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What’s Next for Greece? Debating Syriza’s Options
A reading list on the future of austerity in Greece, Europe and beyond
Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison April 3, 2015 |
In the weeks following its historic victory in the Greek elections on January 25, 2015, Syriza has been engaged in a bitter struggle.
My Deeply-Held Religious Convictions
by George Fish April 2, 2015 |
Dedicated to Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act
First We Take Manhattan…
Global Cities and Diasporic Networks in the aftermath of Syriza’s Victory
by Despina Lalaki March 24, 2015 |
Since the pressures of international financial capital and its subservient political elites will continue with the same if not greater intensity, it is also certain that a new cycle of social mobilization in Greece and the rest of Europe will begin again.
Zen and the Art of Social Movement Maintenance
by James K. Rowe March 24, 2015 |
[This article was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.]
Angela Davis, revolutionary activist and philosopher, is a committed yogi. She began practicing in prison when a doctor working with the Black Panther Party passed along a book on yoga to help her deal with chronic headaches.
Texts and Updates from Greece Panel Discussion Available
Campaign for Peace & Democracy's Feb. 6 NYC Forum
by Stephen R. Shalom March 7, 2015 |
New Politics has previously posted a video version of a Feb. 6 New York City panel discussion sponsored by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy (CPD) entitled “After the Greek Elections: The Future of Austerity in Greece, Europe and Beyond.”
CPD has now posted text versions of the talks, along with separate updates by each of the speakers.
Model or Sui Generis? Comrade Kshama Sawant is Likely Both
by Michael Hirsch March 6, 2015 |
I’m still frozen in the moment. Has it really been 15 months since revolutionary socialist Kshama Sawant brought her unique brand of municipal socialism back to a major American city after winning an at-large seat in Seattle’s nonpartisan City Council race?
Electoral Action Conference: Building Alternatives to the Two-Party System
by Robert Caldwell March 4, 2015 |
Activists and candidates from around the country will come together on May 2-3 in Chicago to share their experiences and to launch a network for future cooperation at the Future of Left/Independent Electoral Action Conference.
The past few years have seen a significant uptick in independent political initiatives on the left, from election campaigns to new local electoral and social movement formations, to referenda campaigns.
Can Greece defy the Troika?
by Barry Finger March 3, 2015 |
The agreement signed between Greece and the EU after three weeks of negotiations is widely lamented on the left as a setback, if not a defeat, for Syriza. The two sides emerged from the agreement, if that is an accurate description, with different interpretations of the memorandum, signifying perhaps that no real deal was made after all. Greece obtained brief reprieve. Its banks will remain liquid for the next few months. The next phase will not be about what can be extracted from the troika, as much as what Greece can do despite and in defiance of the troika. That is what will be discussed here.
Debt Forgiveness: Who Owes Whom for What?
by Nancy Holmstrom February 26, 2015 |
The lion’s share of indebtedness in this world is invalid and immoral. Forgiveness is not what is called for; it’s liberation.
Talk of a “debt jubilee” leaves open whether the debts are valid or not, but talking about debt forgiveness raises the question of whether a debt is valid from a moral point of view.
On Cafes
by Amin Mansouri February 25, 2015 |
Cafes bring memories of the unpleasantly bleak days of my undergraduate studies in which I sought my peace of mind in the rough and stormy sea of Jean-Paul Sartre’s world, his philosophy and his novels shining light on the notion of loneliness for me. And I lived inside his books and through the characters he created. However, the more I grew critical, the stranger I found Sartre’s intellectual legacy.
#Flood11 Collective Statement
February 25, 2015 |
[Eds.: On Monday, March 2, 2015, in New York City a trial begins for eleven activists who are refusing to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and pay fines for taking part in a climate sit-in in Manhattan's Financial District last September. The Flood Wall Street Eleven plan instead to use their trial to illustrate that the bankers who finance climate change are the real harbingers of disorder. Below is a collective statement from the group. You can sign a petition in their support here.]
In order to solve a problem, you must first identify its’ source. . .
Le Guin Blasts Corporate Publishers
Speech in Acceptance of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
by Ursula K. Le Guin February 21, 2015 |
To the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks, from the heart. My family, my agents, my editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as my own, and that the beautiful reward is theirs as much as mine.
Newark students seize Cami Anderson’s office
by Bob Braun February 19, 2015 |
A small group of Newark high school students Tuesday night seized the office of state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson in a protest timed to coincide with her imminent re-appointment to another year, her fifth, as head of the state’s largest school district. The action, which is continuing through the night, stands in stark contrast to the failure of Anderson’s older–and, theoretically, more powerful–critics to do anything to dislodge her from her post.
Men Explain Things to Me…and I Hardly Care - a review
by Amber Frost February 16, 2015 |
Rebecca Solnit, Men Explain Things to Me. Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2014. 130pp.
The word “mansplaining” refers to the condescending tendency of men to lecture women, despite the man’s lack of knowledge—or even despite the woman’s own expertise—on the subject at hand. It entered into the popular feminist lexicon sometime around 2009, and although Rebecca Solnit didn’t coin it, her essay, “Men Explain Things to Me,” is largely cited as the inspiration.
2015: A Time for Outrage?
by Lily Murphy February 13, 2015 |
Two years have passed since one of the great political and social thinkers of our time departed this world.
On 26 February 2013 Stephane Hessel died at the age of 95. Hessel enjoyed a long life, from his birth in Berlin to his final breath in Paris, where one of his last works Indignez-Vous! (Time For Outrage) was published.
Syriza: “A grain of sand in the machinery”
by Eric Toussaint February 13, 2015 |
![Image](/web/20150410072652im_/http://newpol.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/14/cadtm.jpg)
Eric Toussaint, analyses Syriza’s first days at the head of the Greek government for Le Courrier. He was interviewed by Benito Pérez (of the daily Le Courrier, Geneva. 1]
Eric Toussaint is visibly exhausted at the end of a difficult week. But his mind is clear and his enthusiasm is intact: Syriza’s victory in the Greek legislative election has opened one of those parentheses within which History accelerates and is written as we watch. A political scientist who is experienced in economic matters, founder and spokesman of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), Toussaint is a key observer of the battle now going on between Greece and its creditors—mainly the governments of Northern Europe. That is evident from the interest that was shown in his presentations Saturday, in Geneva, during a day of discussions on the economy organized by Le Courrier. A former adviser to the government of Ecuador and the president of Paraguay (Fernando Lugo), the Belgian native has also been approached by Syriza. Pending his possible involvement, Eric Toussaint is speaking out freely and observing the Greek experiment with a benevolent but critical eye.
SYRIZA, Socialists and the Struggles Ahead: A Roundtable
by Antonis Davanellos and Sotiris Martalis February 12, 2015 |
Greece's left-wing government is on a collision course with the rulers of Europe over the commitment of the Coalition of the Radical Left, or SYRIZA, to reverse drastic austerity measures imposed under the Memorandums negotiated with the European Union (EU).
SYRIZA won a tremendous victory in the January 25 elections because it promised an alternative to the catastrophic economic and social crisis that Greece has endured for more than five years. But with the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras only two weeks old, the political and financial elite of Europe, from Germany's Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble to Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB), have rejected all proposals to negotiate Greece's huge foreign debt or relax the austerity conditions imposed as a condition for the bailout of the country's economic system. With a showdown approaching, all eyes are on the struggle in Greece and the hope it hold for the future.
After the Fall: An Autopsy of the Midterms
by Michael Hirsch February 10, 2015 |
Surveying the wreckage of his party’s 2014 election campaign, Howard Dean, on the November 9th Meet the Press, was candid, with such sound bytes as, ““Where the hell is the Democratic party …You got to stand for something if you want to win.” The Republicans’ message was, “We’re not Obama.” What was the Democrats’ message? “Oh well, we really aren’t either.”
Translation: “Get my message; we need a message.”
Revolution Defended in Rojava--For Now
by Alexander Kolokotronis February 8, 2015 |
After approximately four and a half months of fighting, Kurdish forces have successfully pushed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as ISIS or ISIL) out of Kobanî. The coalition of ground forces most notably included the People’s Defense Units (YPG) , Women’s Defense Units (YPJ) , and the Peshmerga from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).At the same time, through the air, a U.S. led-coalition made 700 airstrikes against ISIS. On February 6 it was reported “fourteen more villages and some strategically important points have been liberated.” In an October 2014 article for Naked Capitalism Claude Salhani noted the strategic importance of the region. Salhani stated “victory for” ISIS in the region “would give the group prestige among the dozens of groups lined up in the fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad. It would also secure the terror organization’s flow of oil to a lucrative market.”
Panel Discussion on Syriza Victory
by Thomas Harrison February 9, 2015 |
The Campaign for Peace and Democracy sponsored a panel discussion Friday evening on "After the Greek Elections: The Future of Austerity in Greece, Europe, and Beyond." A standing-room-only audience heard speakers address the success of the Syriza coalition party in the recent Greek elections and how it is dealing with the austerity crisis.
Rasmea Odeh Action Alert
by Rasmea Defense Committee February 5, 2015 |
[Ed. note: Readers of David Finkel's November article on "The Trials of Rasmea Odeh" will be interested in this alert from the Rasmea Defense Committee.]
Solidarity with Syriza: What Can the Left Demand?
by Barry Finger February 4, 2015 |
For Syriza to triumph, it is not enough for it to play tough with the European Union. not enough to bypass the structure of the European Central Bank to find individual national allies, not enough to refuse to cooperate with capitalist auditors. Greece has already lost 30% of its GDP since the peak before the crisis, with unemployment standing at 25%, a decline only comparable to that seen in the US during the Great Depression.
Greece after the election -- not a threat but an opportunity for Europe
February 4, 2015 |
[Ed. note: The list of signatories to this declaration includes seven out of nine German trade union presidents, all members of the executive boards of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and IG Metall, plus some (primarily social-democratic) politicians at the Bundestag and European Parliament levels, including the vice-chairman of the SPD, as well as numerous academics.]
The political landslide in Greece is an opportunity, not only for that crisis-ridden country but also for a fundamental reassessment and revision of EU economic and social policy.
What Caused the Killings?
by Gilbert Achcar February 2, 2015 |
Gilbert Achcar is a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and the author of many books, including Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder, more
The Challenge of Podemos
by Manel Barriere and Andy Durgan and Sam Robson February 2, 2015 |
The emergence of so-called populist parties as a response to increasingly discredited political elites is a European-wide phenomenon. In most cases these parties have emerged on the right, if not the far-right. Not so in the Spanish state where Podemos, after barely ten months in existence, appears to be undermining the whole political set up in place since the end of the Franco dictatorship in the late 1970s.
New York Times perpetuates myth Israel was ‘fighting for its very survival’ during 1967 war
by Stephen R. Shalom January 30, 2015 |
On January 25, the New York Times posted an article by their Israel correspondent, Jodi Rudoren, about a new Israeli film, “Censored Voices,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this pas
The Real Threat in Europe
by Walden Bello January 30, 2015 |
The real threat is the repression of migrant communities by national security states with the backing of a significant segment of the majority population mobilized by right wing forces.
The Left and the Election of Syriza
by David McNally January 30, 2015 |
It was always going to be messy and it has gotten so remarkably quickly. The decision by the Syriza leadership to form a coalition government with the anti-immigrant Independent Greeks (ANEL) party has rightly shaken progressives who hoped that the Greek elections would rapidly transform politics to the left. Instead, we have been harshly reminded that the logic of electoral politics can be dangerously compromising for the left.
An Antarsya Activist Talks to New Politics about the Syriza Government in Greece
by Iannis Delatolas January 29, 2015 |
New Politics interviewed Iannis Delatolas, an art photographer, a founding member of the Greek Solidarity Movement (AKNY), and a supporter of Antarsya and of the International Socialist Tendency. He has been involved in the antifascist solidarity movement with Greece and in struggles for LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, in anti-war activities, and in other social justice causes.
Some thoughts on the deal between Syriza and the Independent Greeks
by Kevin Ovendon January 29, 2015 |
Here are some immediate thoughts. They include how we on the international and internationalist Left might respond. As well as what in my opinion we should say:
After Syriza's Victory
by Stathis Kouvelakis January 26, 2015 |
Syriza’s electoral triumph has brought hope to the European radical Left and workers’ movement, offering it an immense opportunity. We can also put that the other way around – to fail this test could have incalculable consequences.
A few quick remarks on the first difficulties and problems we face:
Context versus Value
by Manash Bhattacharjee January 26, 2015 |
There have been mostly two kinds of responses to the Charlie Hebdo killings. On one side are those who have simply seen it as a satire versus intolerance issue, with a subtext: Satire being seen as a western/universal (artistic) value and intolerance being a fundamental aspect of religion (more specifically: Political Islam).
"We're Facing an Important Crossroad"
Lebanese author Gilbert Achcar says the third revolutionary phase must be free of religious radicalism.
Dina Kabil interviews Gilbert Achcar January 26, 2015 |
Lebanese Marxist intellectual Gilbert Achcar, author of The People Want (2013), Eastern Cauldron (2004) and The Clash of Barbarisms (2002/2006), says Egypt is at an historical and highly important crossroads in the development of the long-term revolutionary process— stressing the urgency in building leadership and formulating strategies appropriate for change.
Infamy
by Michael Löwy January 21, 2015 |
INFAMY. That is the only word that can sum up how we feel about the the murder of our buddies at Charlie Hebdo. A crime made even more hateful because these comrade artists were people on the left, anti-racists, anti-fascists, anti-colonialists, sympathizers with communism and anarchism. It was only recently that they participated in an homage to the memory of a group of Algerians assassinated by the French police in Paris on October 17, 1961.
Sanders for President?
by Michael Hirsch January 21, 2015 |
[This article is a reply to David Goodner's "Why Bernie Sanders Needs to Run for President—As an Independent."]
Dear David,
You want the excellent Bernie Sanders to run as an independent in the 2016 presidential. So do I!
Why Bernie Sanders Needs to Run for President—As an Independent
by David Goodner January 20, 2015 |
[This article originally appeared in In These Times. See the reply by Michael Hirsch.]
Frank Fried, 1927-2015, Presente!
January 16, 2015 |
Franklin Fried, who devoted more than 70 years to supporting and fighting for freedom, justice, equality, and liberation for working and oppressed people in the U.S. and around the world, died Tuesday, Jan. 13, at his home in Alameda, California. He was 87.
The Coming Reckoning in Turkey
by Daniel Johnson January 16, 2015 |
On December 24 a sixteen-year-old student named Mehmet Emin Altunses was arrested in the Turkish city of Konya. His crime? Apparently the youth insulted President Tayyip Recep Erdoğan, saying in a speech that the new president (who served two terms as prime minister between 2003 and 2014) was “the leader of corruption, bribery and theft,” as well as the owner of an “illegal palace.”
Is Solidarity without Identity Possible? - On the Charlie Hebdo Attack
by Cinzia Arruzza January 11, 2015 |
The time I saw Charb in Paris was January 24, 2010, the day of the crowded commemoration of the French philosopher and activist Daniel Bensaïd at La Mutualité. During the speeches, Charb kept drawing and projecting vignettes about his comrade Daniel, whose book, Marx: Mode d’Emploi, he had illustrated a year earlier.
Public Employees in New York
by Michael Hirsch January 10, 2015 |
Review of: Richard Steier, Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City’s Public Employees. Albany, New York: Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press, 2014. 304 pp. US$24.95 (paperback).
Two things I know to be true about Richard Steier. He is the best full-time reporter on the New York City labor beat. He is also the only full-time reporter on the New York City labor beat.
The Massacre at Charlie Hebdo
by David Finkel January 9, 2015 |
The mass murder at Charlie Hebdo in Paris is the leading news story in the world, and is universally condemned – rightfully so. In the left’s condemnation of this brutal massacre of journalists and cartoonists for expressing opinions in satirical form, we need to express our dissent from some of what’s being preached under the foggy cover of “je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie).
NPA Statements on Charlie Hebdo Killings
January 9, 2015 |
Following are the two statements issued by the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) of France after the January 7 killing of Charlie Hebdo joournalists in Paris. - Dan La Botz, Co-Editor
A Barbarous and Reactionary Act
An Early Activist Critiques Stalin’s 1934 Antihomosexual Law
Kurt Hiller, translated and with an introduction by David Thorstad January 8, 2015 |
[This article, titled “A Chapter of Russian Reaction,” translated into English here for the first time, was written in German by longtime homosexual activist Kurt Hiller (1885–1972) from London and published in the Swiss gay journal Der Kreis in 1946. Hiller had been active in Germany’s first homosexual-rights organization, the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäre Komitee (Scientific Humanitarian Committee), headed by Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935). Founded in 1897, the committee was Germany’s most prominent gay group.
The U.S. and Mexico: Hand-in-Hand in Human Rights Violations
by Kent Paterson December 28, 2014 |
Though little-noticed by the U.S. media, events north of the border bore striking similarities to developments in Mexico in 2014. Like in the mass protests that arose south of the Rio Bravo and then rapidly extended worldwide over the police killings and forced disappearances of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college students in Guerrero, Mexico, the catalyzing issue in El Norte was police violence.
The Alternative in Cuba
by Samuel Farber December 28, 2014 |
On December 17, 2014, Washington and Havana agreed to a path-breaking change in a relationship that, for more than fifty years, was characterized by the United States’ efforts to overthrow the Cuban government, including the sponsorship of invasions, naval blockades, economic sabotage, assassination attempts, and terrorist attacks.
‘Anyone but Bibi’ Strengthens the Israeli Right Wing
by Da'am Workers Party December 27, 2014 |
[Editors’ note: The Da’am Workers Party is an Israeli revolutionary socialist organization formed by Palestinian and Jewish activists in 1995. The party initiated the formation of the WAC-MANN trade union movement that aims to organize sectors and populations traditionally neglected by Israel’s mainstream union federation, the Histadrut, and does so based on an explicitly anti-corporate, anti-austerity platform. It opposed the Oslo accords, but supports a two state solution based on the 1967 borders and the dismantling of all settlements. In the last Knesset election, Da’am ran with a Palestinian feminist, Asma Aghbaria-Zahalka, at the head of its list. This article was published on the Da’am website on Dec. 20, 2014.]
Solidarity with Black Lives Matter Movement
by Vermont Workers Center December 27, 2014 |
As human rights organizations, representing struggles ranging from disability rights to labor rights to criminal justice reform, from migrant justice to climate justice, we recognize the struggle for black liberation as central to securing all of our human rights in a country founded upon systemic racism.
The Politics of Dead Cops and the Coming Repression
by Mike King December 25, 2014 |
There’s blood on many hands tonight. Those that incited violence on this street under the guise of protest, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did everyday. We tried to warn it must not go on, it cannot be tolerated. That blood on the hands starts on the steps of city hall in the office of the mayor.
Activists Blast NYPD Attempts To Silence Movement For Change
by Ferguson Action December 24, 2014 |
New York, NY — Activists issued a scathing statement this afternoon in response to recent attempts by the NYPD to silence the efforts of citizens seeking justice for victims of police violence.
Dreamed a Dream by the Old Canal…….
by Lily Murphy December 23, 2014 |
This year marks 100 years since the birth of Ewan MacColl. Born James Henry Miller in Salford on January 25,1915, he adapted the stage name of Ewan MacColl to acknowledge his strong Scottish heritage.
Post-racialism and the New Civil Rights Movement
Fran Shor December 22, 2014 |
As the shouts of “Black Lives Matter” reverberate from the streets of Ferguson, Missouri to the bridges of New York City, mass protest is once again raising the issue of the persistence of racism, both institutional and individual. Young people, especially from within the black community, have assumed leadership by mo
Catholicism: The New Communism?
by Richard Greeman December 21, 2014 |
Last week, as yet another mega-typhoon laid waste to the Philippines, the leaders of 183 capitalist governments met in Lima, Peru to face the imminent threat of climate catastrophe at a U.N. Climate Conference called COP20. (Yawn.) In case you missed the headlines (they were small), the world leaders agreed to nothing.[1]
DSA on Normalizing Relations with Cuba
December 21, 2014 |
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) celebrates the Obama administration’s move toward the normalization of diplomatic relationships between the United States and Cuba. This change in U.S. foreign policy will help bridge the divide between U.S. and Cuban residents.
Lost to Idealism: The British Left Choose Rhetoric over Reality
by Karl Johnson December 19, 2014 |
In the United Kingdom, we are accustomed to progressives conducting their arguments in confident terms of complete inevitability. Progress is a one way street, and we are marching ceaselessly along it towards the end of history, almost without trying.
Shummy’s Surrender: Democratic Governor of VT Goes South On Single Payer
by Steve Early December 19, 2014 |
“Vermont…is the only state with universal single-payer health coverage for its residents.”
--James Fallows in The Atlantic, April, 2014
Exposing the FBI
by Lawrence S. Wittner December 16, 2014 |
Review of The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI, by Betty Medsger (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. 596 pages. Notes, Index. Hardcover $29.95; paperback $16.95).
A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement
by Alicia Garza December 15, 2014 |
I created #BlackLivesMatter with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, two of my sisters, as a call to action for Black people after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was post-humously placed on trial for his own murder and the killer, George Zimmerman, was not held accountable for the crime he committed. It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society and also, unfortunately, our movements.
"Class, Race, Gender and U.S. Policing"
by Michelle Renee Matisons December 15, 2014 |
The white supremacist policing practices behind the murder-by-cop epidemic is really a capitalist, white supremacist, heteropatriarchal policing system that must be analyzed and fought as such.”
The Faults of American Criminal Justice Run Deeper than Race
by Nathan J. Robinson December 15, 2014 |
For those continually exasperated by the spate of white denials of racism in the face of blatantly racist police murders, the #CrimingWhileWhite stories on Twitter were a gratifying rebuttal.
Hong Kong, Ferguson and New York City! Solidarity Statement with Black Communities in Ferguson, Missouri and NYC
December 11, 2014 |
The following statement from Left 21 in Hong Kong was written in early December as the pro-democracy activists there were being driven from the streets. - Dan La Botz, Co-Editor
From Hong Kong to Ferguson and NYC, we send you our warmest solidarity!
Police Violence is Not Inevitable
by Steve Early December 3, 2014 |
In the wake of a Missouri grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown on August 9, it can be difficult to imagine a city in the United States where a police department and a largely black and Latino population work together productively.
But it’s happening in Richmond, California, a gritty town in the San Francisco Bay Area best known for its massive Chevron refinery and, in past years, for its high crime rate.
OUTRAGE, PROTEST, AND REBELLION OVER REFUSAL TO INDICT MICHAEL BROWN’S KILLER
by Saulo Colón and Dan La Botz November 25, 2014 |
Pain and anger at the police killing of Michael Brown became transformed into protests that swept across America just before Thanksgiving. Thousands of people in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, and tens of thousands in cities throughout the country reacted with indignation, anger and in Ferguson with violent protests after the grand jury failed to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Sign-on Statement: End the Killing of Students Now: Peace, Justice, and Democracy for Mexico
by Campaign for Peace and Democracy November 20, 2014 |
Dear Friend of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy,
The Trials of Rasmea Odeh
by David Finkel November 20, 2014 |
Rasmea Odeh, a 67-year-old Palestinian-American, associate director of the Arab American Action Network and organizer of the acclaimed Arab Women’s Committee in Chicago, was convicted in Detroit on November 10 of “unlawful procurement of naturalization” at the time she became a U.S. citizen in 2004.
Her imprisonment immediately afterward has been the most shocking part of the case, as explained below.
How Labor Can Save Itself
by Michael Hirsch November 19, 2014 |
Review of The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement,
By Stanley Aronowitz, Verso, 2014.
Kobanê, Turkey, and the Syrian Struggle
Joseph Daher interviewed by Riad Azar November 18, 2014 |
An extended interview with Joseph Daher, a member of the Revolutionary Left Current in Syria, living in Switzerland, will be published in the forthcoming Winter 2015 issue of New Politics. Here we just post the questions dealing with Kobanê and Turkey.
Midterm Elections, Direct Democracy, and Legitimacy
by JP Miller November 17, 2014 |
If any group of United States citizens can claim a mandate in the midterm elections than it must be the millions of eligible voters who abstained from voting. It is a common excuse when discussing U.S. midterm elections to argue that voters do not participate in the numbers that accompany elections in a presidential election year. However, blaming the low 2014 election turn-out on a historical trend is incomplete and deceptive.
Global Capitalism and Pathogenic Environments: Is palm oil monoculture responsible for the ongoing Ebola outbreak?
by Jean Batou November 13, 2014 |
The Ebola pandemic, which has already caused the death of more than 5000 people in West Africa, could kill more than 90,000 people, just in the Liberian county of Montserrado, between now and 15 December, if measures taken in the affected regions are not massively increased over the next few days.[i]
The No State Solution: Institutionalizing Libertarian Socialism in Kurdistan
by Alexander Kolokotronis November 2, 2014 |
In what many outside of the territory are referring to as the Rojava Revolution, a major shift in political philosophy and political programmatics has taken place in Kurdistan. Yet, this shift is not limited to the region of Rojava, or what many call Syrian or Western Kurdistan – a region where the Democratic Union Party (PYD) has taken an active part in this change. In “Turkish,” or rather Northern Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has been the foremost leader.
Brazilian 2014 Elections: Plus ça change...
by Charmain Levy October 28, 2014 |
Once again the Workers’ Party (PT) found itself in the difficult position of having to defend its government’s sorry record on issues such as the economy, corruption and energy policies, all while fending off right-wing opposition candidates. Fortunately for the PT and its incumbent president and presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff, their adversaries at the national level never managed to assemble a political program that differentiated itself from the PT’s.
Critique of Piketty on Capital and Inequality
by Charles Post October 27, 2014 |
THE ISSUE OF growing inequalities of income and wealth in the advanced capitalist world over the past four decades has been the subject of both social scientific research and political struggle. On the one hand, there is an extensive literature that amply documents the growth of inequality globally since the mid-1970s.
Rosa Luxemburg for Today
by Nicole Shippen October 27, 2014 |
BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY:
Rosa Luxemburg: Her Life and Legacy
Edited by Jason Schulman
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 214 pp.
The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg:
Volume I: Economic Writings 1
Edited by Peter Hudis
Verso, 2013, 596 pp.
The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Socialist Perspective
by Eric Chester October 26, 2014 |
On September 18, 2014, the Scottish people had the opportunity to withdraw from the United Kingdom and become an independent country. The unity of Scotland and England has existed since 1707, so the vote could have broken with three hundred years of history. After a long and bitter campaign, the proposal to leave the UK was defeated by a margin of 55% to 45%.
Protests Sweep Mexico over Police Attack on Students
by Frontera NorteSur |
[October 24, 2014] Public outrage over the police murders of six people and forced disappearances of 43 students from the Atoytzinapa rural teachers’ college in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero continued to snowball this week.
Response to Jay and Sustar & Bean
by Adolph Reed |
The following article by Adolph Reed, Jr. responds to an article that appeared on the New Politics website a week ago. Sadly, since then we have learned that Karen Lewis has been afflicted with brain cancer. We offer our sympathy to her, her family, and her friends and wish for her rapid and full recovery.
Behind the Kobane Tragedy: The Kurdish Political Movement and Turkey
by Özlem İlyas Tolunay October 14, 2014 |
The whole world is just watching the forthcoming massacre in Kobane. US-led air strikes seem to be made only for show. When ISIS approached the oil-rich Erbil, the Kurdish Regional Government’s capital, the U.S.-led coalition forces immediately took action against ISIS. However they didn’t do the same for Kobane.
Indiana Moral Mondays
by George Fish October 12, 2014 |
Moral Mondays has been established in Indiana. At a founding meeting in Indianapolis in mid-September, the organization adopted a “five-point agenda” similar to those of Moral Mondays movements in other states:
Ebola: Who are the Architects of Death and How Can We Combat Them?
by Jean Batou October 11, 2014 |
According to the latest predictions of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if the Ebola pandemic continues to progress at the current rhythm, it could affect 1.4 million people in Liberia and Sierra Leone between now and January 2015, leading to the deaths of 700,000 in a year, and thus making Ebola the third leading cause of death from infectious diseases in Africa, after AIDS and respiratory diseases.
What They's Talking about on the Streets in Hong Kong
by Ruixue Bai October 9, 2014 |
After Sunday night, when many people feared that there might be a crackdown on the protests after following several pleas for protesters to leave the sites and the government’s warning that civil servants must be able to return to work the next day, this week the protests have nevertheless continued.
Karen Lewis and the Long Arm of Lesser Evilism
by Scott Jay October 8, 2014 |
The article by Scott Jay that follows was published on our website several days before the public learned that Karen Lewis was suffering from brain cancer. We are sorry to hear of her illness and offer our sympathy to her and to her family and friends. We leave the article on our website as a matter of public record and because the political issues that it raises remain important, even though she has now decided not to run for mayor. We wish Ms.Lewis a rapid and full recovery. – Editors
A Challenge to Occupiers and Unionists
by Sean Crawford |
Where have all the occupiers gone? We have scattered, enmeshed in an economic system we loathe, faced with the dismal realities of the prolonged "Great Recession" and a jobless recovery that only benefits the ruling class. With our future prospects bleak and our hopes for creating a more just economy diffused, we are left with only our collective will, experience, and values.
A Sleeping Giant Stirs: Mexico's October Risings
by Frontera NorteSur October 5, 2014 |
Largely downplayed in the U.S. media, ground-shaking events are rattling Mexico. On one key front, Mexican Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong announced October 3 the Pena Nieto administration’s acceptance of many of the demands issued by striking students of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). IPN Director Yoloxichitl Bustamante, whose ouster had been demanded by the students, handed in her resignation.
Betty Reid Mandell, at 89; longtime advocate for the poor
by Bryan Marquard October 3, 2014 |
Long after retiring as a professor of social work at Bridgewater State, Betty Reid Mandell kept putting her teachings into practice in her 80s by lending assistance to the homeless who were seeking help from the state Department of Transitional Assistance.
When she stopped by to volunteer, she recalled in an essay, the homeless section of Boston’s welfare offices reminded her of the front line in an endless conflict.
Hong Kong - Statement from Four Organizations Calling for a Tactical Retreat and a Report
October 4, 2014 |
Today [October 3] Hong Kong’s rule of law and basic human rights were totally violated. In Mong Kok, Causeway Bay and Tsim Tsa Tsui fascist thugs and gangs to different extents attacked the peaceful occupiers, resulting in hundreds of injuries. We condemn this most severely. A variety of circumstantial evidence points to the conclusion that Beijing is the biggest suspect behind these thugs and gangs.
Hong-Kong - Chinese Government Sends in its Mafia
October 3, 2014 |
The following is a report from an on-the-ground source in Hong Kong. - Editors
The government is mobilizing its mafia extensively. Since noon, the government has started mobilizing gangsters to provoke the public. It is hard to imagine that the government is lining up with the mafia but it now happens during the CY Leung’s administration. This is something expected and no need to be shocked about it.
Looking at the current situation, the government hopes to shift Occupy Central with Love and Peace into a massive riot and make the Hong Kong public angry with the protesters.
Occupy Central--What’s Next for the Hong-Kong Democracy Movement? A Brief Observation on the Current Movement
by Au Loong Yu October 1, 2014 |
(An earlier version was translated by Bai Ruixue, but since then the Chinese version had been revised and partially translated by the author.)
Monday 29th September 2014/Occupy Central Day 3 - Occupy central continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
Ukraine: Resisting nationalist polarization and Russian invasion
Building a Democratic Left Party; A leftist feminist point of view
Nina Potarskaya interviewed by Jean Batou September 29, 2014 |
Nina Potarskaya is one of the leading Ukrainian leftist feminists, founder of the feminist squadron at Maidan, and member of the Left Opposition, which helped organize three successive conferences of left forces in Kiev, in November 2013, March 2014, and September 2014. The most recent conference decided to build a new democratic Left party, which is the first electoral effort of its kind in Ukraine. She was interviewed in Geneva by Jean Batou, with the help of Kirill Buketov, for solidaritéS.
The Tragedy of Being Michael Brown
Did Brown have to be a college-bound angel to have his death matter?
by Mina Khanlarzadeh September 18, 2014 |
Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, was shot dead by police in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9.
Defying Apocalypse
by Brian Tokar September 18, 2014 |
![Image](/web/20150410072652im_/http://newpol.org/sites/default/files/imagepicker/30/climate justice_1.jpg)
Greening the Union Label
Zero Carbon Future Could Be a Jobs Bonanza
by Steven Wishnia September 18, 2014 |
From teachers to transit workers, civil servants to electricians, the People’s Climate March will have more organized-labor participation than any environmentalist effort in U.S. history.
Naomi Klein Breaks a Taboo
by John Tarleton September 16, 2014 |
The fact that global warming is man-made and poses a grave threat to our future is widely accepted by progressives. Yet, the most commonly proposed solutions emphasize either personal responsibility for a global emergency (buy energy-efficient light bulbs, purchase a Prius), or rely on market-based schemes like cap-and-trade. These responses are not only inadequate, says best-selling author Naomi Klein, but represent a lost opportunity to confront climate change’s root cause: capitalism.
Reply to Bennett Muraskin on Gaza Protest Blog
by Stephen R. Shalom September 7, 2014 |
Bennett Muraskin complains that a blog post of mine -- a report on a demonstration in Newark protesting the blank check given by NJ senators Menendez and Booker for Israel's crimes -- is missing "full recognition of Hamas' war crimes and vile ideology."
Response to Stephen Shalom’s Blog on Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza
by Bennett Muraskin September 7, 2014 |
There is something missing from Stephen Shalom’s blog post on Israelis crimes in the recent Gaza conflict and it is full recognition of Hamas’ war crimes and vile ideology.
Ebola : A Virus in the Heart of Darkness
by Jean Batou September 6, 2014 |
Filoviridae Ebola is a virus made up of ten proteins that was first identified in 1976 in Zaire, today the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While today five types of the virus are recognized, they are all believed to be mutations of the first known strain, which one finds today in western Africa. (Gire et al., Science, August 28, 2014).
Interview with Sam Gindin on 'The Making of Global Capitalism'
by Lois Weiner August 31, 2014 |
Sam Gindin, former Research Director of the Canadian Auto Workers union and co-author with Leo Panitch of “The making of global capitalism” graciously agreed to answer questions from NP board members about his book when he and I participated in a conference at the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Thirteen arrested as protesters tell Senators Menendez and Booker: ‘No more blank check for Israel’s crimes,’
by Stephen R. Shalom August 31, 2014 |
Outside the Gateway Center, where Menendez and Booker have offices. (Photo by Tom Bias.)
[This article was first published on Mondoweiss.]
Michael Brown and Ferguson—Stop the Killing of Black Men
by Dan La Botz August 22, 2014 |
Another young black man has been shot and killed by the police in an American city. Michael Brown’s killing forms part of a national pattern that is a horror for the African American community, an outrage against humanity, and a disgrace to our country.
Ferguson, Militarization, Federal Jurisdiction in Police Brutality
Hawkins Calls for Federal Jurisdiction in Police Brutality Cases; Statement on Ferguson, Garner, Syracuse, Militarization of Police
Howie Hawkins August 22, 2014 |
[We re-post here a statement by Howie Hawkins, Green Party candidate for Governor of New York.—eds.]
Staten Island, Syracuse, Ohio, and Ferguson. Garner, Grant, Crawford, and Brown. Add these locations and names to the long list of young black unarmed men (and women) who are racially profiled and injured or killed at the hands of Police Departments around the country. From every corner of the US there are daily reports of police brutality and misbehavior.
A Comment on the East Bay Mayoral Campaigns
by Scott Jay August 18, 2014 |
In the past few weeks, New Politics has published two valuable commentaries on the role of socialists and the Left in local electoral campaigns, first a broad overview by Dan La Botz and then a response by David Judd specifically on Dan Siegel’s campaign for Mayor of Oakland.
Is It Time To Be Outlaws Again?
by Mel Packer August 17, 2014 |
Only large-scale civil disobedience will make our leaders address economic injustice.
In 1989, Bob Dylan recorded a song titled “Everything Is Broken”. That song seemed to go largely ignored, perhaps because it seemed to be only a pessimistic lament that offered no suggestions for how to go about fixing the “everything”.
But as with many of his songs, it was prophetic. Lately, many Americans are experiencing the feeling that everything is broken, but people in many other countries have had this feeling for a long time.
Israel and Imperialism
A Response to Bennett Muraskin
by Barry Finger August 9, 2014 |
I would like to thank Bennett for his kind and appreciative comments on my artcile and use the opportunity presented by his letter to answer some essential points of contention.
Coal Miners Are Mad…and Scared. And They Have a Right to Be
by Mel Packer August 8, 2014 |
In 1968, the Mannington Mine in Farmington WV owned by Consol Coal, caught fire, blew up, and 78 miners were buried, many likely alive.
In 1972, a Consol mine in Blacksville, WV, caught fire and 9 miners were buried (again, likely alive) when Consol sealed the mine off to stop the fire and save the coal.
Kshama Sawant on Gaza Solidarity: End the Brutal Violence and Killings
by Kshama Sawant August 7, 2014 |
[Because Kshama Sawant is at the moment the leading elected socialist official in the United States her opinions carry a weight far more important than those of many other socialist groups and activists. We print below Sawant's recent statement on Israel's attacks on Gaza made in the Seattle City Council and reprinted on the Socialist Alternative website. - Eds]
Bacevich on the Betrayal of U.S. Soldiers
by Jack Stuart August 6, 2014 |
Review of Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. New York, Metropolitan Books, 2013. 238 pages. Endnotes. Hardcover $26. Paperback $16. Kindle $11.04
Response to Barry Finger on Israel-Palestine
by Bennett Muraskin August 6, 2014 |
I wish to commend Barry Finger for his analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict dating back to the establishment of 1947 UN Partition Plan. (Finger makes a minor error in calling it the “1948 partition.”)
Michael Walzer's Defense of Israel's Crimes
by Stephen R. Shalom August 4, 2014 |
There is so much wrong with Michael Walzer’s brief essay on the New Republic website, supporting Israel in its latest onslaught, while criticizing “a little uneasily” some of the excessive civilian deaths, that it is hard to know where to begin.
Supporting the Struggle Against Apartheid Then and Now
by Barry Finger July 29, 2014 |
The discussion of a socialist strategy towards Palestine never recedes from global pertinence and urgency. The basic terms of the Palestinian tragedy established in 1948 remain a festering wound—unaddressed, malignant and oozing in blood and rot. With it the Israeli garrison state continues to descend, and rightfully so, into isolation and disrepute in the court of civilized opinion.
Obama Foreign Policy – A Brief Postscript
by David Finkel July 26, 2014 |
JULY 21, 2014 -- Since the writing of my effort to analyze the Obama foreign policy (“Droning On, Fracking the Planet,” New Politics Summer 2014), a confluence of events – in various ways, all blowback from ravages of U.S policies past and present – combined to transform much of world politics in nasty and dangerous directions, with huge tolls in destruction and human misery. To review very briefly:
La Botz Got the Siegel Campaign All Wrong
by David Judd July 24, 2014 |
Dan La Botz' article on the return of Left to electoral politics is generally insightful, and its survey of campaigns around the U.S. is a valuable contribution. However, the article's analysis of the Dan Siegel campaign for mayor of Oakland is off.
New Politics Summer 2014 is Now Available
by Editors July 20, 2014 |
Dear New Politics Subscribers and Friends,
The exciting new issue of New Politics is now available in print and online! This issue focuses on the American Scene as well as offering articles on the Ukraine and other international topics and theoretical discussions. Click any of the links below to access the online essays and book reviews.
Troublesome Words
by Kristian Williams July 17, 2014 |
Words have histories, and history affects meaning. And since the history of the English language is very much bound up with the history of the English Empire, many ordinary words have histories that are subtly, or even covertly, racist, imperialist, or otherwise troublesome. I recently received a letter from a colleague, taking me to task for using the word tribalism in an article. He wrote:
An Open Letter to Israeli Academics
July 14, 2014 |
These are desperately bad times. The government of Israel, having provoked the firing of rockets by its rampage through the West Bank, is now using that response as the pretext for an aerial assault on Gaza which has already cost scores of lives. An atmosphere of hysteria is being deliberately provoked in Israel, and whole communities are being subject to collective punishment, a war crime. People are dying, and for what? To prevent a unity government of Fatah and Hamas?
Social Inequalities, the World Cup, and Some Simple Solutions
by Maynor G. González July 11, 2014 |
The World Cup is the most widely viewed sporting event around the world. Millions of viewers will tune in Sunday to watch the broadcast of the upcoming final match and cheer on their favorite teams as they battle for the golden trophy. In the United States, the event has become a much anticipated and celebrated source of entertainment – an opportunity for people to show support for their country and an excuse to grab a drink and watch the game with friends at a local bar.
Monsters and a Critique of Everyday Neoliberalism:
An Interview with David McNally
Andrew Sernatinger and Tessa Echeverria July 4, 2014 |
[This is part two of an interview with scholar-activist David McNally on the current economic crisis. The first part focused on the crisis itself, its causes, the way in which working life has been reorganized, the perspective of ruling elites in managing the crisis and pursuing austerity policies, and how this should help inform our stance as movement activists.
Global Slump & the New Normal
An Interview with David McNally
Andrew Sernatinger and Tessa Echeverria June 29, 2014 |
[It’s been nearly seven years since the onset of the global economic crisis that began in 2007. In order to get an understanding of the crisis—of its origins, depth, and trajectory, we spoke with David McNally, activist, political economist, and author of Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance (2010) and more recently Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism (2012). For readability’s sake, we have broken this interview into two parts. This first part focuses on the crisis itself, its causes, the way in which working life has been reorganized, the perspective of ruling elites in managing the crisis and pursuing austerity policies, and how this should help inform our stance as movement activists.
No Iraq War Replay!
June 29, 2014 |
Adopted by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) Steering Committee, June 25, 2014
A majority of working people opposed the Iraq War and participated in the eight year struggle to end it. We felt great relief when the last troops departed Iraq in 2011.
Inequality Kills
by Bob Turansky June 23, 2014 |
Book Review
Göran Therborn. The Killing Fields of Inequality. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013. Hardback: $40.00 Paperback: $19.95 Kindle: $9.99
When I Was Against Gun Control...And Why I Changed My Mind
by Bennett Muraskin June 22, 2014 |
Like many of my generation, I was active in the left. From the mid to late 1960s to the late 1970s, I was affiliated with Trotskyist organizations. We considered ourselves revolutionaries and foresaw the day when the working class would rise up against capitalist oppression, overthrow the government, and establish a proletarian dictatorship. There was no doubt in our minds that this could not be accomplished without violence. When the revolutionary situation was ripe, we would need weapons.
Angela Walker, “Free Range Socialist,” Runs for Sheriff in Milwaukee
June 18, 2014 |
Angela Walker, an independent socialist, is running for the office of Sheriff in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this coming November. Her campaign is part of a small trend of independent labor, Green Party, and socialist campaigns around the country that are discussed in a survey article by Dan La Botz in the forthcoming Summer issue of New Politics. Here La Botz interviews Walker to learn why she is running and what she hopes to accomplish.
Betrayals in Social Movements
by Scott Jay June 16, 2014 |
For the last two years, Dan La Botz has provided an annual roundup of social struggles in the US.
Is 21st Century Fascism Advancing Undercover?
by Jean Batou |
The European Parliamentary Election of last May 25 was marked by a strong push from the Europhobic and racist right, which was rife with currents of the extreme right. Its best showings were achieved by the United Kingdom Independence Party -UKIP (which received 27.5% of the British vote), by the Party of the People of Denmark (26.7%), by the National Front of France (24.9%), and by the Freedom Party of Austria (19.7), and one shouldn’t forget the recent advances of the Swedish Democrats (9.7%) and of Alternative for Germany (7%).
The European Elections: Despite the Crisis, the Neoliberals Save the Day
by Stefanie Prezioso June 7, 2014 |
“Disaster,” “an earthquake,” “electroshock,” “a historic shock,” “a thunderclap,” “a stroke”: the results of the most recent European elections have caused a veritable media storm throughout Europe, beginning with France where the historic victory of the National Front of Marine Le Pen has left commentators with a real hangover.
What Is the “Middle Class”? Who Are the 99%?
by Martin Oppenheimer May 30, 2014 |
What is the “Middle Class”?
Steve Kindred (1944-2013) and University of Chicago Students for a Democratic Society
A distinctive strain within the New Left, both passionate and reasoned
by Jesse Lemisch May 17, 2014 |
Steve Kindred, my friend, brilliant Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) leader, organizer with Teamsters for a Democratic Union, activist in the struggle to keep the Stella d’Oro plant in the Bronx open, campaigner against a lockout of workers by Sotheby’s auction house—all this, and a thousand other causes. Steve is, for lack of a better word, “gone,” in a New York hospital, suffering from abdominal cancer, which has spread. Having been close to Steve and having admired and loved him now for 50 years, I am very sad.
Ghana's Invisible Working Class
by Brian Denepitiya |
Ghana, known for its stability and economic prosperity in the last 50 years, is praised as a model African state. Despite their rise to a middle income country, Ghana is struggling to deal with the rise of Kayayo’s, a destitute working class who go unacknowledged by policy makers. This is the story of an American living in a Kayayo town.
Arundhati’s Demands
by Daniel Larkins |
Arundhati Roy, Capitalism: A Ghost Story. Haymarket, April 2014, $15 paperback.
When you think of ghost stories, you may recall Henry James, Hamlet, or Banquo. Maybe you smell a camp fire, the story going around, the threat of the flame as you extend your arm and that impaled marshmallow over the heat. Or maybe you sense those dying embers, the cool of night taking its grip.
Spring Mix
by Eric Schuster |
The salad days. Too cold or hot or wet for much of anything this time of year, and rereading E. P.
Rosa Luxemburg—a revolutionary for our time, or a liberal?
by Ingo Schmidt April 29, 2014 |
Review of Jason Schulman (ed.), Rosa Luxemburg — Her Life and Legacy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 214 pp.
Beyond the ER
Eminent doctor takes a small and belated peek at how his own privilege saved his life as a patient at Mass General
by Jesse Lemisch April 19, 2014 |
The February 6 issue of The New York Review of Books carried Dr. Arnold Relman’s account of his own hospitalization at Massachusetts General Hospital (and elsewhere) under the title “On Breaking One’s Neck.” In a subsequent article, I said that the appearance of Dr. Arnold Relman as a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital, accompanied by his wife, Dr.
It's Earth Day. Thanks, Toyota!
by Hadas Thier |
Save the earth by buying a Prius? That seems to be the takeaway message from this year’s Earth Day New York taking place on April 22. Earth Day events in the city will be sponsored by – Who would have guessed? – Toyota.
A Rejoinder to Greco on Chomsky
by Stephen R. Shalom April 13, 2014 |
Anthony Greco, in his book Chomsky’s Challenge to American Power, charged Noam Chomsky with too often failing to meet “minimal standards of intellectual honesty” (p. 229). To prove his point he provided instances of things Chomsky wrote over the course of some fifty years that were inaccurate.
Noam Chomsky on American Power: A Reply to Shalom
by Anthony Greco April 13, 2014 |
I conclude my book, Chomsky’s Challenge to American Power (Vanderbilt University Press, 2014), by describing Noam Chomsky as a contradictory figure.
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Militant Minorities and Union Unity
by Kurt Stand April 12, 2014 |
Steve Early. Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement In Distress. Monthly Review Press, November 2013. 304 pages. Notes. Index.
More on Marot's "October Revolution"
by Bob Turansky |
This is in response to an earlier comment on Dan La Botz’s review of Jean Marot’s The October Revolution in Prospect and Retrospect. I agree that the review is excellent, though I’d say in response to Gasper that the book is more than merely “interesting”.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20150410072652im_/http://newpol.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/edition_image_thumb/naomirock.jpg)
The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band 1970-1973
A Slapstick Demolition of Male Supremacy
by Naomi Weisstein April 8, 2014 |
[Introduction by Naomi Weisstein: My paper, “The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band 1970-1973: A Slapstick Demolition of Male Supremacy” was presented at the end of March at the Boston University Conference “A Revolutionary Moment: Women’s Liberation in the Late 1960s and early 1970s.” This landmark conference drew a multiplicity of papers, rigorously retrieving a suppressed history, and countering such contemporary notions as that “leaning in” is what the radical women’s liber
The Debate Today is How to Stop The Violent Offensive of the Neoliberal Right-Wing
by Franck Gaudichaud and Valeria Ianni |
Venezuela is torn between the destabilising attempts of the right-wing, the limits of the Bolivarian process and the possibility the working class and the popular movements will advance the [revolutionary] project, [but] not without tensions and contradictions.
Reply to Davenport on Climate Change
by Robin Hahnel March 29, 2014 |
In a posting on March 4, 2014 Nicholas Davenport criticizes me for “a misunderstanding of activists’ arguments against carbon trading and, more fundamentally, a lack of attention to the dynamic of reform and revolution.”
Adolph Reed's premature burial of the U.S. Left
by Michael Hirsch March 27, 2014 |
Back in the day, (a cliché, I know) Adolph Reed wrote a waspish piece in the Village Voice, “Liberals, I Do Despise,” which made something of a splash and was hard to refute — this when the Voice was widely read, not a freebie and well-worth paying for — as he attacked a coterie of Clintonistas for “a politics motivated by the desire for proximity to the ruling class and a belief in the basic legitimacy of its power and prerogative.” He called it “a politics which,
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20150410072652im_/http://newpol.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/edition_image_thumb/on-active-service.jpg)
Lemisch's On Active Service Now Available Online
Online Free Availability of Lemisch's, On Active Service In War and Peace: Politics and Ideology in the American Historical Profession (1969, 1975)
by Jesse Lemisch March 26, 2014 |
Starring: Samuel Eliot Morison, Oscar Handlin, Richard Hofstadter, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, Daniel Boorstin (including HUAC testimony), Allen Nevins, William Hardy McNeill, Eric Hoffer, John Blum, Stanley Elkins, and others. With 305 fact-filled footnotes!
Looking Back at the Labor Party: An Interview with Mark Dudzic
Derek Seidman March 24, 2014 |
In the 1990s, hundreds of U.S. labor activists came together to form the Labor Party. The initiative was the brainchild of Tony Mazzocchi, the passionate leader of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (which, after two mergers, is today part of the United Steelworkers). Mazzocchi held true to the dream of an independent political party rooted in the labor movement over which working people would have ownership. He was fond of pointing out: “The bosses have two parties. We need one of our own.”
Greco on Chomsky
by Stephen R. Shalom March 20, 2014 |
Anthony F. Greco. Chomsky’s Challenge to American Power. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2013. Hardcover $69.95, paper $29.95, e-book $14.99.
Ali Mustafa
by Jared Anderson March 14, 2014 |
I will never forget when I first met Ali Mustafa. It was September 2012, during my first year at York and just before I joined Students Against Israeli Apartheid (Ali was a former member), where he did a talk on his visit to Egypt. After he was done, he asked the audience for comments. Seeing no takers, I chimed in. Not knowing who I was, he was very impressed with my comments, and that was the beginning of our friendship.
Address on unfolding situation in Ukraine, 10 March 2014
March 4, 2014 |
The author's view of the strength of the right is not universally shared among UK progressives. - DL
I am Zakhar Popovych a member of the Left Opposition initiative, and I have been on the Maidan under my red flag from the very first day of its emergence. I don’t sleep there in tents but I have been visiting the square virtually every day during these months.
Euro-Maidan is mass popular and grassroots movement, not a manufactured one
Ukraine: Was What Happened a Revolution? If so, then…
by I. O. Kuzyk March 11, 2014 |
I view the recent events in the Ukraine rather simply – everything hangs on the answer to a central question: Were the events in Ukraine a revolution? If one agrees, as I do, that the overthrow of Yanukovych was the product of a genuine, popular uprising against a corrupt and thuggish regime, then progressive people of all stripes should be supportive of the events in Ukraine - even with reservations.
A Tale of Resistance: Conversation with a Woman Striker
by Nevin Kaplan March 8, 2014 |
The workers of Punto Leather Factory, located at Kazliceşme in the district of Zeytinburnu in Istanbul, have been organized in their union, Deriteks, for a decent livelihood and decent working conditions. They stand against harsh working conditions, health and safety problems, denial of their constitutional right to unionize, disadvantageous health insurance plans, prohibitions against using their annual leave entitlements; in summary they stand against working in conditions of slavery.
Left Opposition Statement: Ukraine will be saved from intervention by solidarity
March 8, 2014 |
The following article is reprinted from LeftEast.
The socialist union “Left Opposition” offers its assessment of the Russian aggression in Crimea and the destructive role of Ukrainian nationalists. The intervention of Russian armies was made possible as a result of a split in Ukrainian society. Its unity is impossible with the oligarchs and chauvinists in power. Only solidarity will save Ukraine.
A Response to Robin Hahnel's Open Letter to the Movement
by Nicholas Davenport March 4, 2014 |
The question of what demands ecosocialists should put forward in response to the climate crisis is a pressing one. Robin Hahnel, in “An Open Letter to the Climate Justice Movement”, argues that the climate justice movement should demand a cap-and-trade policy, abandoning its traditional stance against carbon trading. To Hahnel, carbon trading is the most realistic way for society to make carbon emissions cuts in the necessary time frame, and, contrary to the arguments of activists, it ca
Sanitation Workers: You Gotta Love Them
by Michael Hirsch February 26, 2014 |
Review of Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City By Robin Nagle (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2013).
Rationally, we know garbage isn’t picked up by the faeries, but to much of the public, it might as well be. We “take out” the garbage, but who removes it?
Ukraine, Coup or Revolution?
by Richard Greeman February 25, 2014 |
The Ukraine is no longer ‘in flames.’ With the hurried flight of the detested Yanukovich, peace and order have descended on Kiev (except for some fistfights in the Parliament!) There is no looting. Self-organized popular militias protect the luxurious Presidential Palace (privatized by Yanukovich) as crowds of citizen file through to gape at his collections of antique and modern automobiles.
February Traumas: The Third Insurrectionary Moment of the Venezuelan Right
by Jeffrey R. Webber and Susan Spronk February 25, 2014 |
“Today the counter-revolutionary Right is reactivating itself,” according to long-time Venezuelan revolutionary Roland Denis, “taking advantage of the profound deterioration that this slow revolutionary process is suffering.
A political earthquake strikes Ukraine
by Alan Maass and Sean Larson February 24, 2014 |
UKRAINE’S PRESIDENT Viktor Yanukovich appears to have been driven from power after the mass protest movement that has occupied Kiev’s Maidan (Independence Square) since November survived a deadly crackdown last week. In a matter of days, the country’s corrupt and autocratic regime was overwhelmed.
People Took to the Streets to Defend Their Rights and Freedoms
February 23, 2014 |
A Reply to Julia's Letter on Ukraine
by E. Haberkern |
My problem with Julia's analysis is that it repeats the standard line that is being repeated throughout the press regardless of political point of view. I think there are two main problems with this party line.
Manifesto: 10 Тheses of the Leftist Opposition in Ukraine
February 21, 2014 |
While we recognize that the following statement represents the point of view of a small minority both within the Ukrainian rebellion and in Ukraine at large, we reprint it here nonetheless, thinking that it is an important statement of the left. - Editors.
Euromaidan and a Program for the Left
Euromaidan’s popularity has nothing to do with Ukrainians finding the question of free trade with the European Union so significant that it emboldened them to survive sleepless nights on the square. The country’s socioeconomic problems, which are much more acute than those of its neighbors to the East and West, gave the protest its meaning.
A Letter from Ukraine
by Richard Greeman February 19, 2014 |
Dear Friends,
As the uprising in Ukraine seems to be coming to a crisis after weeks of mass demonstrations and occupations, I would like to translate for you the following letter received last week from Julia Gusseva, the Russian translator of Victor Serge and co-organizer of the International Conference of Independent Labor Unions in Kiev last November. Julia, an activist since the ‘80s, is one of the founders of the Praxis Center in Moscow, and writes from an anarcho-syndicalist viewpoint.
A Letter from Ukraine
by Richard Greeman February 19, 2014 |
Dear Friends,
As the uprising in Ukraine seems to be coming to a crisis after weeks of mass demonstrations and occupations, I would like to translate for you the following letter received last week from Julia Gusseva, the Russian translator of Victor Serge and co-organizer of the International Conference of Independent Labor Unions in Kiev last November. Julia, an activist since the ‘80s, is one of the founders of the Praxis Center in Moscow, and writes from an anarcho-syndicalist viewpoint.
How A Famous 90-Year-Old Doctor Survived Hospitalization, But You Probably Won’t
by Jesse Lemisch January 22, 2014 |
Enclosed in and insulated by their own structures of thought, many doctors are quite blind to the role of privilege, including their own, in getting or not getting medical care and in determining the quality of that care. If they acknowledge some flaw (or even ignorance or barbarity) in individual health care, they see it as non-systemic, simply a matter of a bad apple in an otherwise benign barrel. They may maintain this obtuseness even when they themselves become patients.
Twenty Years Since the Chiapas Rebellion: The Zapatistas, Their Politics, and Their Impact
by Dan La Botz January 13, 2014 |
The Chiapas Rebellion led by the Zapatistas took place twenty years ago this month. What was the importance of the rebellion and of the Zapatistas? What was the impact at the time? And what has been its political legacy? What is the role of the Zapatistas in Mexico today?
Closing Bridges While Building Bipartisan Bridges for Corporate-Backed 'Reform'
by Stephen R. Shalom January 10, 2014 |
It remains to be seen whether NJ Governor Chris Christie will be able to avoid having his political career crash and burn.
'Operation Enduring America'
The U.S. in Central Asia After Afghanistan
Alan Ruff December 31, 2013 |
"As we reassure our partners that our relationships and engagement in Afghanistan will continue after the military transition in 2014, we should underscore that we have long-term strategic interests in the broader region... As the United States enters a new phase of engagement in Afghanistan, we must lay the foundation for a long-term strategy that sustains our security gains and protects U.S. interests..." —US Senator John Kerry, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, December, 2011.
Marta Russell, 61, Writer about Disability Issues
December 25, 2013 |
Chicago's Boss against the 99%
by Michael Hirsch December 23, 2013 |
Kari Lyderson, Rahm Emanuel and the Rise of Chicago’s 99%, Haymarket Books, 2013
New Yorkers rejoicing in Michael Bloomberg’s departure from office can be grateful for another small favor: they don’t live in Chicago, where residents are stuck for at least two more years with an austerity-mad, street-brawling mayor who wields near absolute power over a City Council far more supine than the one we have here.
Maybe We All Need Something More Than a Wife
by Dianne Feeley December 15, 2013 |
During the early days of second-wave feminism, I remember reading Judy Brady’s essay “I Want a Wife” about how everyone needed “a wife,” that is someone to take care of the tasks of everyday life, as women were raised to do.
Lovely Bones: Reflections on the Legacy of Nelson Mandela
by Kate Doyle Griffiths-Dingani December 9, 2013 |
The question of where Mandela would be laid to rest was finally resolved in June, months before he passed away on December 5, 2013.
Ohioans Elect Two Dozen City Councilors on Independent Labor Ticket
by Bruce Bostick |
Union-dense Lorain County, Ohio, is now home to an independent labor slate of two dozen newly elected city councilors—recruited and run by the central labor council there. All labor’s candidates had strong showings last month, and all but two were elected.
“This was a step we took reluctantly,” said Lorain County AFL-CIO President Harry Williamson. “When the leaders of the [Democratic] Party just took us for granted and tried to roll over the rights of working people here, we had to stand up.”
HOW CAN LABOR SUPPORT A POLITICAL PARTY WHOSE LEADERS VOTE TO CUT FOOD STAMPS?
December 6, 2013 |
On June 10, 2013 the U.S. Senate, with its Democratic majority, approved a farm bill that included a $4.1 billion cut in food stamp funding over a 10-year period. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), under this proposal 500,000 households would lose $90 in food stamp benefits each month. Despite that, the Senate passed the measure by a 66-27 margin, making clear that it had bipartisan support.
Only one Senate Democrat voted against the farm bill.
On Electoral Reforms, Sewer Socialism, and Concern-Trolling Technocrats
by John Halle December 5, 2013 |
One of the many great things about having a card-carrying socialist elected to a major municipal office [in Seattle] is that we can start to have good arguments. Peter Lavenia started one with me a couple of weeks ago and I’m going to argue back.
Opening the left door wide
by Warren Davis November 27, 2013 |
This essay is inspired by the recent article by Denis Godard titled: “The NPA in crisis: We have to explain because we have to start again.” His article is a review of the strategic orientation of the historically Trotskyist-origined tendencies that prioritize building independent class formations and which see electoral vehicles as expressions of anti-capitalist cum revolutionary socialist movements “from below” (that is, based in and directly responsive to grassroots and rank-and-file formations).
Left Third Parties in 2013: The Wave Begins?
by John Halle November 7, 2013 |
The 2013 municipal election contained mixed results for left third party advocates.
Queering Socialism: An Interview with Alan Sears
Andrew Sernatinger & Tessa Echeverria November 6, 2013 |
We’re at an interesting (and terrible) moment where we’re witnessing attacks on most every gain working people have made for at least the last half century. The curious exception to that has been the advance of marriage and civil rights for gay and lesbian couples in many U.S. states and core imperialist countries.
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20150410072652im_/http://newpol.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/edition_image_thumb/Doug-Ireland2.jpg)
Doug Ireland, 1946-2013
by Thomas Harrison November 4, 2013 |
Doug Ireland, radical journalist, blogger, passionate human rights and queer[1] activist, and relentless scourge of the LGBT establishment, died in his East Village home on Oct. 26. Doug had lived with chronic pain for many years, suffering from diabetes, kidney disease, sciatica and the debilitating effects of childhood polio. In recent years he was so ill that he was virtually confined to his apartment. Towards the end, even writing, his calling, had become extremely difficult.
An Open Letter to the Climate Justice Movement
by Robin Hahnel November 4, 2013 |
[The following open letter to more than 60 environmental justice organizations is a revised version of a talk given at a conference on "The Political Economy of the Environment" held in Brooklyn, New York, on October 5, 2013, co-sponsored by the Union of Radical Political Economy and New Politics. It will appear in the Winter 2014 issue of New Politics as part of a special section on the environment, featuring articles from several different points of view.
Socialism and Sports
Lee Levin October 25, 2013 |
The two great loves of my father’s life were the Green Bay Packers and golf. Every fall Sunday we worshipped at the altar of the Green and Gold. My brother and I learned, at an early age, that we could only talk during commercials and half time. Our Sunday routines created my love of armchair sports. Today, in addition to following pro football, I watch college basketball and football, pro basketball, baseball and tennis. Too often feminists and leftists dismiss the importance of sports in society and only focus on the machismo culture encouraged by profe
Another International Labour Movement is Necessary
by Dan Gallin October 9, 2013 |
[New Politics readers will be interested in the following article by Dan Gallin, who advocates social justice unionism, international solidarity and the need for workers' movements that actually move.
German Lessons
by Bhaskar Sunkara October 6, 2013 |
Passionately watching last week’s election returns* at the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’s office in New York, without ever having been to Germany or learned more than a half-dozen German words, was an unusual experience. It was easy enough to orient my sympathies — as an American socialist they stood with the Left Party.
Jobs vs. the Environment
by Brian King October 3, 2013 |
Is there a fundamental conflict between a healthy environment and a healthy economy?
COIN of the Realm: Sprawling Police State Brings the Wars Home
by Michael Hirsch October 3, 2013 |
Review of Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency, ed. by Kristian Williams, William Munger and Lara Messersmith-Glavin (AK Press, 2013); and Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and Bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America, by Matt Apuzzo & Adam Goldman (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2013).
You Want MORE?
by Greg King October 2, 2013 |
Fewer than two weeks before the US House of Representatives brought on the government shutdown, it voted (9/19/13) by a slim margin to cut $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, over the next 10 years. Now, $4 billion a year may not seem like much, given the enormous figures our "leaders" play with, but it will mean that a great many families as well as individuals will not have enough to eat.
AFL-CIO Charts a New Course
by Michael Hirsch October 1, 2013 |
[Originally posted on the Indypendent, Sept. 27, 2013]
Response to Review of Wild Socialism
by Martin Comack September 12, 2013 |
I would like to comment on the Leninist critique of my book Wild Socialism: Workers Councils in Revolutionary Berlin, 1918-21 by Dan La Botz on your website. His review contains several errors and misinterpretations.
The Brazilian Spring: Still Under Construction
by Rodrigo Santaella September 10, 2013 |
Brazil went to the streets in June this year with crowds never before seen in the history of the country. There were young workers and students who were demonstrating for the first time, but also sectors of the middle class and union members as well as social movement and left party activists who protested about a wide diversity of issues.
We Oppose Both a U.S.-led Attack on Syria and the Brutal Regime of Bashar al–Assad
We Support a Democratic Syrian Revolution!
Statement of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy September 7, 2013 |
Pressured by the British Parliament's historic rejection of military action against Syria and by the great opposition of most of the American people to getting involved in yet another bloody war in the Middle East, President Obama has been forced to take his plan to attack Syria to Congress. At the moment, Congress appears to be sharply divided over whether or not to support the President, with many still undecided, and it is therefore imperative to take advantage of widespread antiwar opinion to make the case now against U.S. military intervention in Syria.
Roundtable on the Syrian Crisis
by Stephen R. Shalom August 31, 2013 |
The Campaign for Peace and Democracy has posted an interesting symposium on Syria. It was mostly written before the August 21 chemical weapons attack and the resulting war threat from Washington. None of the symposium participants favors U.S. military action, but the symposium provides useful background on the Syrian uprising that helps us make sense of the current situation.
A Comintern International Agent: The Talented and Reviled Pepper
by Dan La Botz August 29, 2013 |
Review: Thomas Sakmyster. A Communist Odyssey: The Life of József Pogány / John Pepper. Budapest-New York: Central European University Press. 2012. Photos. Bibliography. Index. 249 pp.
A Black, Working Class March on Washington: But We're Still Waiting for the Beginning of a New Movement
by Dan La Botz August 26, 2013 |
The Fiftieth Anniversary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 24 was a mostly African American working class event of tens of thousands. They came to celebrate the struggles and victories of a half century ago and to put on the agenda for today the issues of racial profiling and stand-your-ground laws, the country’s unemployment rate and growing economic inequality, and new restrictions on voting rights.
Egypt: The Revolution at the Crossroads
by Thomas Harrison August 22, 2013 |
As I write, a horrible tragedy is unfolding in Egypt. The old order has reasserted itself with a vengeance. Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that Egypt will ever again be what it was before 2011.
Letter to Supporters
August 15, 2013
by Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists |
The following statement from the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists makes a powerful case for socialism from below in the context of the Egyptian coup, the massacres carried out by the military and their horrific impact on the nation's democratic upsurge. Like others, the Revolutionary Socialists is evolving its point of view, challenged as it is with understanding first the election of a repressive right-wing Muslim government on the heels of a healthy mass movement, and then the shocks from a bloody military coup. We think it important to share their statement on the situation and, along with the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and others, we are republishing it as a contribution to the general discussion.
Dream Sequences: Marching on Washington, Fifty Years On
by Christopher Phelps August 22, 2013 |
It is the age of Barack, the age of Trayvon; a time for imagining post-racial transcendence, a time for recognizing obdurate injustice. As we mark the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington this month, as new generations surround the reflecting pool, we will ask whether we yet judge each other by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin.
Giroux on the War on the Young
by Dick Dunbar August 22, 2013 |
Review of Henry A. Giroux, America's Education Deficit and the War on Youth, Monthly Review Press, 2013.
Fighting the Landlords from Stuy-Town to Detroit
by Michael Hirsch August 18, 2013 |
Books reviewed:
Charles V. Bagli, Other People’s Money: Inside the Housing Crisis and the Demise of the Greatest Real Estate Deal Ever Made (Dutton, 2013).
Laura Gottesdiener, A Dream Foreclosed: Black America and the Fight for a Place to Call Home (Zuccotti Park Press, 2013).
Yes, We Can
Response to “Creating a Transcontinental North American Working Class Movement” by Dan La Botz
by Edur Velasco Arregui and Richard Roman August 16, 2013 |
We hoped that our book, Continental Crucible, would open up a discussion of the future of the North American Left and labor movement, a discussion that is urgent in the face of the relentless capitalist offensive of the last forty years.
Wild Socialism
by Dan La Botz August 8, 2013 |
Book Review of Martin Comack. Wild Socialism: Workers Councils in Revolutionary Berlin, 1918-1921. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. Chronology. Bibliography. Index. 97pp. Paperback or e-book: $24.99
White Racial Delusion
50 Years After the March on Washington
by Paul Street August 3, 2013 |
“There is not a Black America and a White America….there’s a United States of America.” So proclaimed Barack Obama, to wild applause, at the launching of his national and global celebrity in his instantly lauded 2004 Democratic Convention Keynote Address.
As the 1 Percent Leaves the 99 Percent in the Dust, Bush’s Chief Economist is Smiling
by Gregory N. Heires August 1, 2013 |
Perhaps you shouldn’t be surprised that the chief economist during George W. Bush’s presidency seems happy that economic inequality in our country is at its most extreme since the Great Depression.
After all, the Bush administration delivered huge tax breaks to the wealthy, the very people described by the former president as his political base.
The Double Standard in Europe's Austerity Discourse
by Ben Luongo July 25, 2013 |
The International Monetary Fund acknowledged making an egregious error in its evaluation of the Greek bailout it helped create after its ambitious push for harsh austerity last month. Their failed analysis highlights the dangers of austerity measures imposed on Greek citizens. According to the IMF report:
Class Struggle from the Couch
by Jon Hochschartner July 16, 2013 |
On Sept. 17, Grand Theft Auto V, the latest installment in the wildly popular video game franchise, will be released for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, perhaps as one of the final major games for the current console generation.
Real Unions and Unreal Unions
A reply to Dan La Botz
by Herman Benson July 11, 2013 |
This discussion has shifted ground. It started with what I proposed, but now we're discussing Dan La Botz's views on the AFL-CIO. I wrote about the need to democratize unions. Dan wants to turn existing unions into "real unions."
Egypt: Not the next stage of the revolution
Continued economic decline sealed the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood, writes Yassamine Mather. But martial law also represents a defeat for the working class and democracy
by Yassamine Mather July 10, 2013 |
[from Weekly Worker 969, July 4 2013]
Rejoinder to Bratsis
by Costas Panayotakis July 10, 2013 |
In his review of Remaking Scarcity Peter Bratsis raises a number of important issues regarding the relationship between scarcity and economic democracy but does not always offer an accurate account of how the book specifies that relationship.
Political Economy of the Environment
Call for Workshop Presentations
July 7, 2013 |
A Conference of the Union for Radical Political Economics
Co-sponsored by New Politics
St.
Men Without a Country: Snowden and Trotsky
by Dan La Botz July 4, 2013 |
I have been following the story of Edward J. Snowden, so far the most famous man of the twenty-first century without a country, who at the moment bides his time in an international way station in Moscow waiting for some country to offer him a visa and asylum. A whistle blower who revealed that the U.S.
Let’s Accept an Invitation from the Trumka of 1970—to Revolt
Dan La Botz July 2, 2013 |
When Herman Benson writes about the labor movement, I read with interest what he has to say, knowing that his last 50 years as head of the Association for Union Democracy (AUD) represent only the most recent part of an even longer career in the labor movement that began when he was a machinist in the auto industry and a member of the United Auto Workers after World War II.
The Killing of Clément Méric
Elizabeth Koechlin July 2, 2013 |
The killing of Clément Méric, an 18-year-old anti-fascist activist and member of a student union, by a young fascist skinhead in Paris on May 6th has shocked French public opinion.
Getting ready for the future
Replying to an invitation from Rich Trumka
Herman Benson July 1, 2013 |
If you're a friend of labor, liberal or radical, Rich Trumka's invitation applies to you. He's asking for your thoughts on how the AFL-CIO can get ready for the future. (As you know, unions have not been doing so well these days, and maybe someone can come up with some good ideas.) Toward that end, he posted questions on the internet submitted by seven presumed notables, including former labor secretary Robert Reich and In These Times labor editor David Moberg. Within a few electronic moments, over a thousand comments poured in.
Brazilian Spring: a general panorama and some perspectives
Rodrigo Santaella June 26, 2013 |
[Mass protests have been taking place in all the major cities of Brazil for the past week, beginning with a demand to reduce bus fares and expanding into a mass movement that demands improvements in all public services, health, education, and working peoples’ rights.
On Syria
A Personal Statement by CPD Co-Directors
Thomas Harrison and Joanne Landy June 26, 2013 |
During the past two years, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy has released official statements in broad support of the Syrian revolution: CPD Salutes Syria’s Courageous Democratic Movement and Message of Condolence and Solidarity from U.S. Peace Activists to the Syrian People. What follows, however, is not an official position but rather a personal statement by CPD’s co-directors about the current situation.
Reaffirming the Chartists’ Revolutionary Moment
Dan La Botz June 26, 2013 |
Book Review: David Black and Chris Ford. 1839: The Chartist Insurrection. Foreword by John McDonnell, M.P. London: Unkant Publishers, 2011. 233 pages. Chronology. Illustrations. Appendices. Index. £10.99.
The End of Lethargy in Brazil
Richard Antunes June 22, 2013 |
Our country was at the forefront of social and political struggles in the 1980s, and succeeded in preventing the introduction of neoliberalism in Brazil, so that Latin America’s “lost decade” was, for social movements and popular politicians in our country, exactly the opposite.
Turkey: A De Facto End to the Hegemony of the Coup of September 12, 1980
Özlem İlyas Tolunay June 20, 2013 |
Maybe we are not organized, but we are neither apolitical nor without ideology. We were only afraid, because we are the daughters and sons of a generation, killed and tortured to death just before and after the military coup of September 12, 1980 in Turkey. But, we have now learned that cowards die many times before their deaths. We went beyond the fear threshold and achieved the collective confidence that one smells in the air.
Are Conservative Evangelicals Hampering Anti-Trafficking Efforts?
Sean McElwee June 19, 2013 |
Human trafficking is an issue so entirely abhorrent, it seems that it would be impossible to inappropriately address it. And yet a forthcoming paper (to be published in by Dr. Hebah Farrag, Richard Flory and Brie Loskota) argues that often religious organizations fail to get the job done right.
Creating a Transcontinental North American Working Class Movement
Book Review
Dan La Botz June 15, 2013 |
Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui. Continental Crucible: Big Business, Workers and Unions in the Transformation of North America. Halifax & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2013. 148 pages. References. Index. Paperback. Price: $19.95 CAN.
The Persecution of the Mexican Miners
Book Review
Dan La Botz June 13, 2013 |
Napoleon Gómez. The Collapse of Dignity: The Story of a Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2013. 344 pages. Photos. Index. $26.95 U.S. / $36.00 CAN / Kindle $11.99.
Occupy Taksim Gezi Park
Özlem İlyas Tolunay June 1, 2013 |
The on-going resistance to the remodeling of Taksim Square in Central Istanbul, Turkey took on a new more militant form on Monday evening when bulldozers arrived at the park and began demolishing some parts of the Gezi Park's wall and removed nearby trees. Taksim Solidarity, the resistance movement whose members were at a regular meeting at the park during the demolition, succeeded in stopping the demolition when they moved into the area where the bulldozers were removing the trees. A group of 20 to 30 people stayed on guard duty throughout the night.
Taksim Solidarity press release, June 5, 2013
Taksim Resistance June 5, 2013 |
To the Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Public
Citizens have been expressing their democratic outrage in Taksim Istanbul and all around the country against the insensitivity of the government for the public concern about the de-facto destruction of the Taksim Gezi Park that took place around 10 PM on May 27th.
We share the pain of Abdullah Comert’s and Mehmet Ayvalitas’s families and wish to extend our get-well wishes to thousands of wounded citizens.
Getting There
An interview with Michael Albert, one of the authors of "Occupy Strategy"
Stephen R. Shalom May 25, 2013 |
Michael Albert, Jessica Azulay, and David Marty Mexican Teachers Rebel Against Government's Educational Reform
Mexican teachers, particularly in the south of the country, have joined a regional rebellion of rank-and-file teachers that erupted in violence in late April. In the state of Guerrero the offices of all three major political parties were vandalized and set afire to protest their support for the educational reform passed by congress and the states over the last five months. At the same time there have been marches and demonstrations in several other states, and there are plans afoot to strike indefinitely beginning on May 1. Human Rights and the POSCO Struggle
One of the most inspiring examples of people fighting back against the predations of international capital is taking place in the Jagatsinghpur district of the Indian state of Orissa (also spelled Odisha). The Indiana University Student Strike
The Indiana University (IU) student strike of April 11-12, 2013, was an important milestone in new student activism. Nicaragua Notes: The Watchmen, the Hunters and Gatherers, the Street Vendors
The Watchmen In Managua one finds uniformed guards in front of the banks, in the shopping malls like Metro Centro, in the grocery stores, and anywhere else there is likely to substantial amounts of money. These men have the status bestowed by a uniform and the authority commanded by carrying a pistol. One could say that they are the elite of their profession, but they are far outnumbered by the lumpenguardia found on every middle class street of the capital city. South Africa--The Marikana Massacre and the New Wave of Workers’ StruggleAn Interview with Mazibuko Jara of the South African Democratic Left Front
[This article will be appearing in the summer 2013 issue of New Politics.] Rebutting David Greenberg's Hit Job on Howard Zinn
The March 25 issue of The New Republic offers a lengthy piece by Rutgers professor David Greenberg, “Agit-Prof: Howard Zinn’s Influential Mutilations of American History.” The essay presented as a review of Martin Duberman’s Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left (2012) [read the review by Ron Briley, the book editor of History News Network (HNN), heremore Whatever happened to welfare?
The ghost of Reagan's welfare queen still hovers over conservatives. She is black. She is a large part of Mitt Romney's 47 percent of moochers, and the "takers" that conservatives talk so much about. Most people don't talk about welfare or know much about it, but conservatives, who also don't know much about it, use it as a threat when they seek reelection or talk about policy. Republicans, and some Democrats, declare that welfare reform was a success because it brought the rolls down and put "free loaders" back to work. The Last American IdealistLAPD killer Dorner's insane rampage was fired by a naïve faith in the country's political myth
Christopher Dorner's brutal killings of multiple people vaguely associated with the Los Angeles police have caused debates over both the department's deployment of manhunt drones and the disastrous trigger-happiness that had them showering bullets on any hapless civilian with the misfortune to d Nicaragua: Hunger, Malnutrition, and the Fight to End Them
School began this week for children all over Nicaragua, but even before children entered the classroom the Nicaraguan government had begun supplying its School Feeding Program as the Ministry of Education transferred food from warehouses to 10,000 schools in 153 municipalities. For many Nicaraguan children, the School Feeding Program is essential to preventing hunger and malnutrition. Nicaragua: Contentious Debate Over Social Security Reform
Nicaragua is in the midst of a contentious debate that could become a serious social struggle over the reform of the nation’s Social Security system. President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government has proposed to increase the retirement age, the number of years one has to work, and the number of required contributions. What Happened to the Nicaraguan Revolution?: A View from the Rank and File
When the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) led the Nicaraguan people to victory over the dictatorship of Anastasio Samoza in 1979, Wilmer (not his real name) was only 14 years old. Having come from a family of modest means, he identified with the revolution that ended the long repressive rule of the Samoza family that with U.S. backing had for 43 years run, ransacked and ultimately ruined Nicaragua. HP and the Occupation
The Sandinista Government has Failed the Women of Nicaragua: Solis
Free Russian Political Prisoners!
We the undersigned call for the liberation of the Russian political prisoners, both those already condemned, and sent to the new Gulag, like the two feminist activists of the Pussy Riot group, and those in jail awaiting trial – some 20 activists, socialists and anti-fascists, in connection with the demonstrations against Putin on May 6th. Aaron Swartz: What We Know So Far, What We Need to Know
Of the People, By the People
Robin Hahnel's Of the People, By the People: The case for a participatory economy (Soapbox Press, 2012, distributed by AK press, www.akpress.org) is the latest and most accessible presentation of his argument that a new economy—based on equality, participation, solidarity, and self-management—is both desirable and possible. Originally formulated by Hahnel and Michael Albert more than two decades ago, the model has been continually refined and improved, addressing problems raised by critics. An Ascending Trajectory?: Ten of the Most Important Social Conflicts in the United States in 2012
[This article was written for a foreign audience, so I have spelled out some things that might otherwise be taken for granted when writing for an American reading public.] Scrooge Accepts Nobel Peace Prize
Brussels, Chrismas Eve, 2012. (From our Special Correspondent). Reactions were sharply divided here in Euroland to Stockholm's award of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union (EU) in recognition of its efforts to promote the moral values of fiscal discipline and responsibility through the Euro. Building a Better World
Forty-three years ago, I belonged to The Hawaii Resistance. It was an anti-draft group, believing in non-violent revolution. Then I saw a whole row of benches slammed into the ribcage of one of my friends, with whom I was blocking the path for the 29th Brigade of the Hawaii National Guard to get on the airplane for Vietnam. I was horrified to see that happen, to hear him cry out in pain. I got to thinking, suppose hundreds of thousands of us sat down on Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, attempting to bring an end to "business as usual"? Who Carries the Brief for Black America?An Open Letter to African American Thinkers and Leaders
As an African American currently residing in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina, I have become increasingly troubled by the absence of our voice in an increasing number of conversations involving public policies which directly impact the health and future development of African American political, social and economic interests. Mexican Congress Approves Education "Reform"
The Mexican Congress has in near record time approved a new law on education called for by the new president Enrique Peña Nieto intended to reassert government control over the country's education system, break the power of the Mexican Teachers Union bureaucracy, and improve the quality of education. At the heart of the new law is a regular teacher evaluation with increased emphasis on merit. Istanbul Mayor Bans Freedom and Solidarity Party Campaign
While in Istanbul last week I participated in a march and demonstration by the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ODP) on Dec. 9 to launch a campaign to link grassroots community organizations to a broader program for social and political change in Turkey. The march of hundreds of ODP members of all ages, some of them families with children, was a peaceful event though the chants were militant. "Let us live like human beings. Take the government's hands off the people," was one. And periodically the marchers shouted, "Revolt!" Toward a Positive Socialist/Left Electoral Movement and Program
We on the socialist left really do need to build a broad-as-possible socialist/left/progressive electoral movement. I know this will be anathema to many of the self-styled "revolutionary left," or, if advanced and advocated, only paid lip service. It is, however, the only way to establish a positive socialist and honestly progressive political presence in the United States today. Mexico's Opposition Parties Sign "Pact for Mexico," Left in Disarray, Radical Youth in Violent Rebellion
Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico's new president who took office on December 1, carried out a shrewd political maneuver the very next day, convincing the opposition parties to join him in signing a "Pact for Mexico," calling for the completion of the neoliberal transformation begun in the 1980s. Joining Forces to be Stronger
When, shortly after the occupation of Zuccotti Park (Sep. 17, 2011), I started organizing disabled people to join in the new Occupy Wall Street movement, which seemed to be growing at the speed of light, I was criticized by leaders in the disability rights movement, including my good friend Bob Kafka, a national leader of ADAPT. Theories of Disablement
In the United States and in other OECD countries, the majority of disabled people live in poverty. The Unpaid Labor of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities in Institutional and Community-based Disability Services
Drawing on the work of scholars, advocates, and historians, I wrote this article (based on my October 4 talk at the disability rights forum) to examine the unpaid labor of persons with intellectual disabilities in institutional and community settings. In general, my PhD research, and this piece, are aimed at contributing to the literature that examine intellectual disability and work. Gaza Quiz
An uneasy cease-fire has been declared ending Israel's attack on Gaza, Operation Pillar of Defense. Take this quiz to see how much you know about the situation. China: From Bureaucratic Communism to Bureaucratic Capitalism
The election last week of Xi Jinping to the chairmanship of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), together with six others who with Xi constitute the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the party, represents entrenchment of what the Chinese Marxist intellectual Au Loong Yu has called “bureaucratic capitalism.”[1] The bureaucratic capitalists, many of them princelings, that is, sons of the founders of China’s Communist government, have through their control of the state and crony state-corporation relationships come to dominate the heart A Call to Join in the International Days of Solidarity Against Political Repression in Russia
An appeal from the Russian leftists to their comrades in the struggle: Michael Lebowitz Tries to Tackle "Real Socialism"—And Misses
Michael A. Lebowitz. The Contradictions of "Real Socialism": The Conductor and the Conducted. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012. 222 pp., $15.95 Interview with Socialist Alternative Candidate Kshama Sawant
Andrew Sernatinger: I’m speaking today with Kshama Sawant, a socialist running for a seat in the Washington State House of Representatives against Democrat Frank Chopp, presently the House Speaker. Kshama is a lecturer in economics at Seattle University and Seattle Central Community College, and is a member of Socialist Alternative. Kshama, thanks for speaking with me today. Kshama Sawant: Thank you for having me. Self Immolation and The Left: The Greens Do It Again!
Even in the age of extreme reality television, nationally broadcasted suicides remain a blessedly rare occurrence. And so the suicide which occurred during a Huffington Post sponsored debate on third party voting probably should have received more attention that it did. ![]() Lessons of the American Revolutionary Left of the 1970s
Book review of: Michael Staudenmaier. Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969-1986. Oakland: AK Press, 2012. Bibliography, index. 387 pages. Paperback, $19.95. Film Review: “The Master”
Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “The Master,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Laura Dern, might alternatively have been titled “Masters and Followers,” for the movie is as much about his followers as it is about the character of the master, Lancaster Dodd (played by Hoffman). Movie Review: “Death by China,” a film by Peter Navarro
To call this feature-length film xenophobic, fear-mongering and hysterical almost understates the case. The whole thing is so over-the-top that, like a bad horror movie where you can see the strings moving the monster, it leaves us numbed and bored or perhaps laughing. Yet it’s not funny. Mexico: The PRI is Back, the Left In Disarray
The PRI is back—and the left is in disarray. Occupy Nigeria: ‘When the Cup is Full’
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." - Abraham Lincoln Beyond November: Thoughts on politics, social movements, and the 2012 elections
[This article first appeared in the September issue of Jacobin.] The Neoliberal Assault on Disability Rights
A Public Forum The Neoliberal Assault on Disability Rights Thursday, October 4, 2012 7:00pm sponsored by New Politics, Radical Film and Lecture Series(RFLS), The Greek Grassroots Challenge to the Politics of Austerity
Harrison and Landy recently returned from a trip to Greece, where they met with activists and others to gain a better understanding of the popular upsurge against the Greek government’s austerity program. Reply to Balderston: Longview Contract Was Not a Victory
[Reply to Bill Balderston's article, "Occupy Oakland and the Labor Movement."] I am going to focus my remarks on section 2 of Bill Balderston's article, which he subtitled "The Battle of Longview". Bill and I have very different views of the outcome of this battle, and what that outcome is likely to mean. Statement on Mexican Election from Group in Veracruz
[Introduction by Dan La Botz: As tens of thousands throughout the country protest the results of Mexico’s presidential elections, a group in the State of Veracruz has issued a statement calling upon Mexicans to both refuse to recognize the results of the election and to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience to make it impossible for the new government to rule. "Right-to-Work," Organized Labor, and "The Proletariat as a Whole"
On January 31, 2012, the Republican majorities in both the Indiana Senate and House passed "right-to-work" legislation, riding roughshod over both the Democratic minority and tens of thousands mobilized workers and their allies. Indiana thus became the first new "right-to-work" state since Oklahoma, which became one in 2002—and a possible harbinger of more defeats for organized labor to come. The People Rule
What is democracy? Well, as most of us know, it comes from the Greek demos kratos—the people rule. But what form has that rule taken? Well, in the days of the ancient Athenians, free Greek men used to gather in the agora—the marketplace, to debate public policy and vote on it. Fast forward to the Magna Carta signed by King John of England at Runnymede, and it meant limiting the power the king had over his nobles. The serfs and townspeople were left out of the mix. Cuba, Socialism and Democracy
In January 2011, members of the Participatory and Democratic Socialism Movement proposed that the Cuban Communist Party adopt its "Proposals for the Advance of Socialism in Cuba." ("Socialism and the 'Citizens' Demand for Another Cuba," Pedro Campos, Havana Times, June 24, 2012)* These socialist critics of the Cuban regime offered a program of radical democratic proposals including full freedom of speech and press, freedom of association (including partie Some Lessons of 1989's East European Revolutions: Reflections of a U.S. Peace Activist
[This article will appear in the forthcoming summer 2012 print issue of New Politics.] Every Day Is Memorial Day
(Written the Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2011,when I was my usual long-term unemployed due to only temporary service work available at that time.—GF, May 18, 2012) Occupy AmericaOccupy America: A Call for ArticlesOccupy Wall Street and its hundreds of offshoots in cities and towns across the country is the most exciting and important development on the American left in years. The occupiers accuse Wall Street and the government and political parties of abusing and neglecting the American people and call for a more democratic and just society. The Left and the U.S. Elections: A New Politics Symposium
It is half a year from the national elections in the United States. The campaigns are well under way, and the debate on the left as to how to relate to the elections is under way as well. New Politics has invited leftists with a range of different views to comment on what position they think the left ought to take. Running for President Against the System
To run or not to run? This is a question that every left-wing organization faces every four years. We in the Socialist Party USA spend a good chunk of our National Conventions debating this very question. Yet, for us and for others in the Socialist movement, it is the capitalist system itself that has made running for President on a Socialist line a necessity. Occupy Election Season!
As spring comes to life and the Occupy movement stirs from hibernation, it finds the American electoral machine in full swing for the 2012 race. National elections are anathema to many on the radical left, but to most Americans they represent the only avenue of participation in the political process. That voting via the Electoral College for one of two pre-selected politicians every four years is the extent of citizens' interaction with our democracy is reason enough to scoff at it intellectually, but its material importance can't be overlooked. Progressive Election Strategy and the Norman Solomon Campaign
We can’t devise a successful electoral strategy for “The Left”—meaning the forces of peace, social/economic justice and sustainability—unless we face a simple fact: We’re getting our asses kicked. The Left Should Declare Its Independence from the Democrats
Obama's 2008 promise of "change" has been so outrageously contradicted by three and a half years in office that it almost looks like deceit. The domination of financial elites is now more absolute than ever. Diverting the Spectacle: Radical Students and the Election Season
Another election season dawns, and yet again students like myself are urged to "make our voices heard" by selecting our preferred candidate. Many of us will undoubtedly be caught up in the fervor of rhetoric and promises, some perhaps even believing that this time things will be different. As a radical student activist it's often difficult to view this bi-yearly charade as anything other than a perverse blend of distraction and manipulation. Independent Politics for a Green New Deal
It is time for the Left to be realistic about how it is going to build the power we need to make the changes we want. Strategic Reflections on the Quadrennial Extravaganza
The quadrennial presidential election extravaganza is here and along with it comes the quadrennial intra-U.S. leftist bloodletting on the unpleasant question of how to best respond to the narrow "choices" handed down by the nation's corporate-managed one-and-a-half party system. Workers and Leaders
I have considered myself a Marxist for forty years, yet my main concern for quite a lot of that time is that working people have more control over their own lives. That's not necessarily going to be the case if a communist party comes to power. Then political cadres transform themselves into bureaucrats and "lord it over" working people. We can see that in China, Vietnam and Cuba. ![]() The Alfred Marshall the Left Doesn't Know
Most leftists know economist Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), if they know him at all, only through the superficial account of him given in Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers,[1] as only a fusty Victorian preoccupied with abstract mathematical models of economic equilibrium. The “Jobs For All” Issue: It’s Still the Economy and Unemployment Front and Center, Not the Occupy Movement
Noted socialist writer Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” That doesn’t just apply to the business and managerial classes alone—I submit, it can also apply to those who are economically comfortable either as workers or as retirees—and thus have no inkling of what it’s like to be one of the working poor, what it’s like to be chronically unemployed and “living” on a mere $600/month in unemployment compensation, to live Russia, The Return of the Revolution: An Appeal
“Yesterday (Feb. 4, 2012) more than 100 000 people marched on the streets in the centre of Moscow despite severe cold (-20C) demanding free and fair elections and the end of Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian rule. Following on the mass demonstrations of December 10th and 24th in Moscow, in which tens of thousands of people took part, this shows clearly that the period of social passivity in Russia is over; the Putin era is nearing its end. “A Dangerous Method”: Freud, Jung, and Spielrein
David Cronenberg’s new film “A Dangerous Method” begins in the opening years of the twentieth century with the delivery to the Burghölzli Clinic of the Zurich Hospital of a young woman named Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly) who, suffering from hysteria, becomes one of the early patients to undergo psychoanalysis. Spielrein, a wealthy, well-educated, and lovely young Russian Jewish woman—whose hysterical outbreaks express themselves in fits, tortuous postures, tormented speech, and bizarre behavior—comes under the care of Dr. Piety, Money, and Catholicism
Review of Jason Berry, Render unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church, New York: Crown Publishers, 2011 The Movement for Justice and Equality in Mauritania
New Politics interviews an MJEM activist in the United States A WPA for History: Occupy the American Historical Association
[Partly in response to my calls to the American Historical Association to deal with the jobs crisis in the field, AHA President Tony Grafton organized on short notice a special session at the 126th Annual Meeting of the organization in Chicago on January 6, 2012. The session, entitled "Jobs for Historians: Approaching the Crisis from the Demand Side," was well-attended, with about 250 people in the Sheraton Chicago’s Ballroom VI. Grafton chaired, and I was one of four speakers. Carl Davidson, Bill Ayers, and Zig Ziglar Moments
Adapted from an article originally published in the May 2011 Indianapolis Peace & Justice Journal—GF Add another Frustration to Being Unemployed: A Case in Point from Indiana’s WorkOne State Employment Agency
(I’m sure unemployed workers outside of Indiana have encountered very similar problems, and can relate well to this particular situation; just one more frustration added to the already-present myriad frustrations of being unemployed and not able to find a job. Originally published in the July 2011 Movement, monthly newspaper of the Indianapolis Peace & Justice Center—GF) A Taxonomy of Capitalist Sharks
Trying to reform Capitalism is a futile as preaching Vegetarianism to a Shark. And nearly as dangerous. Stay away from those gaping greedy Jaws if you don’t want to get eaten alive—the sorry Fate of many idealistic Liberals and Social Democrats! (See fig. 1) Euthanasia for the Rentier
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
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
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
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!
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
Gertrude Ezorsky: From Left Democratic Socialist to Left Democratic Socialist
(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
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
The emergence of a mass movement, the beginning of a new radicalization Occupy Wall Street: The Making of a New World
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
I. IntroductionOn 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
Eagleton on Marx
Review of Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton ![]() New-York Historical Society Sinks to a New Low with a Black-Tie Gala for Henry Kissinger
[Reprinted from the History News Network.] Occupy Wall Street in Context: Systemic Crisis and Rebellion
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
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.
[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.
#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
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
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
[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
"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
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
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?
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
[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
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”
“Black and white together, against the lower classes”—Nichols and May routine about Hyde Park (Chicago), late 1950s
Hannah Arendt Against the Facts
![]() Blues on the Border: Legendary Rock Guitarist Javier Batiz Plays and Sings for 'My Beloved and Beautiful Tijuana'
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 . . .
…Alas, we But you, when at last it comes to pass -- Bertolt Brecht, “To Posterity” Sense and Nonsense in the Balanced Budget Debate: A Socialist Response
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
[Comments by Marvin and Betty Mandell and others are posted below the article.] Lessons from Industrial Disaster in an Unpredictable Age
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
[Editor's note: This article continues Richard Greeman's series about Islamism.] Over the years, the British-backed Moslem Brotherhood’s activities spread far beyond Egypt. Not by coincidence did the first Arabic translation of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” still in circulation today, appear in Egypt the 1920"s. This anti-Semitic forgery was created by the Imperial Russian secret services around 1905 in order to designate a scapegoat and divert the growing Russian revolutionary movement into reactionary channels (pogroms, Black Hundreds). Rising Above the Herd: Keith Preston's Authoritarian Anti-Statism
-- Keith Preston, "The Thoughts That Guide Me: A Personal Reflection" (2005)[1]
Jobs for All
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
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
[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
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
The Bureaucrat and the Poor: Encounters in French Welfare Offices American workers fight back
[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
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
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
(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
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
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
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
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"
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
Editor's note: This is the seventh article in a series by Richard Greeman about Islamism. U.S. imperialism, deluded by its own ideology, has joined the March of Folly in Afghanistan/West Pakistan -- following in the illustrious footsteps of other would-be conquerors including the Persian Emperor Darius I, Alexander the Great, the British Empire under Queen Victoria and Brezhnev's Soviet Russian empire. All these great powers lost whole armies in the region before being driven out by the fiercely independent natives, as we have seen in previous articles. The U.S. “Take a Hike, Gimpy”
New York City plans to have even more inaccessible taxis The U.S. March of Folly in the Middle-East
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
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
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. If the truth is “the first casualty” in war, then democracy is the second. Although framed by the U.S. Contextualizing the Threat of Radical Islam: “Urgent Threats” of Yesteryear
[Editor’s note: This is the second in a series by Richard Greeman.] To understand the lunacy of the problematic Islamic “threat” currently being hyped in mainstream U.S. political discourse, we need to place the concept in the historical context of Western, particularly U.S. imperialism’s collective self-image. White American identity has from the beginning defined itself in opposition a dangerous, threatening, darker “other” who had to be conquered, subdued, and/or exterminated : in the first instance the “savages” native to the Americas. Contextualizing the Threat of Radical Islam
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. Fitch, Benson, and Early
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. Update to "Mean Bastards as Culture Heroes"
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
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
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
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
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"
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
Unions Representing Workers in Canada, Mexico qnd U.S. Explore Merger: 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
Max Lane. Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. New York: Verso, 2008. 312 pages. Notes, index. $29.95 The Need to Say NO
[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?"
[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
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
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. We are deeply indebted to Phyllis and her late husband Julie for tirelessly holding high the banner of radical, democratic socialism and independent politics. In Tribute to Phyllis Jacobson
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Kate Millett and Her Critics
[This article appeared in the old series of New Politics, Fall 1970.]
Sexual Politics by Kate Millet 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?
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
The Nation joins a great tradition (Alien and Sedition Acts, Palmer Raids, Smith Act) by invoking "sedition" against Teabaggers. Black Outrage in Los Angeles
[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
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
[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)
[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
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
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
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
Robert Service. Trotsky: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 600 pages, including end notes, bibliography, index. $35.00. Robert Service’s study is quite readable. The prose is clear, and the story interesting. It follows the basic outline sketched by Trotsky himself in his literary masterpiece My Life, supplemented by Isaac Deutscher’s brilliant trilogy – The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, and The Prophet Outcast. Dennis Brutus
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. Throughout the world and for a long time to come, Dennis’ outstanding contributions to peace and justice struggles will be recounted. Worth reading: “The Old Man” by Christopher Hitchens
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. The review describes Trotsky's accomplishments not generally known, for example, his activities as a brilliant war correspondent in the Balkans. But most important of all is the discussion of Trotsky’s polemics against the communist policy in pre-Hitler Germany. Trotsky warned that in communist policy the real enemy was not the Nazis but social democracy. News update: Mexican government to meet with electrical workers, mediators
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
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
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
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
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. You don’t command a degree from ASU on academic credentials alone, or just from a decade of teaching at elite law schools. Nobel Ironies – The “Not George Bush” Prize
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. You don’t command a degree from ASU on academic credentials alone, or just from a decade of teaching at elite law schools. Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
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. War in Afghanistan and Pakistan: A critical moment to voice your opposition
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. We urge you to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy emergency statement calling for an end to military intervention in both countries. The statement declares us firmly against military escalation in the region and for the withdrawal of all U.S. Mexican Government Prepares to Seize Mexico City Power Plants to Break Power of Electrical Workers Union
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. The PFP have been used in the last three years to attempt to break strikes of miners and steelworkers as well as to try to crush popular social movements. Lowering the age of consent: Sexual rights are human rights
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
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
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. Just recently, the University of California system has been visited by a round of disastrous cut backs and furloughs. The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
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: “Shown this evening … on HBO. Let's hope it stays around in one form or another. Powerful, poignant, sad beyond belief, brilliantly done. Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29
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. Rafferty is a brilliant documentarian, known for his earlier Atomic Café. In some ways, Harvard Beats Yale is continuous with the themes of the earlier film. Harvard’s largely working-class (and mostly anti-Vietnam War) team is up against the aristocracy and arrogance of Yale and its fans.. Multiculturalism vs. human rights?
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
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
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
Campaign for Peace and Democracy July 7, 2009 Right after the June 12 elections in Iran, the Campaign for Peace and Democracy issued a statement expressing our strong support for the masses of Iranians protesting electoral fraud and our horror at the ferocious response of the government. STUNNING VICTORY FOR CZECH OPPONENTS OF U.S. RADAR BASE
For immediate release NEW YORK, March 18, 2009 |