open.substack.com/pub/aaronjle...
26.02.2026 02:14
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Worth a second look (IMHO)
Listening to the Clash After the Election open.substack.com/pub/aaronjle...
I had a great talk with Brian Becker on the Socialist Program Podcast. open.spotify.com/episode/2S31...
Over the next period I will be posting on my Substack page my writing for Truthout on music and musicians – with a particular focus on those of whom I’ve obtained FBI files.
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Newly Unearthed FBI File Exposes Targeting of Folk Singer Dave Van Ronk open.substack.com/pub/aaronjle...
Nebraska, and the Disintegration of the American Dream
open.substack.com/pub/aaronjle...
This is Woody talking to "Weaver's" Fred Hellerman and Lee Hayes, who asked how he was doing -- while being hospitalized for Huntington's Chorea during the Second Red Scare. (From my book Folksingers & the Bureau)
A great review from Ron Jacobs at CounterPunch:
www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/09/t...
Aaron Libson, a closeted gay communist was a target of the FBI’s COINTELPRO-CPUSA. When they facilitated publicizing his arrest on sodomy charges, he tried to kill himself but was thankfully unsuccessful. For the FBI... it was a win, he was driven out of the CP, and the group was “embarrassed.”
Coming... September 9, 2025.
@rutgersupress.bsky.social
I offer it to anyone not understanding that there are moments in history when nothing but the fiercest resistance will do.
Similarly, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) held the view, as defeated SPD candidate Karl Höltermann optimistically told the press in 1932, “After Hitler, our turn.” It was one of the worst—if not the worst—presumptions in history. [banner-"Death to Marxism]
As The NY Times, profiling German Communist Party (KPD) leader Ernst Thälmann in 1932, reported, “The Communists look on Hitler’s possible accession to power as the beginning of their dawn. They expect complete failure from him and disillusionment in his party, with resultant defections.”...
[From my upcoming book].The period of imminent revolution the Comintern declared in 1928 ended abruptly when Adolf Hitler assumed power in 1933. To their peril, the communists & social democrats of Germany held to the idea that the Nazis were a temporary phenomenon... #stopfacsism #resist #handsoff
- Geoffrey Roberts, Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork and Member of the Royal Irish Academy
A generous endorsement from Professor Roberts: "The sordid story of the intense and prolonged repression of American communists has never been told better. Aaron J. Leonard’s compelling and highly illuminating book is a must-read for everyone interested in US political history."
Pasadena high school students walking out to protest deportations
Rutgers just sent me the cover for the new book—coming September 9, 2025.
I've not yet seen the Dylan film, though Elijah Wald's book, which it is somewhat based on was helpful in working through my own analysis. For a sample you can see the Literary Hub excerpt.https://lithub.com/how-bob-dylan-became-a-counterculture-icon/
While his life after being president was one thing, his time in office is another—and our apprehending of such history matters.
In "Meltdown Expected" I write, that while Jimmy Carter came into office as a champion of human rights, by the end of 1979 he had begun funding Islamist guerillas in Afghanistan, developed the MX missile, embraced the despised Shah of Iran, and tacitly supported the Pol Pot regime against Vietnam.
Movie of the year you ask? Here's mine:
truthout.org/articles/wha...
I have just been given a publication date from Rutgers University Press for my next book, Menace of Our Time: The Long War Against American Communism. It will be on the streets starting September 9, 2025. Get ready! @rutgersupress.bsky.social
If the new Dylan movie (A Complete Unknown) has your interest - personally I find biopix problematic, they project a twisted view of things, that the uninformed then internalize as the truth- I found some pretty fascinating stuff in the FBI files on him last year.
truthout.org/articles/new...
