The recent firing of scholar and activist Dr. Anthony Monteiro from Temple University is unquestionably a politically motivated and racist assault on a world-renowned professor and community leader. However, it is equally an attack upon the very foundation of higher education and the place of Black people, Black politics, and Black communities within it.

Dr. Monteiro, internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on W.E.B. DuBois and the Black left radical tradition, has been a fixture on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia for more than a decade.  His lectures, publications, annual W.E.B. DuBois symposia, community engagement, leadership in the movement to free Mumia Abu Jamal, and other activism have made him an indispensable figure at Temple University, in Philadelphia, and in the Black scholarly community more generally.  So, the question then becomes…why was his contract terminated? (Read entire article)

The US Supreme Court has opened the door to expanded police abuses and violations of the constitutional rights of ordinary Americans.

It ruled that police can enter a person’s home or other dwelling without his/her consent, representing the worrying trend of the ever-growing police state apparatus in the United States.

The recent ruling in Fernandez v California has established that police my enter a home or other dwelling even without the consent of the occupant, so long as at least one other occupant has given permission. This ruling creates a very dangerous precedent, further undermining the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects against unlawful search and seizures. (Read entire article)

With the deployment of Russian forces into Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the US-NATO propaganda machine has kicked into high gear.  Putin has been portrayed as a tyrannical aggressor, while the Obama administration and its European allies have attempted to stake out the moral high ground, declaring that peace, respect for sovereignty and international law should be the guiding principles.  Naturally, such rhetoric warrants closer analysis.

The deployment of a small contingent of Russian forces into the autonomous region of Crimea is an important development in the continuing conflict in Ukraine.  Because of the majority Russian population of Crimea, the seizure of power by vehemently anti-Russian Nazis and their Western-friendly neoliberal collaborators has sent a chill throughout Crimea and eastern Ukraine more broadly, leading to massive protests in a number of major cities in the region, and calls for support and protection from Moscow.  This should come as no surprise considering the political, economic, cultural, and military ties between Crimea and the Russian Federation. (Read entire article)

http://youtu.be/JyCICNf6_sQ Eric Draitser of StopImperialism.com provides his analysis of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.  Draitser explains that US threats against Russia are not only superficial, they are indicative of a hypocritical US foreign policy that both sanctifies and condemns “intervention.”  Draitser notes that Washington has no leverage over Moscow on this issue and that, aside from their bluff and bluster, the US is essentially powerless.