Essays In ZComm.org
Galileo, The Catholic Church, and the House Un-American Activities Committee
My review of an updated, contemporary version of Bertolt Brecht’s dramatic play “The Life of Galileo”, and how it relates to current political expression and social justice issues.
We now know from significant statistical evidence that the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionately adverse impact on poor people and even more on communities of color. This is not surprising given the fact that throughout history plagues and pandemics have affected lower income people in relatively greater numbers than individuals and families with higher income. This was true about tuberculosis which, until the 19th century, had been the deadliest disease in human history, killing an estimated one in seven people who had ever lived
2021 marks the 100th anniversary of the Kronstadt Rebellion by soldiers and sailors attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet located near the port city of Kronstadt which is part of the St. Petersburg federal district. Although at one time they were the most ardent supporters and facilitators of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917-18, the Kronstadt sailors became increasingly alienated and disillusioned by the centralization of political and economic authority in Moscow, and what they saw as a betrayal of the socialist and democratic principles they fought for.
2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, a revolutionary socialist government that effectively controlled and governed Paris from March 18, 1871 to May 28, 1871. Although there were previous uprisings in France going back to the French Revolution of 1789, this was the first time that a grassroots, populist government based on socialist and even anarchic principles was firmly established in control of the city.
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