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.
Author: newpolitics
Dream Sequences: Marching on Washington, Fifty Years On
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.
How (not) to push back on the power elite's destruction of public education
A former PR apparatchik in the US Dept. of Education (DOE) in Obama’s first term, Paul Cunningham, has penned a snarky attack on Diane Ravitch, the best known liberal opponent of the bipartisan “reforms” of public education that are destroying it.
Fighting the Landlords from Stuy-Town to Detroit
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
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.
A (Tiny) Treatise on Human Nature
In the left-academic circles in which I travel, the March release of Vivek Chibber’s book-length critique of Subaltern Studies caused quite a stir. Chibber debated one of his antagonists, Partha Chatterjee, at a plenary session of the Historical Materialism conference in May, a confrontation which provided endless fodder for debates on FB and within the Left blogosphere.
Wild Socialism
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
Getting personal: An open letter to TFA recruits in Chicago
Dear New TFA recruits in Chicago,
Can we talk about your teaching plans, as if you came to my office, as do lots of students and college grads thinking about becoming a teacher?
White Racial Delusion
50 Years After the March on Washington
“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.
Liberals, ideology, and Teach for America (TFA)
Liberals have taken way too long to understand that the bipartisan educational agenda, which started with the so-called “excellence” reforms in the 1990’s, has done harm.
As the 1 Percent Leaves the 99 Percent in the Dust, Bush’s Chief Economist is Smiling
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.
Working People for Peace: The Real Story of Popular Opposition to the U.S. Adventure in Vietnam
[The following review of mine appears as Hardhats for Peace in the July 18 issue of The Indypendent, which calls itself with considerable justification "A Free Paper for Free People." An expanded version surveying a number of recent (and quite good) critiques of U.S. misadventures in East Asia from the Philippines to today, will appear in the forthcoming New Politics.]
The Double Standard in Europe's Austerity Discourse
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:
Heartbreak and class warfare, Chicago-style
I’d be heart-broken by the layoffs announced by the Chicago Public Schools, (CPS) even if my pal Xian Barrett (in the photo, talking teaching with me at the DC Save Our Schools demo last April) weren’t one of the folks given a pink slip.
Class Struggle from the Couch
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.
A reply to Herman Benson: The Chicago Teachers Union is a different kind of labor union
The exchange between Herman Benson and Dan La Botz highlights one, if not the primary, issue that has to be resolved if we are to turn back the tidal wave of anti-union and anti-democratic policies that have transformed the nation’s social and political landscape. I think both Herman and Dan would agree that we need a revived labor movement. But what will drive the revival? And what form should it take?
Real Unions and Unreal Unions
A reply to Dan La Botz
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
[from Weekly Worker 969, July 4 2013]
Randi Weingarten – my union president, not my bff
Diane Ravitch has been a powerful voice for US teachers against the Billionaire Boys Club, who have carried out a program of social engineering that has devastated our schools. Ravitch is a friend of public education, a friend of the social movement trying to push back these terrible "deforms." This distinction is one Ravitch misses when she defends her personal pal, Randi Weingarten, who is coming under intense pressure for supporting the Common Core, a national curriculum that is gener
Rejoinder to Bratsis
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.
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