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Author

Sam Webb

1,752 posts, 2001–2026
I'm a long-time socialist and activist, but new to the blogging world. I hope to bring a different perspective on politics, sports, culture, and Marxism. Besides blogging, I also leave plenty of time for swimming, hiking, ESPN, music, reading, drinking good beer, and, not least, my family and friends. I wish I could play basketball, but my knees ruled out that possibility long ago. While I currently reside in New York, my politically formative years were spent in Portland, Me. and Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. I graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia (where I played basketball) and received a MA in economics from the University of Connecticut. I was the national chairperson of the Communist Party, USA from 2000 until 2014 when I stepped down at the convention. In 2016 I resigned from the Communist Party two years later. We were no longer on the same page.
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No thanks to Trump

If military actions, threats, and tensions ease in the coming days, it is thanks to the leadership of Iran, not Trump. They were the grown up in the room. His recent actions and longer term policy toward Iran are criminal…

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A rigorous look

Wald’s analysis leaves much to be desired, but, as someone who was in the party’s leadership for many years, he is right to write that our inability to critique our past turned into a self inflicted and disabling wound. But…

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No favor

People who spend a lot of time shopping their left/progressive credentials and defending their left flank from attacks from others on the left are doing themselves no favor. In doing so, they can lose their capacity to respond to changing…

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Grasp and negotiate

Politics, not to mention life, is full of contradictions that we have to grasp, first of all, and then smartly negotiate our way through. It’s when we reduce politics to simple schemes that we get into trouble and miss opportunities…

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Thinking abstractly

Here’s my (abstract) thought for the day: At the collective and individual level, I’ve come to believe that the past is both a burden that can disable, disorient, and divide or a source of inspiration, insight, renewal, and new directions.…