In a manner so typical of his presidency, Obama ushered in the new year by passing a bill that is in stark contrast to what Candidate Obama promised. Attached as a rider to a defense funding bill, called the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the new law gives the U.S. military vast authority for the indefinite detention of anyone it deems a terrorism suspect without charge or trial. This includes U.S. citizens on U.S. soil!

Despite near universal demonization of socialist ideas in the corporate media and political establishment, according to a new Pew Research Center Poll half of young people aged 18-29 view socialism positively while only 43 percent react negatively to the term. In the same age group, only 46 percent have positive views of capitalism, while 47 percent view capitalism negatively.

The ongoing phone hacking scandal that took down Rupert Murdoch’s long-running tabloid News of the World and has resulted in resignations and criminal charges has been roundly and rightly characterized as a corruption of journalistic ethics and a breach of privacy rights. More importantly, though, the scandal further reveals an insidious, intertwined collaboration - between police, government and media.

If the revolution had a soundtrack, Gil Scott-Heron would be track one on your iPhone, mp3 player or CD. This pioneering voice of Black art passed away on May 27, falling ill upon his return from a recent European tour in support of his final musical release I’m New Here, 2010. Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets are attributed with providing the spoken word or poetic blueprint during the late 60’s and 70’s which gave birth to rap/hip-hop.

Featuring leading anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and an eye-witness report from the historic Wisconsin labor protests! The Northwest Socialism Conference will be a rare opportunity to learn about, discuss, and debate the global movement for economic and social justice and how to take our struggles forward. Don’t miss this chance to get involved, meet, and talk with grassroots activists fighting to create a better world!

“I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now…” --Velma Hart, a supporter of President Obama speaking at a Washington DC town hall meeting, September 20, 2010

Since the release of his first album with The Coup in 1993, San Francisco Bay Area-based Boots Riley has been a major figure on the politically minded hip-hop scene. More recently, The Coup's 2006 album Pick a Bigger Weapon features guest appearances from music all-stars Black Thought (vocalist for The Roots), Talib Kweli, and Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine). Last year, he also released the first album with supergroup Street Sweeper Social Club, featuring Morello on guitar. We sat down in the basement of Neumos in Seattle this summer to talk politics, music, and revolution.

Every day, we’re all bombarded with images soliciting us to buy products. Companies spend millions of dollars during the Super Bowl for a 30-second ad alone. Cars, beer, beauty supplies, or electronics, if you can name it, you need to buy it. Big business wouldn’t spend money on these ads if they couldn’t affect our world-view. This has created shocking consequences for women of all age groups.

The conclusions drawn by the influential feminist, Natasha Walter, in her latest book, Living Dolls, may surprise readers of her earlier material. In an honest reappraisal of her position, Walter now accepts that sexism and discrimination against women are ever more widespread, and that it is not possible to separate the personal from the political in capitalist society. CHRISTINE THOMAS reviews this change.

Howard Zinn, historian, professor and left-wing activist, died on January 27th at the age of 87. Best known for his book “A People’s History of the United States”, Zinn and his many other historical and dramatic writings were gaining in popularity at the time of his death.

Radical historian Howard Zinn passed away today at the age of 87. Here we re-publish a review of his documentary, The People Speak, which premiered on the History Channel in December, and is undoubtedly among the best programs in TV history.

John Lennon had a tendency to be touched by world events, which, combined with his instinctive sympathy for the ‘underdog’, led him towards political questions and saw him, for a period at least, describing himself as a socialist.

After great crimes ‘against humanity’, there is usually some kind of atonement, blame is apportioned, the guilty are charged and sentenced, and the lessons are hopefully learned. But not always. The Turkish genocide against the Armenians has still not received full historical recognition. The crimes of the Nazis against the Jews have been pored over again and again, but not how the Nazis rose to power with the help of the capitalists, both in Germany itself and in Europe, Britain, etc., nor that for Hitler, his main target was the organisations of the working class.

The Hong Kong government’s planned introduction of drug tests in schools is an attack on youth and on civil liberties.

In District 9, the new science fiction action thriller by first-time director Neill Blomkamp, an alien spaceship breaks down above Johannesburg, South Africa, leaving its inhabitants stranded on Earth, starving and impoverished. Blomkamp uses this set-up as a metaphor both for apartheid in South Africa and, more explicitly, for current immigration politics, replacing the “illegal aliens” with actual aliens.