On Thursday August 16th the Book Cellar in Chicago hosted an event for four Prickly Paradigm Press authors -- Rick Perlstein, Tom Geoghegan, Matti Bunzl, et moi. It was an intellectually engaging event with a lively discussion period, and an introduction by Prickly Paradigm's founder and Executive Publisher Marshall Sahlins, one of the preeminent anthropologists and cultural theorists alive. Time Out Chicago ran this nice piece about the press in advance of the event. (Two small corrections: it's openDemocracy.net, not openDemocracy.org; and I don't take the left to task for "not addressing the growing public-policy crisis concerning Iran" but rather for its general confusion about the internal situation in Iran.)
Francis Fukuyama reconsiders his famous 'end of history' argument in this spirited debate on openDemocracy magazine. The centerpiece is the Afterword Fukuyama has penned for a new paperback edition of The End of History and the Last Man, which openDemocracy is running along with critical responses I solicited from twelve leading thinkers from around the world. The responses are being rolled out one every two days, at the end of which Fukuyama will reply to his critics. I wrote an introduction to the symposium that you can find here.
An article from the Chicago Reader on the Left of Center Bookstore -- a vortex of Chicago intellectual-political life -- and my role in organizing events there.
A selection of my essays, reviews, profiles, and interviews, going back to 1991.
The Democratic Left Speaks Out on Cuba
We are women and men of the democratic left, united by our commitment to human rights, democratic government and social justice, in our own nations and around the world. In solidarity with the people of Cuba, we condemn the Cuban state's current repression of independent thinkers and writers, human rights activists and democrats.
For "crimes" such as the authorship of essays critical of the government and meeting with delegations of foreign political leaders, some 80 nonviolent political dissidents have been arrested, summarily tried in a closed court without adequate notice or counsel, convicted and given cruel, harsh sentences of decades of imprisonment. These are violations of the most elementary norms of due process of law, reminiscent of the Moscow trials of the Soviet Union under the rule of Stalin.
The democratic left worldwide has opposed the US embargo on Cuba as counterproductive, more harmful to the interests of the Cuban people than helpful to political democratization. The Cuban state's current repression of political dissidents amounts to collaboration with the most reactionary elements of the US Administration in their efforts to maintain sanctions and to institute even more punitive measures against Cuba.
The only conclusion that we can draw from this brute repression is that the Cuban government does not trust the Cuban people to distinguish truth from falsehood, fact from disinformation. A government of the left must have the support of the people: It must guarantee human rights and champion the widest possible democracy, including the right to dissent, as well as promote social justice. By its actions, the Cuban state declares that it is not a government of the left, despite its claims of social progress in education and health care, but just one more dictatorship, concerned with maintaining its monopoly of power above all else.
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La izquierda democrática se expresa sobre Cuba
Nosotros somos mujeres y hombres de la izquierda democrática, unidos por un avenimiento a los derechos humanos, al gobierno democrático y la justicia social, tanto en nuestras propias naciones como en todo el mundo. En solidaridad con el pueblo cubano, denunciamos la represión actual del gobierno de Cuba contra los intelectuales y escritores independientes, activistas de derechos humanos y la democracia.
Por haber cometido “crímenes” tales como escribir ensayos criticando al gobierno y reuinirse con delegaciones de líderes políticos extranjeros, 80 disidentes políticos no violentos han sido arrestados, procesados en juicios sumarios en una corte cerrada sin notificación y sin representacion legal adecuada, juzgados culpables y dados crueles sentencias de décadas en prisión. Estas son violaciones de las normas más fundamentales del debido proceso legal, evocador de los juicios fraudulentos de Moscú de la Unión Sovietica bajo el régimen de Stalin.
La izquierda democrática mundial se ha opuesto al bloqueo estadounidense contra Cuba como contraproductivo, más dañino a los intereses del pueblo cubano que contribuyente a la democratización política. La represión actual del estado cubano contra los disidentes políticos equivale a una colaboración con los elementos más reaccionarios de la administración estadounidense en sus esfuerzas para mantener el bloqueo e instituir medidas aun más punitivas contra Cuba.
Lo único que se puede concluir de esta represión brutal es que el gobierno cubano no confia que el pueblo cubano pueda distinguir la verdad de las mentiras, el hecho de la desinformación. Un gobierno de la izquierda debería de tener el apoyo del pueblo. Debería de garantizar los derechos humanos y promover la más amplia democracia possible, incluyendo el derecho de disentir tanto como promover la justicia social. Con sus acciones, el estado cubano declara que no es un gobierno de la izquierda, a pesar de sus declaraciones del progreso social en la educación y el cuidado médico sino que otra dictadura mas que todo preocupada por mantener su monopolio de poder.
Theresa Alt
Eric Alterman
Ayaz Ahmed
David Anderson
Kevin Anderson
Hugh Appet
Leah Appet
Stanley Aronowitz
Tony Avirgan
Margot Backus
Asatar Bair
Sanda Balaban
Joanne Barkan
Ike Balbus
Ivan Baxter
Marshall Berman
Paul Berman
David Bensman
Michael Bérubé
Ken Brociner
Dan Brook
Geoffrey Brown
Ricardo Brown
Wendy Brown
Wayles Browne
Chaz Bufe
Tristan Call
Eamonn Callan
Lorenzo Canizares
Leo Casey
Natasha Chart
Aaron Cohen
Mitchell Cohen
Walter Cole
Mike Conley
Marc Cooper
Ciaran Cronin
Francesco D'Alessandro
Peter Danbury
Jackie Danicki
Lennard Davis
Bogdan Denitch
Bill Dixon
Mark Dow
Mel Dubofsky
Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
Taner Edis
Eli Edwards
Stuart Elliot
Victoria Elliott
Itzhak Epstein
Andy English
Cynthia Epstein
Miriam Erlich
Gertrude Ezorsky
Hampton Fancher
Michelle Fine
Barry Finger
Joyce Fitzgerald
Merrill R. Frank
Nancy Fraser
David Garrow
Peter Gay
Joyce Gelb
Todd Gitlin
Ernest Glinne
Peter Goodman
Bud Gordon
Robert J. Grocholski
J-C Gumucio-Castellon
Andrew Hagen
Laura Hague
Adil Hajjoubi
Andrew Hammer
Matthew Harwood
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Richard Healey
Michael Hirsch
Peter Hudis
Gerry Hudson
Karen Huggins
James Hughes
Maurice Isserman
Doug Ireland
David Jacobs
Martin Jay
Alan Johnson
Carol Joyner
M. Kaplan
Ira Katznelson
Harvey Kaye
Art Kazar
Michael Kazin
Gary Kent
Michael Kircher
Eric Kirk
Gary Kinsman
Peter Kosenko
Nell Lancaster
Magali Sarfatti Larson
Eric Lee
Lee Levin
Jeffrey Levine
Mark Levinson
Ernie Lieberman
Ann Lieberman
Melvin Little
Brian L. Linse
Chris Lowe
Josh Lukin
Paul Lyons
Anora Mahmudova
John G. Mason
Marvin and Betty Mandell
Pamela McCarthy
Duane L. McCormick
Shannon McLeod
R. Miles Mendenhall
Mark Crispin Miller
Jeremy Miller
Nicolaus Mills
Erika Munk
Cary Nathenson
Nathan Newman
Adam Pappas
Rick Perlstein
Rafael PiRoman
Maxine Phillips
David Plotke
Stephen Plowden
Katha Pollitt
Danny Postel
Samantha Power
Adam Przeworski
Michael Pugliese
Jeremy Reff
Peter Reardon
David Richardson
Tony Cas Ringley
Skip Roberts
Matthew Rothschild
Rita Rousseau
Joel Rogers
Michele L. Rossi
A. F. Saidy
Nick Salvatore
John Sanbonmatsu
Sherie Scheer
Anders Schneiderman
Joseph M. Schwartz
Jason Schulman
Michael H. Shuman
Timothy Sears
Mark Seddon
David Norman Smith
Robert J Smith III
John Soldini
Gus St. Anthony
Clifford Staples
Judith Stein
Paul Thomas
Eric Umansky
Rick Vaill
Andrew Vierra
Michelle Wade Taylor
Daniel Walkowitz
David Walls
Michael Walzer
Bert Wand
Diane Warth
Peter Waterman
Luke Weiger
Alma Whitten
D. Langlois Williams
Ian Williams
Ellen Willis
Reginald Wilson
Jim Woods
Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Robert H. Zieger