Socialist Mode of Production Separate from Communism?

A specter is haunting communism: the specter of “socialism” Reformists and Stalinists, social democrats and communists alike have invented “socialism” as a replacement for Karl Marx’s revolutionary communism. They try to divert the left-wing movement from its goal of...

Building Followers and Bitter Dissidents, But Not Leaders

Building Followers and Bitter Dissidents, But Not Leaders

“A supporter of the theory of scientific communism does not take anything on word. He judges everything by reason and experience…. Bureaucratic and artificial discipline has crumbled to dust at the moment of danger. Revolutionary discipline does not exclude but...

Socialism Needs Democracy, Democracy Needs Socialism

Socialism Needs Democracy, Democracy Needs Socialism

The authentic Marxist tradition has always stressed that democracy is fundamental to socialism. Marx defined socialism as the “self-emancipation of the working class.” In the Communist Manifesto, he and Engels said that the first step on the road to socialism and then...

Against Dual Membership in the DSA

Against Dual Membership in the DSA

We have enacted a policy prohibiting our members from holding dual membership in our organization and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). This policy is based on our commitment to working-class independence and revolutionary socialism, because we understand...

Crimes Against Humanity

Crimes Against Humanity

The U.S. government and most of the press are trying to whip up support for the U.S./NATO intervention in Ukraine. Labeling Putin a war criminal helps that effort. VP Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and President Joe Biden have solemnly pronounced...

No U.S./NATO Arms to Ukraine 

No U.S./NATO Arms to Ukraine 

Sharp divisions among revolutionary socialists The question of war has always been a key division among socialists. It divides reformist supporters of the capitalist state from revolutionary opponents of the capitalist state. Since the late 1800s, it has divided soft...