Critique of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Even when genuine radicals are elected they are not permitted to carry out their campaign promises but must serve capital. Elections coopt dissident leaders & organizers and divert energy & resources away from direct action into pointless political action.

Murder is only illegal if you're not a cop.

Effective campaigns using direct action and effective political campaigns using the ballot box tend to work at cross-purposes. Direct action and political action, when organized by regular people, tend to undermine each other.

The actions of the state are contingent on factors other than who wins the election, such as the status of the economy, the use of direct action by popular movements, interaction with other states, the needs & desires of the 1%, technological changes, etc.

To vote for anyone is to vote for a system in which politicians in Washington, CEOs on Wall Street, and generals in the Pentagon rule.

Police brutality towards protesters at this year’s Democratic and Republican National Conventions rose to levels not seen at a convention since 1968. The police conducted preemptive raids on activist houses, arrested journalists, attacked demonstrations with explosives, rubber bullets, and a variety of chemical weapons, spied on organizers, and filed “terrorism” charges against dissidents.

Review of the Angela Davis Reader.

Review of My Face is Black is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations by Mary Francis Berry

The concept of modernity is flawed, Eurocentric, and not a useful way to understand world history.

Review of Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire by Donald Quataert.

Review of The Healthiest City by Judith Walzer Leavitt.

Review of “The Rise and Repression of Radical Labor” by Daniel Fusfeld

Review of “China Transformed” by R. Bin Wong

Who wins elections makes no difference because all politicians must do what the elite want.  Elections are a scam whose function is to neutralize resistance movements and deceive ordinary citizens into thinking they control the state.

Bush claims to be combating terrorism while sponsoring it, launched an imperialist war of aggression against Iraq, and is waging a class war in favor of the rich. It is not merely Bush's whim that brings these policies about, but the way American society is set up.

Overview of the 1936 anarchist revolution in Spain, the 1937 counter-revolution, and the civil war in which it occurred.

In 1871 citizens in Paris revolted and set up a rebel government. Although it had a radical fringe, this Paris Commune was merely a left-Republican uprising and was no where near as radical as is commonly portrayed.

It is a mistake for radical activists to attempt to use the electoral system to achieve our goals. The way the system is set up whomever is elected must do largely the same things as his opponet(s). Elections empower the politician, not the voter.

States are not neutral tools that anyone can use for any purpose; they are autonomous organizations that develop their own dynamics & interests. They are a form of elite rule.