I was sitting in a one-bedroom apartment watching the telethon for Hurricane Katrina when it happened. After a commercial break, Kanye West stood nervously looking like he was about to do something that would end his career. He was fidgety and sweating when he said it: “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” It was a transcendent moment for Black America.
(NOTE: For some background, see my previous article: www.solidarity-us.org/node/4058 in Against the Current, January-February 2014.)
AUGUST 19 — Even while the rhetoric around the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran seems to be reaching reactor-grade “critical” level, signs are emerging that the fix just may be quietly in.
I don't support Bernie in the Democratic Party because I believe the key question in U.S. politics is building a political party that can defend the
needs of the vast majority of the American people. As more and more people on the left agree, the Democratic Party is not and cannot be such a party; to my mind this constraint makes paramount the political independence of candidates, no matter how progressive their program.
As a strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, my first reaction to hearing about the Black Lives Matter protest at Netroots Nation was disappointment. This looks bad, I thought. Bad for Bernie, who is the only presidential candidate with any chance of challenging structural injustice. And bad for Black Lives Matter, who could easily be interpreted as shutting down progressive discussions about immigration and economic inequality to make people focus on their priorities. I’ve had my share of mistakes during protests, as have all the activists I respect most, so I certainly had some sympathy. But I thought their protest was just that: a mistake.
The death of Marshall Berman—City University of New York political theory professor, author of books including the seminal All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity, Dissent editorial board member, and one-time professor of mine—caught me quite by surprise, as I’m sure it did many. I’d last seen him in person at a Dissent holiday party and last talked to him on the phone some months ago. Alth
Paul Mattick, Business As Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Failure of Capitalism. Reaktion Books, London, 2011. 126 pp.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay — Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770)
Michael Harrington is rarely taken seriously as a Marxist thinker — indeed, his Marxism is rarely taken seriously at all, by either his critics or sympathizers.
The New Politics Winter 2024 issue is now out, featuring articles on Israel’s war on Gaza, American and international politics, decolonial climate justice, a debate on Che Guevara, and political theory. Articles will be gradually released on the web.
