How effective has the antiwar movement been in generating and propagating a moral critique of war? Rahul Mahajan contends that the Left has in large part failed to shape public opinion or affect public policy. And Leo Panitch comments on the financial crisis, US empire, and the state's role in neoliberal globalization.
Hilary Wainwright, Reclaim the State: Experiments in Popular Democracy Seagull Books, 2009
Are people allowed by current governments and political systems to realize their creative and political potential? If not, why not? And how should the knowledge not of experts and elites but of ordinary folks be valued and used? Hilary Wainwright talks about democracy, political agency, and efforts to push back against top-down ways of governing.
Jeffrey Juris, Networking Futures: The Movements against Corporate Globalization Duke U. Press, 2008
In a new book, Jeffrey Juris explores how movement activists are using, and are being influenced by, communications technologies and networks. He claims that the network has become a powerful cultural ideal. Dorothy Kidd has investigated the development of a global movement to democratize communications.
The impact of oil exploitation on residents of the Niger Delta is explored in Curse of the Black Gold, which features the photos of Ed Kashi. Kashi describes social misery as well as grassroots resistance to the designs of Big Oil and the Nigerian government. George Caffentzis is encouraged by an emerging emphasis on petroleum as common property.
The Shock Doctrine, a short film by Alfonso Cuaron and Naomi Klein
The recent series of economic crises has shocked people around the world. Naomi Klein knows a thing or two about shocks. The award-winning journalist, political analyst, and author of The Shock Doctrine spoke three weeks ago in Santa Cruz, California. She explained her book's thesis and applied it to the current meltdown.
Frances Fox Piven, Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America Rowman & Littlefield, 2006
How and why do people's movements succeed, and what happens when they subside? Frances Fox Piven has done seminal research into the interplay between social movements from below and electoral politics. She talks about the civil rights movement, the labor struggles of the 1930s, and the US abolitionists. She also discusses why she supports Obama. (Encore presentation.)
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