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“Banish Pessimism and Defeatism”

An Interview with Umberto Corti of the Central Committee of the (new) Italian Communist Party Part 2 of On Granite Conviction: Revolutionary Communism in Italy Today Editorial Introduction from kites In April 2021, the kites Editorial Committee conducted this interview with comrade Umberto Corti of the (new) Italian Communist Party ((n)PCI). The (n)PCI was establishedContinue reading ““Banish Pessimism and Defeatism””

Code Blue: The Living Nightmare of Healthcare Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

kites received the following submission, which is based on interviews with healthcare workers in a hospital setting during the COVID-19 pandemic, from a reader in a major US city. While this piece is the result of an initial investigation, it gives more than a sense of the possibilities for communists to integrate with the massiveContinue reading “Code Blue: The Living Nightmare of Healthcare Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic”

“There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth…Than Are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy”

Issue #5-6 Editorial1 by the kites Editorial Committee This special double-issue of kites contains the results of social investigations carried out by kites readers in the summer of 2021 in a few regions across the US and a dozen cities and regions across Canada. While these results are only initial, they cover a wide swathContinue reading ““There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth…Than Are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy””

Queensbridge Projects and the NYCHA-mare of Disrepair and Neglect

by kites readers A small, multinational crew that has been reading kites journal united with the call to do social investigation about how the last year of pandemic and protest affected the lives of people. This past summer we spent dozens of hours talking with residents of the Queensbridge housing projects in Queens, New York.

Revolution has vanished, replaced with fantasies of dual power, counterpower, “base areas,” abolition, and other “bottom-up” bourgeois-democratic illusions

By Kenny Lake For all their aversion to collective discipline and democratic centralism, for all their anti-vanguardism, for all their donning of dogmatic ideologies and petty sectarian bickering, it’s striking how firmly united most Leftists under the age of 35 in the US are on the notion that passing out free food, doing community gardens,Continue reading “Revolution has vanished, replaced with fantasies of dual power, counterpower, “base areas,” abolition, and other “bottom-up” bourgeois-democratic illusions”

Abolish Grifterism

by the kites Editorial Committee The title of this intervention is doubly ironic. First, because “abolitionism” is so often itself a grift, with the creation of an abolition-industrial complex consisting of Angela Davis speaking gigs, academics writing abolitionist books, activists securing Ford Foundation funding and partnerships with major corporations, nonprofit organizations garnering government and grantContinue reading “Abolish Grifterism”

Lessons from Beyond the Grave

A Case Study of Opportunism and a Summation of Efforts by Renters Together in Lawrence, Kansas by Akio (Written March 2021) kites received the following from a reader in Lawrence, Kansas in response to Welcome to Splitsvillle. Population: Every Leftist Organization of the Last Decade—A Call for Summations, not Subtweet Recriminations. Author’s Preface Communists can’t succeedContinue reading “Lessons from Beyond the Grave”