The Shamelessness of the Powerful

From Lenin's Tomb:We understand the sheepishness about speaking of violence in social movements. It is not a comforting or politically sympathetic thought that popular violence has been productive; that without it, unjust systems would not have been overturned. Yet, aside from the fact that the automatic assumption against violence is actually an assumption against popular violence, the

The Shamelessness of the Powerful

From Lenin's Tomb:We understand the sheepishness about speaking of violence in social movements. It is not a comforting or politically sympathetic thought that popular violence has been productive; that without it, unjust systems would not have been overturned. Yet, aside from the fact that the automatic assumption against violence is actually an assumption against popular violence, the

Extremists to the Left of Me, Moderates to the Right of Me!

I'm in the final fifty pages of Manning Marable's biography of Malcolm X, and I've been troubled by some of its political and social judgments. In fairness, though, many of the participants and observers of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s came to similar conclusions; what troubles me is that forty years later, so many people are still trapped in the mistakes of the period.Probably

Extremists to the Left of Me, Moderates to the Right of Me!

I'm in the final fifty pages of Manning Marable's biography of Malcolm X, and I've been troubled by some of its political and social judgments. In fairness, though, many of the participants and observers of the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s came to similar conclusions; what troubles me is that forty years later, so many people are still trapped in the mistakes of the period.Probably