First Thoughts on OWS

By Various Authors

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At Occupy Wall Street

First writers and readers - Amiri Baraka, Jeremy Brecher, Benj DeMott, Diane di Prima, Mark Dudzic, John Fullerton, Dr. Donna Gaines, Ty Geltmaker, Lawrence Goodwyn, Adam Hochschild, Staughton Lynd, Greil Marcus, Deborah Meier, Dennis Myers, (AKA) Nolemonomelon, Jedediah Purdy, Aram Saroyan, Fredric Smoler, Tom Smucker, Scott Spencer & Richard Torres - comment on OWS. Continue reading "First Thoughts on OWS"


First Of The Month 2010
FIRST OF THE YEAR: 2010
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Marcel Mauss (& OWS)

By David Graeber

Anarchist and ethnographer David Graeber – author of (among other timely works) Debt: the First 5,000 Years (2011) – doesn’t want to be known as the idea man behind OWS, but his vision of direct economic and political democracy is one key to the movement. Graeber helped organize the group that occupied Zuccotti Square. But, according to a report in Chronicle of Higher Education: "Three days after the protests began Continue reading "Marcel Mauss (& OWS)"

Beyond Capitalism (& Socialism): An Interview with Gar Alperovitz

By Susan Arterian Chang

Gar Alperovitz grew up in America’s heartland in Racine, Wisconsin, in the 1940s, at a time when the city was one of the country’s most vibrant industrial hubs. His father owned a small specialty manufacturing company employing about 30 people. “I knew what the inside of a factory looked like,” he recalls. “It was not an abstraction for me as it must be now for most young people growing up in America.” He counts among his early and most profound influences the revisionist historian and communitarian socialist William Appleman Williams... Continue reading "Beyond Capitalism (& Socialism): An Interview with Gar Alperovitz"


Letter to My Friends on the Left

By Eugene Goodheart

I know you are disappointed with Obama’s performance as president. “Disappointed” may be too weak a word: “disillusioned” or “disenchanted” or even “betrayed” may be more accurate. At the root of, well let’s settle for, disillusionment is a belief that Obama has broken the promises he made when he ran for president. He has not realized the left liberal agenda. It is not that he tried and failed because of Republican intransigence, it is that he has not really tried. Perhaps he lacks the forcefulness and persuasiveness necessary to succeed,... Continue reading "Letter to My Friends on the Left"

#Reconstructing America: An Interview with William Greider

By First of the Month & William Greider

First first published the following interview with William Greider in 2004. We're reprinting it now because Greider's efforts to "explain power in plain English" to everyday people seem especially pertinent in the context of OWS. His recent books, The Soul of Capitalism and Come Home America, call attention to citizens whose businesses and working lives hint at how our society might be remade. We hope this conversation with Grieder gives you reasons to look forward to the Reconstruction of America. Continue reading "#Reconstructing America: An Interview with William Greider"

A View from the Villa

By Uri Avnery

THE KILLING of Muammar Gaddafi and his son Muatasim was not a pretty sight. After seeing it once, I looked away when it was shown again and again on TV – literally ad nauseam. Commercial TV exists, of course, to make money for the tycoons by appealing to the basest instincts and tastes of the masses. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for gruesome sights. But in Israel there was another motive for showing these lynch scenes repeatedly, as the commentators made abundantly clear. These scenes proved, to their... Continue reading "A View from the Villa"

My Father's War

By Fredric Smoler

The black and white photograph had been blown up from a snapshot taken in early March of 1945, seven men in a forest. They are posed the way a school class is posed in a group portrait, two sitting and one kneeling in the front row, three standing behind them, and my father standing alone in a third rank. That was his squad, he explained, he was its sergeant. Continue reading "My Father's War"

Acts of Creation

By Benj DeMott

“New Day” – the song at the heart of Jay-Z's and Kanye West's collaborative CD Watch the Throne – is about the prospective joy (and pain) of fathering a...Brother. Samples of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” – “Birds in the sky know how I feel / Fish in the sea know how I feel” – prompt each rapper to sound off about natural highs of fatherhood. “It’s a brand new day for me” sings Simone and the rappers talk up living in the light of their own sons. Continue reading "Acts of Creation"

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