Max Lane on Indonesia: A review
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Max Lane on Indonesia: A review
Max Lane. Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. New York: Verso, 2008. 312 pages. Notes, index. $29.95
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The Need to Say NO
[This review appeared in New Politics, vol. I, no. 4, summer 1962 (old series).] As a novelist, a middle class man of the mid-century, a Jew and a socialist, Harvey Swados is that wonderful rarity in the United States today, a committed human being. His recently published collection of essays written over the last ten…
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Does "union democracy" undermine "solidarity?"
[We have asked labor activists to respond to "Card Check: Labor's Charlie Brown Moment?" by Robert Fitch, to encourage discussion on the important issues raised in the article. What follows is the response of Herman Benson.]
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Los Suns
It's not unprecedented for athletes here to object to racist policies, military invasions, and various other crimes and stupidities. The raised, gloved fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium at the 1968 Olympics provide the most dramatic and public example of athletes taking a public stand against oppression. For their courage, Smith…
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Phyllis Jacobson, 1922-2010
The editorial board of New Politics is very sad to report the death of Phyllis Jacobson, co-founder and long-time co-editor of the journal. Phyllis died on March 2, 2010, after suffering a devastating stroke close to ten years ago. We are deeply indebted to Phyllis and her late husband Julie for tirelessly holding high the…
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For Phyllis Jacobson, A Comrade
Those of us who knew Phyllis Jacobson and her husband Julie will realize that her death brings to a close a long and rich chapter in the history of the revolutionary and democratic socialist left in the US. She was the last of a small but heroic generation. Starting with the YPSL Fourth International, the…
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Condolence Statement
We would like to send our condolences to the family, friends and comrades of Phyllis Jacobson. As a founding editor of New Politics, Phyllis played a crucial role in advocating the core principles of "socialism from below," including opposition to Stalinism and support for independent working-class political action. Her commitment to internationalism and solidarity was…
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Good Bye, Phyllis
I met Phyllis and Julie in September of 1961. I had just graduated from the University of Chicago where I had joined the YPSL, and was passing through New York on my way to London. I met them at Julie’s machine shop in Great Jones Street in the East Village and they took me out…
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A Robust Voice for Such a Diminutive Person
The image of Phyllis that remains most salient, and the one I most miss, would begin with a phone call. I would answer with a lugubrious “hello.” And from the other end, I would hear a buoyant “HIYA, STEVE, this is PHYLLIS.” A robust voice for such a diminutive person. And a twang that seemed…
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In Tribute to Phyllis Jacobson
Julie and Phyllis Jacobson launched New Politics in the early 1960s, when they saw the absence of a voice for authentic left-socialist thought following the demise of the Independent Socialist current of the previous period. Ironically, although it was a time of reborn activism for civil rights, peace and what we now call “global justice,”…
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Phyllis Jacobson: An Appreciation
Phyllis Jacobson, who died after a protracted illness on March 2 — just shy of her 88th birthday — was the dynamic force behind a remarkable political and intellectual partnership of shared passion that left an indelible imprint on three generations of twentieth century American radicalism.
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A Personal and Political Tribute to Phyllis
IT’S A STAPLE of American comedians to make fun of in-laws in general and mothers-in-law in particular. But, in my case and with no offense to Michael, I could have married my husband simply for his parents.
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The New Corporatism in American Politics and the Grassroots
From the Tea Party to the Coffee Party, How Political Parties Grow the Grass and Mow the Lawn
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Sounding the alarm on "Race to the Top"
How can we make neoliberalism’s project to destroy public education, captured in the Obama/Duncan “Race to the Top” proposal, more understandable? The subject is complex, but bloggers in the US are taking up the challenge, as we see in Susan Ohanian’s excellent report on my work. (Thanks to all who have picked up the debate…
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"Drunk, crazy, and manipulated by their betters" – Sailors and Democracy
My research on Jack Tar, the American colonial seaman, began in rebellion against the highly politicized historiography of the 50s and early 60s, which reflected Cold War values, stressing the classlessness of American society, the lack of conflict, and the irrationality of those who dissented. A conservative historiography saw crowd actions in early America as…
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Kate Millett and Her Critics
[This article appeared in the old series of New Politics, Fall 1970.] Sexual Politics by Kate MilletDoubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, N.Y. 1970, 393 pp. $7.95Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics has elicited awe, praise and sober criticism, but proof of its effectiveness is the appearance of a variety of articles and reviews marked by utterly unselfconscious…
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What's right – and wrong – in Diane Ravitch's new take on school reform
Five friends, none of them teachers, have called to tell me they heard about Diane Ravitch’s new book and her change of heart about the school reforms she advocated for a decade. “Lo! She’s saying what you’ve been telling us!”The publicity for Ravitch’s book has certainly put her incisive critique of the reforms (privatizing education; using…
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Why Should the Left Trust the Government?
In 1960, as a graduate student in history, I decided to pick up some work as a census-taker on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. At the training session (at the Henry George School), the instructor said, "you're paid by the head, and [smirk], nobody's going to make any trouble if you find a couple…
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Invoking "sedition" against Teabaggers: short-sighted, ahistorical, and suicidal
The Nation joins a great tradition (Alien and Sedition Acts, Palmer Raids, Smith Act) by invoking "sedition" against Teabaggers.
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The Right's Conspiracy Theory Attack on Frances Fox Piven
If you believe Glenn Beck, the Tea Party lunatics, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk, Frances Fox Piven is the Marxist Machiavelli whose 1966 article in The Nation (written with Richard Cloward) still serves as the blueprint for a radical takeover of American society, including Barack Obama's "socialist" administration.
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Black Outrage in Los Angeles
[This article appeared in New Politics no. 13, Summer 1992.] The fire burning in South-Central Los Angeles illuminated the rage, anguish and despair of African-Americans consigned to bleak lives of poverty and hopelessness by the most "advanced" country in the world. But as history attests, once the rage subsides, the images, which should be unforgettable,…
