redFlags

The Shock Doctrine

Labor Day: Which side are you on?

Labor Day in my neck of the woods is the biggest carnival in America. About a million people have gathered in Central Brooklyn for the West Indian Day Parade, known to West Indians as the Labor Day Parade. This year, it's the only one NYC gets because the Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO has canceled the usual flag-waving exercise for the first time in a century (from what I heard). So... it's worth remembering today that "labor", conceived of and enforced as the skilled, pensioned and professionalized workers of the core industries is just one section of the international working class. Our struggle is a freedom struggle, as sloppy and hopeful as that's bound to be. Today is carnival in Brooklyn, May Day is our international workers day. Video by Rebel Diaz.

We must name the system

This dramatic reading of Paul Potter's rightly famous speech is part of a wonderful series of public performances called the Port Huron Project re-enacting the signal flares of the American New Left. It's striking how contemporary they sound, and why, really, 1968 neither failed nor won. It is in more ways than one would wish the terrain of the battle we are still fighting. It's easier than you think to engage in free speech. You just have to do it. Read an interview with project creator Mark Tribe.

RNC St. Paul: Anarchists are getting ready!