The tsunami that impacted over a dozen nations in the Indian Ocean region at the end of 2004 was a natural catastrophe, but it was no less of a social disaster. Nowhere is that truer than in Acheh, the province of northern Sumatra that was most gravely affected by the tsunami – Editors

Wadood Hamad is correct that many today are “stuck between two inadequate visions” — either apologizing for U.S. imperialist actions or “cheering any misguided ‘apparent’ resistance to imperialism.” Avoiding these false alternatives is not only needed to develop a successful antiwar movement; it is needed to ensure that the idea of freedom is not forsaken by today’s radicals.

An examination of the work that contains Marx’s most detailed discussion of a non-capitalist society, his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program, this presentation focuses on the differences between the lower and the higher phases of communism in that work.  Issues such as directly vs. indirectly social labor, and the factors that must exist before it is possible to reach “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” are discussed.  Originally presented as part of a Marxist-Humanist class series entitled “Beyond Capitalism,” Chicago – Editors

A report on the January 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil – Editors

Capital’s drive for self-expansion is the foundation of the ecological crisis, this vs. those, even on left, who believe that capital can be controlled.  Even revolutionary Marxist thinkers like Istvan Meszaros believe that capital can be controlled, holding to the notion that the post-capitalist society would not end the wages system.  Nor do neo-primitivist ecologists offer a viable solution, since they evade the question of achieving industrial and economic development in a non-capitalist manner. Originally read (in the author’s absence) at Workshop on “Ecology and the Future Society,”  Nagpur, India, January 15-16, 2005 – Editors

China’s rapid economic development rests upon the expropriation of rural workers. Worker and peasant resistance is analyzed. At the same time, an international conference on Rosa Luxemburg in Guangzhou emphasized her concept of socialist democracy – Editors

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has turned into a quagmire of nightmarish proportions, with many now calling it the most serious setback for U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War. At the same time, some on the left like Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein have fallen into uncritical support of fundamentalist forces that oppose the US, most notably the Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. As the controversy over Bosnia showed, attitudes similar to Stalinism persist after the collapse of the USSR – Editors

An appreciation of the Czech Marxist Humanist Karel Kosik’s Dialectics of the Concrete, 40 years later – Editors

An analysis of the September 11 Commission Report – Editors

An analysis of the revelations of the torture of prisoners by US guards at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and its implications for the region – Editors

An assessment of Rosa Luxemburg’s life and work on the occasion of the publication of the Rosa Luxemburg Reader.  Among Luxemburg’s concepts discussed are socialist democracy, her critique of Lenin, and her analysis of imperialism. Recently Eduardo Galeano has referred to her concept of democracy in a critique of Cuba, while Slavoj Zizek has distorted her critique of Lenin in order to attack her – Editors

The new form of imperialism eschews direct territorial control and is driven by the tendential decline in the rate of profit.  More than oil, current US imperialism’s militarization creates an image of power that attracts needed foreign capital, but this is a shaky foundation – Editors