Recommended

So, my current favourite website is probably the UK centre-left multi-authored blog Left Foot Forward, which I have followed since it started for its high editorial standards and strong emphasis on calm, evidence-based analysis. It used to feel a little dull politically, a little New Labour. Recently, it seems to be becoming more angry, but also to depart from the usual left/liberal script. Check it out if you don't already.

Further to the left, and from the other side of the Atlantic, I have been spending a bit of time with The North Star lately.

The North Star’s only party line is that we do not have a party line. Articles posted here reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of the editors or other participants. We do, however, prioritize posting material that we think merits serious discussion, particularly if it covers opportunities for anti-capitalists—be they Marxists, anarchists, Occupiers, or whatever—to begin working together. Toward that end, we are as interested in publishing quality material as we are in hosting productive debates in the comments sections of each article. 

This project is partly inspired by the North Star Network, a Marxist group founded by the late Venezuelan-American activist Peter Camejo in the 1980s. Camejo believed that the future of radical politics in this country lay not with the plethora of three-letter left groups but elsewhere. Taking its name from Frederick Douglass’s first newspaper, the network sought to throw off the baggage of dogmatism and sectarianism plaguing American Marxism, emphasizing the importance of democratic, open debate.

It has some very good Marxist material on the Arab spring, for instance.

And some other suggestions:

• Pink-washing and homonationalism: Rebecca on gay rights, anti-Zionism and academic bullshit.
• Flames of freedom: Peter on Libya, two years on; Nick Cohen on the echoes of Dhaka's Shahbag Junction in London's East End.
• World 2.0: Eric Lee on clicktivism and the unions.
• Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany (h/t Dawn Foster)
• Antisemitism watch: The Soupy One on liberal racist David Ward and his supporters; Rob Marchant on an unsafe Europe.
• Izzy-Pal: AJA on "the textbook fraud".
• Anti-Zionism: Brian Goldfarb on the looking-glass world of the modern ‘progressives’; Snoopy on the Guardian's unhealthy Israel obsession.
• Right-wing watch: Matthew Lyons on Rape, the state, and the far right in India.
• Left-wing watch: Jim on the SWP and Cliff family values.
• Left-right convergence watch: Carl Packman on When human rights organisations align with the far-right.
• And a bookmark, rather than a recommendation, for Ross Wolfe's post on Pussy Riot, "Dynamite or détournement?", as I haven't it yet, being rather long.
• And you've either already read it or you're never going to: Owen Jones on George Galloway's plain speaking.
• And, finally, Jeff Weintraub corrects a few mistakes.