Lots of fresh audio product
Way behind on posting this stuff to the web. The podcasts get posted soon after—and sometimes even before—broadcast, but not always the web page. Freshly posted (clicking on the date links will take you right there): January 7, 2012 Michael Taft on the Irish depression • Jodi Dean, co-author of this, on the vexing question of OWS & “demands” December 31, 2011 Christopher Jencks on inequality December 24, 2011 Christine Ahn & Tim Shorrock on North Korea • Aaron “Zunguzungu” Bady on Occupy Oakland December 17, 2011 Christopher Hitchens (from 2002) on Orwell • Andrew Ross on student debt repudiation (sign up… Read More
Angela Davis’ advice: identify with the defeated?
There are many things I admire about Angela Davis, and I have warm memories of being on a panel with her at Rethinking Marxism 2000. She was wise and very gracious. But she reportedly told the OWS gathering at Zuccotti tonight to: 1) identify with Troy Davis, and 2) study the Attica prisoners for pointers on how to become a “dangerous class.” I have two problems with this: 1) Troy Davis is dead. His execution was a crime, but as anything but a moral force, he’s dead. And 2) the Attica prisoners… Read More
Don’t get me wrong…
After the previous post, on the problems of leaderlessness, I don’t want people to get the wrong impression. I feel nothing but deep admiration and gratitude for the Occupiers—in Zuccotti and elsewhere, from Tunis to Melbourne. As I stepped out into the cold rain this morning to pick up the papers—which included that Roula Khalaf piece—I thought: man, it must suck to be camping out in this. But I’m so happy there are people who do it anyway. So when I post something like that Khalaf excerpt, I want to remind people… Read More
Civil disobedience against NYPD’s stop & frisk
It looks like OWS is giving the movement against the NYPD’s stop & frisk policies—under which literally hundreds of thousands of young males are patted down by cops—a shot in the arm. This press release just in: For Immediate Release Activists to shut down 73rd Precinct in Brownsville Stop ‘Stop and Frisk’ Comes to Brooklyn New York, NY, Oct. 28, 2011 – Nonviolent civil disobedience is on the agenda as local activists, community members and religious leaders gear up to challenge the NYPD’s controversial ‘stop and frisk’ practices at the 73rd Police Precinct in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The… Read More
Video of great #OWS debate now up
Video of the great Jacobin debate on #OWS politics & strategy now up. Below the link, some of moderator Seth Ackerman’s comments: #OWS, a debate on left politics and strategy Held on Friday Oct. 14, 2011 at Bluestockings bookshop on Allen St. in New York City. From anarchism to demands, from the consensus process to “what next?” we covered the gamut of topics. When the discussion was over, Doug Henwood, who was on the panel, commented that it had been the most contentious left-wing gathering he’d ever participated in (and Doug’s participated in a… Read More
OWS takes a walk uptown
No doubt you’ve all heard and read about the huge and wonderful Occupy Wall Street satellite rally in Times Square this afternoon. This crowd was anything but the shiftless hippies of Ann Coulter’s imagining. I bet a lot of them were Democrats, which means that the process of productive disillusionment I’d hoped for in the summer of 2008 is finally kicking into gear, after a long delay: Enough critique; the dialectic demands something constructive to induce some forward motion. There’s no doubt that Obamalust does embody some phantasmic longing for a better world—more… Read More
Jacobin event tonight in NYC
A reminder—I’m part of a panel organized by the excellent posse at Jacobin on Occupy Wall Street, along with Jodi Dean, Malcolm Harris, Natasha Lennard, and Chris Maisano. Bluestockings 172 Allen St (Stanton–Rivington) Manhattan 7 PM Likely to be crowded, and Bluestockings is small—so get there early!
On OWS and the Fed
[I haven’t been posting my radio commentaries here in a while. Here’s some of October 8’s.] Rethinking OWS Turning to larger issues, not only does Occupy Wall Street continue, it’s grown in numbers and prominence—several major unions marched in solidarity earlier this week in Lower Manhattan—and it’s spreading around the country. It’s focusing attention on issues of inequality and exploitation in a way we haven’t seen in ages. And Democratic politicians are looking pressured to say sympathetic things—though I suspect they’re just looking to take advantage of the thing for their own… Read More
LBO News from Doug Henwood 