The Fight For Transgender Rights Is A Class Struggle Fight For Equality

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou

12-29-2024 ~ Working class politics must embrace trans rights as the fight for trans rights, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights are not separate from the fight of the working class.

President-elect Donald Trump said at a conference for young conservatives in Arizona this past Sunday that the official policy of his upcoming administration would be the recognition that there are only two genders, male and female, and pledged to stop “transgender lunacy” from day one of his presidency.

Transgender issues have become a hot topic in U.S. politics, with Democrats and Republicans adopting opposing policies on matters such as healthcare provision and the types of books allowed in public schools and libraries. Republicans have been pushing against LGBTQ rights for many years now, and Republican-led state legislatures have passed legislation restricting medical care to transgender youth. As such, there is little doubt that the incoming Trump administration will seek to make good on its promise to punish transgender people and the LGBTQ community in general.

There are an estimated 1.6 million transgender people in the United States, facing severe discrimination and constant denial of their fundamental rights and, in many cases, even rejection by their own families. Their only crime is that they do not conform to societal expectations of gender identity, meaning that they do not fit the confines of male and female binaries. Yet, transgender people have existed for as long as humans have been around. There is ample documentation of transgender people from ancient Mesopotamia to the Greek and Roman empires. Indeed, the ancient Greeks did not have the same concepts of gender and sexuality that eventually became crystalized in the modern Western world, from around the start of the 16th century. In Greek mythology, Hermaphroditus, the god of hermaphrodites and effeminates, was partly male, partly female. Read more

The Controversy Over Cannibalism

• by: Brenna R. Hassett

Brenna R. Hassett – Photo: en.wikipedia.org

12-25-2024 ~ A recent investigation of human remains found in the UK’s Cheddar Gorge has once again brought a particularly unsavory aspect of our human story into the light: human consumption of other humans. The surprising discovery of cannibalism in the Early Bronze Age comes from the re-examination of the remains of 37 men, women, and children that were found in pieces at the site of Charterhouse Warren, down a disused shaft cut into the Mendip Hills. This is the first instance of cannibalism of humans, or anthropophagy, to be discovered in British prehistory on such a large scale, and the reported findings force a reconsideration of what role cannibalism may have played in the life of humans in the past. Reckoning with such an emotive and sensational topic has never been easy for scientists, however, and there is still quite a lot of controversy about exactly how much cannibalism ever really happened in the past.

In the fairly recent past, accusations of cannibalism in a society or group were often considered to be a propaganda move on the part of the accusers. William Arens argued in his 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth that accusations of anthropophagy were never based on observation, only second-hand reports, and reflected deeply held prejudices by racist and colonial commentators. Whether it was the dog-headed Cynocephali, a tribe of barbarian cannibals described by Ancient Greeks that somehow made it down to medieval times or the Carib people who were described as cannibals to the newly arrived Christopher Columbus by the neighboring Arawak group, what most accusations of cannibalism have in common is that they are used to denigrate the humanity of the accused. Columbus’s description of the “Caniba” in his 1490s journal tells of the people he encountered describing their rivals as “dog-nosed” cannibals. What is left to prove the truth of these accusations then, and what Columbus himself used to bolster his arguments for a dangerous and evil people that had to be subjugated, is the physical evidence left behind by the consumption of human flesh: the bones themselves. Read more

Reimagining Socialism: An Interview With David Kotz

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou

12-25-2024 ~ “The biggest problem with regulated capitalism is that it is simply not sustainable in the long run,” said the economist.

In the 1990s, all the talk was about the end of socialism and the unchallenged military and economic superiority of the United States. Nonetheless, two decades later, socialism was revived as a possible political alternative as the Great Recession of 2008 and the intensification of neoliberalism’s cruelties tore a huge hole in people’s faith in capitalism, especially among young people in the United States whose hearts had been captured by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ fiery calls for universal healthcare, free public college, and economic and climate justice. Socialism remains a political alternative taken seriously by many across the United States although its vision is still far away from becoming a hegemonic political project.

However, there are different kinds of socialism, and some of them, such as social democracy and market socialism, seek reform rather than the actual replacement of capitalism. On the other hand, the Soviet model, which is the only version of socialism that gave birth to an alternative socioeconomic system to that of capitalism, had many undesirable features and proved unsustainable.

So what would be the ideal system of socialism in the 21st century? In the interview that follows, radical economist David Kotz dissects the lessons drawn from the experience of the Soviet model, explains why reforming capitalism does not solve the problems built into the system of capitalism, and makes a case in defense of democratic socialism as the only sustainable alternative to capitalism. David Kotz is the author of The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism and of the soon-to-be-published book Socialism for Today: Escaping the Cruelties of Capitalism. He is professor emeritus of economics and senior research fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2010-19, Kotz also served as distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the department of political economy at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. Read more

Besieged And Bombed Amid Famine, Hundreds Of Thousands Of IDPs Struggle To Survive In Darfur

• by: Pavan Kulkarni

12-21-2024 ~ As the war between Sudan’s security forces continues into its 21st month, casualties mount in North Darfur’s besieged capital El Fasher, which has been cut off from food aid amid spreading famine while local markets are being bombed.

The lives of hundreds of thousands in the famine-struck Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) hang in the balance as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have intensified attacks on North Darfur state’s capital El Fasher.

Having overrun the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in the other four states of Darfur, the RSF has besieged this city since May to take the last army foothold in Sudan’s western region. The RSF has nearly completed its ethnic cleansing campaign in West Darfur.

While the RSF has been shelling its way into the city, the SAF has been making little effort to protect civilians. On the contrary, the army has resorted to indiscriminate aerial bombardment of densely populated civilian areas to target RSF troops, seemingly interested in only guarding its headquarters. It has thus caused the bulk of the casualties. Read more

Political Economy Contradictions As We Lurch Into 2025

• by: Richard D. Wolff

Richard D. Wolff

12-21-2024 ~ The Republicans (GOP), traditionally the U.S.’s anti-tax party, now promise to use tariffs to wage trade wars, to massively deport immigrants, and to stop drug traffic. But tariffs are simply the name of one kind of tax (on imported goods and services). So the GOP becomes both anti-tax and pro-tax. Likewise, the traditional party of minimal government, today’s GOP now favors massive subsidies to industries that big government will select as well as economic sanctions and bans on enterprises and whole countries that big government will select. Beyond the right-wing ideology and financial self-serving, Trump reflects deeper contradictions in the GOP’s evolution.

The GOP, traditionally the laissez-faire party of private enterprise, now favors increased government control of what private enterprises can and cannot offer in markets for reproductive healthcare, control medications and devices, and also for vaccines and drugs. The GOP, traditionally supporting “freedom,” now insists on blocking the free movement of people across borders and favors protectionist economic policy over a commitment to “free trade.” Some of Trump’s cabinet nominees voice traditional GOP views while others pronounce the new anti-traditional positions. Some nominees do both. Trump does not resolve the deep contradictions in the GOP’s message, thereby confusing both its messengers and its public audiences. In the moment, those contradictions give Trump some power. Amid the confusion, he decides. But soon conflicts among U.S. policies will expose the incoherence of Trump’s project and thereby sap his power. Read more

What Is Our Collective Solution To Health Injustice?

• by: Sonali Kolhatkar

Sonali Kolhatkar

12-18-2024 ~ The fight over health care in the U.S. is about competing narratives: profit-making versus collective well-being. We need to articulate a publicly funded solution now—before corporate spin silences us.

The December 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the public outrage over the state of healthcare it sparked, is a tale of many competing narratives: the killer’s story, the public’s story, the industry’s story, and the politicians’ and punditocracy’s story. Which one wins out determines whether the United States ultimately replaces the healthcare system we know with a publicly funded version or continues to accept the flawed one we have.

Sweep away all the news spin, and at its heart, Brian Thompson’s killing has highlighted two crucial narratives, the first of which is that armed violence is a way to solve problems. Guns are a force so ubiquitous in our society today that we have become collectively numb to their destruction. It is a uniquely American act of desperation aimed at the industry that only someone like Mangione could be lionized for.

Secondly, the long-overdue prevailing story emerging from the incident is the injustice baked into our healthcare system that leaves nearly no one in the nation untouched.

The story that has yet to be embraced collectively is what a systemic solution to the crisis looks like. That solution must center on publicly-funded healthcare and a complete dismantling of the insurance industry. Read more