Tag Archives: politics

Cutting School, Author Noliwe Rooks

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Yesterday, WBAI’s Arts Express radio show broadcast my interview with Noliwe Rooks, author of the new book, Cutting School: Privatization, Segregation, and The End of Public Education.

Ms. Rooks argues that the current charter school movement is just one more scheme in a long history of school hustles which go back to the 19th century. What these schemes have in common, she says, is the transfer of education and tax dollars from minority and oppressed groups to the pockets of white entrepreneurs, in a process she calls segrenomics.

You can listen to the interview with Noliwe Rooks by clicking on the grey triangle above.

“Yer A Socialist”

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Roy Zimmerman accuses his audience of all kinds of nasty things…every last one of you!

More Roy at RoyZimmerman

A Certain Dignity: Dick Gregory

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First there was Dick Gregory, then everyone else.

RIP

Thanks to YouTuber GeorgeCarlinFan

Servicing The Customer: George Carlin

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George Carlin, doing what he does best, talking about America’s number one product.

Warning: language Not Suitable For Work

Thanks to YouTuber rustyfishplate

Four Futures, Part Two: Peter Frase

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Yesterday, WBAI-FM radio’s Arts Express broadcast part two of my interview with Peter Frase, author of the new book Four Futures.

Frase has an intriguing set of ideas about what the future might look like after capitalism destructs, given the ecological constraints of abundance/scarcity and the political constraints of equality/inequality. In this final segment we talk about what might happen if the world’s resources turn out to be strictly limited.

Click on the grey triangle above to tune in.

You can listen to Part One here:

Peter Frase: Four Futures, Life After Capitalism–Part One

Crowds and Party by Jodi Dean, Part Two

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Last week I posted Part One of my interview with Jodi Dean, author of the thought-provoking new book, Crowds And Party. You can hear that first half of the interview here.

Now, here is Part Two, the second half of my interview, which was broadcast on WBAI radio’s Arts Express program yesterday.  In this part, Jodi Dean talks about the problems with The New Left and Identity Politics; the anarchist/socialist split; the various critiques of the party formation and the rebuttal of those critiques; and why she thinks parties are the only way forward for those who would seek to upend capitalism.

Click on the grey triangle above to hear Part Two.

Crowds and Party by Jodi Dean

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Crowds and Party by Jodi Dean is a fascinating must read for anyone interested in how political change happens, and what the left must do now. In this book, Professor Dean talks about those “beautiful moments” that have happened throughout history—think The Paris Commune and Occupy Wall Street—where The Crowd has created a disruption in the usual fabric of capitalist society. But those “beautiful moments” are short-lived, ephemeral, and seem to disappear into forgotten hope. How can a movement hold onto and build on these precious historical moments? Jodi Dean tackles crowd theory and the concept of a working people’s political party, reviews the relevant literature, and presents her analysis in her new book, Crowds and Party.

The book is not always easy reading, so I was happy to have the opportunity to engage in a spirited conversation with Professor Dean, broadcast on WBAI 99.5 FM NY radio yesterday on the Arts Express program. Dean was so interesting that we decided to do two parts to the interview, broadcast one week after the other.

You can listen to Part One by clicking on the grey triangle above.

Click Here for Part Two.

Selling Out: Tom Lehrer

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Our theme song for this Primary season.

Phil Ochs, Patriot

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Among the political left, there has long been a tradition of the radical folk song masked as a patriotic ditty. Paul Robeson sung “The House I Live In” and “Ballad for Americans”; Woody Guthrie sung “This Land Is Your Land”; Pete Seeger sung “If I Had a Hammer,” and so on.

Phil Ochs, who died 39 years ago last week, continued that tradition. “The Power and the Glory” was Phil’s stirring contribution to the genre. He was clever enough in constructing the song that it was covered by arch-conservative songbird Anita Bryant.

Phil’s anthem gets you out of bed Monday morning, saluting the flag, and stuffing The Communist Manifesto in your back pocket en route to the demo.

Click on the video for the song, and the words in English and Spanish, and an additional unrecorded final verse reportedly written by Theo Bikel.

RIP Phil.