On December 4, 2011, the labor movement, the left, the academy, and the historical profession lost a leader and friend.
Place: North America
Chicago teachers lead the way, again
Teacher unionism was born more than a century ago, in Chicago. Teachers in Chicago are once again leading the way by authorizing a strike over the policies that are destroying public education in communities across this country – and the globe. In a letter to education activists, Pauline Lipman, a professor at University of Illinois, Chicago, describes the background to the strike and explains why Chicago teachers deserve support from anyone who wants good schools for all kids:
Did organized money defeat organized labor?
That appears to be the Democratic Party’s takeaway from its humbling defeat in the Wisconsin recall election. That and the ever familiar lament that workers no longer seem capable of voting consistently in their own financial interests, consistency in this case meaning in solidarity with embattled public sector workers and their unions. 38% of households with union members voted for the incumbent, as did a majority of non-college graduates. Walker carried the 10 poorest counties in the state by a 13% margin.
Why the Tea Party?
The anti-capitalist left in the United States and around the world faces a paradox. A mere five years ago, the world capitalist economy entered a new long period of falling profits, stagnant accumulation, and growing long-term un (and under-) employment. The 2007-8 financial crisis threatened a wave of bankruptcies across the capitalist world that seemed to herald a collapse of major sectors of industry and finance.
Expendable Necessities?: Cutting Essential Care for People with Disabilities in Minnesota
On October 26, 2011, legislation that would lower the wages of caregivers who provide personal assistance services to their disabled family members was ruled unconstitutional by a Minnesota judge.
A Legacy of Exploitation: Intellectual disability, unpaid labor, & disability services
While employment issues have always been an important aspect of disability policy, a focus on paid and formal employment has meant that the experience of many working-age adults with intellectual disabilities has been overlooked. Many erroneously believe the historic absence of persons with intellectual disabilities in the workplace is evidence that persons with intellectual disabilities cannot or do not work.
Disability Rights Symposium: Introduction
All too often, socialists, like others, have regarded disability as a personal tragedy. Left publications rarely discuss it or debate it and activism by people with disabilities has been ignored by the left, notwithstanding the fact that Americans with disabilities are among the most marginalized of citizens in terms of income level and poverty rates.
Alternet's "New Economic Visions" Series
Alternet has a new series on “New Economic Visions” that may be of interest to New Politics readers. Here’s the description from Alternet:
Some Lessons of 1989's East European Revolutions: Reflections of a U.S. Peace Activist
[This article will appear in the forthcoming summer 2012 print issue of New Politics.]
The Bipartisan Assault on Higher Education
Obama and Romney agree that the Stafford loan program should be maintained at a 3.4% interest rate, rather than being allowed to double by this July. This, somehow, is seen as a great boon to students and evidence of a bipartisan commitment to the upcoming generation. Keeping interest rates low purportedly encourages prospective students to choose more education than they might otherwise aspire to, to select more expensive colleges than they could otherwise seek, and to finance this education through more debt than they would otherwise incur.
Every Day Is Memorial Day
(Written the Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2011,when I was my usual long-term unemployed due to only temporary service work available at that time.—GF, May 18, 2012)
The Left and the U.S. Elections: A New Politics Symposium
It is half a year from the national elections in the United States. The campaigns are well under way, and the debate on the left as to how to relate to the elections is under way as well. New Politics has invited leftists with a range of different views to comment on what position they think the left ought to take.
Running for President Against the System
To run or not to run? This is a question that every left-wing organization faces every four years. We in the Socialist Party USA spend a good chunk of our National Conventions debating this very question. Yet, for us and for others in the Socialist movement, it is the capitalist system itself that has made running for President on a Socialist line a necessity.
Occupy Election Season!
As spring comes to life and the Occupy movement stirs from hibernation, it finds the American electoral machine in full swing for the 2012 race. National elections are anathema to many on the radical left, but to most Americans they represent the only avenue of participation in the political process. That voting via the Electoral College for one of two pre-selected politicians every four years is the extent of citizens' interaction with our democracy is reason enough to scoff at it intellectually, but its material importance can't be overlooked.
Progressive Election Strategy and the Norman Solomon Campaign
We can’t devise a successful electoral strategy for “The Left”—meaning the forces of peace, social/economic justice and sustainability—unless we face a simple fact: We’re getting our asses kicked.
The Left Should Declare Its Independence from the Democrats
Obama's 2008 promise of "change" has been so outrageously contradicted by three and a half years in office that it almost looks like deceit. The domination of financial elites is now more absolute than ever.
Diverting the Spectacle: Radical Students and the Election Season
Another election season dawns, and yet again students like myself are urged to "make our voices heard" by selecting our preferred candidate. Many of us will undoubtedly be caught up in the fervor of rhetoric and promises, some perhaps even believing that this time things will be different. As a radical student activist it's often difficult to view this bi-yearly charade as anything other than a perverse blend of distraction and manipulation.
Independent Politics for a Green New Deal
It is time for the Left to be realistic about how it is going to build the power we need to make the changes we want.
Strategic Reflections on the Quadrennial Extravaganza
The quadrennial presidential election extravaganza is here and along with it comes the quadrennial intra-U.S. leftist bloodletting on the unpleasant question of how to best respond to the narrow "choices" handed down by the nation's corporate-managed one-and-a-half party system.
Meet the enemy
One of the most amazing aspects of the current political landscape is the brazenness with which elites destroying public education, while claiming they are saving children, announce their strategy to the world. They have no fear of being stopped.
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