articles

How to Fight Trump (And How Not To)

How to Fight Trump (And How Not To)

The second Trump administration’s horrific attacks on immigrants, the oppressed, workers, and the public sector have been met with an encouraging wave of protest by the broad left. However the anti-Trump movement has also been mired in liberal patriotism and misplaced hope in the courts. By contrast, a truly effective resistance will pose a real threat to the ruling class.

Our Perspective on the Economy

Our Perspective on the Economy

Part of our perspectives series on major issues, this piece addresses mounting economic instability in the US, how it impacts workers, and what it means for revolutionaries. The financial shocks of the COVID pandemic, the concentration of wealth in the tech sector, and social reproduction in crisis are all contributing to long-term decline — and increased worker militancy.

Imperialist Blowback on Bourbon Street

Imperialist Blowback on Bourbon Street

On New Year’s Day, a US military veteran who identified as a member of the Islamic State rammed and killed 14 late-night revelers with a truck in New Orleans. A Firebrand member and New Orleans resident offers a political perspective on the attack, placing it in context of the US’s bloody wars in the Middle East.

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...