Oppenheimer, Martin

1968: The Year of Dangerous Living

by Martin Oppenheimer

Summer 2018

— Reprinted from New Politics, vol. II, no. 2 (new series), #6, Winter 1989 —

Introduction

By Martin Oppenheimer

“The Year of Dangerous Living” was written for the twentieth anniversary of 1968. The “’68ers” were still young in 1988, in the prime of their lives, and memories were fresh. There was an explosion of protests against campus racism, gay-bashing, and increasing corporatization of universities (including union-busting). These baby-boomers, then hitting the big 4-0, were nostalgic. There was a sense that despite a Republican president, the moment was ripe for new efforts that required a serious appraisal of past campaigns.

The Misrule of Global Capitalism

by Martin Oppenheimer

Winter 2018

      Social Inequality is not for the faint-hearted. It covers the major political-economic issues of our time, from the structural changes in the economics of capitalism, to class structure, the imperialist state, and the distortions of capitalist culture. The author, a veteran scholar-activist of the New Left generation who now lives in Costa Rica,¹ ends with a plea for resistance to our oligarchic “hegemon” and suggests a series of tactics to help us on the road.

The Rise and Fall of the Muckrakers

by Martin Oppenheimer

Winter 2017

The Occupy movement and the Bernie Sanders campaign spotlighted once again the fact that a fairly small number of very rich people dominate the major economic and political institutions of the country.

Who’s in Charge?

The Power Structure and Foreign Policy

by Martin Oppenheimer

Winter 2016

The godfather of macro-level power structure research in the United States was the sociologist C. Wright Mills, author of The Power Elite (1956).

Before Ferguson

The “Justice” System and the Murders of the Civil Rights Era

by Martin Oppenheimer

Summer 2015

Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by an Alabama State Trooper in Marion, Ala., on Feb. 26, 1965, following a civil rights march. He died two days later. This killing sparked the Selma marches depicted in the now-famous film (the Jackson shooting is shown with a slight change in locale).

New Light on the KKK

by Martin Oppenheimer

Summer 2014

Sit-ins at lunch counters by black students began in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960. Blacks had traditionally not been served there or anywhere in the South at that time. Within a week the sit-ins spread to Durham and Winston-Salem. Eleven of the first sit-ins were within 100 miles of Greensboro. After many arrests, and assaults by white hoodlums, on July 25 all Greensboro stores targeted by the sit-ins agreed to serve blacks on an equal basis.

Mobs, Vigilantes, Cops, and Feds: The Repression of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

by Martin Oppenheimer

Summer 2012

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, or "Snick") came out of the sit-in movement that began on Feb. 1, 1960 in Greensboro, N.C. Its founding convention was at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. April 15-17 that year. 200-plus-delegates representing student civil rights organizations at 52 colleges and high schools attended.

Does Immigration Hurt U.S.-Born Workers?

by Martin Oppenheimer

Winter 2008

1.

IMMIGRATION HAS BECOME THE MOST DIVISIVE ISSUE in domestic American politics since civil rights. Not for the first time in American history, immigrants have become scapegoats for many of the real problems of America's middle and working classes.