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'Bows of pseudo-profundity' and 'moral certitude': Alan Johnson and Democratiya
Roger Spalding February 1, 2010The 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.
A Hostile Biography of Leon Trotsky
Reviewed by Paul Le Blanc January 1, 2010Robert Service. Trotsky: A Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 600 pages, including end notes, bibliography, index. $35.00.
Debating Activism
Norm Diamond August 8, 2009Underneath 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.
Dennis Brutus
Sam Waite December 31, 2009Dennis 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.
George Clooney's Haiti -- and Beyond
Jesse LemischGeorge 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.
Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29
Jesse Lemisch (Yale 1957) August 25, 2009Harvard 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.
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.]
Interested in "bad guys" - but not bad systems
Barbara Garson August 5, 2009While 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.
Lowering the age of consent: Sexual rights are human rights
Peter Tatchell September 26, 2009Law professor John Spencer, of Cambridge University, has created a huge controversy in the UK by suggesting a reduction in the current age of sexual consent of 16. His proposals, broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Iconoclasts programme, with my support as a co-advocate, have been savaged by The Sun and the Daily Mail.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mrd9g
Lowering the age of consent: Sexual rights are human rights
Peter Tatchell September 26, 2009Law 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
Mexican Electrical Workers Union Fights For Its Life
Dan La Botz October 19, 2009The 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.
Mexican Government Prepares to Seize Mexico City Power Plants to Break Power of Electrical Workers Union
Dan La Botz September 30, 2009The 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.
Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
Dan La Botz October 12, 2009October 11, 2009 -- Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico. The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the elimination of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) which has opposed the government's policies.
[See call for Solidarity with Mexican Electrical Workers Union at end of this article.]
Middle East: Faint Glimmer of Hope
David Finkel November 20, 2009There’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.
Multiculturalism vs. human rights?
Peter Tatchell August 13, 2009Multiculturalism 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.
News update: Mexican government to meet with electrical workers, mediators
Dan La Botz December 16, 2009The 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.
Nobel Ironies – The “Not George Bush” Prize
David Finkel October 15, 2009It seems doubly ironic that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has given its 2009 award to Barack Obama -- just a few months after Arizona State University declined to award him the customary, symbolic honorary degree as its commencement speaker.
The ASU decision, on the grounds that president Obama “had not yet accomplished enough,” was fully understandable in view of the reputation which that esteemed University is committed to uphold.
Nobel Ironies – The “Not George Bush” Prize
David Finkel October 15, 2009It 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.
Putting race on a bronze pedestal
Norm Diamond October 27, 2009Planning 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.
Question & Answer on the Iran Crisis
Stephen R. Shalom, Thomas Harrison, Joanne Landy and Jesse LemischCampaign for Peace and Democracy
July 7, 2009
STUNNING VICTORY FOR CZECH OPPONENTS OF U.S. RADAR BASE
Joanne Landy Thomas Harrison March 20, 2009For immediate release
Contact: Joanne Landy, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, jlandy@igc.org
NEW YORK, March 18, 2009
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Jesse Lemisch September 13, 2009On 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:
The Politics of George Clooney’s Help for Haiti Telethon
Stephen SteinbergI 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.
War in Afghanistan and Pakistan: A critical moment to voice your opposition
Joanne Landy and Tom Harrison Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy October 10, 2009The 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.
Worth reading: “The Old Man” by Christopher Hitchens
Gertrude Ezorsky December 27, 2009If 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 Last Truck”: Politics and Art
Nelson Lichtenstein September 17, 2009The 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.