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Symposium
A Discussion of the Sanders Campaign
The Bernie Sanders campaign in the Democratic Party has attracted the support of millions, raised an economic reform program such as we have not seen in decades, and has led to a national discussion about the nature of socialism. At the same time, he has ceased to be an independent, has joined the Democratic Party, and has promised to support its nominee, in all likelihood Hillary Clinton. This has led to much discussion and debate on the left. New Politics has solicited two articles from different points of view on the Sanders campaign, one by our co-editor Jason Schulman and the other by Lance Selfa and Ashley Smith of the International Socialist Organization.
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C.L.R. James on Oliver Cox's Caste, Class, and Race
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Crime and the Left
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Disability Rights
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Europe: Women, Austerity, and Politics
Introduction
The economic crisis of 2008 has had deep effects everywhere. In Europe, the consequences have been dramatic, bringing disturbing political changes to some countries, social turmoil to others, and economic hardship to many. Women have been especially hard hit during these past few years. In this section, we look at three different countries to see how their history and politics have shaped the impact of the crisis and the responses to it. Özlem İlyas Tolunay examines the recent policies of the Erdoğan government in Turkey and how these have affected women. Susan Pashkoff offers an analysis of austerity measures in Britain, and the particular burden on women. Stefanie Prezioso surveys the situation in Italy as Berlusconi leaves the scene.
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Iraq Symposium
We are pleased to publish the following exchange on the politics of the U.S. occupation, the Iraqi resistance, and the antiwar movement. The symposium builds on a trio of articles -- by Barry Finger, Wadood Hamad, and Glenn Perusek -- that appeared in New Politics 38 (Winter 2005). Further responses from our readers are welcome.
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Occupy and Labor
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Race: A Counterrevolution
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Roundtable on Immigration and African Americans
Stephen Steinberg's "Immigration, African Americans and Race Discourse" in our last issue of New Politics (#39) elicited several responses. Here they are with Steinberg's rejoinder. Steinberg's article, together with a different set of responses and a reply from Steinberg, also appears in the Winter issue of New Labor Forum. We urge readers to follow this debate in both venues. - EDS.| Vol:- | Whole #: 40 |
Special Section on Asia and Africa
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Special Section on Civil Liberties
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Special Section on Latin America
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Special Section on Women and Work
Edited by Gertrude Ezorsky| Vol:- | Whole #: 39 |
Special Section: Europe
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Special Section: Women's Issues
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Symposium on 'No Child Left Behind' and Public Education
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Symposium on Caregiving
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Symposium on Gays and the Left (Part I)
Thomas Harrison and Joanne Landy
THE HISTORIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN homosexuals and the left is complicated, because, as Jeffrey Escoffier reminds us in his overview of various currents -- socialist, left-Freudian, post-1969 gay liberationist -- "there are many different lefts." As we see it, the most important difference within the left has been the one separating an authoritarian, top-down tradition that focuses on social engineering, on the one hand, from a democratic, from below tradition that emphasizes freedom and popular control, on the other. Looking at the socialist tradition, specifically -- and all our contributors are or have been associated in some way with it -- one can discern traces of a different attitude toward sexual difference depending on which of the "two souls of socialism" -- to use the term coined by Hal Draper, a frequent contributor to New Politics in its early years -- one is examining. We say "traces" because explicit discussion of sexual matters of any kind, in writing, has been rare among socialists until fairly recent times.
Christopher Phelps has discovered an internal document of the Socialist Party youth, dated 1952, during the darkest days of McCarthyism, which urges the Party to support the decriminalization of same-sex activity. Tentative though it was, this initiative represents an intriguing echo, from within the left, of the politically neutral (though led largely by former Communists) "homophile" movement cautiously emerging in the 50s. In his important article, Phelps places the episode in the context of a long tradition of sexual libertarianism that has flickered unsteadily in and around the socialist movement since the late nineteenth century -- or at least that part of the movement with more democratic proclivities. The U.S. Socialist Party, as Phelps describes it, was probably pretty typical in its treatment of homosexuals and homosexuality: a "peculiar admixture of freedom and caution, acceptance and denial, silence and honesty" prevailed. There was plenty of homophobia, but "no official prohibition against same-sex desire and . . . no official ideology against it." David McReynolds, a veteran of the socialist and pacifist movements, recalls this twilight world of gay radicals in the 50s. In McReynolds' milieu -- the Los Angeles Socialist Party and the War Resisters League in New York -- homosexuals were tolerated, at best, but a same-sex orientation seldom interfered with common work for the cause.
Hardly a heroic record, but what a contrast with the policy of Stalinism, the system that came to power in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and enveloped the Communist parties of the world -- the most extreme development of what Draper called "socialism from above." The Bolsheviks abolished all legal restrictions on same-sex activity after they came to power in 1917, but in 1934 the new Stalinist ruling elite made homosexuality illegal, punishable by three to five years in prison (a penalty far more severe than that imposed under the tsars). Bettina Aptheker, in a candid and hard-hitting recollection, portrays the stiflingly puritanical and homophobic atmosphere in the American Communist Party, which persisted well beyond the explosion of sexual freedom that accompanied the arrival of the New Left in the 1960s and the birth of the gay liberation movement at the end of the decade. Amazingly, the Party's official attitude toward homosexuality, and even toward "recreational sex," differed hardly at all from the most conservative elements in American society. To a young woman trying to come to terms with her lesbianism, it was a powerful obstacle to overcome.
While acknowledging that leftists have played a decisive role in the formation of the modern gay and lesbian movement, John D'Emilio asks why the left as a whole has been so negligent in championing the cause of gay liberation. In our view, the success with which the right has demagogically exploited the same-sex marriage issue has unnerved many on the left as, increasingly, elements of a left program are subordinated to the perceived urgency of electing Democrats, and one senses a tendency to hold gays and lesbians at arm's length. In his critique, D'Emilio asserts the centrality that gay rights ought to have for a left that claims to fight oppression.
THE GAY AND LESBIAN MOVEMENT, AND ITS demands, have been denounced or dismissed with some regularity by the critics of "identity politics" -- moderates such as Todd Gitlin and Michael Tomasky, and even radicals like Ralph Nader. Martin Duberman, in a nuanced and critical defense of the politics of identity, refutes the charge that these politics have destroyed the U.S. left; instead, he insists that it is the homophobia still rampant in the unions, the black churches, and elsewhere, as well as the disdain shown by Gitlin, Tomasky, and co. -- not the alleged obsession with identity and difference -- that prevents the formation of a powerful alliance of all oppressed forces against the right. "You cannot link arms under a universalist banner," he says, "when you can't find your own name on it."
Below is Part One of the New Politics discussion on Gays and the Left. In our next issue we will continue the symposium with contributions from Blanche Wiesen Cook, Thomas Harrison, Amber Hollibaugh, Doug Ireland, and perhaps others.
Thanks to Doug Ireland, Jesse Lemisch, and Christopher Phelps for their help in designing this symposium.
THOMAS HARRISON and JOANNE LANDY, members of the New Politics editorial board, organized this symposium.
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Symposium on Gays and the Left (Part II)
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Symposium on Inequality
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Symposium on Iraq and the Antiwar Movement
We are pleased to publish the following exchange on the politics of the U.S. occupation, the Iraqi resistance, and the antiwar movement. The symposium builds on a trio of articles -- by Barry Finger, Wadood Hamad, and Glenn Perusek -- that appeared in New Politics 38 (Winter 2005).
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Syria, Iraq, ISIS, and the West
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The American Scene
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The Crisis in Ukraine
The crisis in Ukraine has raised grave problems for the people of that country, significant dangers for world peace, and many contending views on the left. Here we offer three articles that we think help us make sense of what’s going on, by Joanne Landy, Kevin B. Anderson, and Sean Larson. Landy and Anderson attempt to provide a political assessment of what has been going on, while Larson offers some important background on the Ukrainian elite. Obviously, the situation on the ground is changing daily, but basic political principles and background information won’t be easily outdated.
—The Editors
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The Elections
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The Fire This Time
Racism, Capitalism, and the Continuing Struggle for Justice
Historically, the American justice system has refused to hold accountable police officers responsible for murder. This reality, and the fact of abuse and brutality as the modus operandi of policing in poor and working-class areas, was the catalyst of many of the “race rebellions” of the twentieth century. This century has been no different.
The killings have not stopped. The murders of Walter Scott in South Carolina and Freddie Gray in Baltimore are just the two latest atrocities to grab national attention, sparking protests and demonstrations for justice across the country. Admittedly, these are only the publicized cases; data on the number of people killed by police is not recorded.
In the last two years, courts and juries have basically approved the murders by police (or vigilantes) of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. In response to this, and to the continual killing of Black people and other people of color, we present a symposium seeking to examine the relations between the colonial situation inflicted on people of color by militarized law enforcement, structural racism, and the creation of the carceral state, and to explore the rise of a possible new Black Liberation Movement.
We begin with Donna Murch, who places Ferguson in a historical context and traces the development of a movement against state violence. Then, in an interview with Amber A'Lee Frost and Saulo Colón, journalist Raven Rakia discusses how this movement can be an agent not only for channeling dissent but also for combating the structures that underpin racism in our neoliberal society.
Kali Akuno, in an interview with Riad Azar and Saulo Colón, discusses the relevance of Black Nationalist theory and organizations in the fight for human rights and self-determination. Francis Shor discusses the similarities and differences between the current movement and its historical precedents in the civil rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
These are followed by reflection pieces from two activists, what James Baldwin would have called “dispatches from occupied territories.” Femi Agbabiaka, who was in Ferguson, relates his experience to the growth of the prison-industrial complex and the profit motive under racialized capitalism. Gabriel Kilpatrick, who protested in New York City, uses his experiences to explore relations between today’s demonstrations and what happened fifty years earlier in Watts. We conclude our symposium with a piece by Alan Stowers, who, writing on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, reminds us why Malcolm’s voice is so important today in order to diagnose and demand systemic change.
Four book reviews in this issue also relate to our theme. Martin Oppenheimer reviews a study of how murders in the civil rights era were addressed; Linda Braune discusses Greg Grandin’s examination of the slave trade; Reginald Wilson looks at the career of pioneering Black politician Shirley Chisholm; and Jamie Munro considers the lessons of the film “Selma.”
We present these articles not only to describe and explain the current crisis and its roots, but also to explore the prospects for movements that can bring about the changes necessary for socialist democracy.
Riad Azar, Saulo Colón, Amber A"Lee Frost, and Stephen R. Shalom
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The Left and the Environmental Crisis
Humanity today faces what may be its greatest crisis—the destruction of our environment threatening the continued existence of life on Earth. The Left began to address this issue over the last two decades, but only in the last few years has it been recognized that coming to grips with the environmental crisis must be a top priority not only of the Left but of all the peoples of the world.
The question then becomes how do we as socialists address the environmental issue and what is its relationship to our historic demand for fundamental change in politics, society, and economics to bring about a democratic socialist society?
New Politics offers here eight left analyses from different perspectives. Four of the articles had their origin in presentations at the Left Forum in June 2013, the principal theme of which was “The Left and the Environment.” The articles by Nancy Holmstrom, Jill Stein, and Christian Parenti were originally talks given at the opening plenary, while Brian Tokar’s is based on a workshop presentation. The Left Forum has come to be an important occasion for activists on the American Left to come together to discuss, debate, and strategize and we are pleased to be able to demonstrate in this issue our appreciation for the Forum in which New Politics editors, authors, and readers also regularly participate. Robin Hahnel’s article, an open letter to the environmental justice movement, is a revised version of a talk given at a conference on “The Political Economy of the Environment” held in Brooklyn, New York, in October 2013 co-sponsored by the Union of Radical Political Economy and New Politics. The articles by Michael Löwy on ecosocialism, by Natassa Romanou on the environmental crisis in Greece, and by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington on Los Alamos were all written especially for this issue.
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The Left We Need
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The Left We Need
Special Section, continued from Winter 2015 issue
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The World Economic Crisis: Labor's Response
IN HIS INTRODUCTION to the Winter 1998 New Politics symposium (Vol. VI, No. 4) marking the 150th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto, Julius Jacobson, co-editor and co-founder of this journal, noted that “symptomatic of the crisis in Marxism” is not only the “failure of the working class to act as the agency for social transformation but the changing nature of the working class itself which is a legitimate area of concern and debate” (p. 47). This special section renews the challenge that New Politics symposium set out, of understanding what has happened to the working class and labor unions internationally, and how they have — and have not — responded to the greatest financial crisis in capitalism we have witnessed in generations. All of the authors are activists in the labor movements in their respective countries. We asked them to describe and analyze how workers in their countries are responding to the world economic crisis, noting what they see as the role of the revolutionary socialist left in all of this, if it has a role, and describing the prospects. Their essays reflect the great differences in political life, social class relations, and union organization in various nations. We anticipate that two additional contributions will be posted on our website (www.newpol.org) by the time the print edition is in your hands. We intend this as the beginning of an ongoing discussion in New Politics and invite readers’ submissions on the subject. DAN LA BOTZ and LOIS WEINER
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The World in Crisis
The world is in crisis.
New Politics is pleased to publish a set of articles that offer insights into some of the world’s major conflicts.
We present three analyses of Iran’s democratic movement, with articles by Yassamine Mather, Negar Mottahedeh, and Danny Postel. There’s been sharp debate on the Left in Pakistan regarding that country’s campaign against Islamic militants; Pervez Hoodbhoy and Adaner Usmani offer contending views. Stephen R. Shalom discusses Obama and Israel-Palestine. Adrienne Pine writes on the twin crises in Haiti and Honduras. Steven Fake and Kevin Funk address the situation in Darfur, and Sudan more generally. And Derrick O’Keefe puts forward a critique of the foreign policies of the Obama administration from a Canadian perspective.
We hope that these articles will help make sense of these different conflicts, and encourage appropriate political action.
— STEPHEN R. SHALOM AND JOANNE LANDY
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Turkey, Kurdistan, and Rojava
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