Search
Web Only Articles
Euthanasia for the Rentier
Barry Finger | November 30, 2011 |
The immediate European economic crisis demonstrates, if there were any lingering doubts, that the architecture of the European Monetary Union is incompatible with countercyclical intervention. It was designed solely to contain inflation at 2%. There is no central fiscal authority and no mandate to either maintain acceptable levels of employment or to sustain working class living standards against the ravages of the business cycle.
Occupy the American Historical Association: Demand a WPA Federal Writers' Project
Jesse Lemisch | November 27, 2011 |
As part of his program to deal with America's economic catastrophe, economist Robert Reich has proposed a revival of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps.
Andalusian Uprising: The Empire that Unites the Arab Spring and European Anti-Austerity Protesters
Greg Smithsimon | November 26, 2011 |
In the seventh century, Musa bin Nusair, born in Syria, traveled and fought his way through the Middle East and across North Africa, expanding the Muslim empire headquartered in Damascus, Syria. With his general Tariq bin Ziyad in the lead, he crossed the Mediterranean from Morocco with an army of several thousand, taking control of most of Spain. From 711 until 1031, the Umayyad Empire stretched from Córdoba to Damascus.
Sharing the Torch: Youth of the 60s Meet With the Youth of OWS
Sheila D. Collins | November 23, 2011 |
The evolving Occupy Wall Street movement continues to confound and surprise even its ardent supporters. Two days after Mayor Bloomberg’s brutal nighttime eviction of sleeping Occupiers from Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, a massive candlelight march in support of Occupy Wall St. wound its way from Foley Square (opposite the federal courthouse), around City Hall and across the Brooklyn Bridge (police estimated 32,500 participants).
Occupy the Democratic Party? No Way!
Dan La Botz | November 22, 2011 |
At a moment when Occupy faces severe police repression and cold weather, and as we are both extending our movement to the streets and rethinking our future, various pressures are beginning to build with the objective of taking our movement into the Democratic Party.
The Camel and the Needle's Eye
Sheila D. Collins | November 20, 2011 |
A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? . . . Jesus said to him, You know the commandments . . . . He replied, "I have kept all these since my youth." When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." But when he heard this he became sad; for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!
Gertrude Ezorsky: From Left Democratic Socialist to Left Democratic Socialist
Stephen R. Shalom | November 19, 2011 |
(A presentation at a conference at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York on November 18, 2011, held in honor of Gertrude Ezorsky and sponsored by the New York Society For Women in Philosophy)
There is a famous quip by Georges Clemenceau: "Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."
Behind the Euro Crisis: Germany Gambles on the Old Dream of European Hegemony
Richard Greeman | November 17, 2011 |
German industrial and financial power is the key to understanding the complex and often confusing international maneuvers around the Crisis of the Euro. Germany is Europe’s industrial powerhouse, the only country that has survived the Great Recession with a healthy economy, low unemployment, rising GDP, social stability and a favorable balance of trade. Yet, only within the solid framework of a strong European Union can Germany, Europe’s principal creditor nation, ever hope to collect on her Southern European loans and investments.
From Occupy Wall Street, to Occupy America, to Occupy the World
Dan La Botz | November 13, 2011 |
The emergence of a mass movement, the beginning of a new radicalization
Occupy Wall Street: The Making of a New World
Sheila D. Collins | November 7, 2011 |
To the superficial eye Liberty Park (Zucotti Park) in lower Manhattan is a circus—a mass of people all packed together in one rather small city square, towered over by the gleaming multistory offices of the 1%, ringed by metal police barricades and overseen by a tall police tower at one end and a solid row of police vans along one side. Boxes, plastic bins and tarps covering all manner of equipment surround the perimeters, tents sprout like mushrooms down the middle. The park is a cacophony of sound.
Reviving Progressive Activism: How a Human Rights Movement Won the Country’s First Universal Health Care Law
Anja Rudiger | November 6, 2011 |
I. Introduction
On May 26, 2011, Vermont became the first U.S. state to enact a law for a universal, publicly financed health care system. As Governor Shumlin signed Act 48,[1] he set Vermont on course toward implementing a single payer system by 2017.
The Stones Cry Out: The Power of the Occupation in the City Square
Dan La Botz | November 4, 2011 |
And some of the Pharisees among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. —Luke 19:39-40
Eagleton on Marx
Jack Stuart | October 29, 2011 |
Review of Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011, 258 pp., $25.00
New-York Historical Society Sinks to a New Low with a Black-Tie Gala for Henry Kissinger
Jesse Lemisch | October 24, 2011 |
[Reprinted from the History News Network.]
Occupy Wall Street in Context: Systemic Crisis and Rebellion
Ben Schreiner | October 23, 2011 |
The main flaw of the Occupy Wall Street movement, according to the establishment media, has been that the protesters themselves have only been able to articulate a "vague" sense of grievance. This, it is argued, is evidenced in the protesters' disorganized and rather scattered complaints. What is it, the media bemoans, that all those demonstrators occupying city parks across the nation in an apparent protest of everything from the death penalty to corporate greed really want?
On the Occupy Wall Street Action Plan
Dave Friedman | October 22, 2011 |
A statement, called an Action Plan by one of the people circulating it, seems to have emerged from the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, or from a working group set up by the people there. It's impossible to know how many people in and around OWS would agree with the thrust of this plan, but the two main points—if adopted and carried out—are extremely important. Even to get these points widely discussed would be a huge step forward. The details are less important than the main ideas.
A ‘Palestinian Spring’? Not Yet.
Bashir Abu-Manneh | October 17, 2011 |
[This is a revised version of a talk given at a conference sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine held at Columbia University, October 14-16, 2011.]
Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Your City. Occupy Your Campus.
Alexi Shalom | October 12, 2011 |
#OccupyWallStreet has caused quite the media frenzy during the past three weeks. The protestors (this author included) who have been camping out in Liberty Plaza, formerly Zuccotti Park, are dedicated to staying and demonstrating for economic and social justice.
The mainstream media and many liberal commentators such as Nicholas Kristof have criticized #OccupyWallStreet for its lack of structure and demands. “What exactly are they protesting?” they ask coyly, “I just don’t get it.”
Carl Oglesby: New Left Intellectual
George Fish | October 10, 2011 |
Carl Oglesby, the eloquent, bespectacled former president of the original Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of the 1960s, died Tuesday, September 13, 2011, at his home in New Jersey. He was 76, and had been suffering from lung cancer. Oglesby was one of the New Left’s most articulate spokespersons, a fierce, scholarly critic of the Vietnam War and an insightful student of how the U.S. ruling class functioned.
From #SidiBouzid to #OccupyWallStreet
Anna Lekas Miller | October 7, 2011 |
On December 17th, 2010 Tunisian street vendor Mohammad Bouazizi lit himself on fire.
Mohammad Bouazizi was twenty-six years old. He held a university degree, but was unable to find work for himself besides selling fruits and vegetables on the streets of Sidi Bouzid. On Wednesday, December 17th, the Tunisian police confiscated his merchandise and threatened to put him in jail for selling without a license—instead of pleading for his goods and livelihood as he had in the past, Mohammad Bouazizi doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire.
The End of Welfare As We Knew It
Betty Reid Mandell | October 2, 2011 |
[In the current budget debates, it is taken for granted that the welfare program for families has been a failure and its end has been a blessing. To remind people what the actual record has been, I offer here the section on welfare from a book that I co-wrote. I have added up-dated information.]
Insurance: A Legalized Racket
Richard Greeman | September 29, 2011 |
"HEALTH INSURERS PUSH PREMIUMS Sharply Higher" headlines today's NY Times, with double-digit increases of up to 80 percent at a time when premiums are averaging over $15,000 a year (up 9 percent from the previous year!)
The Occupy Wall Street March
John Halle | September 26, 2011 |
The following is a report from the Occupy Wall Street protest march from which I am now on the train returning home.
The Greek and the European Crisis in Context
C. J. Polychroniou | September 20, 2011 |
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM, Greece, a weak, peripheral nation in the European economy, was still licking its wounds from the greatest politico-financial scandal in its post-war history -- the collapse of the Athens stock exchange. The wild stock market speculation had been fueled by often-repeated statements from various government officials (with Finance Minister Yiannos Papantoniou leading the chorus) that the upward trend was an accurate reflection of the robust state of the real economy.
Is Something Wrong With Single Payer?
Brian King | September 18, 2011 |
With all the advocacy efforts expended over the last 20 years, it might be reasonable to expect some results by now for the Single Payer (SP) movement. Of course, SP would be a great way to provide health insurance in America. Instead of thousands of private insurance companies (payers for health care services) competing with each other to see who can fool the most people, there would be one source of payment, the federal government, for doctors, clinics and hospitals.
Slandering Nonviolence
George Fish | September 15, 2011 |
[Originally published as an Op-Ed, Indianapolis Peace and Justice Journal, October 2008. Updated, corrected and partially rewritten, January, May and September 2011. ]
Cincinnati: First Outsider, First African American Police Chief
Dan La Botz | August 12, 2011 |
A Victory After Decades of Struggle for Racial Justice
Cincinnati's recent selection of someone who is not white and is not from the West Side of Cincinnati as the city's new police chief is a victory for justice and civil rights, and a vindication of the efforts of those activists who for decades have struggled against the racism, violence and abuse that have characterized the Cincinnati Police Department.
Obama in Hyde Park: “Black and White Together, Against the Lower Classes”
Jesse Lemisch | August 8, 2011 |
“Black and white together, against the lower classes”—Nichols and May routine about Hyde Park (Chicago), late 1950s
Hannah Arendt Against the Facts
Gertrude Ezorsky | July 29, 2011 |
[The publication in 1963 of Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt provoked a storm of controversy which has been going on for decades. Arendt, the author of the famed The Origins of Totalitarianism claimed that Eichmann, organizer of the Holocaust, was not a fanatic who hated Jews but a normal man, and that Jewish leaders and organizations cooperated with him to an extraordinary degree.
Blues on the Border: Legendary Rock Guitarist Javier Batiz Plays and Sings for 'My Beloved and Beautiful Tijuana'
Dan La Botz | July 12, 2011 |
Javier Batiz, the great Mexican rock-and-roll guitarist, played and sang last week in a concert that embodied and gave voice to everything that is most wonderful about Tijuana and the U.S.-Mexico border region.
Alas, we who wished to lay the foundations of kindness . . .
George Fish | July 3, 2011 |
…Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.
But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do not judge us
Too harshly.
-- Bertolt Brecht, “To Posterity”
Sense and Nonsense in the Balanced Budget Debate: A Socialist Response
Barry Finger | June 29, 2011 |
The Republicans have successfully changed the economic debate from jobs to deficit control. Why the urgency? After all, this anemic “recovery” has been marked above all by the lack of job growth. Growth needs to considerable exceed 3% per annum if the private sector is to make any significant headway in reducing unemployment. Instead growth is actually trending downward from its post Great Recession peak. The intractability of long term unemployment now exceeds the duration experienced in the 1930s.
A Thousand Platitudes: Liberal Hysteria and the Tea Party
Bhaskar Sunkara | June 2, 2011 |
[Comments by Marvin and Betty Mandell and others are posted below the article.]
Lessons from Industrial Disaster in an Unpredictable Age
Guy Walker | May 9, 2011 |
As the Gulf oil spill of April 2010 came and went -- public outcry now quieted and offshore drilling now resumed -- so too seems the case with the nuclear fallout of Japan. Currently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are determining the future of more than a dozen aging nuclear reactors in the United States, some of which are of the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi reactors that exploded and melted down last month. The bureaucrats at NRC however, have never denied a nuclear plant application for renewal.
How the Islamic "virus" broke out of the imperialist laboratory
Richard Greeman | May 1, 2011 |
[Editor's note: This article continues Richard Greeman's series about Islamism.]
Rising Above the Herd: Keith Preston's Authoritarian Anti-Statism
Matthew N. Lyons | April 29, 2011 |
"Perhaps what I champion is not so much the anarchist as much as the 'anarch,' the superior individual who, out of sheer strength of will, rises above the herd in defiance and contempt of both the sheep and their masters."
-- Keith Preston, "The Thoughts That Guide Me: A Personal Reflection" (2005)[1]
Jobs for All
Brian King | April 8, 2011 |
Recently, George Fish had a piece on the New Politics website entitled Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis. I urge New Politics readers to read and consider Fish's proposal.
Inventing Islam
Richard Greeman | April 3, 2011 |
In what concrete ways can it be said that the West “invents” what it calls Islamism ? Contemporary imperialism inadvertently spreads Islamic militantism by stirring up the ME/A hornets’ nest through torture-camps and attacks on civilians. But Western agents have long supported Islamic movements in the region as a way to divert nationalism and democracy. Historically, the British Intelligence Service nurtured the Islamicist movement at its very origin.
Solidarity With Zimbabwean Political Prisoners
New Politics | March 14, 2011 |
[The following appeal has been endorsed by New Politics as well as The Nation, The Progressive, and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, among others.]
Six people in Zimbabwe are now imprisoned on charges of treason for organizing a meeting to discuss the mass movements in Tunisia and Egypt. For this “crime” they face a possible death sentence. They have been tortured and are now in solitary confinement.
The New American Workers Movement at the Crossroads
Dan La Botz | March 4, 2011 |
The new American workers movement, which has developed so rapidly in the last couple of months in the struggle against rightwing legislative proposals to abolish public employee unions, suddenly finds itself at a crossroads. Madison, Wisconsin, where rank-and-file workers, community members, and social movement activists converged to create the new movement, remains the center of the struggle. In Ohio, which faces similar legislation, unions have also gone into motion, while working people around the country have been drawn into the fight.
Welfare in France: A Review
Betty Reid Mandell | March 3, 2011 |
The Bureaucrat and the Poor: Encounters in French Welfare Offices
By Vincent Dubois
Ashgate, 2010
Originally published in French as La vie au guichet: Relation administrative et traitement de la misère By Economica, Paris 2010 (1st edition 1999) Translated by Jean Yves-Bart
American workers fight back
Barry Finger | March 1, 2011 |
[This is a modified version of an article first posted on the Workers' Liberty website.]
The Great Recession and its aftermath have generated a wholesale and unprecedented assault on the living conditions and future prospects for the American working class. This is the backdrop for the dramatic conflict now unfolding in Wisconsin.
Madison, Wisconsin: State Violence Threatened—and Rebutted
Paul Buhle | February 27, 2011 |
A small and curious bulletin begins this note from the front lines: as of several hours ago, the head of the Wisconsin professional police association announced that its members would not eject demonstrators from the Capitol building, and suggested some would be spending the night with the demonstrators in order to protect them.
The New American Workers Movement and the Confrontation to Come
Dan La Botz | February 26, 2011 |
The new American workers movement—born in the last few weeks in the giant protests in Wisconsin and Ohio—faces a fateful confrontation this coming week. In Madison and Columbus, Republican legislators are pushing to abolish public employee labor unions and tens of thousands of workers are protesting and resisting. We have seen nothing like this face off between workers and bosses in the United States since the labor upheaval of the early 1970s, though the issues in the balance are more like those of the 1930s.
A Period of Revolutionary Fervour
Ali Kadri | February 19, 2011 |
(Editor's note: Ali Kadri, presently a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), has written this letter, received by a member of the New Politics Editorial Board.)
A New American Workers Movement Has Begun
Dan La Botz | February 17, 2011 |
Thousands of workers demonstrated at the state capital in Madison, Wisconsin on Feb. 15 and 16 to protest plans by that state’s Republican Governor Scott Walker to take away the state workers’ union rights. Walker, cleverly attempted to divide the public workers by excluding police and firefighters from his anti-union law, and the media have worked to divide public employees against private sector workers.
Moslem Disunity
Richard Greeman | February 15, 2011 |
For a movement to be a serious threat to the imperialist West, it must be coherent and united, which is simply not the case of what is termed "Radical Islam." A united, militant Islamic world would indeed be a serious threat to the West, but nothing like that is in the offing, with the result that “Political Islam,” divided, remains weak and ineffectual. So much for the Clash of Civilizations theories, based on ideology rather than concrete history.
Open Programmatic Proposal to the Broad U.S. Left for Directly Dealing with the Present Unemployment Crisis
George Fish | February 3, 2011 |
Carl Davidson, organizer for CCDS [Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism] and one of its four National Co-chairs, recently e-mailed me on what it was doing in terms of addressing the unemployment crisis in the U.S. today, that direct and nasty continuing fallout from the still-current recession. He wrote:
Climate wars
James Bargent | January 27, 2011 |
The international climate change summit in Cancún in December 2010 produced an agreement that host president Felipe Calderon of Mexico declared a “success for humanity and reason”. All the major economies pledged to reduce carbon emissions and agreed to establish a ‘Green fund’ to financially help developing countries adapt to climate change. One country however, remained deeply critical of the document and refused to ratify the agreement.
Cockroft’s "Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now"
Dan La Botz | January 19, 2011 |
James D. Cockroft’s "Mexico’s Revolution Then and Now," written for the centennial of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, is a radical scholar’s guide to radical Mexico and well worth the read. Both a scholar and a political activist, Cockcroft writes as a partisan of oppressed and exploited and an opponent of capitalism.
Actually-existing Islamic movements and states
Richard Greeman | January 10, 2011 |
Editor's note: This is the seventh article in a series by Richard Greeman about Islamism.
“Take a Hike, Gimpy”
Jesse Lemisch | December 23, 2010 |
New York City plans to have even more inaccessible taxis
The U.S. March of Folly in the Middle-East
Richard Greeman | December 4, 2010 |
Does desperation alone account for reckless escalation of U.S. military aggression in the Middle East for which the “threat” of an aggressive Islamism provides the rationalization? To be sure, the worsening world economic crisis directly conditions the international context, aggravating U.S. capital’s frantic rush to control the world’s remaining oil reserves. America's willingness to use excessive force and to go it alone also serves to intimidate would-be imperialist rivals like China, Russia and France, so as to retain its lion’s share.
Obama's Dangerous Escalations
Richard Greeman | November 27, 2010 |
Obama’s decision to radically escalate the wars he was ostensibly elected to terminate is a measure of U.S. imperialism's desperation. It’s not just that our erstwhile peace candidate and future Nobel peace laureate is withdrawing exhausted U.S. troops from the frying pan of Iraq only to transfer them into the fire of Afghanistan, although that itself was an act of desperation. Many of these “volunteer” soldiers and reservists, shattered after several devastating tours of duty in Iraq, are being forced to remain in the service years beyond their contracts.
A Clash of Fundamentalisms
Richard Greeman | November 12, 2010 |
In our previous articles, we emphasized the ideological nature of today’s problematic Islamic “threat.” Historically this “threat” fits into an established tradition of hysterical propaganda campaigns – whether against “Indians,” “Negroes” or “Reds” -- which distort and exaggerate real and potential challenges to U.S. capitalism /imperialism so as to justify violence, state terror and wars of plunder.
Contextualizing the Threat of Radical Islam: “Urgent Threats” of Yesteryear
Richard Greeman | November 6, 2010 |
[Editor’s note: This is the second in a series by Richard Greeman.]
Contextualizing the Threat of Radical Islam
Richard Greeman | October 27, 2010 |
Note: This article begins a series by Richard Greeman. Longtime socialist and international activist Richard Greeman is best know for his studies and translations of Victor Serge, the Franco-Russian novelist and revolutionary. His recent book Beware of Vegetarian Sharks: Radical Rants and Internationalists Essays (Illustrated) is available online at Amazon.com and may be downloaded for free at www.lulu.com/content/923573
Fitch, Benson, and Early
Brian King | September 13, 2010 |
I read with keen interest 2 recent articles on the New Politics website: “Card Check: Labor’s Charlie Brown Moment?” by Robert Fitch, and “Does ‘Union Democracy’ Undermine ‘Solidarity?” by Herman Benson.
I consider myself a life-long socialist activist, since high school, anyway. I’m retired now, but for the last 15 years that I worked, as a Respiratory Therapist, I participated in the Labor Party and wound up organizing the bargaining unit I worked in at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.
Update to "Mean Bastards as Culture Heroes"
Jesse Lemisch | August 5, 2010 |
A note on "Mean Bastards": This short piece, posted after the death of George Steinbrenner, has received a kind of confirmation in Ellen DeGeneres walking out on her five year contract worth tens of millions with "American Idol." I had criticized Simon Cowell (a former AI judge) along with Steinbrenner, Trump, etc.
Hacker and Dreifus’s Higher Education? A Neocon Screed
Jesse Lemisch | July 27, 2010 |
I admire Claudia Dreifus’s interviews with scientists in the New York Times Tuesday Science section, and particularly her attention to women in science, and I know of her honorable history in the left and feminism. So I befriended her on Facebook. There she publicized her book, with Andrew Hacker, Higher Education? How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing our Kids – and What we Can Do About It, to be published by Times Books/Henry Holt on August 3.
Mean Bastards as Culture Heroes
Jesse Lemisch | July 14, 2010 |
All day long, and on into a second day, here in New York, the media have been full of George Steinbrenner. He’s always been a Mean Bastard -- even in the Seinfeld version -- and that’s how he is memorialized: a Mean Bastard and a Winner. Sometimes he’s represented as a Mean-Bastard-with-a Heart-of-Gold-who-Gave-Money-to-Good-Causes. It would seem paradoxical to be deep in grief over a man universally acknowledged to be a Mean Bastard.
The Decommissioners - Update
James Bargent | July 9, 2010 |
The trial of the Decommissioners lasted three weeks, in which time the jury heard not only from the Decommissioners but also detailed evidence of war crimes committed in Palestine and testimony from EDO managing director Paul Hills, who faced questions about his company’s dealings with Israel. All the defendants were acquitted by unanimous jury decisions. One of the defendants, Chris Osmond, said: "It was the right verdict. Our action was because nobody else was willing to take action.
Teachers in Oaxaca: A Review
Dan La Botz | July 6, 2010 |
Diana Denham and the C.A.S.A. Collective, Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2008) and Peter Kuper, A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Oaxaca (Oakland: PM Press, 2009).
The Israeli military and the "Decommissioners"
James Bargent | July 2, 2010 |
On the 17th of January 2009, Israeli warplanes pounded the terrified inhabitants of the densely populated Gaza strip in over 50 air-strikes. It was the 22nd day of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli military assault on Gaza that left an estimated 1400 dead, including over 300 children.
Metal Workers & Miners Unions Consider Merger
Dan La Botz | June 28, 2010 |
Unions Representing Workers in Canada, Mexico qnd U.S. Explore Merger:
Would Create International Union of One Million Metal Workers and Miners
The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents 850,000 workers in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States, and the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMMRM), known as the Mineros, which represents 180,000 workers in Mexico, have announced plans to explore uniting into one international union. The agreement to begin exploration of a merger was signed on June 21.
Max Lane on Indonesia: A review
Dan La Botz | June 11, 2010 |
Max Lane. Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. New York: Verso, 2008. 312 pages. Notes, index. $29.95
The Need to Say NO
Phyllis Jacobson |
[This review appeared in New Politics, vol. I, no. 4, summer 1962 (old series).]
As a novelist, a middle class man of the mid-century, a Jew and a socialist, Harvey Swados is that wonderful rarity in the United States today, a committed human being. His recently published collection of essays written over the last ten years, A Radical’s America,* reveals his deep sense of disturbance about the quality of contemporary American life, its cant and corruption.
Does "union democracy" undermine "solidarity?"
Herman Benson | May 17, 2010 |
[We have asked labor activists to respond to "Card Check: Labor's Charlie Brown Moment?" by Robert Fitch, to encourage discussion on the important issues raised in the article. What follows is the response of Herman Benson.]
Los Suns
Bill Littlefield | May 12, 2010 |
It's not unprecedented for athletes here to object to racist policies, military invasions, and various other crimes and stupidities.
The raised, gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium at the 1968 Olympics provide the most dramatic and public example of athletes taking a public stand against oppression. For their courage, Smith and Carlos were demonized and hustled out of town by the U.S. Olympic Committee, though today they are celebrated, at least in some circles.
Phyllis Jacobson, 1922-2010
Joanne Landy and Stephen R. Shalom | May 8, 2010 |
The editorial board of New Politics is very sad to report the death of Phyllis Jacobson, co-founder and long-time co-editor of the journal. Phyllis died on March 2, 2010, after suffering a devastating stroke close to ten years ago.
In Tribute to Phyllis Jacobson
David Finkel | May 8, 2010 |
Julie and Phyllis Jacobson launched New Politics in the early 1960s, when they saw the absence of a voice for authentic left-socialist thought following the demise of the Independent Socialist current of the previous period. Ironically, although it was a time of reborn activism for civil rights, peace and what we now call “global justice,” the movement for a socialist politics fiercely independent of Washington, Moscow and Beijing had not organizationally survived to see it.
Phyllis Jacobson: An Appreciation
Barry Finger | May 8, 2010 |
Phyllis Jacobson, who died after a protracted illness on March 2 -- just shy of her 88th birthday -- was the dynamic force behind a remarkable political and intellectual partnership of shared passion that left an indelible imprint on three generations of twentieth century American radicalism.
For Phyllis Jacobson, A Comrade
Bogdan Denitch | May 8, 2010 |
Those of us who knew Phyllis Jacobson and her husband Julie will realize that her death brings to a close a long and rich chapter in the history of the revolutionary and democratic socialist left in the US. She was the last of a small but heroic generation. Starting with the YPSL Fourth International, the youth section of the Socialist Party that split under Trotskyist leadership to set up the Socialist Workers Party in 1938 she and Julie ended up in the Workers Party (later the Independent Socialist League) when it was formed in 1940.
Condolence Statement
Lance Selfa | May 8, 2010 |
We would like to send our condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Phyllis Jacobson. As a founding editor of New Politics, Phyllis played a crucial role in advocating the core principles of "socialism from below," including opposition to Stalinism and support for independent working-class political action. Her commitment to internationalism and solidarity was genuine and heartfelt. Without any hesitation, she opened the pages of New Politics to us when we organized campaigns to defend socialists in Greece and South Korea who faced government persecution.
Good Bye, Phyllis
Samuel Farber | May 8, 2010 |
I met Phyllis and Julie in September of 1961. I had just graduated from the University of Chicago where I had joined the YPSL, and was passing through New York on my way to London. I met them at Julie’s machine shop in Great Jones Street in the East Village and they took me out for lunch at the corner diner on Lafayette and Great Jones. There they told me that the first issue of New Politics had just come out, and as the good and experienced organizers they were, they immediately enrolled me as their London distributor.
A Robust Voice for Such a Diminutive Person
Stephen Steinberg | May 8, 2010 |
The image of Phyllis that remains most salient, and the one I most miss, would begin with a phone call. I would answer with a lugubrious “hello.” And from the other end, I would hear a buoyant “HIYA, STEVE, this is PHYLLIS.” A robust voice for such a diminutive person. And a twang that seemed more Texan than Bronx.
A Personal and Political Tribute to Phyllis
Lynn Chancer | May 7, 2010 |
IT’S A STAPLE of American comedians to make fun of in-laws in general and mothers-in-law in particular. But, in my case and with no offense to Michael, I could have married my husband simply for his parents.
The New Corporatism in American Politics and the Grassroots
Dan La Botz | May 3, 2010 |
From the Tea Party to the Coffee Party, How Political Parties Grow the Grass and Mow the Lawn
"Drunk, crazy, and manipulated by their betters" - Sailors and Democracy
Jesse Lemisch | April 15, 2010 |
My research on Jack Tar, the American colonial seaman, began in rebellion against the highly politicized historiography of the 50s and early 60s, which reflected Cold War values, stressing the classlessness of American society, the lack of conflict, and the irrationality of those who dissented. A conservative historiography saw crowd actions in early America as drunk/crqzy, or manipulated by their betters.
Kate Millett and Her Critics
Phyllis Jacobson |
[This article appeared in the old series of New Politics, Fall 1970.]
Sexual Politics by Kate Millet
Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y. 1970, 393 pp. $7.95
Kate Millet's Sexual Politics has elicited awe, praise and sober criticism, but proof of its effectiveness is the appearance of a variety of articles and reviews marked by utterly unselfconscious vulgarity, philistinism and venomous hostility.
Why Should the Left Trust the Government?
Jesse Lemisch | March 30, 2010 |
In 1960, as a graduate student in history, I decided to pick up some work as a census-taker on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. At the training session (at the Henry George School), the instructor said, "you're paid by the head, and [smirk], nobody's going to make any trouble if you find a couple of two-headed people." (At that time I was still a Good Boy, and didn't find any such.)
Invoking "sedition" against Teabaggers: short-sighted, ahistorical, and suicidal
Jesse Lemisch | March 26, 2010 |
The Nation joins a great tradition (Alien and Sedition Acts, Palmer Raids, Smith Act) by invoking "sedition" against Teabaggers.
Black Outrage in Los Angeles
Phyllis Jacobson |
[This article appeared in New Politics no. 13, Summer 1992.]
The fire burning in South-Central Los Angeles illuminated the rage, anguish and despair of African-Americans consigned to bleak lives of poverty and hopelessness by the most "advanced" country in the world. But as history attests, once the rage subsides, the images, which should be unforgettable, are all too soon forgotten. The ghetto and those trapped inside it are once more invisible.
The Right's Conspiracy Theory Attack on Frances Fox Piven
Peter Dreier | March 25, 2010 |
If you believe Glenn Beck, the Tea Party lunatics, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk, Frances Fox Piven is the Marxist Machiavelli whose 1966 article in The Nation (written with Richard Cloward) still serves as the blueprint for a radical takeover of American society, including Barack Obama's "socialist" administration.
Two Invented Lives
Phyllis Jacobson |
[This article was published in New Politics No. 23, Summer 1997]
Review of HELLMAN AND HAMMETT, by Joan Mellen (HarperCollins, New York, 1996. 572pp. $30.00 HB, $13.00 PB)
Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
February 8, 2010 |
[Editors' note: Howard Zinn, among his multitude of other contributions to the left, was a long-time sponsor of New Politics. We express our deepest sympathies to his family and post here an article by NP board member Steve Shalom that will be appearing in the spring issue of Democratic Left.]
'Bows of pseudo-profundity' and 'moral certitude': Alan Johnson and Democratiya
Roger Spalding | February 1, 2010 |
The merger of the online journal Democratiya, with Dissent, provides an obvious point to begin assessing the role of Alan Johnson's creation. The following is not intended as the last word on this subject, but as a contribution to a process of analysis. The approach here will be to focus on the argumentation used in Democratiya, specifically in the one article written for the journal by Johnson.
The Politics of George Clooney’s Help for Haiti Telethon
Stephen Steinberg |
I totally agree with Jesse Lemisch's astute comments about George Clooney's extravaganza and its conspicuous avoidance of anything that might be construed as "political." Of course, in the midst of a colossal disaster, this feel-good spectacle of entertainment icons is inherently political, rife with intended and unintended consequences. First of all, it is hard to separate celebrity magnanimity from self-promotion.
George Clooney's Haiti -- and Beyond
Jesse Lemisch |
George Clooney (currently in "Up in the Air") organized on short notice a technically and musically fine two hour fund-raising telethon, "Hope for Haiti," which was broadcast on January 22 on most networks, many cable channels, on the Web, and both in and beyond the US. Here are two samplers of the music: one and two.
A Hostile Biography of Leon Trotsky
Reviewed by Paul Le Blanc | January 1, 2010 |
Robert Service. Trotsky: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 600 pages, including end notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.
Dennis Brutus
Sam Waite | December 31, 2009 |
Dennis Brutus – celebrated poet, anti-apartheid fighter and lifelong socialist – died last week. As a student activist at the University of Pittsburgh in the mid-2000s, I was privileged to know Dennis in the short time before he departed for the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where he spent his last years.
Worth reading: “The Old Man” by Christopher Hitchens
Gertrude Ezorsky | December 27, 2009 |
If you missed “The Old Man,” Christopher Hitchens’ review of Verso’s reissue of Isaac Deutscher’s trilogy about Leon Trotsky,
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200407/hitchens
do read it.
News update: Mexican government to meet with electrical workers, mediators
Dan La Botz | December 16, 2009 |
The Mexican Secretary of the Interior will meet with the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) and a group of mediators tonight (December 16) some months since President Felipe Calderón liquidated the state-owned Light and Power Company, seized the facilities, and fired of the 44,000 workers. The union, which has sought in the courts the return of all workers to their jobs, has more modest goals for these negotiations, according to general secretary Martín Esparza.
Middle East: Faint Glimmer of Hope
David Finkel | November 20, 2009 |
There’s a glimmer – a very faint glimmer – of hope arising from recent developments in Palestine. I’m referring to the statement by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that he will not seek re-election as “president” of the Palestinian Authority (PA), in essence a statement of resignation. If Abu Mazen stands by his resignation, it will deliver a much-needed kick in the teeth to the Obama administration.
Putting race on a bronze pedestal
Norm Diamond | October 27, 2009 |
Planning a Columbus Day radio broadcast this year with Native American friends from across the hemisphere brought back a childhood memory. We were talking about that unfortunate human capacity to regard groups of strangers as "others," as qualitatively different, strange, threatening and of lesser worth, and about the town that succeeded in getting rid of its “illegal aliens” only to discover that its workforce, consumers and everything that sustained its economy had been eliminated.
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights For Its Life
Dan La Botz | October 19, 2009 |
The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), made up of approximately 43,000 active and 22,000 retired workers in Mexico City and surrounding states, is fighting for its life. The union's struggle has rallied allies in the labor movement and on the left in Mexico and solidarity from throughout the country and around the world, but, if it is to survive, the union and its supporters have to take stronger actions than they have so far, and time is not on their side.
Nobel Ironies – The “Not George Bush” Prize
David Finkel | October 15, 2009 |
It seems doubly ironic that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has given its 2009 award to Barack Obama -- just a few months after Arizona State University declined to award him the customary, symbolic honorary degree as its commencement speaker.
The ASU decision, on the grounds that president Obama “had not yet accomplished enough,” was fully understandable in view of the reputation which that esteemed University is committed to uphold.
Nobel Ironies – The “Not George Bush” Prize
David Finkel | October 15, 2009 |
It seems doubly ironic that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has given its 2009 award to Barack Obama -- just a few months after Arizona State University declined to award him the customary, symbolic honorary degree as its commencement speaker.
The ASU decision, on the grounds that president Obama “had not yet accomplished enough,” was fully understandable in view of the reputation which that esteemed University is committed to uphold.
Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
Dan La Botz | October 12, 2009 |
October 11, 2009 -- Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico. The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the elimination of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) which has opposed the government's policies.
[See call for Solidarity with Mexican Electrical Workers Union at end of this article.]
War in Afghanistan and Pakistan: A critical moment to voice your opposition
Joanne Landy and Tom Harrison Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy | October 10, 2009 |
The President and Congress are reviewing U.S. policy on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is a critical moment. This may be a turning point for the expanding U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a time when speaking out clearly and unambiguously against war can make a crucial difference.
Mexican Government Prepares to Seize Mexico City Power Plants to Break Power of Electrical Workers Union
Dan La Botz | September 30, 2009 |
The Mexican Preventive Police (PFP) are preparing to occupy the facilities of the Central Light and Power Company in Mexico City in an attempt to break the militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), according to a union press release. The union warns that the quasi-military occupation of the plants could come within a week.
Lowering the age of consent: Sexual rights are human rights
Peter Tatchell | September 26, 2009 |
Law professor John Spencer, of Cambridge University, has created a huge controversy in the UK by suggesting a reduction in the current age of sexual consent of 16. His proposals, broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Iconoclasts programme, with my support as a co-advocate, have been savaged by The Sun and the Daily Mail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mrd9g
Lowering the age of consent: Sexual rights are human rights
Peter Tatchell | September 26, 2009 |
Law professor John Spencer, of Cambridge University, has created a huge controversy in the UK by suggesting a reduction in the current age of sexual consent of 16. His proposals, broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Iconoclasts programme, with my support as a co-advocate, have been savaged by The Sun and the Daily Mail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mrd9g
“The Last Truck”: Politics and Art
Nelson Lichtenstein | September 17, 2009 |
The extent to which a film, book, essay, meeting, or web posting will evoke the emotional immediacy of some contemporary disaster or the analysis of why and how it happened is an aesthetic issue and a political one as well. My analysis of the film tilts toward the latter, and not merely a result of my Victorian Marxist inclinations.
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Jesse Lemisch | September 13, 2009 |
On the evening of September 7 (Labor Day) HBO broadcast "The Last Truck:Closing of a GM Plant [in Ohio]", a documentary by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar. The film interviews workers about their years at the plant, and counts down to the last day and the last truck, I found it powerful, both emotionally and aesthetically.
Immediately afterwards. I wrote to H-Labor, the labor historians discussion list:
Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29
Jesse Lemisch (Yale 1957) | August 25, 2009 |
Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29 (2008), directed by Kevin Rafferty, a thrilling football movie showing Harvard’s astonishing come-from-behind “victory” – the title is the Harvard Crimson’s -- in the last 42 seconds of the 1968 Yale-Harvard game.
Multiculturalism vs. human rights?
Peter Tatchell | August 13, 2009 |
Multiculturalism vs. human rights?
Defending multiculturalism but warning against its excesses
Multiculturalism has many positive benefits. It defends the right to the different, which is a very important and precious human right, especially for those people whose difference has historically resulted in social marginalization and exclusion: including women, black, disabled and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.
Debating Activism
Norm Diamond | August 8, 2009 |
Underneath any specific conclusions we come to on any subject, is a more fundamental framework consisting of our premises. Because premises are usually implicit in contrast to explicit conclusions, and because they often are shared by much of our surrounding culture, we tend to take them for granted. We may argue or discuss some specific government action, for instance, without even being aware that our agreement or disagreement is itself shaped by our underlying sense of human nature or what kind of society is possible or what difference we are able to make in the world.
Interested in "bad guys" - but not bad systems
Barbara Garson | August 5, 2009 |
While researching a book on The Great Recession (or whatever we wind up calling this economic downturn) I noticed that I couldn’t find any unemployed bankers who had actually handled the “toxic assets” that supposedly caused the crisis. I started to look for them systematically and eventually discovered that they were still employed. Furthermore, their activity of creating and trading collateralized debt obligations and the SWAPS that insured them was, in fact, booming.
Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis
Stephen R. Shalom, Thomas Harrison, Joanne Landy and Jesse Lemisch |
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
July 7, 2009
STUNNING VICTORY FOR CZECH OPPONENTS OF U.S. RADAR BASE
Joanne Landy Thomas Harrison | March 20, 2009 |
For immediate release
Contact: Joanne Landy, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, jlandy@igc.org
NEW YORK, March 18, 2009