Radicals

A Community Archive Documents Decades Of Radical Activism Against Police Brutality

January 21, 2023 Rohan Montgomery, In These Times. Educate! History, Police, police brutality, Radicals

Tucked away in Park Slope, Brooklyn, since 2011, Interference Archive tells the stories of people imagining and fighting for a better world in the face of hostile power structures. Pulling from decades of American social movements, the archive’s materials often reveal deeply intimate insights into long-gone individuals, groups and subcultures — some of which can be found nowhere else. Run entirely by volunteers, it started with the personal collections of Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee, along with two other cofounders, Kevin Caplicki and Molly Fair. Interference Archive self-consciously attempts to preserve and promote forgotten or marginalized histories through its events, books, podcast (called Audio Interference) and exhibitions. Volunteers at the open-access archive have poured hundreds of hours into compiling shows on climate justice, student organizing and cooperative housing, to name just a few.

The Persistent Myth Of Radicalization

June 17, 2022 Cody Bloomfield, Defending Rights and Dissent. Educate! Extremism, Police, Racial Profiling, Radicals

You’ve seen the story in the media. A kid stumbles across fringe ideas online, gets involved with the wrong crowd, and ends up in the headlines for committing some act of violence. These stories follow a familiar arc. The only problem? For every person that follows this trajectory, many more will adopt fringe ideas and never commit violence. And for every hard-core idealogue that commits violence, there are people drawn to the violence, not the ideology. Following reprehensible acts of white supremacist violence, lawmakers are understandably grasping for solutions. But reliance on outdated radicalization theory empowers law enforcement agencies to trample over constitutional rights and civil liberties, all while misleading law enforcement about the causes of white supremacist violence.

The Suppressed Martin Luther King Jr.

January 18, 2022 Solomon Commissiong, A Hip Hop Activist. Resistance Report Black Liberation, History, Martin Luther King Jr, Radicals

This is the first installment of the series, "Reclaiming History from the Revisionists". In this episode we take a closer look at an often suppressed aspect of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many throughout mainstream US society do they best, year after year, to suppress the revolutionary and radical aspects of MLK. They don't want youth to know why the United States government vilified and targeted this man. The do this, in part, to prevent others from following in the enormous footsteps of this social justice giant. We must do our part to expose this often untaught history to as many as we can, especially the youth. A brighter and better future depend on it.

Burgerville Fight Revives The Wobblies, A Radical Union From Oregon’s Industrial Past

June 6, 2018 Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Oregonlive.com Create! History, Oregon, Radicals, Unions

The Wobblies emerged more than a century ago, a revolutionary, anti-capitalist union that shook up the nation’s industrialists, including Oregon’s timber barons. Their political descendants no longer toil in logging camps on the American frontier. Now they’re behind the counters of a beloved fast-food chain in Portland, up to their elbows in burger grease, marionberries and Walla Walla onion rings. “Workers are pissed, and they want to change things,” said Mark Medina, who seized on the notion of organizing Burgerville workers while pulling shifts at the company’s Southeast 92nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard restaurant. "A lot of us are poor, hungry and even homeless."

Radical White Workers During The Last Revolution

September 13, 2017 Richard Moser, www.counterpunch.org Strategize! New Economy, Radicals, Revolution, White People, Workers

By Richard Moser for Counter Punch - During the 1960s and 1970s, radical activists set out to organize the white working class. They linked the pursuit of working class interest and economic democracy with anti-racist organizing. They discovered, and helped others realize, that white supremacy and racism are not a friend to white people but one of the main obstacles to fulfilling our own destiny as a free people. The context was the last revolution. The civil rights, black power, feminist, student movements and community organizing set the stage for working class whites to make important contributions to the democracy movements of the time. While these efforts were initiated by various groups, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), radicalized working class youth, and the Black Panthers, they all eventually depended on the leadership of working class communities. The organizers had been deeply radicalized by the social upheavals of the time. Yet, their own working class backgrounds often placed them on the margins of the New Left. But the activists knew the white working class had enormous untapped potential. The movement to stop the War in Vietnam, fight the bosses, and win the battle against racism needed the hard work and political vision that everyday working people could help provide.

Dilemmas Of The Radical Left In A Dying Capitalist System

August 18, 2017 Immanuel Wallerstein, www.towardfreedom.com Strategize! Capitalism, Crisis, Left Politics, Radicals

By Immanuel Wallerstein for Toward Freedom - In what I call the pan-European world (North America; western, northern, and southern Europe; and Australasia), the basic electoral choice for the last century or so has been between two centrist parties, center-right versus center-left. There have been other parties further left and further right but they were essentially marginal. In the last decade however, these so-called extreme parties have been gaining in strength. Both the radical left and the radical right have emerged as a strong force in a large number of countries. They have needed either to replace the centrist party or to take it over. The first spectacular achievement of the radical left was the ability of the Greek radical left, Syriza, to replace the center-left party, Pasok, which actually disappeared entirely. Syriza came to power in Greece. Commentators talk these days of “pasoksation” to describe this. Syriza came to power but was incapable of carrying out its promised program. For many, Syriza was therefore a great disappointment. The most unhappy faction argued that the error had been to seek electoral power. They said that power had to be achieved in the streets and then it would be meaningful.

Repressing Radicalism

June 17, 2017 Chip Gibbons, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Radicals, Repression

By Chip Gibbons for Jacobins - Last week, a little over an hour after the Intercept published a story about a classified National Security Agency report concerning Russian election interference, Reality Winner, the alleged leaker, was arrested and charged under the Espionage Act. In recent years, the Espionage Act has been used as a statutory sword against whistleblowers. Donald Trump allegedly told former FBI director James Comey he wanted to prosecute journalists under the statute. But historically, the Espionage Act is perhaps most significant not for its role in persecuting whistleblowers, but for crushing dissent during World War I. Nowhere was this crackdown felt more acutely than within the Socialist Party (SP). While never on par with some of its international counterparts, the SP was a genuine mass party that elected countless local officials, sent two members to Congress on its own ballot line, and fostered a vibrant socialist press that reached millions. Its longtime standard-bearer, Eugene Debs, was a nationally known figure.

Direct Action: Protest And The Reinvention Of American Radicalism

February 18, 2017 Paul Buhle, www.portside.org Educate! Direct Action, Protests, Radicals

By Paul Buhle for Portside - Not that "Direct Action" is new, even in the normally non-radical United States. Taking control of a factory, taking control of streets, occupying a university or some other venue, has been familiar for at least a century, arguably beginning when the Industrial Workers of the World first "sat down" instead of leaving the factory to picket its entrances. (Women's actions in the urban Rent Strikes of the early 1930s would be another great example). Spartacus may have been one of the earliest radical occupiers, of territory that is. But let's stick with the past century, for convenience. The general problem of strikes is that the strikers are on the outside, as are demonstrators in most instances, people (like me) listening to talks and then marching. The alternative, if it works, is to be in the inside, holding on, at least for long enough to make a point. Kauffman begins with an apparent success that was more of a failure: an occupation of DC in 1971 that apparently took the authorities by surprise, but more likely tested their ability, at that stressful historical moment, to let the demonstrators have their moment, never actually threatening the functions of government, including the Vietnam War.

Social Democracy And Radical Left: Why We Continue To Build Left Unity

October 21, 2016 Kate Hudson, www.defenddemocracy.press Strategize! Democracy, Jeremy Corbyn, Left, Radicals

By Kate Hudson for Defend Democracy Press - Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election to the leadership of the Labour Party on an increased vote is a significant victory for the left in the Labour Party and for progressive politics in Britain. It is a victory that everyone on the left celebrates. It demonstrates the strength of support that exists for changing the politics of the Labour Party: for shifting the balance of power within our society, away from the political and economic elites towards the majority, to empower and enfranchise the working class and communities hardest hit by the long run attacks upon the welfare state.

S. African Economic Freedom FIghters Radical Mood Before Elections

May 4, 2016 Ben Morken, www.tmarxist.com Create! Elections, Radicals, South Africa

By Ben Morken for In Defense of Marxism - The rally took place at a capacity crowd of more than 56,000 people at Orlando Stadium in Soweto, a township with deep revolutionary roots and immense historic and symbolic significance to the South African working class. It is not only the biggest township, but also the country’s biggest working class area. The event was held near the site where the Soweto Uprisings of 16 June 1976 began. Those uprisings started when the police opened fire on protesting students.

How Radical Must We Be For Schools Children Deserve?

March 3, 2016 Steven Singer, www.badassteachers.blogspot.com Organize! Education, Political Education, Radicals

By Steven Singer for Badass Teacher Association - There was a point during Chris Hedges keynote address today when I could barely catch my breath. My chest was heaving, tears were leaking from my eyes and I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop. The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist had his audience enraptured at the United Opt Out Conference in Philadelphia Saturday morning. I’ve read Chris before. We’ve all read Chris before. But I had never seen or heard him speak.

Why Jesus Was, And Is, A Political Threat

December 24, 2015 Jim Wallis, www.sojo.net Educate! Jesus, Radicals

By Jim Wallis for Sojourners - Christmas is my favorite time of the year, and my boys could tell you how much I always want to get to good carol services. It’s the amazing Christmas narratives that I love so much. I am a Christian and what Christmas means to me is this: In Christ, God hit the streets. Immanuel means God with us. It’s not just that God came, but how God came. It wasn’t accidental that the savior of the world was born to a poor peasant woman in an occupied country in an animal stall because they were literally homeless at the time of his birth.

Newsletter: Praise For The Radicals

March 22, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Civil Rights, Corporatization, fast track, Globalization, Martin Luther King Jr, Racism, Radicals, TPP

In his recent article, “The Dance of Liberals and Radicals”, the liberal Robert Kuttner writes, “No great social change in America has occurred without radicals, beginning with the struggle to end slavery. Causes that now seem mainstream began with radical, impolite and sometimes civil disobedient protest.” We at Popular Resistance share the view that there need to be people and groups who see the bigger picture, who fight for what is not on the table and who are willing to put their bodies on the line to make change. Those are the people we try to lift up in our daily coverage of the movement because they are rarely recognized and are usually lacking in resources. Yesterday we marched in Washington, DC for Spring Rising with our friends in the peace and Black Lives Matter movements.

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