I’m still traveling—around California now—and have shared some photos and musings at the bottom of this post. But I just wanted to quickly insist on two things that I think even very smart folks are misunderstanding: Almost nobody in Washington, left or right, cares about building working-class power.
I'll be circulating this (w/ your permission) among lefty friends who are talking about some of the divergent behavior in the newer labor leaderships (Shawn Fain and the UAW supporting ceasefire and Biden; O'Brien and the Teamsters donating to the RNC and Hawley.)
You say in GSOTL that a future American left contesting for power is going to consist of a mashup of elements (DSA, Justice Dems and the left edge of the CPC, global solidarity movements and diasporic post-nstionalist and trans-national movements) and I think this sort of corrective is pretty necessary.
Even the most "material conditions" oriented of us have a flat cap on our hearts.
Your comments on Stoller are well-taken. While he's doing important anti-monopoly work, his constant China-bashing is disturbing and annoying. And then there was the time he put an Israeli ammunition shortage in his "bad news" category...
Great piece! I am currently studying an important element that you mention, how “America’s wealth owes to its privileged position”, in processes of neoliberal globalization and in other fields as well, and that the current tendency towards a “new Cold War” is becoming based on, as you mention, “a clear North-South divide”, aiming at maintaining a “world-system in which the rich hoard and perpetuate unequal terms of exchange with the rest of the world”. I would like to invite you to take a look at an article I recently published in this topic, in case it is of your interest, safe trips!: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23477970241231345
I legit tried to find a way to attend your event with Spencer Ackerman (Forever Fave) on the East Coast a couple weeks back. But alas. Now I see you were in Monterey (my old stomping ground) too. The #FOMO is real
I'll be circulating this (w/ your permission) among lefty friends who are talking about some of the divergent behavior in the newer labor leaderships (Shawn Fain and the UAW supporting ceasefire and Biden; O'Brien and the Teamsters donating to the RNC and Hawley.)
You say in GSOTL that a future American left contesting for power is going to consist of a mashup of elements (DSA, Justice Dems and the left edge of the CPC, global solidarity movements and diasporic post-nstionalist and trans-national movements) and I think this sort of corrective is pretty necessary.
Even the most "material conditions" oriented of us have a flat cap on our hearts.
Your comments on Stoller are well-taken. While he's doing important anti-monopoly work, his constant China-bashing is disturbing and annoying. And then there was the time he put an Israeli ammunition shortage in his "bad news" category...
Great piece! I am currently studying an important element that you mention, how “America’s wealth owes to its privileged position”, in processes of neoliberal globalization and in other fields as well, and that the current tendency towards a “new Cold War” is becoming based on, as you mention, “a clear North-South divide”, aiming at maintaining a “world-system in which the rich hoard and perpetuate unequal terms of exchange with the rest of the world”. I would like to invite you to take a look at an article I recently published in this topic, in case it is of your interest, safe trips!: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23477970241231345
I legit tried to find a way to attend your event with Spencer Ackerman (Forever Fave) on the East Coast a couple weeks back. But alas. Now I see you were in Monterey (my old stomping ground) too. The #FOMO is real
No time for LA before next Tuesday by chance?