Join @commonnotions.bsky.social and @redmayseattle to celebrate the launch of its new Class Compositions imprint as we examine past struggles, present-day power, and our tasks ahead with an all-star cast.
From the anti-fascist slogans of Black Lives Matter along with the Celebration of power in the streets of Minneapolis to international feminist watchwords— struggles are circulating and amplifying working-class agency, autonomy, self-activity, a “life in rehearsal.”
“No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!” “You Are Now Entering Free Minneapolis” “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom)”
Fascism today is a response to working-class power as well as an extension of the impulses present in American society and Western Civilization as part of capitalism’s violent, systemic subjugation of oppressed and exploited peoples. But we are not here to tell a story of defeat.
What are our most prescient tasks in a time of fascism? How can working-class struggles of the past and power in the present-day inform the next steps we are going to take?
CLASS COMPOSITIONS IN A TIME OF FASCISM with @charmainechua.bsky.social, Silvia Federici, Kieran Knutson, Peter Linebaugh, @americanwork47.bsky.social (mod). As part of @redmayseattle, cosponsored by @commonnotions.bsky.social. On Sunday, May 17 at 11:00am PDT: www.redmayseattle.org/2026-schedule
Rather be in Dublin atm than the US for many, many reasons. Near top of this list is a set of upcoming workshops next Friday organized by dear comrades. Don't miss out: luma.com/41nupqhc
Another day, another pamphlet. Today it is the 1988 German edition of “Zerowork: Politische Materialien zum nordamerikanischen und internationalen Klassenkampf aus den USA von 1975 und 1977.” Does anyone know if the "Forward" has been translated before I reach out to a comrade to do so?
"Create two, three, many..." #RefuseWork #ToLive
Offering a few talks and workshops in Binghamton, Montreal, Chicago, and Online this spring (with more dates and details to come) and tabling with @commonnotions.bsky.social. Check it out: www.readingstruggles.info/post/spring-...
Excited to be part of this year’s @redmayseatttle with an event titled CLASS COMPOSITIONS IN A TIME OF FASCISM on 17 May organized as part of a new effort at @commonnotions.bsky.social. Can’t wait to share more details! And check out the full schedule: www.redmayseattle.org/2026-schedule.
It's official: Unions of Our Own will launch into the world from New York City, in the world's borough, at CUNY Law School, 6pm on 4/28
I'll be in conversation with one of the great journalists of the rank & file, Michelle Chen of @thenation.com @dissentmag.bsky.social, etc. + ample Q&A time
collective intelligence wielded in solidarity against the exploitative and oppressive conditions that extract our time, power, and value from our very laboring together."
"A Brief History introduces and reinvigorates the long tradition of research and inquiry coming from workers’ initiative, as part of their self-activity and organizing against their bosses, and ultimately as the sharpest tool in the arsenal of class struggle:
A Brief History of the Workers’ Inquiry out now on @commonnotions.bsky.social. Pick up a copy here: www.commonnotions.org/buy/brief-hi...
Another day, another must read book is added to my list. Today it is a new book on the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. And thanks to the comrade who recommended it!
I talked to the brilliant Kathi Weeks about her new book, Abolition Archives, Feminist Futures, about Angela Davis, Shulamith Firestone, and Donna Haraway, and about abolishing work, the prison, and the family
The Prairieland Verdict: What It Means and What You Need to Know About It with members of the DFW Support Committee; image in the background is a picture of the front of the Prairieland Detention Center; MAKC logo
Today at 1 PM EDT
The Prairieland Verdict: What It Means and What You Need to Know About It
www.youtube.com/live/sYtNoBt...
A little something I'm writing at the moment!
"Such an order would require militant trade unions organizing semi-skilled workers and overcoming racism and sexism within the rank-and-file. Moreover, working-class movements need their own schools to further their interests and build the capacities of working people."
"'[A] new social order is needed and is coming—in fact, that it is already on the way' and 'the workers are the ones who will usher in this new order,' so say the first and third tenets of Brookwood Labor College in 1921."
Perusing old issues of #RadicalAmerica today. Two on Italy, a special issue on CLR James, and another that contains “Theses on mass worker and social capital” by Silvia Federici and Mario Montano under the “party name” Guido Baldi. Read them all: library.brown.edu/cds/radicala...
"Classes in public speaking and parliamentary procedure, debates and declamation contests, round-table discussions, and a host of other methods are constantly used to further this aim.” Organization manual of the Young People's Socialist League (1924)
"EDUCATION, the spontaneous development of each member to [their] fullest capacity, the leading forth of [their] power and abilities to their utmost. Each member is taught to stand intellectually on [theor] own feet and to think honestly for [themselves]." YPSL Manual (1924)
Well worth reading and following: "Sixteen Writing Tips from Marcus Rediker": pghrev.com/sixteen-writ...
Taking this to heart: "Find ways to combine narrative and analytical voices in your writing. This is hard to do but well worth working at. Adding context to storytelling will help, but it is still important to step back from the story to explain its causes and consequences."
“Writings about work by the people who do it.” Another day, another set of pamphlets to read. Stan Weir—autoworker, longshore rank-and-file activist, keen observer of informal work groups, and author—published Singlejack “Little Books” as a series to fit into shirt pockets.
"Some fool at the central office in Detroit took the d out, making it Anglo-Saxon. I was upset but never said anything ’til now." - Selma James, Sex, Race, and Class (2012 Edition)
“I had signed the pamphlet with another woman…so we could both speak for it. We didn’t use our real names—we could have lost our jobs during McCarthyism..."
New book days are the best days, especially when it’s the 1953 edition of "A Woman's Place" by Marie Bran[d]t (Selma James) and Ellen Santori (Filomena Daddario). #wagesdue