WeeklyWorker

Jim Creegan

Jim Creegan was chairman of the Penn State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the 1960s, lectured in philosophy in the 70s, belonged to the Spartacist League in the 80s, was a leading member of the International Bolshevik Tendency and a union shop steward during the late 80s and 90s. He lives in New York City, now unaffiliated but unresigned.

Latest articles by Jim Creegan

Failed with flying colours

Contemporary US capitalism has shown a complete inability to renew itself through reform, argues Jim Creegan

A political system test

Joe Biden is attempting to reverse US imperial decline through a neo-Keynesian turn, argues Jim Creegan

Drivers that led to January 6

There was far more involved in the storming of the Capitol than an antiquated constitution and corrupt political parties. Jim Creegan responds to Daniel Lazare

Republicans at odds

Following the events of January 6, Jim Creegan looks at the state of play within the Grand Old Party

Assessing Adolph Reed

Jim Creegan looks at the thinking of the American left’s foremost anti-identitarian

Oppression and moralism

BLM protests must be supported, but they are often misdirected. Black liberation must be linked to the class struggle, argues Jim Creegan

Old radicals, new liberals

The refusal of Democratic Socialists of America to back Joe Biden is more than welcome, argues Jim Creegan

All will not end well

Despite the easing of the lockdown, there will be no quick economic bounce-back, warns Toby Abse

Inconvenient memory

Jim Creegan points to the hypocrisy of both those attacking Joe Biden over accusations of sexual abuse and those defending him

Overdrawn lessons

The USA needs socialism, writes Jim Creegan, not a democratic revolution.

Primary contradictions

Jim Creegan assesses the battle for the Democratic nomination. The left has a real opportunity.

Commitment to orderly progress

Jim Creegan argues, in his second and concluding article, that while Karl Kautsky’s writings contained insights, his entire political career can only serve as a negative example. We intend to carry a rejoinder in the near future

Steady rightward trajectory

Responding to a flurry of debate, US comrade Jim Creegan gives his view on the evolution of Karl Kautsky in the first of a two-part article

Different perspectives, different objectives

Both Lars T Lih and Jack Conrad are wrong when it comes to the history of Bolshevism, argues Jim Creegan

The Bolsheviks and democracy

Jim Creegan rides to the defence of Trotsky’s Lessons of October

Walking the tightrope

Jim Creegan looks at the quandary posed by Jacobin magazine and the new DSA

Left wing of the permissible

As the Democratic Socialists of America begin to make an impact, Jim Creegan analyses the politics of its founder, Michael Harrington

Trump in transition

Jim Creegan discusses how the bourgeoisie disabuses presidents and high officials of any notion that they are free agents

Revenge of white working class

Trump’s victory shows that the establishment has lost control over the election process. Jim Creegan draws up a balance sheet of the class forces

Different plot twists, same ending

Jim Creegan shows that there is nothing progressive about the Hillary Clinton’s platform

Life of a heroic traitor

Jim Creegan looks back at the extraordinary story of Roger Casement on the 100th anniversary of his execution

Two roads to ruin

Republican establishment figures are unsure whether to throw their weight behind Donald Trump or wait for better times. Jim Creegan reports

Possibilities and pitfalls

The job of socialists is to channel the opportunities opened up by the Sanders campaign into the fight for class independence, argues Jim Creegan

Democrats divided

There should be no support for Bernie Sanders, argues Jim Creegan

Rebellion on the right

Jim Creegan looks at the state of play in the Republican selection process

The red and the green

Ken Loach (director) Jimmy’s hall 2014.

Democratic dictatorship vs permanent revolution

Did Lenin and the Bolsheviks lack a credible strategy? Jim Creegan replies to Jack Conrad

April in Petrograd

Is Lars T Lih a disinterested scholar without a political agenda? Jim Creegan argues against the creation of yet another mythical Lenin

Methods of social control

In the age of ‘colour-blindness’, what accounts for the targeting of blacks by police? Jim Creegan critiques a recent influential book

The cauldron boils over

Racial repression has provoked mass protest. Jim Creegan responds to the two high-profile killings by the US police

Review: Class difference and sexual passion

Abdellatif Kechiche (director); 'Blue is the warmest colour'

Tea Party: An enraged Frankenstein's monster

The Tea Party seemed to come from nowhere. But nowadays it is turning on its big business patrons and threatening the interests of capitalism itself, writes Jim Creegan

US decline: The shock and awe that wasn’t

Jim Creegan analyses the secular decline of the United States as the world hegemon and the failure of Barack Obama’s Syria gambit

Snowden and the state: David and Goliath in high tech

People like Edward Snowden may normally function as software in a hard drive, writes Jim Creegan, but for the state they have one drawback: they can think

USSR polemic: In defence of defencism

The Soviet Union did indeed feature a form a form of planning, argues Jim Creegan in his reply to Paul Flewers

US elections: Mugged by reality

The US presidential election of 2012 is less interesting for the victory of Barack Obama than for the debacle of the Republican Party, writes Jim Creegan

US elections: The more effective evil

Barack Obama hardly represents a rampart against Republican extremism, as some on the left still maintain. Jim Creegan looks at the state of play in the final week of the election campaign

US elections: Crazy politics and class forces

Jim Creegan examines the campaign of the Republican Party in the 2012 presidential elections

A radical for all seasons

Jim Creegan takes a look at the political life of Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012

Democratic centralism and idiocy of the sects

Comrades need the space to develop and express their ideas, argues Jim Creegan. The wider the distance between a given question and the party's immediate objectives and tasks, the more latitude they should have to do so in public

West coast rebound

Oakland and Longview - Jim Creegan reports on two parallel struggles

Hot autumn in New York

Jim Creegan reports on the occupiers who aim to take on Wall Street and examines the implications for left politics

Washington paralysis: a geriatric disorder

Jim Creegan looks at the battle of the budget ceiling and the intransigence of the Tea Partiers

Middle East comes to Midwest USA

Jim Creegan reports on the class struggles in Wisconsin

No change, no hope

Jim Creegan reports on Barack Obama's surrender to Congressional Republicans and the renewed ruling class offensive following the Democrats' defeat in the US mid-term elections

Obama's healthcare triumph is a con

Jim Creegan looks at the devious manoeuvring carried out by Obama and the Democratic leadership

Tea Party tempest

Jim Creegan examines the social roots and ideological drives behind the anti-Obama populist movement that has exploded on to the political scene in the last year

Searing indictment of capitalism spoilt by nostalgia for New Deal

Jim Creegan reviews Michael Moore’s (director) Capitalism: a love story 2009 (no UK release date yet)

Grander in scope, poorer in content

Were Marx and Engels really at one over the dialectic of nature? US communist Jim Creegan replies to Jack Conrad

The usable past of left republicanism

Far from pursuing a coherent strategy, writes Jim Creegan, James Connolly ended up believing that perhaps other forces could act in the workers' place

Ken Loach's use of Irish history

US communist Jim Creegan revisits the controversy over a film that has at last reached New York